Welcome to Something for Nothing

You all might be wondering what I’m doing talking about the Arizona Carpet Sale. Well, I’ve been talking with my friend from Pakistan and we’ve been considering doing a business plan for rugs. I think the above sale would be an interesting place for my friend and I to sale rugs. I’m not sure how they can give the 75% discount they talk about on their website, but I know that rugs are expensive if you get them at the wrong place. The other good part with this sale is that you can get a 10% discount by signing up on their website.

I found one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a while. Someone was trying to send a letter and they didn’t know the exact address. So, they wrote the person’s name on the envelope and then drew a map of where the person lived. Take a look at the article about it.

Amazingly the card arrived at Peter’s home in Bude, North Cornwall, nine days later — after his postie recognised the name in a local sorting office.

I’ve just recently become familiar with the online tower defense genre in the gaming industry. Well, if you have any Tower Defense Ideas then I think you might want to consider checking out Cambrian House. They are developing a game called Gwabs using crowdsourcing. I think this could apply to tower defense games very easily. The new Cambrian House Game Warz(still not released, but I’ll let you know when it is) would be the perfect place for people that like this type of game.

There are a ton of good reviews on the tower defense website. For example, here’s the Flash Elemental TD. From the look of the nice reviews on the site, I think the website owner would really like to participate with Cambrian House in crowdsourcing Tower defense games.

It was absolute mayhem at my work on Friday. The NBA all star game is here in Las Vegas and I work at UNLV where they are holding the game. I was completely amazed how they dressed up the Thomas and Mack. However, more interesting was all the space in the parking lot that they reserved for the game. It’s being reserved for all the VIPs. What a production!!

It’s interesting because the All Star game in Las Vegas is really secondary to all the various parties that the players are holding before, during and after the game. Las Vegas is taking these parties to the next level. It’s been pretty incredible.

Of course there’s talk about having an NBA team here in Las Vegas. I think that it will happen eventually. The mayor, Oscar Goodman, is all about it and so it’s really just a matter of time. I think Las Vegas would really embrace it, but even more significant is fans from other teams that come to Las Vegas to see their team and enjoy the town.

For the record, I still don’t completely understand what everyone loves about Las Vegas. To each their own.

PayPerPost has started a new affiliate program that is designed to help bloggers get more traffic to their blogs while getting more people involved in PayPerPost. They call it Review my Post.

From a blogger’s perspective Review My Post is a great idea to be able to generate traffic for your blog. Essentially people will get paid $7.50 to do a review of any post on my blog that includes the following image:

I think it is pretty creative of them to come up with a program like this. I must admit that it is a little confusing to put your head around. Also, if I just do the regular referral program I can get paid $15 for someone that signs up.

So, do I prefer a link to my blog on someone else’s blog or would I rather have the extra $7.50? Well, I guess it’s a decent trade off either way for a blogger. With PayPerPost’s new way of classifying blogs and paying them according to their PR, Alexa ranking, and tack rating the extra link will become more valuable.

From PayPerPost’s perspective this is a really good way for them to get new bloggers to join PayPerPost. I still would have to argue two things that PayPerPost needs to do to really get traction for their product.

1. Get as many quality advertisers as possible. Bring advertisers and bloggers will come.
2. Get higher page rank bloggers to use PPP. This will be a challenge.

Unfortunately, it’s kind of like which came first, the chicken or the egg. You can’t get Advertisers without big time bloggers. You can’t get big time bloggers without advertisers.

I guess one secret of the “Review My Post” program is that PayPerPost is trying to help its current bloggers become big time bloggers. I know they’ve helped my blogs. I just had one blog go from PR 1 to PR 5. Not a bad jump and it absolutely wouldn’t have been possible without PayPerPost.

Well, things have really been busy for me. Sorry for all those that have been reading my blog and haven’t found me around. I have my new little girl that is taking up a fair amount of time. She is beautiful and great. You can check out my new baby girl on my family blog.

I’m back on board, but I also have started to pick things up at my Crowdsourcing and Entrepreneurship blog. I’m really excited about what it could become. It’s something that I think could really add value to my future career. Whereas this blog is just one that I do because I love blogging. Anyway, watch for more info over time.

Today I watched a news report about all the devastation that is happening in Florida. How sad it is to see people’s houses just destroyed. Of course, many of them didn’t have Home Insurance because the cost of insurance in Florida has increased 3 times because of all the various hurricanes they’ve experienced recently. Even with the increase in price, I think that you have to look at home insurance as a cost of living in Florida. You are definitely taking a tremendous risk to live in Florida and not get insurance. Even so, my heat goes out to those who didn’t get home insurance.

I also just got my car insurance bill. I was so upset. My car insurance went up in price. I thought that the longer you had your insurance the cheaper it was suppose to get. I didn’t get a new car. I didn’t get any tickets or accidents. I don’t know what happened. It was a small increase, but it still upset me since I want my car insurance to go down as my car gets older, my time on the policy is longer and my good driver gets stronger (yes, I know that was a nice run on sentence). Oh well, what can you do? Look for a new car insurance company I guess.

At least there are a lot of good insurance websites out there that give you a lot of options like Home Insurance“>this one. This site contains some good detailed information on the various coverages that you are going to get. This is really fundamental to getting insurance. Just because one company is cheaper doesn’t mean that you are getting the same coverage. This site also offers a discount if you get your insurance online. I love these type of online discounts. It’s a great way for the insurance company to save both themselves and you some money on your insurance. Another interesting part of the site is the benefits page which says the following:

Take a look at some of the benefits of ASDA Home Insurance:

* New for Old cover - brand new replacement goods if your originals can’t be repaired (excludes clothing and linen)
* We deal direct with the tradesmen for you - no need to get quotes: all you pay is your excess
* Claims dealt with quickly - one phone call is normally all it takes
* Cover options to suit your lifestyle and your pocket
* Friendly helpful service
* Choice of ways to pay