2 Weeks After The PR Hit and The Panda Update
March 29th, 2012 | Posted by Global Investors
Last week, I wrote a complete article on how to survive Google. This article was inspired by the huge PR slap that happened about 2 weeks ago. Last week, there was another Panda update (about 5 times smaller than those previous according to Matt Cutt). Call it luck, call it diversification or call it simply having a lot of sites with a lot of authority; I wasn’t affected at all by either updates by Google. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t have to react.
I’ve been quite busy for the past 2 weeks with email from bloggers who have been hit and looking for answers. I’ve tried to help them to the best of my knowledge, but even then, there are a lot of mysteries that only the Googlers know. All these bloggers have one thing in common: they will all take action to improve their situation.
Some of them will fall, others will recover what they have recently lost and a handful of them will crank up their blog to a level they had never attained. Regardless of their results one year from now; they will all take actions and try to improve their blog.
For the rest of us that haven’t been affected, my guess is that most of us will stay relaxed and keep raking in the money we are used to making. We weren’t affected; we must be sheltered from bad luck. Not me. This time, I won’t wait to take action. These recent events should be a wake-up call for all of us; regardless if you were hit or not.
Over the past 2 weeks, we just got a clear signal that the business is changing, once again. You have 2 options; you either ignore the change and still feel lucky or you go back to the drawing board and evolve your business model.
The recent events are clearly aimed at people who had a business model based on private advertising. We all know that; Google doesn’t like ads besides their own Adsense. Call it a greedy way to exercise their monopoly or simply a clever marketing technique, the facts won’t change. So if your business model relies on this premise, you should continue reading this post because if you don’t evolve, you will get hurt sooner or later.
I can’t obviously remove all my private ads tomorrow morning and say good bye to half of my online income in a single day. I have contracts to must honor and am not ready to cut out such a huge part of my online income. However, it doesn’t mean that I’m going to continue the way I do. I have established a clear plan on how to reduce our private ads to the minimum while increasing our other sources of income. The key is to find ways to increase our revenues and each time we succeed, we will reduce a part of our private ads.
Improving your income from various sources is easier said than done! In order for me to achieve this immense task, I have to look at the strengths of my network and convert them into higher revenues.
Across our network we are on our way to hitting 500,000 pages viewed per month. It is well diversified across several websites and is proven to be quite stable over time. What does page views mean when you think about revenue?
- CPM ads opportunities
- More chances to hook a new visitor via RSS or newsletter subscription
- More chances to get Adsense clicks (or similar ad network)
- More chances to sell products (via affiliates or our own products)
What can be done: I’ve never looked too much at CPM ads so far. They seem to pay a very small payout and didn’t want to bother registering for them to try them out. This is obviously changing upon the recent events! I’m actually going to look at some of the big ad industries such as:
BlogHer (I have some sites dedicated to women 
)
Then, I’m going to modify some site designs to increase the presence of my RSS subscription button along with creating freebies to increase my newsletter subscriptions (read my series on building a newsletter). The more loyal readers you get, the more traffic you can generate without Google. I’ve successfully done this with some of my sites after the first Panda update and am now more independent in terms of traffic.
I’m already good at getting new readers from my traffic. Over the years, I’ve built a solid readership through my RSS feed and newsletter. I’ve only started to monetize this aspect of my blog in 2011. This has been done through a lot of trial and error work but I can see that I’m gradually improving my skills to generate money with loyal readers without upsetting them with too many ads.
I guess the trick is simply to offer useful products/services that I use. Instead of writing boring reviews, I’ve decided to show readers how I benefit from using X & Y products. I have some consistent sales from my article on how to use Market Samurai where I show exactly how I do my own keyword research. I just need to do a lot more articles that do this. They are usually longer and harder articles to write because it requires more research and the time to structure the post. You can’t just go and write whatever crosses your mind!
What can be done: I’ll be looking at doing more post series or email funnels (you have to register for my newsletter to understand how I create email funnels) on what products I use across my sites. I also need to be as specific as possible. Most affiliate products are highly competitive and narrowing my topics will be a great way to get interest from both existing readers and search engines visitors. It’s not like I could rank for a “0%APR balance transfer credit card” within a few months! By being very specific, you also increase the likelihood of not bothering your loyal readers as you will talk about products that can really help them.
