Perhaps the fact that the Top 10 Searches are all about celebrities, games, and other distraction explains why we’re having the problems we’re having… we spend too much time thinking about STUPID STUFF!

Michael Jackson topped the list in case you hadn’t heard!

BUT, if your business is to sell memorabilia for celebrities and game fans, this is vital information I suppose… it tells you what inventory to stock!

In June 2009, CafePress began competing with the artists for whom it acts as printer and shipper.

CafePress rents web shops to its artists. The artist creates a website page and manually loads the desired blank products. The artist imports his image onto each product, arranges the products on the page, describes the products, titles the products and tags the images.

Initially, the artist would set a markup and received the markup for each product sold.

However, recently CafePress began competing with its artists, using the artists’ own images. CafePress created a marketplace where a customer can search a keyword. That search brings up artist products. When the customer buys from the marketplace CafePress pays the artist 10% of the price CafePress set. Both the customer and the artist lose money. If the artist’s shop sells a t-shirt for $21, the artist makes $3.01. If the marketplace sells the same shirt for $25, the artist gets $2.50. The customer pays $4 more, and the artist gets $0.51 less.

CafePress tells artists to “promote your own shop,” but CafePress buys Google adwords using the very image tags the artist provided.

CafePress justifies this bait and switch of service terms by telling artists they can opt out if they don’t like the new terms; however, many have spent as much as 7 or 8 years creating as many as 88000 images.

It seems to me that Cafepress is actually HELPING shop keepers because 1) Most don’t know how to effectively market online and 2) most don’t have the money to really give it a good attempt.

While the shopowner is earning LESS, it strikes me that they are gaining customers they’d never have otherwise. In other words they are getting extra sales with no out of pocket expense. To me, that sounds GOOD… maximizing the return on the artists’ work in creating a store.

It would be NICE to be able to follow up with the customer and cross sell other items, but in reality, most shop owners probably aren’t doing much or any cross selling anyway! In that case, they still aren’t losing out.

If YOU are bringing the customer to the shop and Cafepress takes them AWAY, that’s bad. But it sounds like they’re bringing in NEW customers you’d never otherwise see and selling your products for you. Sounds like a deal to me.

We’re fairly savvy, but for some reason the audio is messed up now. The setting that formerly blasted us out of the house now sounds like a whisper!

But I have to admit, the digital signal is quite good here.

So how’s your digital switchover coming?

You can see the video rant here by Rick Santelli

Traders on the floor actually stopped what they were doing to voice their support!

One trader shouted “How about we all stop paying our mortgage!” More shouts!

Santelli ended by calling for a “Chicago Tea Party” to protest the notion that any of these spending plans was anything other than a fraud basically.

In a subsequent interview with National Review Online Santelli said:

At the end of the day, it’s simple. A lot of the president’s advisers are saying that there’s a multiplier effect to the government money, and it’s over one. Now if that’s true, then the government should spend non-stop for the rest of our lives, because we’ll get a positive return. And it makes no sense. … I guess in the end, I believe in the founding fathers, and I believe that in America… the pursuit of happiness and to work hard and keep the fruits of your labor is something I believe in. And I’m not saying we should forget people who need help. But at the end of the day, Americans are strong and they’re charitable. I think what they have a problem with is that it’s force-fed via the government.

Pretty cool video.

There’s just one problem though, Facebook doesn’t seem to actually give a rip because, if they did, why do I keep seeing the same blamed ads?

Now, addmittedly trashing them is sort of fun for me when I don’t have anything else to do on Facebook.

But a friend decided I’d be happier if I learned How To Block ALL Facebook Ads.

So if you don’t get you jollies marking ads as “offensive” and you want to get rid of them altogether. Click the link above and find the miracle cure to marketing madness on Facebook.

Actually it just shows that the pointy heads at Google can have foul ups like everyone else except when it happens there, it’s on a catastrophic scale. Or at least a big mess up.

Today the search results were messed up for a time. Every site listed was flagged as a “danger” to your computer.

At least Google’s foul up was inflicted on Google assets too.

One of the the blogs I subscribe to by Feedburner sent me it’s daily email.

GMail flagged it as if it were a “phishing” email!

How odd.

If you’re looking for such emails… check your spam filter!

