Another week in the record books,
before we turn the page… let’s have a look back!

This week was infamously my “spoof” week, an idea I came up with last weekend and something that I had a lot of fun doing. We are going to get a bit more into that later, but I’ve still got one more spoof video in the works… so stay tuned for that finale. I managed to post quite a bit last week, and finally got my traffic numbers back on track so that was great to see. It’s Thanksgiving break for college students, but before we move on, here are the best articles for the week:

Seems like the self-proclaimed “big guns” of blogging are back to work! Jason put out one of his best posts ever (in my opinion) that can really help you drive your subscriber numbers. Derek from Click Consultants put out one of the best pieces on Twitter marketing that I have seen to date. Ian Fernando got into the marketing realm this week with an awesome case study and intro to “day parting.” Tyler Cruz generously shares his wisdom of domain name flipping in a lengthy, but worthwhile, video post. Finally, Gyutae talks about the wonders of outsourcing, where you can do it, and how it can help. Very nice guys, keep up the good work. ;)

Stock Market Update
Rocky week once more, as investors long the market again had their tails handed to them. More uncertainty and a supreme lack of drivers led the market lower, in a week that created new bear market lows for this recession… scaring more investors out of the markets. The Federal Reserve added to the fears by negatively changing two readings: GDP and unemployment. Getting specific, real GDP growth in 2009 was lowered from 2.0% to 2.8% to -0.2% to 1.1% and the projections for the unemployment rate were raised from 5.3% to 5.8% to 7.1% to 7.6%. Ouch.

One of the more notable happenings this week was the problems over at Citigroup, which lost 60% of its value last week on extreme balance sheet concerns. On top of this, they released news that they might be selling a unit or the entire firm, so they took a hit when they said they would not be selling their investing branch, Smith Barney, later in the week. This year hasn’t been kind to financials.

Inflation is no longer an issue. Producer prices declined 2.8% in October while consumer prices declined 1.0%. But let’s get serious here, I believe strongly that everyone is discounting the possibility of deflation… which is clearly being signaled now and would wreak havoc on the economies around the world. At any rate, smaller news items include a positive earnings preview from Hewlett-Packard and a comical mishap with the three big auto makers going to ask for a bailout in their private jets… oops! :oops:

Blogosphere Update
I had a lot of fun this week getting back into the groove of posting every day on theNetFool.com. I know that you all loved my “spoof week” idea, and I think that I had some great success. I decided to target some bigger names around the blogosphere, and decided to go with IMWithJoe.com, TylerCruz.com, JohnCow.com and JohnChow.com. For the fifth and final video, because I promised to do one a day this week (or 5 videos), I left it up to a vote. It seems like ShoeMoney is the most popular response, so I will hopefully be able to get that video out Monday or Tuesday of this week for you all.

You can check out all of the spoof videos from the week here!

Fitting, I had one of my favorite readers, Tushar Dhoot, do a little spoof on me himself. I can tell that he definitely put a lot of work into this one, and it paid off. I thought it was pretty funny, so definitely have a look at it if you have a spare minute. I think I am going to run a small competition for spoof videos this week, so be sure to keep your eyes peeled for that announcement if you have some comic brilliance brewing up inside of you.

Other than that, it was a pretty good week all around on the blogosphere. I noticed a real change in posting habits, as a lot more people started to get back into their old updatin’ ways once more. Blogging Idol 2 is still alive and kicking, though I haven’t heard much from that other than some random participant Suzanne Franco getting featured on JohnChow.com for a video plea she sent in, haha. Not to sure what to think about that one, but heck, it worked. Nothing mind-blowing, but definitely a notable pick-up in quality for the week.

The Net Fool Update
As I hinted at, I am going to put out that final video this week, and I am going to do ShoeMoney as my target. After I get some reconnaissance work in this afternoon, I’m hitting the Speilburg Studios to whip up another masterpiece. Other than that, I have a nice guest post that a buddy wrote that should be going up this week. That’s 3/5 days filled already, and Turkey Day is Thursday so maybe we’ll do something nice for you dedicated readers that day, eh? :???:

Stay Bullish on the Net!
-The Net Fool

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