When people ask me what was the best decision I made when I decided to create this website, they are often surprised when I tell them that it was my decision to quit watching TV.
There is no doubt that TV costs people far more financially than they believe. For most people, TV is a habit that costs in excess of $1 million over a lifetime, or the equivalent of a healthy retirement account.
I made a conscious choice about five years ago to drastically reduce the amount of TV I watch. The average person now watches 4.5 hours of TV a day.
While my watching habits werenât quite that bad, I did find out I was watching about three hours a day, far more than I thought at the time.
I made the conscious decision to take those three hours and devote them to creating a website with a friend of mine.
Over the first three years I used the time I had been watching TV to help create and build our websites while still working full time in another job.
Itâs amazing the amount you can accomplish when you find an extra 3,285 hours to work on something you enjoy doing rather than vegging in front of the TV.
Those hours helped us create a small network of websites and blogs which allowed both of us to quit our jobs and work on them full time a couple of years ago.
To put it into perspective, if you watch an average of 31.5 hours of TV each week (which the average person in the US does) and you value your time at minimum wage of $5.85 an hour, you are spending nearly $800 a month to watch TV. That comes to nearly $10,000 a year.
I would imagine that most people reading this value their time well above minimum wage, so the cost is likely several times that number. When you look at it from that perspective, watching TV is an extremely expensive and financial draining habit to have.
[Via - Webiot.com]
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IdeaSpotting: How to Find Your Next Great Idea
How to Make Millions with Your Ideas: An Entrepreneurâs Guide by Dan S. Kennedy
Did you like Freakonomics? Here is a list of 10 books like Freakonomics
1. Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets: Surviving the Public Spectacle in Finance and Politics
In Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets, Bonner and freelance journalist Lila Rajiva use literary economics to offer broader insights into mass behavior and its devastating effects on society. Why is it, they ask, that perfectly sane and responsible individuals can get together, and by some bizarre alchemy turn into an irrational mob? What makes them trust charlatans and demagogues who manipulate their worst instincts? Why do they abandon good sense, good behavior and good taste when an empty slogan is waved in front of them. Why is the road to hell paved with so many sterling intentions? Why is there a fool on every corner and a knave in every public office?
2. A Demon of Our Own Design: Markets, Hedge Funds, and the Perils of Financial Innovation
Why do markets keep crashing and why are financial crises greater than ever before? As the risk manager to some of the leading firms on Wall Streetâfrom Morgan Stanley to Salomon and Citigroupâand a member of some of the worldâs largest hedge funds, from Moore Capital to Ziff Brothers and FrontPoint Partners, Rick Bookstaber has seen the ghost inside the machine and vividly shows us a world that is even riskier than we think. The very things done to make markets safer, have, in fact, created a world that is far more dangerous. From the 1987 crash to Citigroup closing the Salomon Arb unit, from staggering losses at UBS to the demise of Long-Term Capital Management, Bookstaber gives readers a front row seat to the management decisions made by some of the most powerful financial figures in the world that led to catastrophe, and describes the impact of his own activities on markets and market crashes. Much of the innovation of the last 30 years has wreaked havoc on the markets and cost trillions of dollars.
3. Poop Culture: How America Is Shaped by Its Grossest National Product
Poop Culture is an excellent book about a topic that is largely (and unfairly) ignored. Perhaps the greatest asset and the greatest weakness of the book is its breadth. The author covers many different approaches to the topicâfrom the psycho-social elements of poop (i.e. shame) to the history of the toilet to cultural symbolism to poop in art to the economic/ecologic effects of the way we as a society deal with our poop. Itâs at once odd and heartwarming to see a diagram of the best way to poop (squatting) or talk of South Park in the same book that also contains theoretical musings on Jonathan Swift and Marcel Duchamp.
4. The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World
I think that I have read all of the recent âeconomics of everythingâ (Harfordâs phrase) books and this one is, in my view, the best. I also try to keep up with recent research in applied economics and found some gems in these pages that I had missed. The author alludes to about 200 papers and books from recent economics research and presents them in the most reader-friendly way, all in about 200 pages. I call that very efficient. Harfordâs summary is also a useful antidote to all the âbehavioral economicsâ that the popular press has picked up. The idea that some of us depart from rational choice on occasion is hardly news. The point of this book, that the rational choice model, has amazing power range is worth reiterating.
5. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
Four hundred years ago, Francis Bacon warned that our minds are wired to deceive us. âBeware the fallacies into which undisciplined thinkers most easily fallâthey are the real distorting prisms of human nature.â Chief among them: âAssuming more order than exists in chaotic nature.â Now consider the typical stock market report: âToday investors bid shares down out of concern over Iranian oil production.â Sigh. Weâre still doing it.
