Hope everyone had a fantastic weekend. I was unexpectedly called down to Connecticut, which is why you haven’t seen a post from me this weekend. Nevertheless, I’m not going to deprive you of some good reads from last week, so here is a later-than-expected list of some of the best articles/posts on blogs I read this week.

• Winning The Web – 1 Simple Word That Will Revitalize Your Marketing Strategy
• Internet Babel – Top 20 Internet Marketing Blogs
• Caroline Middlebrook – Does Your Blog Monetization Leave Something?
• Garry Conn – Garry Conn v. John Cow MMO Case Study
• John Cow – John Cow v. Garry Conn MMO Case Study

This week was a light one in terms of new material coming out from me. You saw a few great guest posts from some of my contributors, and I want to once again thank all of you that pitched in for your help. Now that exams (and the semester) are over, I’m going to be able to focus more on posting every day and interacting with you readers as much as possible. I am looking into summer employment, but this shouldn’t really affect my ability to write daily very much… so expect a lot of great material in the near future!

Let’s get a wrap up of what has happened this week:

Stock Market
Really a nerve-wracking week once again in the markets, as a lot of companies reported earnings among other things. Most recently, AIG announced a big unexpected write-down which sent n otherwise positive market into frenzy over renewed fear toward the credit markets. Another major company announcement came from FedEx, who reported lower-than-expected earnings citing oil prices as a reason for concern. FedEx is seen as an economic barometer of sorts, since they handle a lot of the deliveries that can reveal what other companies are doing in terms of productivity. I’m actually considering buying FedEx (NYSE: FDX) right now because of how they are valued… they have been a very strong company and should be back sooner or later.

Two of my favorite holdings, Yamana Gold (NYSE: AUY) and NVidia (NYSE: NVDA) reported earnings last week… both receiving positive trading action after the release. Yamana absolutely dominated expectations and kept guidance in line. I think people have overreacted to a strengthening of the dollar, and it’s always good to have a rock-solid gold stock in your portfolio for hedging purposes. From NVidia, they had a record first-quarter, but it wasn’t good enough to beat the consensus estimate. Nevertheless, they managed to beat the Street’s whisper, so they were positive on the day (despite trading down 8.5% after-hours initially). I expect the trend toward high-end graphic cards to continue as video games among other devices continue to advance, so I like this as a long-term holding.

Blogosphere
Not a lot went down this week in the blogging world. Although, admittedly, I was a bit preoccupied with semester exams for the week, there wasn’t any noteworthy action after most websites reported their monthly-earnings last week. Despite this, there are plenty of great articles to look at so you can learn a thing or two.

One dispute that was interesting was a virtual war that broke out between two blogs, John Cow and Garry Conn. If you visit either of their blogs, you’ll know just what I’m talking about. Personally, I think it’s funny that these guys are beating themselves up over a non-issue. But hey, you can sign up for both of their newsletters to see how they are setting up new blogs for the competition they have started between themselves; the links are in the link-love list.

The Week In Focus & Contest Update
This week, I am going to put out a few articles and hope to move into a new tutorial for making money on the internet. I’d like to see a sub-industry stock market pitch come out… so hopefully I can get one of those bad boys together. I’m hoping to get closer to the 200-subscriber mark this week… possibly seeing another double in my numbers for the month.

The Net Fool’s Outrageous Contest continues to be a great catalyst for growth… so don’t forget to tell all of your friends about the opportunity. Remember that no matter how late you get in on the contest, you are guaranteed to win… so there’s no hurt in trying to win a bigger prize, eh? I’ve seen a lot of great posts about the contest which definitely helped in getting The Net Fool a Google PageRank of 4 in the latest update.

Keep reading up on the foolishness to turn your time into cash!
-The Net Fool

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