Financial Content Providers
Published March 17th, 2012 | 
When I first got online nearly fifteen years ago, their was a saying that “content is king." The conventional wisdom was that good websites were driven by good content. Then, after the tech bubble burst, it became all about web design. People argued usability v. graphic design standards and so forth. Then, lo and behold, Google comes out with adwords and adsense. Almost overnight, neither content nor design became as important as SEO. Content farms popped up as if web developers had discovered the holy grail. They’d finally figured out how to generated income from online content. Problem was, quality suffered. Every non-writer was a writer, repurposing crap around valuable keywords. Google, having made billions from this practice started to realize that their brand was suffering and other search engines like Bing were nipping at their heels. So they came out with the new Panda algorithm. A change was on the horizon. Now, more changes as ranked will be weighted in favor of content and against SEO.
What that means if you freelance writing online content is there is little room for non-writing generalists anymore. They want experienced journalists who specialize. So if they are hiring financial content providers, they not only want an experiencing writer, they want an experienced writer with a solid background in financial reporting. In order to write stock market tips you will actually have to understand what stocks to buy today.
So content is king once again. That might prove to be a good thing as it will lead to better web sites. But it will also be harder for many would-be writers to compete.
* Mother’s Day is coming — have you purchased your personalized mothers day gifts yet?
Posted in Current Events, New Media, Publishing, content mills, seo writing, websites | 
Leave a commentThe Growing Threat of Identity Crime
Published March 2nd, 2012 | According to the Department of Justice, identity theft has risen by about 10% over the last five years. Identity crime’s growth has contributed to an annual loss of 50 billion dollars and affects over 15 million people a year. With the rise in identity theft, a new industry has emerged to fight identity thieves and protect potential victims.
If you are considering identity theft protection, there are many companies providing these services. One of the better companies out there, is IdentityHawk. IdentityHawk offers a range of protective benefits, including comprehensive, 24-hour monitoring and protection services to keep your identity safe from fraud.
IdentityHawk consistently scans the Internet for evidence of identity fraud. Clients can receive updates via email alerts or through the companies easier to use dashboard. IdentityHawk also offers clients an “Identity Health Score” that works somewhat like a credit score. With the tools this company provides,you can quickly address problems as they arise.
In addition to the Identity Health Score IdentityHawk offers:
- Social Security Number Protection
- Credit Monitoring
- Internet Monitoring
- Identity Theft Insurance
- Alert messaging
- Access to Identity Recovery Pros
Our good name and our social security number are among our most prized possessions and their loss can lead to financial ruin. Protect yourself today, or you may before you become another statistic.
Is Google+ Better Than Facebook?
Published March 1st, 2012 | The truth is, I’m not that much into social media, so you can take much of what I have to say on the subject with a grain of salt. I have a Twitter account, but rarely Tweet. I have a Facebook account, but only log on about once a month. I think I even have a MySpace page though, again, I rarely log on and even then it’s just to listen to music.
Now, a while back I may or may not have mentioned that I acquired a Google+ account during the early invite-only period. And I’ll have to admit, even though most of my friends are still using Facebook, I like Google+ better. There are several reasons for this:
1. It integrates nicely with Google’s other services.
2. It has a neater, cleaner interface and doesn’t freeze-up the way Facebook often does and is better organized (no timeline bullshit to clutter up your pages).
3. It’s easier search for things of Plus than on Facebook. For instance, say I was looking for something about the Internet marketing brand, Sterkly. I just type in sterkly Google+ and Sterkly’s Plus page shows up in the top results, whereas, on Facebook, I’d get pages and pages of people named Sterkly.
4. Better user control over privacy.
No, I’m not into social media. It’s not something I couldn’t live with out. But If I did spend every waking moment on a social networking site, it’d probably be Google+.