6. The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas
The book indeed is like Freakonomics in that its purpose is to reveal the economic rational behind everyday matters. It is different from Freakonomics in that it follows a âtop-downâ approach: each of the bookâs chapters corresponds to a basic economic principle (for example supply and demand for a chapter, and signals and asymmetric information for another) that is explained via real world examples. So if one can say that the goal of Freakonomics was in reaching the bottom reason/motive of particular phenomena, it can also be said that the goal of The Economic Naturalist is to elicit fundamental economic principles through questions and answers. In this sense the book is more educational.
The book is full of fascinating stories in which psychology meets economics. The author applies the above concepts and ideas to a wide, wide variety of everyday situations, such as chess, doing the dishes, UN diplomat parking violations, bonuses in the workplace, petty crime, expercise programs, student drinking, tardiness, RSVPâs, meetings, going to museums, buying paintings, reading, buying music, toilet seat positions (a very, very important topic), gift giving, pickup lines, personal ads, marriage, being tortured, recognizing liars, gym memberships, shopping, eating and restaurants and getting the best food, âThe Seven Deadly Sinsâ, sexual intercourse, beggars, charitable giving, and tipping. WHEW! WOW!
In 1906, Francis Galton, known for his work on statistics and heredity, came across a weight-judging contest at the West of England Fat Stock and Poultry Exhibition. This encounter was to challenge the foundations of his lifeâs study. An ox was on display and for six-pence fair-goers could buy a stamped and numbered ticket, fill in their names and their guesses of the animalâs weight after it had been slaughtered and dressed. The best guess received a prize. Eight hundred people tried their luck. They were diverse. Many had no knowledge of livestock; others were butchers and farmers. In Galtonâs mind this was a perfect analogy for democracy. He wanted to prove the average voter was capable of very little. Yet to his surprise, when he averaged the guesses, the total came to 1197 pounds. After the ox had been slaughtered, it weighted 1198. James Surowiecki takes Galtonâs counterintuitive notion and explores its ramification for business, government, science and the economy. It is a book about the world as it is. At the same time, it is a book about the world as it might be. Most of us believe that valuable nuggets of knowledge are concentrated in few minds. We believe the solution to our complex problems lies in finding the right person. When all we have to do, Surowiecki demonstrates over and over, is ask the gathered crowd.
9. The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less
Like Thoreau and the band Devo, psychology professor Schwartz provides ample evidence that we are faced with far too many choices on a daily basis, providing an illusion of a multitude of options when few honestly different ones actually exist. The conclusions Schwartz draws will be familiar to anyone who has flipped through 900 eerily similar channels of cable television only to find that nothing good is on. Whether choosing a health-care plan, choosing a college class or even buying a pair of jeans, Schwartz, drawing extensively on his own work in the social sciences, shows that a bewildering array of choices floods our exhausted brains, ultimately restricting instead of freeing us. We normally assume in America that more options (âeasy fitâ or ârelaxed fitâ?) will make us happier, but Schwartz shows the opposite is true, arguing that having all these choices actually goes so far as to erode our psychological well-being. Part research summary, part introductory social sciences tutorial, part self-help guide, this book offers concrete steps on how to reduce stress in decision making. Some will find Schwartzâs conclusions too obvious, and others may disagree with his points or find them too repetitive, but to the average lay reader, Schwartzâs accessible style and helpful tone is likely to aid the quietly desperate.
This book deserves the widest possible exposure in America, especially so close to the election, because it an excellent primer on how to guard yourself against the faulty reasoning that governs so much modern political discourse - and avoid adopting it yourself. I first heard about the book because one of its points was mentioned in an essay. The point was basically that just because someone has a motive to hold a certain position doesnât necessarily mean that the position is false. This seemed pretty obvious, but as I turned to the media I was amazed at how often politicians use this method, and how easily I had accepted their claims if they lined up with my political preferences.
[Via - MadConomist.com]
IdeaSpotting: How to Find Your Next Great Idea
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Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world’s first risk free naming agency
Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world’s first risk free naming agency
1. Frank Schilling - The Multimillionaire Domainer
The two Web multimillionaires had never crossed paths, but when Russell C. Horowitz and Frank Schilling finally met to talk business three years ago, the summit began in style - sipping soft drinks poolside at the Four Seasons Las Vegas and chatting about private jets.
2. Feds shut down California’s domain name over hacker intrusion
The US General Services Administration (GSA), a federal agency that oversees government Web sites, took steps earlier this week to shut down California state governmentâs Internet and email service after a hacker apparently was able to route incoming Internet traffic to Web sites that contained the domain name ca.gov to a porn Website.
