I just found out about Scour today and I am excited about the possibility of it. Everyone who knows me knows that I am an avid Google nut and love a lot of the product they have put out. But, I think they need a little bit of competition in the search market. Yahoo and MSN are just not very good competitors anymore.
Scour looks like they may have a product that could compete with them. The challenge, of course, is that it is a huge uphill battle for them. Google has most of the internet’s users using it as their search engine, so in order to have a chance Scour is going to have to be a lot better.
My experience with Scour (so far)
Scour is a search engine that has two distinct advantages over Google…
- The results are voted on by other users. So, in theory, only the best stuff should come up to the top of the list. Just like Digg.
- They offer incentives for using it. You earn points for searching with it, commenting, voting, referring, etc. Those points can then be redeemed for gift cards. Looking at the points system, it will take quite a while before you ever get enough points for a gift card. That’s okay I am more interested in it’s search capabilities.
The Scour results page…
What I like about Scour
- I love that Google is finally getting some competition. While realistically, I would be surprised to see Scour become the next Google, I am glad that they are in the game. Increased competition just means that everyone will produce better. Google has done a great job with it’s search engine, but there is a lot of room for growth. There are still a lot of spammy results coming up, I think that user generated feedback is going to be part of the solution.
- It allows you to get search results from Google, Yahoo, or Live all on the same page. So, if you don’t like the Scour results that you are seeing, you can still see what Google lists as the top sites…
- I like the points system. Even though you would have to use it for a while to actually get rewarded, you still do get rewarded. I have never gotten a gift card from Google
What I don’t like about Scour
- It is brand new. It is going to be a while before Scour provides some actual benefit as a search engine. Initially, spammers are going to vote up their spam sites, so initially users will probably have to wade through some of that stuff. Only after there are a whole bunch of users who come and vote will the results become valuable.
- The referral program. I know it seems to be what every new thing does now. They offer incentives for referring people. But, bottom line I agree with Seth Godin on this one. If it isn’t remarkable, there is no point in having the referral program. On the other hand if it is remarkable, it probably doesn’t need it because people will talk about it either way.
So, I think I will give it a try for a few weeks and see how I like it. If it is something you think is worth trying out, you can get there with my remarkable referral link .
Any Scour users out there? I would love to hear your opinions on it!!
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The truth about CashCrate
I recently heard about this program and thought I would check it out. Basically you get paid for filling out short surveys and giving your email address to spammers.
The sign up is simple enough. It only takes about 30 seconds and once you complete that, they take you to the below screen. Here you select which offers you would like to complete. You click the offer on the left and once you complete the offer, then you click the submit button. Cash Crate then verifies that you completed it and then adds the funds to your account.
All of the offers I have done so far are actually very short and easy to fill out. Only taking about 30 -60 seconds to fill out for each one.
The problem is that it is difficult to tell how much of the offer you need to fill out.
So for example, the “Running Shoes” offer above gives you the below screen…
I think this is all you have to actually fill out to get paid, BUT as soon as you press submit it takes you to this screen…
So, now they are taking you down a trail to get a $150 gift card, which you are going to have to jump through about 1000 hoops and sign up for credit cards and a bunch of other stuff to actually get it.
I wish they would have a screen that says, “you have completed this offer,” but they seem to just try to confuse people into filling out additional offers that were not part of the CashCrate offer.
But like I said above, I think all you need to fill out is that first screen with your email address in order to get your $1.00 for that offer. Others ask you survey-type questions, some want your physical address, etc.
Well, that just sounds too easy
A lot of companies run their businesses completely off of email lists. So, you are getting paid $1.00 to get added to their email list. It may or may not be worth it to you. But I can almost promise you that you are going to start getting a lot of spam in your inbox
How handle this
I have a few different email addresses that I use. One is only given to businesses. So, any time I sign up for anything that I think could possibly add my address to a list I use that address. That email gets hundreds of emails a day, so I only check it when I am specifically looking for an activation email or something similar.
My review of CashCrate
It seems like a decent way to make a few extra bucks. I filled out about 7 offers (they have hundreds available) in 15-20 minutes. It would have been shorter, but I was following some of their deceptive rabbit trails.
After filling out the offers my my account shows that I have earned $2.90 and have $4.40 pending. As CashCrate verifies that I filled out the offers, the money moves from the pending earnings to July’s earnings. They say it can take from 5 minutes to a couple of hours for them to get approved.