I have an incredible amount of articles in my archives. Across my network, I probably have over 5,000 articles written (TFB alone has almost 1,500 articles!). This is a huge database that is sleeping for the most part. Over the past 6 years, I’ve covered a surprisingly wide range of topics and know that a lot of this stuff could be read again today by new readers. I guess that one of my strengths is to write timeless articles. I know there is a lot of money that can be made from my archives.
What can be done: This is probably where a lot of work can be done to earn a lot more money as I’ve never worked too much on my old posts. Here are a few things that I can do:
#1 SEO: This is obvious and cliché. However, if I really go back to older posts that already get some SE traction; I can see exactly how they rank for which keywords with Market Samurai and optimize them accordingly. I will change the title and subtitles to reflect this keyword along with rephrasing a few lines to include synonyms and make the article more keyword rich. This will help me to improve my Adsense stats.
#2 Affiliate Research: I haven’t done many affiliate links in my early days (I was too busy doing private advertising, lol!). By going back to my archive, I’m sure I can find a lot of articles that are talking about great products and include affiliate links in them. What I like about affiliate links is that I can make money in a passive way once the link is up!
#3 Use my archives to create products: I’ve seen this from other sites and it seems to work well. In fact, I first tried to package a part of my archives from one of my smaller sites to make an eBook out of it. Believe it or not but with less than 500 visitors a month, I’m making about $30/month with the eBook for the past 4 months. It’s not a huge amount of money, but it’s a very small niche site a well. I figure that if I can replicate this model on one of my sites that has over 25,000 visitors/month, I should make a lot more! I will also use my archives to create free products in order to increase the number of subscribers 
.
I have given you a few examples of how I intend to move my business model towards my strengths and make as much or even more money that I am making right now. Have you thoughts of your strengths and how you can make money with them? With the current change in the business, I think it’s time for you to look at this aspect, don’t you think?
View full post on The Financial Blogger
Can You Survive Google? 1 Year After The Panda Update
March 19th, 2012 | Posted by Global Investors
If you have been following The Financial Blogger for more than a year, you will remember that I was hit by the Panda update. This was an update done by Google in order to “improve” site rankings in its search engine. Some of my sites were hit hard and I lost up to 50% of my traffic on some of them. This wasn’t the first time that Google “played” with my network. In the past, I’ve been through several “Page Rank updates” (PR) where I could go from a PR4 to a PR2 or worse, a PR0 in the span of a mouse click. The Page Rank is the system used by Google to determine a site’s importance on the internet. A PR0 basically tells the world that your site doesn’t mean much in Google’s eyes. Trust me, when 2 or 3 of your biggest sites get a PR0, it’s worse than getting driven into a pillar by Zdeno Chara.
Each time I get hit by Google, I freak out. You put so much effort to please your god and it turns around and slaps you in the face. Considering that Google’s hand is the size of an elephant, that slap hurts man! I’ve been asked for help by many bloggers with regards to getting back their PR or their search engine traffic. This is why I thought about writing this article where I’ll be sharing with you most of my tricks on how to survive a “Google Apocalypse”.
There are basically 2 things where Google could hit your site very hard:
The search engine optimization game has been in place since the internet was invented. Once Google established its supremacy in the late 90’s early 2000’s, the race for the #1 spot in Google has been the primary objective of most online marketers. Around the mid 2000’s, we saw the progression of a new type of website and Google felt for them: blogs. They offered fresh content almost daily on very specific topics.
This was like the perfect definition of a search engine optimized website: keyword rich with daily fresh content. Over the years, people started to make more and more money with their websites. In the Personal Finance niche, I can tell you that people were laughing at me when I told them back in 2007 that I wanted to make money online. Today, it’s a whole different ballgame where an experienced blogger can make $10,000 per month with his blogs.
However, while bloggers were transforming their blogs to make more and more money, the obsession with tweaking their site to please Google and rank higher reached a level close to prostitution. This is why Google decided to improve its algorithm many times throughout the years. Their most recent update was the “Panda Update” that happened in April and October of 2011. Some people saw their traffic drop by 50% in the span of a week. This is how hard Google can hit if it “deranks” your site from its search engine.