3. How To Sell A Nine Dollar Domain For $38,650
There comes a time in every internet marketerâs career when they are faced with a burning desire to do better and bring their business and projects to the next level. Unfortunately for most of them, theyâll never get there. This happens because most people arenât willing to take on much risk, due to thinking too far into the future, or just putting too much thought into taking a leap of faith.
An upcoming book about the domain name industry is on hold. Writer David Kesmodel, who currently writes for The Wall Street Journal, has worked hard over the past year or so on the book, but the original publisher involved with the project canceled the book. Kesmodelâs agent is currently shopping the book to other publishers. âIâm very disappointed, but Iâm hoping to find another publisher soon,â Kesmodel told Domain Name Wire. âLots of people spent a lot of time with me to help me write what I believe is a compelling book.â
5. The Ethics Of Domain Name Selling
A few months ago, when my wife was still pregnant, I registered the domain name âBabycation.com.â I had been making jokes with a friend about how my time off from work for paternity leave was going to be one big vacation where Iâd get to catch up on lots of book reading and TV. (Not surprisingly, I was wrong on that.) I took to calling my paternity leave my âBabycationâ and while we were discussing this, I checked and saw the domain name was available. I bought it for about $10. And forgot all about it.
6. Watch out for Chinese domain name issues
For some businesses, having an internet site (most likely in the Chinese language) that can be found at a â.cnâ domain name might be valuable. Others might prefer to have a link on the main dotcom page that goes to a Chinese-language site. Yet, again, as with their trademarks, even these companies should consider filing for key domain names under the â.cnâ regime to protect them defensively. The filings will also keep those domains available for future use.
Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world’s first risk free naming agency
Link of the day - If You Sell Links On Your Site, I Will Buy Them Off You
1. Canadian Porno Pizza Proves Once Again - Sex Sells
Porno Pizza in Winnipeg has been doing brisk business since opening last week, titillating the hungry with racy pictures at the bottom of every pizza box. âThey range from softly-lit, lube-on-the-lens pictures like in Playboy, to raunchy, hardcore photos that would make (porn publisher) Larry Flynt blush,â pizzeria owner Corey Wildeman said. âThe image is revealed as you eat the pizza.â
The most noted pioneer in the poop-scooping business is Matthew Osborn, who runs Pooper-Scooper.com. He never knew that this business would one day make him a millionaire. Osborn got started back in 1987 when he opened Pet Butler in Columbus, Ohio. “I had been interested in small-business ideas since I was a kid,” he says. “My friends thought it was an interesting but far-out idea, and many of them just couldn’t grasp the concept. They all said, ‘People aren’t going to pay you for that.’”
3. How Unknown Designer Tricked Stars Into Taking Her Purses To Oscar
It was Friday afternoon, two days before the Oscars, and Lauren Merkin, a little-known New York handbag designer, waited inside her room at the swank Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel, hoping that the $31,000 she had invested in producing a collection of 65 one-of-a-kind “Red Carpet” bags for Hollywood’s biggest evening was about to pay off.
4. The Richest Piano Player You’ve Never Heard About
After ten years of university training in classical piano, Lorie Line finally landed her first job as a professional musician. For $40 a day she was hired to tickle the ivories every afternoon at Dayton’s department store in downtown Minneapolis. Wedged between handbags and lingerie, she serenaded shoppers with a seamless stream of pop tunes - and occasionally gave directions to the restroom - without missing a note. But the young pianist in the glamorous black gown was definitely resourceful. After noticing shoppers lingering around the girdle racks listening to her play, she figured she had the start of a fan club. So she cashed in her husband’s 401(k) and used the $2,000 to record a CD, which she stacked on a corner of the piano to sell. It proved to be as popular as the push-up bra. Within three years she had sold more than $1 million worth in Dayton’s.
5. Pregnant Woman Finds A Strange Way To Make Money Online
When Holly was pregnant a few years back in 1999, she looked for a unique way to tell her friends and family of her pregnancy. Making phone call after phone call to every cousin, aunt and uncle was a daunting task, but she still wanted to share her news with everyone. She hunted through stores and on the Internet and all she could find were birth announcements. Thus, Holly’s idea for Fetal Greetings was born.
6. How To Make Millions Destroying Something
Looney Bins found a market niche by contracting with local Hollywood movie studios to deconstruct movie lots containing wood, cardboard, metal, plastic, and other salvageable items; Looney Bins then sells and/or donates the recovered materials. Some of the uses promoted by Looney Bins have included providing wood to a company that makes reconstituted pallets; reusing Warner Bros. Studios’ telephone poles for the Special Olympics; shipping reclaimed nails, screws, and other building materials to hospitals overseas; and helping a Southern California nursery reuse wood scrap for planter boxes.