They also have a generous referral program, so you get a cut of everyone who signs up from your referral link. I guess I will see how successful that is after I post this article.
I am going to continue using them, but only because I am not going to give them my personal email address.
I would love to hear from people who have used it so far. Is there anything I am missing?
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I just read an interesting article about a guy who 14 years ago bought the domain pizza.com for $20 (and had to pay $20 each year to keep it). He didn’t really know what it was worth, so he recently decided to put it up for auction to see what he could get for it and it went for a cool $2.6 million. How is that for a nice return on investment?
I remember about that time looking for domains to buy because I had heard a few people comparing it to the California Gold Rush. I spent about 15 minutes typing in domain names and then gave up. Maybe I should have kept at it a bit longer.
While the Pizza.com story is remarkable and not the norm, people have been and continue to make money with domains. I haven’t gotten too involved in buying or selling domains, but if anyone is interested I would be willing to sell ChristianPF.com for a bargain price of $2.5 million (it’s not quite as valuable as Pizza.com hence the discount).
I found another article that talks about how you can still make money with domain names today. The domain name market has some similarities with the real estate market.
Here are a few of the ways the author suggested to make money with domains:
1. Buy existing domains and increase their value (or just flip’em) - it takes money to make money, but you can start small. The domain name aftermarket is extremely inefficient, meaning you can buy domains from one venue and sell them quickly on another. You can also buy underutilized domains, build them up, and watch the cash roll in.
2. Embrace the power of predictive domaining - One of the best new blogs about domains is Predictive Domaining. It discusses ways to determine tomorrow’s hot topics and keywords so you can register (or buy cheap) domains today. Here’s a case in point: the term “blog” wasn’t around during the original 1994 gold rush. There are lots of other terms that aren’t hot (or even known) today that will be tomorrow. I would consider myself a good predictive domainer, but the Predictive Domaining blog always teaches me something new.
3. Stay in it for the long haul - so domain parking revenues are down this year. Perhaps it’s just a speed bump. Will we look back ten years from now at domains that sold for millions when they are then selling for tens of millions? There are still great buy-and-hold strategies for those who are able to hold for the long term.
Real estate and “virtual real estate”
I see the similarities between real estate and domains, but the thing that stands out to me is that there is a limited amount of real estate. There are only so many square feet on the earth, however with “virtual real estate” it is a seemingly unlimited supply.
I understand that the most valued domains receive quite a bit of type in traffic, but it seems like sometimes it may not be worth the investment. For instance eBay, Google, and even amazon all chose not to go after the prime domains and built their brand around a more obscure name. It seems to have worked well for them.
Domain Name tools
If you are curious to see what domains are still available use this tool, it makes it very quick and easy to spot what is available. And if you are trying to find a domain with a particular keyword included - Nameboy is a good tool as well…
Buy your name
I have read a few articles that have suggested to buy YourName.com if it is still available. Domains are cheap - $8 a year with www.GoDaddy.com and it is a lot easier and cheaper to buy it from them than a private party down the road.
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ePinions.com $10 for 10 reviews
ePinions.com is running a promotion to pay users for their reviews. If you write 10 reviews you will receive $10. If you write 20 then you will get $20, all the way up to 100. They also have a $10 bonus for every 10 reviews that are rated “very helpful.”
I have never really been a fan of ePinions because they never seem to have many reviews on products that I am shopping for. Hence the reason for this promotion?
A few notes about the 10 for $10 promotion:
- The Promotion is valid until the first 30,000 reviews are received or until April 30, 2008 (11:59 PM Pacific time), which ever comes first.
- Your reviews must be submitted on a product or service in Epinions.com’s database, excluding editorials, buying guides, comments about Epinions.com, member advice, and the writer’s corner.
- At the time Epinions.com validates entries (some time shortly following the end of the submission period), each review must have an overall rating of at least “somewhat helpful”. Express reviews are not eligible. (Express reviews contain less than 200 words.)
- Maximum payout is $200 per Participant during the Promotion period.
All in all, I think ePinions has a good idea with this promotion. It seems like a nice win-win. They get a bunch of reviews to hopefully help them better compete with Amazon and the user can potentially make $200. Not a bad deal.
