It’s about that time again…
Time for some Link Love!

This week sure went by fast, and I did a lot in the way of marketing and networking using word of mouth. I was a featured speaker on the Vince Rowe radio show broadcasting on the CNN Network Thursday afternoon, and I’ll be sure to get you guys the podcast of that interview as soon as they put it out. That’s a pretty big audience right there, but I also did some blog-to-blog interviews with Joe from IMWithJoe.com (not up yet) and Max from MoneyBites.com. Definitely check out their blogs and tell them that Jim sent you! ;)

I feel like a lot of great stuff is going out nowadays, in the few weeks before school starts up again, and there were a lot of awesome blog posts that got me thinking, commenting or just laughing. Let’s kick start a new week with a look back on some of the best posts from the week ending August 9th, 2008.

Awesome posts this week, and even one from the lost and found over at Internet Babel… a blog that completely dropped off the map. Caroline Middlebrook shares my belief that the making money online related niches aren’t over-saturated… that makes two of us! Enkay had a cool post on making your “Advertise” page (I’ve got one) and NeilsWeb hit us with an awesome marketing strategy. Finally, Affiliate Confession “confessed” a harsh reality that I continually claim here, PPC will put you into the red. I want to add a quick rant from LetsBitch.com on parking lots, just because it had me laughing. :razz:

Stock Market Update
Wow. This week was absolutely nuts in the U.S. stock exchanges, as things were literally soaring… ending the week with a 300+ point gain on the Dow Jones. The dollar rallied against the Euro (and others), the price of crude oil fell through the floor, and stocks rallied as a result! One of the more interesting trends as of late has been a HUGE reversal in the U.S. Dollar. Bets that had been considered “easy money” by going long on the Euro unwound as European banks started in with uneasy sentiment and downcast views. Compared to this, the U.S. Federal Reserve was quite dovish… and despite not raising the Federal Funds Rate, the Dollar changed course and headed north.

A bit amusing to me was the fact that stocks were up largely on the belief that the Fed might be raising rates on Tuesday. They didn’t. However, nobody seemed to care, and people kept pumping up the Dollar (up 3.3% on the week) and stocks followed suit! Crude oil was down almost 8% for the week, closing at $115.20 per barrel. I actually suffered this week, as I am holding about 40% in cash with my two stock holdings in Apple (NYSE: AAPL) and Deere & Co. (NYSE: DE). I’m considering a play on this low oil trade (Chesapeake Energy - CHK) and am also interested in Healthcare (Abbot Labs - ABT, Becton Dickinson - BDX) and Consumer Staples stocks.

Blogosphere
Did The Net Fool start a trend? It would seem to me that a LOT more blogs nowadays are putting out Sunday Link Love posts just like mine. Go on. Check it out for yourself! About 50% of the blogs I have visited over the past week have been doing weekly updates where they weren’t before. I’ve been a champion of these posts for some time now (this is the 19th consecutive week for me), and I think that other people have seen the effectiveness of a link run down and are catching on! I don’t want to blow the whistle just yet and call myself the white knight… but it’s something that had to be said before someone else takes credit for it.

Nothing major to report this week, so perhaps I’ll have to stir the pot once again (heehee). A lot of new projects are being launched to kick off the second fiscal quarter. I’m in the process of making some moves on my own so stay tuned for that. Not too many contests in the wake of some larger ones held last week. I did happen to sign up to Traffic Kahuna for a month, so I will let you guys know how that process goes.

The Week In Focus
This week, I will hopefully be launching a back to school contest of sorts. I’ve been a bit lazy gathering the prizes for the competition, but it will be happening so stay tuned. I ran a 500 Subscriber party where I gave away some apparel and advertising among other things to those of you that read the blog often, so congrats to the winners (I’ll be emailing you prizes today). In addition, I am planning on putting out another useful scheme to make money online. I know that you guys enjoyed my post this week on “bum marketing” articles for profit, so I’ll be giving you some more ways to riches every week. :D

I’m planning on starting in with some good ol’ fashioned video marketing this week, so I will be updating you all on my statistics progress and will get you the tips you need to succeed supposing that this plays out in my favor. In addition, I’m going to be selling off some assets in anticipation of school-related expenditures… my books need to be balanced (pardon the pun). We’re almost to 600 RSS subscribers here, so keep up the excellent work recruiting and spreading the word… every little bit counts!

Stay Bullish on the Net!
-The Net Fool

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