A blog or website, is not much without visitors. More importantly, a blog without search engine traffic cannot become a money making machine. Most loyal readers will comment on the blog and contribute to its community but will rarely click on ads. Unless you have super loyal readers in a very specific niche where there is a need, you won’t be able to sell them many things either (how many of you are making over $1,000/month with affiliate products?). Therefore, Google traffic is a gold mine for any blogger. If you don’t get that traffic, you pretty much say “goodbye” to tons of money.
While understanding how you can rank higher in a search engine is “relatively simple”, understanding how Page Rank (PR) works is a totally different thing. By definition, the Page Rank is a measure used by Google to determine if your site is worth something or not. New and relatively small sites usually range from PR0 to PR2. When you have an established blog, you can get a PR3 (most common), PR4 or PR5 (pretty rare). Some super lucky bloggers will reach a PR6 or PR7 but that’s incredibly rare and your chances of keeping this ranking for several years are not good.
Besides determining your “importance” to Google, it also determines the “power” of any links coming from your site. For example, if you have a PR3 site and you link to a PR2, you are definitely helping them and giving them a push. Your links are “worth” more than another blog that has a PR1 or PR2.
It is important not to mix Page Rank and Search Engine Traffic. You can have a PR4 with a lower level of traffic than a PR3 and so on. If you have a PR drop, it doesn’t mean that you will have less traffic. This is the same if you have a PR increase. Don’t get too excited, you won’t be getting many benefits from it.
To be honest, I’ve quit trying to understand and use this simple definition of a PR update: Google rolls the magic dice with roughly 6 sides and you get the PR on your site that way
Now, if you don’t offer private advertising on your blog, your PR doesn’t matter. Why? Because most people interested in your PR are advertisers who are trying to rank higher in search engines. Therefore, getting links from a PR4 blog in their niche is very powerful. As Google sets pretty much all the rules for search engines, advertisers will want to have links from high PR sites and won’t give much interest to low PR (read PR0) sites. In fact, you can get 100,000 visitors per month and have PR0, you will generate very little interest from most (read 90%) advertisers. You can always try to tell them that other metrics exist, the creators of the “other metrics” don’t operate the biggest search engine in the world.
As I mentioned in the introduction, I have lost Page Rank (I once went from PR4 to PR0 on several blogs!) and been hit by the Panda update. So I’ve suffered from both Google Apocalypses… I just hope that there isn’t a third type that I haven’t discovered yet! Nonetheless, my business revenue has kept increasing throughout the years. I’ll share how to get back on track later but I want to focus on what you can do to make money blogging with less traffic or a lower PR.
Warning: this is not a walk in the park (and a 3,000 words article), if you don’t want to work, skip this post and forget about making money blogging .
Losing ranking sucks. Losing money sucks. But losing hope sucks even more! It’s not the time to panic or waste valuable time and energy complaining or thinking about some kind of evil conspiracy theory against your blog. Reality check: your blog is pretty small in the blogosphere (unless you are a guy like Get Rich Slowly or I Will Teach You To Be Rich ). When I say that, I’m not being arrogant. My whole network is nothing compared to the blogosphere. There are sites reaching my monthly traffic bynoon on a daily basis.
Repeat after me: there is no conspiracy, there is no “poor you”, it’s just a day in a real business life. The business has evolved without you, now it’s up to you to get back on your feet and evolve as well.
Young blogger or experienced one, it is always good to go back to the basics once in a while. Every year or so, I read 2 of my “bibles of blogging”. It helps me to concentrate on what really matters and improve greatly my blog each time I review them. The first book is 31 Days to Build a Better Blog written by ProBlogger. This is definitely the most complete book on how to create a solid and sustainable blog. The thing I appreciate the most about this book is it includes specific tasks to achieve for each “day”. If you haven’t read this at least 3 times, you haven’t covered all blogging angles. The second book I read on a yearly basis is Blueprint for How to Make Money with a Blog by Peter Anderson @ Bibble Money Matters. While ProBlogger’s Book will teach you how to build an incredible blog with great traffic, Blueprint for How to Make Money with a Blog will focus on various ways to make money from it (including how to create your own product). Peter’s surely knows what he is doing as we replaced his wife’s income with his blogs (and he is now doing it without private advertising!). The package comes in 2 versions (PDF and an mp3 file that you can upload to your iPod). If you only want to buy one book, I think that 31 Days to Build a Better Blog is the best option.