7. How To Turn $5000 To $25 Million In 5 Years Selling To ⌠Babies
Most great ideas are born from a need. The Baby Einstein Company LLC based in Littleton, Colorado, came from Julie Aigner-Clarkâs need for a learning tool for her infant daughter. In 1995, this former teacher and new mom read the latest research regarding babiesâ capacity to learn. Finding nothing in stores that used the research and that was developmentally appropriate, educational and fun, Aigner-Clark (pictured with daughters Sierra, 3, and Aspen, 6) decided to create something herself.
8. How One Guy Became A Millionaire Selling Antenna Balls
As Jason Wall sees it, success is all about having a ball. Since 1998, Wall has been topping car antennas with happy faces, 8-balls and even cowgirls - complete with braids and hats. Wall is president and CEO of In-Concept Inc., the company behind Antennaballs.com, which manufactures more than 500,000 custom antenna balls per month.
9. How To Make A Ton Of Money From Balsam
Wendy and her husband Jack moved from East Brunswick, New Jersey to Maine in 1979 with a dream of building their own home and have a simple, natural life. Wendy, then 24, even went back to college to study the newest methods of farming in anticipation of their new life because âthat’s what we thought we would do when we came up here.â Their hope was simply to lead a self-sufficient life. As she puts it, âwe didn’t want to become big farmers.â The reality, however, was not easy.
10. Big Money In Coming Up With Domains For Others
At the beginning of the âdot comâ era you could get paid thousands of dollars for a single domain name if it caught the attention of the right people. Dmitry Davydovâs success online went something like this, except he charged a measly fifty dollars for each domain name that he came up with. The buyers liked it since it was risk free and they didnât have to pay anything if they didnât like the name. Dmitry liked the idea because every single domain name he sold meant fifty dollars gotten doing something that he enjoyed. Soon enough The San Francisco Chronicle got wind of his story and with the fame came more customers. Crowd sourcing became the next step for Dmitry and the rest is history.
IdeaSpotting: How to Find Your Next Great Idea
How to Make Millions with Your Ideas: An Entrepreneur’s Guide by Dan S. Kennedy
101 Businesses You Can Start With Less Than One Thousand Dollars: For Stay-at-Home Moms & Dads
Link of the day - If You Sell Links On Your Site, I Will Buy Them Off You
1. Domain Tasting May Soon Be Banned
THE global internet regulator is investigating domain tasting, the controversial process where users register domain names to test their effectiveness in collecting extra traffic and then cancel the registration before fees become due.
2. Courts Are Starting To Issue Restraining Orders Against Cybersquatters
Companies sometimes find that opportunistic purchasers of domain names (often referred to as âdomainers”), will purchase a domain name quite similar to that of the company, and establish a site at the URL loaded with revenue-generating sponsored ads. To accomplish these purposes, domainers seem to prefer the services of companies like HitFarm and Domain Sponsor. A web user types in the confusingly similar URL and is bombarded with pop-up ads and sponsored links to goods and services, often competitive to the company whose name or trademark is being appropriated in the URL.
3. Russia fights with ICANN to save .SU domain name
The US organization that oversees the web’s structure, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), wants to kill of the .su domain that was assigned to Russia just 15 months before the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The new domain assigned to Russia is, of course, .ru which is the most popular domain but many Russian organizations continue to register and use the older .su domain, partly because of its nostalgia.
4. Iraq.Com Is On Sale On Sedo. Current Bid Is $560,000
The domain name Iraq.com is up for auction at domain name aftermarket Sedo, and is currently bid up to the equivalent of $560,000 USD. Eight bidders have staked a claim, but the reserve price hasnât been met. On the plus side, you donât have to set foot in Iraq to own a piece of the country by buying this domain. Unfortunately, buying Iraq.com doesnât come with any oil rights.
5. Grassroot Effort Started To Give New York City Its Own Domain Name (.NYC)
Is it time for the big city to start cornering a piece of the Internet? A growing grassroots movement says yes, and is trying to create a “.nyc” domain name to go alongside the dot coms and dot orgs of the World Wide Web. “When Ford introduced their first car 100 years ago, no one thoughtto start building roads for it,” said Tom Lowenhaupt, an interactive marketing consultant who heads Connecting.nyc, a group he formed to lead the effort. “So we ended up having to tear down miles of the Bronx to build freeways to start accommodating them all. It’s the same thing now. We have the opportunity now to plan for the future and start organizing ourselves and our resources in a responsible way.”