Back to work…
…but not without some Link Love! ;)

How I got four quality posts out on a week where I was completely swamped with job-related activity, I’m really not sure! Despite the fact that I was really over-booked, we heard some good things about Alexa on Tuesday, checked out my FREE blog domination package on Thursday, worked through a review on Bryn Youngblut on Friday and rounded out the weekend with a sarcastic homage to all the generic guest posters out there. Before we set our sights ahead, let’s check out some of the coolest posts for the week ending September 20th, 2008!

I decided to go with some big names this week because I really enjoyed the stuff brought to the table. John Chow’s awesome video of Blog World Expo really got me motivated to blog again. Check out his clip for a change of pace! Click Consultants put out an interesting expose to find out if you are really cut out for affiliate marketing. Uber Affiliate gets serious on affiliate marketing in one of his classic run-downs. ProBlogger’s guest post talks about some ways to make your blogging environment more “healthy” and comfortable (different, but a fun read!). And finally, The Blackhat Way follows with a simple but powerful method that uses Yahoo! Answers to mine for blogging ideas.

Stock Market Update
Okay, first things first, everything has gone down the drain in the past two weeks. There is too much news to ever fit into a few paragraphs here, so I think that I am going to make a video about the chaos that has unfolded on Wall Street over the past weeks shortly. Breaking news on Sunday night was that the last two major investment banks, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, will now be “bank holding companies.” This shift is historic, and makes America looks like the Japanese in the 90s. I’m very upset about the news, but it looks like one of my colleagues, Steve Murray, accurately predicted this exact fortune on my financial blog Bullish Bankers.

Here’s what happened this week in a nutshell. We open the week with the announcement that Lehman Brothers (LEH) was filing for bankruptcy. Wow. One of the largest investment firms in history now bankrupt, despite a decent amount of liquidity, on bad loans and shorters driving the stock price down the drain. Then, Merrill Lynch (MER) announced that they had agreed to sell themselves to Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) in a hastily arranged contract that many think was overpaid. Wow. Finally, AIG was on the brink of declaring bankruptcy on capital-raising issues. AIG was then effectively bailed out by the government, who supplied them with a 1yr loan… they now control 79.9% of the company and the stock is worthless. Wow.

These are big banks. Big. Big. Companies. Collectively, the failing of these powerhouses is more catastrophic than you can probably imagine at this point in time. We’ll be feeling these effects for a long, long time. To top it all off, Dell warned of slowing demand and Best Buy disappointed on earnings. The Federal Reserve met, and didn’t change rates ( :( ), they sit at 2.00% currently. Finally, the government talked about creating a mortgage trust to bail out ailing banks from their bad debts and bookings… and the news sent the market upward. This rally is fake, the news is bad and the economy will stay bad for at least another quarter. Buying opportunity? I say go for it if you can stomach short-term volatility. ;)

Blogosphere Update
What a fun week in the blogging world? Blogging World Expo had a couple of funny videos come out from the attendees. I actually ended up watching a lot of them from the likes of ShoeMoney, John Chow, Tyler Cruz and Zac Johnson. John Cow released the second John Cow TV video… this was great stuff and one of the funniest I have seen in a while. I really liked the overall “feel” to the week, and watching a few of these creative videos got me motivated to blog a bit more.

You want some comedy? I got it for you. Last week my friend over at NickyCakes.com wrote a humorous post about the top affiliate program rewards that you will never see. Unfortunately, Advaliant actually send out a “bathtub full of cash” to Nicky just a few days ago! They mailed him a replica tub with a few dollar bills stuffed inside of it, definitely a funny marketing ploy, eh?

A lot of activity in general for the blogging world. My buddy Jason at The University Kid still refuses to make an actual post (I kid, haha) and Normal Joe from IM With Joe not only forgets to post for days, but doesn’t link me at all. See the power of link love? Both of these guys are going to see that I linked them and will be back here to plead their case… so let’s hear them out before we pass judgment. :razz:

The Week In Focus
I’m going to be buckling down on my investments this week. I am thinking of doubling down on the stock market over the next two weeks now that things are so ultra-attractive. In addition, I’ve got a meeting planned almost every night this week, so hopefully I’ll be able to squeeze in a post here or there.

I am switching plans and marketing “make money online” instead of “making money online.” Big step, huh? Well, I was actually on the front page of Google for “making money online” this week without doing much of anything… so I figure that I mine as well go for the gold on this one. I’ll be taking you all through my process once I start so you can follow along.

It looks like I sparked a good amount of conversation this week, with each of my posts pulling around 20 comments a piece. Things are increasingly steadily here at The Net Fool… so despite a few tough posting periods, I’m coming out on top… and I’m staying BULLISH on the net!

-The Net Fool

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