Labs on the Lake | Monetizing Blogs and Traffic Building by Networking-Week of 5/18

Note: Cross posted from Softduit Media.

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This week we are kicking off two more Labs on the Lake.  This week we will hold two labs.  One today, Monday(5-18 at 2pm est), covering the topic of Blog Monetization, walking through some blog revenue sources, adding some new ones to the list and giving some advice on how to navigate these options which can be murky on a good day. [Meetup RSVP link] 

This like many of our topics will be covered several times.  Blog Monetization is definitely not something that can be covered in a single day, let alone a single lab.  Many people are looking for ways to earn extra money, raise revenue to market their companies more, or even start their own business.  We will help people get started with the process of making money with a blog (a blog is required to follow along with this lab in person or on our live show at Mogulus.com/wificove ).

Then on Thursday(5/21 2 pm est) we are going to cover the topic of building traffic through networking.  [Meetup RSVP link]

Again this is a very deep topic and one we will revisit many times in the future, but you can tune into either lab at 2 PM est or if you are in the Charlotte area, RSVP through our Meetup group (cost $5 to attend) and spend an afternoon on the lake learning some great web skills that will make you money.

We are following up on our first Lab on the Lake last week, which covered WordPress Installation, WordPress Configuration, & WordPress Theme design with our favorite WordPress Theme Generator-Artisteer.  The video from this event (our first live broadcast) didn’t take to well, but we got the bugs worked out the next night when we held our weekly WordPress Meetup in Charlotte and do expect this weeks events to go off without a hitch.

Note: Cross posted from Softduit Media.

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How Could this Not Be Excessive Force?

This 15 Year old girl accused but not charged with stealing an automobile is kicked then has her face bashed into a brick wall, then she is thrown to the floor by her hair.  She is punched in the back or the back of the head several times while a guard has her pinned on the floor.   She is then picked up to her feet by her hair and is taken out of the camera frame where who knows what happens next.

Surveillance footage recently made public shows a deputy roughing up a 15-year-old girl in a holding cell -- apparently striking the girl, pulling her hair and pushing her to the ground, prosecutors said. Watch Video Seattle officer charged with assault after suspect "roughed up" on camera. Assault on Camera close Deputy Paul Schene is charged with fourth-degree assault after prosecutors said the tape showed him beating a teen girl at a suburban Seattle jail last November when she was arrested for stealing a car, the Associated Press reported. "We believe this case is beyond just police misconduct, it's criminal misconduct," King County Prosecutor Daniel Satterberg told the AP. "This is clearly excessive force.

Caught on Tape: Deputy Charged with Assaulting Teen Girl | NBC Washington

U.S. Ends ban on Pictures of Returning Military Coffins with Family Permission

 

By Ann Scott Tyson Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, February 26, 2009; 2:12 PM Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced today that he is lifting a 1991 ban on news coverage of the return of the remains of fallen service members to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, although he will leave the decision about press coverage up to the family of the dead. The controversial ban on photography and other media coverage of the solemn return of flag-draped coffins -- upheld by both Republican and Democratic administrations -- has generated lawsuits as well as conflicting emotions on the part of military familiies. Gates said he is asking a group of advisers to come up with a plan on how to implement the new policy.

U.S. to End Ban on Media Coverage of Returning Military Coffins - washingtonpost.com

Democrats Assail Withdrawal Plan - washingtonpost.com

 

By Anne E. Kornblut and Paul Kane Washington Post Staff Writers Friday, February 27, 2009; Page A03 President Obama sought yesterday to quell growing complaints from members of Congress about his plans for drawing down troops in Iraq, inviting lawmakers to a White House meeting on the eve of a North Carolina speech in which he is expected to announce that he will pull out many combat troops by August of 2010. After House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) complained that the level of troops -- 50,000 -- who would remain in Iraq is too high, other senior Democrats voiced similar concerns. Not one member of the Democratic leadership, except for Sen. Richard Durbin (Ill.), defended the new Obama plan, which will take three months longer than he promised and still leave a significant force structure on the ground.

Democrats Assail Withdrawal Plan - washingtonpost.com

Air Traffic Control Tapes of Plane Landing in Hudson

533k Americans Lose Jobs in Nov., Most Since '74

The total number of job losses on the year is now at 1.9 million: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/…/28067433/

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What Does Your Local Unemployment Look Like?