If anyone has taken advantage of this offer I would love to hear some feedback about it…
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7 Steps to sell your stuff on eBay
As part of my de-cluttering process, I unload a lot of my stuff and random items by selling it on on Ebay. If you have never done it before, you will probably be surprised at how easy it is and how quick you can make a little money. Last time I de-cluttered, I made over $200 for only a few hours worth of time. This is a perfect follow-up to some major closet simplification. So, if you have a few hours of spare time, this may be a good way to make a few bucks.
1. Open an eBay account
This is a very quick and easy process. Click here to get started.
2. Buy a few items to get some positive feedback
(This step is optional, but it will probably help) -Small items are fine, anything you can find will work. The reason is that your credibility as an Ebay seller is primarily determined by your feedback score. By purchasing a few items and paying for them quickly, you will be able to get some positive feedback, thus giving you at least a little bit of credibility. Think about it, if you are buying an item wouldn’t you rather buy from a seller has feedback proving that he actually delivered his products rather than a seller who has never used eBay before?
3. Decide what to sell
I only sell name brand or easily defined unique items. When selling, you have to think like the seller and ask “how would I search for this item?” If the answer isn’t clear, it may not be a good item to sell. For example, I had a pair of fake leather pants (don’t ask) that weren’t a brand that anyone would care about, but I knew that people would be searching for leather pants, because it is such a unique item. Often times buyers will search for a brand name and a size, and this is why brand name items are good to sell.
Oh, and I also don’t sell items that aren’t in great condition - you can, but one person’s definition of “small hole in sleeve” can be completely different from another’s. I consider it to be dangerous territory, so proceed with caution.
Just FYI, about the fake leather pants, I had gotten them for about $3.00 on a clearance rack and ended up selling them for about $15.00. So, the $12.00 profit helps offset all the harassment I received for owning them in the first place.
4. Get Pictures of your items
Grab your digital camera (if you are still taking Polaroid pictures, then see step #2 and make a digital camera one of your purchases) and start shooting. Use a well lit room, with the simplest, nicest looking background you can find; e.g. a hardwood floor or a plain wall. Take a few pictures of each item and get close ups if needed. Check out this article for more tips about Ebay pictures.
5. List your item
Now you are ready to list your items. I suggest doing all of your listings on the same day. This will enable you to do the shipping all on the same day, eliminating wasted trips to the Post Office.
Be as detailed as possible in the listing title. Include as many that apply to your item:
- item names and similar names
- Brand names
- Model names or numbers
- Sizes
- Colors
- Men’s, women’s, or kids
- material
- any other details that stand out about your item
At the time of this writing, if you search for “dress shirt” on eBay it will yield over 12,000 listings. However, if you search for “M banana republic dress shirt blue” we only get 5 results. As sellers, this is what we want - limited competition when people search for our item. If your listing title just said “dress shirt,” then your shirt would now be thrown in the world’s largest bargain bin with 12,000 other shirts for people to dig through. The more detail you put in the title, the easier it is for your buyers to find it.
The first picture is free, but Ebay does charge to add additional pictures. I suggest adding at least one additional picture, unless you are convinced that the item doesn’t need it. Buyers like to see products from different angles and with detail.
Use the description field to fill in any and all detail that you couldn’t squeeze into the title section. The more detail the better. I learned the hard way when selling my wife’s clothes that a lot of the eBaying women like to know the measurements of each item before bidding on it.
A few more things to keep in mind:
- open a paypal account (free, simple, and will make it easier for buyers)
- Check for misspellings in your title (this could dramatically affect sales)
- International shipping can be expensive and time consuming, so you may want to limit your shipping area
6. Answer buyer’s questions
Buyers may email you with questions about the product, it is in your best interest to respond quickly to them. They are clearly interested in buying the product, otherwise they wouldn’t have spent the time emailing you about it. You can respond to their questions and see what each item is going for from your Ebay account.
7. Ship your eBay items
Try to get your items shipped ASAP to get positive feedback from your buyers. Look for old boxes (without writing on them) or for some items you can use brown paper bags to package it in.
I have had the best luck with the good ‘ol U.S. Postal Service. The standard shipping at that Post Office is almost always cheaper than UPS and FedEx. There are some occasions where this is not the case, but from my experience, the USPS is the best way to go.