And if you hoped to make some money sending a special message through feedburner (by posting to your blog) realize that you may have to repost the message!

Image courtesy Angry Panda

I didn’t bother to open the email because literally within the last 10 days this same “Guru” send out a letter saying like “OK I’m on Twitter and Facebook now, so please connect with me online.”

I went to connect on Facebook and the link was broken…

I found the person’s profile, connected and warned them the link was broken and then another email went out to the list telling people the RIGHT address.

So come on now… you can’t even paste the dang link to your Facebook profile last week and this week you’re telling ANYBODY how to make money with social bookmarking?

Come ON!

The trick with social bookmarking is to decide what you want to accomplish with it.

1) Do you want it for Search Engine Optimization and “do follow links”? That takes one strategy.

2) Do you want waves of traffic? That can happen with sometimes just a few “Stumbles” using “Stumbleupon.com”. But many of them are WORTHLESS for marketing purposes… just more internet voyeurs not buyers usually.

3) Do you want an ISP proof prospect mailing list? Well, that’s something else again my friends.

4) How do you as a business owner keep from spending 23.5 hours per day playing around with Social bookmarking and Social marketing? There are some ways to outsource this if you have cashflow.

I’ve blogged on these issues various times.

Decide what you want social media to do… but beware the “instant experts.”

Related Link: My choice for AWESOME BACKLINKS…

The economy is in “Cardiac Arrest” he says… we need to take emergency measures and THEN do tax cuts, etc.

(I really wonder how that guy knows? I mean really… how does he know? Is it because the price of caviar took a sudden steep rise or something?)

For the last year the poor and middle class have had their budgets painfully eroded by the rising cost of gas, which caused everything else to rise in price and this was due to stock market speculation across the global economy bidding up the futures market.

Rich people – the same elite who are screaming for money today – said “Oh, gas at $4 a gallon is necessary to educate the masses about the need for alternative energy” while they sipped their martinis.

Let’s keep saying “No Way” to the bail out so we can say “Oh, no bailout is necessary in order to educate the elite about the need to stop micromanaging the economy to buy votes and then stick us with the bill” while we chug-a-lug whatever we chug-a-lug.

So where was all the concern for the middle class and the people who read this blog who are trying to build a second income just to get by?

We’ve been hurting quite some time… so why are you only noticing now?

Where was the concern THEN?

If the same goobers Forbes wants to bail out the economy now do so on the back of the tax payer, are these the goobers who are really going to cut taxes like Forbes says are needed for long term economic health? They didn’t care then. They won’t care if we give them their way. They never do.

I noticed at lunch that the cost of crude oil is dropping precisely because the bailout didn’t make it.

THAT’s what we want to see out here in America, Mr. Forbes – we don’t care how many bankers lose their country club memberships or have to give up their Polo Ponies.

I do like some of Forbes words though. At times he makes great sense. I’ll summarize:

1. The government’s to blame on many levels for things getting this bad
2. Anybody could have written a better bill than this one he wants passed so desperately.
3. We’re in this mess in part because the government prints up “funny money” at will.

If these are true… why should we expect that Congress suddenly grew a brain? Or developed some self-control?

If these are true – Why do you want Congress to do MORE OF THE SAME right now? Don’t we have to face reality sometime?

Isn’t this like giving drugs to addicts and making them pledge to use them responsibly?

And what about the Wall Street types?

Lehman Brothers’ kept a couple of billion around just for their bonuses. Let’s see them contribute that to the “cause” if we are all being asked to “pitch in”.

Let’s see the banks commit their $400 B they plan to pay in dividends to the cause. Maybe we need to “claw back” the dividends and perks they’ve been paying these last few years while they were cashing in?

Many questions.

No answers I’ve heard. Just more “Chicken Little” screaming.

But it’s fun to see the hysteria from people like Forbes. It’s really hilarious to see these Washington types in a stew because their lies aren’t going down so smoothly.

Finally they’re beginning to feel the pain the poor and middle class are feeling trying to make ends meet and respond to rising prices on every hand.

How’s it feel?

Rant over.

We work at home types have to get back to trying to build something just to keep ahead of gasoline prices!

They don’t want to government to give them anything… they just don’t want to be hassled.