This morning as I came in with the local paper, I read a story about unemployment in North Carolina where we have been hit with layoffs from Wachovia and Freightliner and many many other companies of smaller sizes.

We have over 12 counties in the state where the unemployment rate is over 9%.We have 4 counties with rates under 6% and 21 counties where the unemployment rate is between 6% and 9%.

Nationally unemployment rates went to 6.5% last month.

I've heard that unemployment rates in Michigan are in double digits and going up.

I'm curious what everyone else around the country or the world for that matter is looking at for unemployment levels at a local or semi local level.

To contrast this discussion, Black Friday sales at the local Sears TV department came in at $49k, when expectations for sales were expected to be about $26k. (heard this from a friend :) )

So it would seem that while our county has an unemployment rate of 9.1%, people turned out to buy more TV's (No Interest until 2012).

Are people in your area preparing to hit the streets and get a job?

or

Are they preparing to hit the couch and sit the winter out?

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We're Americans and we're here to take you home

This is the story of one of the most daring and successful U.S. hostage-rescue missions in years.



http://www.armytimes.com/…110708WEB/



Well done!



Now why won't hollywood make a movie showing the tenacity and bravery of our troops instead of the steaming piles of bs that they've been making in an effort to offend them?

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CNN Projects too

Congrats Barack

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Short Lines to Vote

There were very short voting lines at 8:45 AM. Almost everyone took advantage of early voting and it was obvious. It almost made me feel bad for the folks who waited in line for 9 hours to early vote. Almost.

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Camera Man at the Polling Station

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Wynnefield residents wait patiently in line to cast their vote.

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Election Day

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Pic. DC & voter lines #voterreport

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>From dntn DC #voterreport

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Obama Assassination Plot Disrupted

Here's the latest breaking news on a new plot to kill Obama that has apparently been thwarted.





"The ATF says it has broken up a plot to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and shoot or decapitate 102 black people in a Tennessee murder spree."



http://washingtontimes.com/…srupted-1/





http://news.google.com/news/url

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The Dow Dives: Bailout in Action? Who can tell?

Got the above screencap from here: http://is.gd/3MTw (a live graphic of the Dow at NYTimes.com).



Now, I can't remember where I read this, but apparently that bailout bill that got passed won't kick in until after the election. So, all those billions of dollars won't go anywhere until it's too late. Now we watch as the Dow, the NYSE's main guidepost, nosedives to just above 8,000. So, no, this isn't the bailout at work, it's the bailout not existing for another month. Why should the market care about what will happen in a month's time if businesses can't function now?



It seems like no matter what the USG does it just can't follow it's own rules. First, the free market is supposed to be fine on its own. Then the bailout is supposed to help save the free market. And now... ?



OK, just checked the latest and now, at closing, it's back up to 8711. That puts the Dow down nearly 6% from yesterday. Specifically, it's down 547 points.



Can you say "weeee!"?



In case you're wondering, the Dow does not represent the market as a whole. It's just a chunk of it--the most important chunk. According to Wikipedia.org's entry for the Dow Jones Industrial Average (here: http://en.wikipedia.org/…l_Average), the DJIA is an average value : "...of 30 of the largest and most widely held public companies in the United States."



In short, when it goes down, people panic. Ultimately, though, the Dow usually climbs the day after a spectacular drop. However, it's kind of like how you feel so much better after you puke. It's not that you legitimately feel good, it's just that after your previous ordeal ANYthing feels better.



Then again, these days, everything's screwy and hard to predict, so who knows?



I mean, hey, the USG said that we had to move quickly, so why is all of that bailout money sitting around doing nothing during all of this? What was all that rush and lack of public discussion for?



Oh and it looks like I had my numbers wrong above--just checked the numbers again and while it looked like the Dow had rebounded a bit, it just went ahead and dropped again, making it down to 8579--that's a percentage drop of over 7% and a point drop of almost 680.



I guess that was the last drop of a really good rollercoaster ride--just when you were thinking "Oh, that was quite a ride! There's the exit coming up--WAHHHH!!!"



It's times like this when I ask just what the hell are our leaders up to?

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Barr Answers Questions Bipartisans Ducked

Since he wasn't invited to participate in the debates (and was denied the opportunity even after asking) Bob Barr sat down to answer questions provided by YouTube viewers.