As with anything, the more you do it, the faster you will get at it. And of course, some items will sell, and some won’t - I just give the unsold items to Goodwill. Good luck!!
Click here to open a FREE eBay account
Technorati Tags: How to sell on eBay, eBay selling, put stuff on ebay
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This was a trick I discovered late in college, that I wish I would have known about earlier, it could have saved me thousands over my college years. It shouldn’t take more than a hour and could save you hundreds each semester. Basically, the goal is to buy and sell the textbook for the same price - making it ($75-$75=$0) FREE!!
1. Find the cheapest priced textbooks.
Check Amazon and eBay. Get the ISBN# from the barcode of the book and do a search on both for the cheapest used book. Feel free to look other places like textbooks.com or Barnes and Noble, but Amazon and eBay are likely to be the cheapest. Make sure you are getting the right edition for the class (I had many classes that it didn’t matter, but for the purposes of reselling, the newest edition will help).
2. Use it, but don’t abuse it
Folded pages, highlighting, rounded edges don’t affect the price very much, but missing covers or pages do. Don’t eat your book! I know you are in college and probably short on cash, but if resorting to eating paper as a dietary supplement, stick with looseleaf; it is cheaper.
3. Get ready to sell those textbooks
After the fall semester you are going to want to sell them right away, because other anxious college kids will be looking to buy them up for the spring semester. After the spring semester on the other hand, you should probably wait a couple months before looking to sell. Remember: supply and demand. How many college kids are looking to buy their textbooks for fall, when classes let out in May?
4. List and sell them
There are many options for selling your books, but you want to find one where YOU are selling to the customer. What you will find is that as long as every school in the U.S. hasn’t switched to a newer edition, you shouldn’t have a problem selling them for what you paid. I like Amazon’s textbook store
- When setting your price, look to see what the lowest price is and go a few cents below that. This will help you to sell your book as quickly as possible. Check back every week or so and adjust your price so it is the cheapest listed. If your book is not in the 5-10 lowest priced books, it is unlikely that it will sell.
- When you do sell your book, you will receive a notice via email with the buyer’s info. It is your responsibility to get it shipped ASAP. Not doing so will result in poor ratings and will make it more difficult to sell the next book.
I did profit off a few books over my last year in college doing this. You will find that some are winners and some are losers, but no matter what - you will be doing a whole lot better than those who buy their books new and sell them back to the campus bookstore.
Technorati Tags: free textbooks, cheap textbooks, save money on textbooks
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Budgeting with ING Direct
ING Direct has played a critical role in helping me get my financial life organized. They don’t advertise themselves as a great budgeting tool, but they really are. You could probably use this same budgeting technique at other banks, but I will show you why it is more beneficial at ING Direct.
1. Open multiple ING savings accounts
The first step is to open up multiple savings accounts at ING Direct (Yes, ING does allow you to open multiple accounts). At most other banks, this is discouraged, if not by the bank itself, by the amount of paperwork required for each. However, at ING once you have opened up your first account, any additional accounts can be opened with about three mouse clicks.
Each one of the accounts that you open will be something that you are saving (budgeting) for. For example, I have my emergency, vacation, car maintenance, entertainment, clothing, and any other savings funds at ING. I put a fixed amount into each account every pay period (ING can automate this if you would like).
2. Open up a ING Electric Orange Checking account
It is really this checking account at ING that makes this budget system possible. You could still use the ING savings accounts to budget without the ING checking account, but it will be much easier if you have the ING checking as well. And to be honest, I don’t think there is a better checking account out there that is better than ING’s.
ING’s Electric Orange checking is unique in a few ways:
- They do NOT offer checkbooks. It is a debit card based account
- You can send E-Checks to someone elses bank account for free
- It has a 3.93%(at the time of this writing) interest rate even with a $10 balance (try to find that at your local bank)
- Free ATM access at 32,000 locations across the country
- There are no overdraft fees. Instead of charging you $30 when you bounce a check, they just lend you the money until you bring the balance back up to $0. So instead of having a $30 NSF fee, you might have a $.50 interest charge. This alone is reason enough to switch. ING has saved me a lot of money with this feature.
3. Use the ING debit card to pay for items budgeted for
Once you have the first two steps taken care of and have saved up money in the accounts you are ready to go. Now is the fun part: SPENDING!! You have to do some work on the car? Just transfer the money from you car maintenance fund (this is a real-time transfer) to your ING Checking and head to the dealer or if you are like me and like to do car maintenance yourself, head to Autozone and swipe the debit card.