So they hate it when they hear about people who are supposedly “icons” of “capitalism” turn out to be socialist welfare state suck ups.

Here’s one regarding Warren Buffett, the stock market guru who “buys low and sells high”. Turns out that may be his political theory too if the complaint below applies to him as well… a few bucks to a grasping politician reaps huge financial rewards long term.

“Buffalo is a city awash in subsidized projects. Warren Buffett, who owns the Buffalo News, got $100 million in government giveaways to open a call center for his GEICO General Insurance Company, the one that uses cavemen and a talking lizard to pitch its products. A special subsidy zone had to be created just to lavish the money on Buffett.

“The call center cost $40 million. So, basically, Buffett’s company is getting back what it invested and then collecting a $60 million gift from local and state taxpayers. The call center may eventually create 2500 jobs. If that happens the subsidy would equal $40,000 per job, which is more than a year’s pay and benefits for each of the call center workers….

“As the GEICO call center opened, another call center, owned by a Canadian firm, shut down. The net gain in jobs was zilch. Still, the Buffalo News wrote story after story about how the GEICO center was a wonderful economic development, while giving little attention to the one that closed….

“James Ostrowski, a hard-line libertarian who has been fighting the subsidy culture of Buffalo, said it took him a few years to realize why the city, and Erie County, fathers were so eager for these deals: ‘There are about 50 people who make things happen here and they are all in on the subsidies,’ said Ostrowski. ‘Everybody is in on the take in some fashion. We are drowning in high taxes, but if you are connected or wealthy you make a few phone calls and you get relief. The politicians just get to dole out money to enrich people and it gets them all sorts of favors…Give $100,000 to the right politicians over a couple of years and get a $20 million construction contract or a $500 million deal that guarantees you make out even if the whole thing fails. All these families volunteer to serve on all these authorities — because they get so much back.” — David Cay Johnston, Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expenses (and Stick You with the Bill) (New York: Penguin Group, 2007), 121.

HT: Scribblative Agincourting

Having been around the business opportunity field as a purchaser, entrepreneur, and writer for a long time, I would have to say… no.

This doesn’t seem like it makes sense at first.

After all, good ideas should produce good results.

And if bad results or no results occur, then it must have been a bad idea or a scam, right?

No, it doesn’t work that way.

For example, I recently posted about this opportunity to generate income through selling leads to local businesses.

It’s $10 but given the email I’ve gotten, you’d think it was priced at $10,000!

Here’s my favorite: “What’s the success rate of people who purchase this?”

This sounds like an intelligent question but, in practice, it does not yield the information one really needs to make a buying decision.

The answer for this program is probably the same as for people who buy any other legitimate program… about zero.

That’s because people buy things all the time and never do anything…except buy other programs.

That’s sad but true.

But it doesn’t mean that the idea is bad per se.

What does happen over time is that the real entrepreneurs show themselves and take the information they have cobbled together over time and assemble their own plan of action using what worked best for them along the way.

But I wouldn’t be surprised if most people buying most things do absolutely nothing and that most products have a zero percent success rate.

It doesn’t matter if someone sold a book “How to make $100,000 per year as an M.D.”

Everybody knows it’s possible.

Everybody could buy the book.

But how many people are going to do what it takes to “earn $100,000 per year as an M.D.” It’s a very small percentage of the population who can or will do this. The failure rate of that “business opportunity” compared to people who want to make $100,000 is about 99%.

But it’s not a bad idea.

In fact it’s such a commonly known fact that doctors can make good money, you COULDN’T sell such a book. It’s like trying to sell a book with the premise “Did you know that water and soap can be combined to wash dirt off your hands?”

The knowledge is so common, nobody will pay for it.

Where most business opportunities is not the product or concept… it’s in the application of the idea by the buyer.

Yes, there are crazy ideas that you shouldn’t invest in.  Like franchises that try to “sell ice to eskimos” for example.

And generally unless you’re working online and long distance, the smaller your town, the less opportunity there for any given concept.

But even if the “concept” is totally sound, demand is skyrocketing, and it’s as much a “no brainer” like “selling ice water in the Sahara”, a business opportunity can fail due to someone never getting off their duff to actually DO something.

So the failure rate is astronomical. But it may have nothing whatsoever to do with the information.

 More on this to come…