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Bob Barr on the Bailout

http://www.youtube.com/watch for the video page.

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Protesting the Bailout

In front of a Citbank branch on the corner of K and 17th st in DC



Andy from the Andycast at andycast dot net

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PhotoShop Attack Ads in the Mail

Could have been worse, it could have been an ad for acne free clear skin treatment showing Hoyle all pimpled up.

This morning I received this funny little attack ad in the mail. At first I thought this was a piece of junk mail. Then I realized that it was supposed to look like junk mail, but it was actually a political attack ad focused on one of our local politicians, State Senator David Hoyle.

  The claims against this local politician, a state senator, said he bought a bunch a land then joined government and steered some road projects rate through his land so they could sell it at a profit to a number of strip malls and other types of businesses that would like to pop up next to this new interstate area.

So they're basically Photoshop is headed on to that guy that you see on infomercials on TV late at night that walks around in a green jacket with dollar bills all over it, actually I guess those are dollar signs not actual dollar bills.

There's nothing else remarkable about this particular ad, I decided to share some of the local flavor that were seen in Gastonia, North Carolina these days as we get closer and closer to the election in November.

Image via Wikipedia

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Dow Jones Down 513 Points

The house is currently voting on the Bailout package. Right now the votes are coming in at 205 for and 227 against 1 not voting. That's a total of 433 votes, the house has 435 members.



The bailout package has a lot of supporters mostly trying to do something as opposed to nothing and many more people that see no benefit in throwing a trillion dollars after bad money.

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WaMu Just Failed, Seized by FDIC sold Off

CNN's reporting that WaMu just failed. It was seized by the FDIC. The FDIC sold off the company/assets to JP Morgan Chase.

They are reporting that all deposits in WaMu including those over $100k are safe. Shareholders in WaMu just lost all value remaining in the company.

Separately, the meeting at the White House tonight failed again with House Republicans very unhappy, a new meeting scheduled without House Republicans is set for 11:30 am.

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Keeping With The Theme

Keeping with the theme of economics this week, the Dow Jones Industrial's rallied again today to finish down a mere 100 or so points for the week. This week has been the strangest week in regards to the markets that I have ever seen. 

Lets recap:

Monday the 15th, stocks plunged over 500 points in the worst day of trading since the Sept. 11th attacks in 2001. The massacre, due to the crisis at Lehman Brothers and the short sale of Merrill Lynch to Bank of America. 

Tuesday the 16th, the markets rebounded approximately 140 points as the fed announced that it may lower interest rates once again to help stabilize the economy. Although rates were not lowered, the fed and treasury assured consumers that they would have something in the works to help stave off recession (that we are already in).

Wednesday the 17th, stocks take another dive down an additional 450 points on the news that AIG was facing a Lehman Brothers-esque crisis. The blood o the trading floor apparently got quite deep and both presidential candidates pounced on the issue for clearly partisan reasons. Disgusting how both McCain and Obama are acting like little children instead of offering a solution that goes beyond finger pointing.

Thursday the 18th, traders were gaining back their sanity based upon the near $65 billion dollars of aid delivered via the American taxpayer through another Federal Reserve, U.S. Treasury and Presidential brainstorm session. The session may be to the tune of $1 trillion by weeks end. Where was Congress during all of this? Personally, I think they were off sipping fine wine and eating cheese.

Friday the 19th, Stocks rebounded nearly 400 points to break close to even for the weekend. Who knows where it will go Monday, but at least for now America can sleep soundly.

Seriously, what a bizarre week. I guess the days of living the cheap, care free and easy life is over for most anyone who had not diversified their portfolio with precious metals and t-bills. Who would have known that both stocks and bonds would take this colossal hit in such a short time. I guess the check-out lines at Wal-Mart will be a bit longer as folks head towards the discounts and away from the more expensive and possibly better quality products in order to save money. 

I have to wonder what this will look like for organic farmers and their industries as well as other health conscious supplement providers like EAS, orovo and the like? It ought to be interesting to see not only what goes down at the start of next week, but also where these industries wind up.

I don't know about all of you, but I'd be interested in hearing from Congress about this enormous redirection of taxpayer money. Where is our representation in all of this. Granted, the economy effects us all, but doesn't this feel like some type of financial shotgun wedding?