How is that for a simple budgeting tool?
I just get a lot of pleasure in simplifying my life. If you have ever used the envelope system for budgeting, you should be able to notice the advantages of this system. Like I mentioned earlier, you can probably do this at variety of banks, but I think it would be difficult to find a bank that offered all of the conveniences of ING as well as the great rates.
The negatives of using ING as a budget tool
The two things I would warn anyone trying the ING budget:
- Stay on top of your transfers from your ING savings accounts to your checking. If you do a lot of budgeted spending for a couple weeks and forget to do the transfers, it can be difficult to backtrack. Like most things in life, it works better with regular maintenance.
- You can only transfer FROM the savings accounts 6 times per month. This really hasn’t been an issue for me but maybe once or twice in the few years that I have been using the ING budgeting method. (But, I figured out a simple hack to getting around this restriction.)
If you are interested in signing up with ING make sure you contact me so I can get you a $25 bonus for signing up.
How to budget with other tools
If the ING budge method doesn’t interest you, then you could try the envelope system of budgeting. If you are looking for budgeting software to help you budget you can check out YNAB’s personal budget
del.icio.us Tags: How to budget , ING Direct
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Your [tag]emergency fund[/tag] should be for an EMERGENCY! Not, “I really, really want to go to this concert,” or, “I really need a diamond studded dog-collar for Tinkerbell.”
Everyone’s definition of an emergency is different. But, if you want it to be of some use to you, you need to have a strict definition of an emergency.
Your emergency fund is what you should turn to when “life happens.” It will be what you turn to rather than your credit cards.
Leverage your emergency fund
Also, your emergency fund should put more dollars into your pocket once it has been well established. Here is how:
- You start putting $100 a month into a high-yield savings account. This will not generate much income, but it will do a whole lot better than spending the money.
- After a five months, barring no emergencies, you will have $500 in your high-yield savings account earning a nice interest rate. Now you can call your car insurance company and ask them to raise your deductible from from $100 to $250. Since you have $500 set aside for an emergency, you will now be able to afford the $250 deductible.
- The good news is that when you raise your deductible, your insurance bill goes down. Now that you are saving $120 a year on your insurance bill, you can add that to your emergency savings. Instead of saving $100 a month, you can now save $110 a month ($120/12 months=$10) with no extra money out of your pocket.
- Now that you are adding $110 a month to your emergency fund each month, it will grow even faster. In a few more months, you will reach $1000 balance. You can call the insurance company again and ask them to raise your deductible to $500. Again, this will lower your insurance bill even more. Add the difference to your emergency savings and keep this cycle going.
- As you can see doing this over and over again will save you money, while expanding your safety net. Your bank account will be growing at a faster pace and you will have more peace of mind.
The figures used are hypothetical and I would suggest raising your deductible only to a level that you are comfortable with. But remember, you are paying a lot of money to the insurance company to have a low deductible.
Keep letting your emergency fund grow larger and larger and shoot for a dollar amount that would cover 3 months of your living expenses. Once you get to that point, then you should start looking at investing in mutual funds or stocks to get a better return on your money.
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I just opened up a Citibank Ultimate savings account, currently with an APY of 4.65%. They give you $50 to open the account. There are no minimum balance restrictions.
- Of course it is FDIC insured.
- You have to keep the account open for 90 days to get the $50
- The offer is only available to new customers.
I am still a big fan of INGs Savings account, and I will surely stay with them too, but why not give Citibank a shot at my business for $50?
If you are interested click the link above for more details and an offer code.
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Would you rather have 0.5% or 4.5% interest on your savings account? If that doesn’t mean anything to you – would you rather I handed you $5 or $45? That’s what the difference is between online banks’ rates and regular banks.
I tried a couple different online banks, but INGDirect is my favorite. There are a couple out there that pay a little higher interest, but for ease of use, convenience, and security I think ING is the best around.
The way it works:
- You need a “regular” checking account.
- This account is linked to your ING (or other online banking) account.
- You can transfer money between the two accounts as you wish.
- You must remember that it is an MMDA account and there are certain restrictions.
- There are no fees and no account minimums.
Email me and I can get you a $25 bonus for opening an account.
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