Learning to survive the economic disaster...

Yes, it helps to start early and start at the very beginning of each story - the players and the stakeholders in each scene, to really understand the current economic disaster.

The economic climate is changing and new models are being applied. How will all this play out? Well... no one knows! But, reading about it is like ammunition you absolutely need to survive in these times.

The Housing Boom and Bust by Thomas Sowell is a very easy read. It provides clarity in terms of how things work - both the basics and the politics of it. The author leads you to understand the mistakes made in the past. I found it very resourceful to have a structure within which I could then fit all the current news and daily headlines.

In a world of search engines and social media it is easy to get clouded by and follow the popular post! A clear understanding of the problem and the framework within which it operates, helps ask the right questions, before you agree or dis-agree with today's popular housing trend headlines.

That said, I think housing is yet to see bottom!

New generation of social media sites value privacy...

Historically, anonymity and promiscuity have been directly proportional. Today, here to stay, is a new rash of online support sites which work as support groups for people around the world. However, these sites are private, unlike the public social-media-style sites. CommunityofVeterans.org quoted in WSJ is a private peer support-group site - one of many next generation online support group sites. These sites are modeled after social media sites like Facebook and MySpace. The idea is to provide a familiar user experience to visitors and registered members. The concept mainly resonates with the social media generation and is catching on really fast, apparently.

Those of us who are not friends with our shrink or choose to see a shrink in another town, understand why anonymity is important to get therapy - mainly helps patients be candid and share their hidden fears and feelings.

Now, how could a site like bedpost.com help its users by being private? The website enables users to log their sex-life information and share it with their partners alone. Users maintain a log and reflect on what the graph looks like. This is bizarre!

Wouldn't it help more to know how many others share your pattern? What their profiles look like? Also, maybe, know how many vote that they like/dislike your taste?

Check out PlentyOfFish.com. It is a free dating site and has 15,000 happy registered users. It is listed as the most remunerative (bringing about $10,000 from Adsense per day) site. What's more, it has only the site's owner managing it! It is open to the world.

Today, "creativity and content" on websites bring traffic, users and lots of money. Anonymity is out-dated my friends!

Another win for California residents ...

Say you are an affiliate. You have web pages... on these pages you have links to products sold by online retailers like Amazon and others... your commission is based on traffic directed to online retailer sites through your website... these online retailers pay you directly for traffic they receive through your site. This is the simple model.

Today morning, Sacramento wanted to collect sales tax on commission paid by online retailers to affiliates residing in California. (Hawaii, North Carolina and Rhode Island are others imposing this rule). This gives the online retailers two options: absorb the cost of sales tax in these states and pay all its affiliates uniform commissions, or pass the cost on to customers. Both options take away from the basic low-cost structure advantage of online retailers vs. brick-and-mortar.

Of course the online retailers don't like this one bit! They protested by threatening to drop affiliates residing in California. (I believe New York's Internet-sales-tax rules have forced Amazon to start collecting taxes in New York).

Could California really afford to loose out on income tax revenue on lost income by affiliates?

Really?

Quickly, this evening, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office provided assurance that California will not make this a law.

Thankfully, the online retailers won this one... I can still shop online to avoid paying state tax!