First and obvious tip: focus on your readers. You might have been unfairly punished by Google and deliver great content. But the key is to continue to deliver this content. On the other hand, you should be questioning if your content is gold or not. A good trick would be to ask yourself: “would I pay $50 for this post I just wrote?”. If you wouldn’t, this is because you are not providing incredibly good content. A great article will provide a solid opinion on a specific topic with added value for the reader (e.g. things they didn’t know, a how to article or simply an article that helps people to do or understand something). These kinds of articles will get the attention of your readers and probably from other bloggers. You have a great chance of getting references and increase your readership. Your loyal readers will always help you going through tough situations.
Another great way to increase your traffic is to work with other bloggers. By focusing on your readers, you will increase your direct hits. By focusing on other bloggers, you will increase your reference hits. This goes beyond asking a few friends to link towards your site. You will need several actions to generate traffic:
- Guest posts on great blogs
- Comment a lot
- Submit to carnivals
- Participate on forums
- Help other bloggers
- Create group project (see my Dividend Growth Index project)
Don’t underestimate the power of doing group projects. If you are able to gather 10 or so bloggers that are in your same niche, you can “share” your readers amongst the network and everybody gains.
I’ve asked Will Chen one of the founders of Wisebread what was his #1 trick to connect with bloggers and he told me that the best way to do it is to connect with a very few influential bloggers at a time. They can be big stars or people that you truly like (they will most likely become the next big guys anyway). Instead of commenting on 20 sites, focus on 3-4 per month. Don’t just comment, email them, share passions and interests. Build true friendships with them. Don’t just talk about blogging, become friends.
Some people are pretty good at working with other bloggers and are already doing it. I’m not reinventing the wheel here. So if you are doing this part perfectly, focus on the following points.
I’ve written a great series on how to build your newsletter and how I made $463 in a single day with mine. This series outlines the power of a newsletter. Most people are too lazy to register to your RSS and read all your posts. It may be too much for them. However, receiving a bi-weekly newsletter is awesome for them. Especially if you provide your best content in there! The key with a newsletter is that you engage your most loyal readers to follow you all the time. You can drive traffic to your sites, start new projects, and ask them for their opinions. This has tremendous value if you want to build a real business.
The last part of this series (and probably the most important part) is left for my newsletter subscribers (hehehe, I know, I’m a sucker sometimes ). You can subscribe here:
Creating a newsletter will require additional time and it’s not easy to manage everything. On the other hand, your newsletter is one of the tools that is completely independent from Google. This is worth a lot.
Did you know that Google wasn’t the only traffic provider? Think outside the box and try to become more active in the following channels:
- YouTube (yeah I know, it’s still Google)
- Pinterest (read this article if you doubt its power)
Social media is one of the highest sources of search results after classic search engines. If you build a reputation on social media, it will be pretty hard to be “de-ranked” from there. Social media is probably one of the most powerful platforms besides Google where you can increase your readership. If you are popular on Facebook, chances are that these people will eventually read your blog too!
It’s time to open up your mind and get to the drawing board. You need to think about your blog differently. Focus on your passion and forget about the money for a while. If you know a lot about something (and you surely do), focus on that specific niche. When I say focus I mean:
- Do keyword research (read how I use Market Samurai).
- Create a series of articles around these keywords.
- Don’t play keyword stuffing but rather write epic articles on specific topics with these keywords.
- Create a small eBook or an email series to engage your audience.
- Search for affiliates on products you use and are related to your new “niche”.
- Once you get more traction on this niche, you can go for companies to get advertising deals.
- Don’t build a niche site; just focus heavily on a niche within your blog.
- This is how you become the reference in a specific domain (as I’m a reference for buying/selling blogs with TFB for example).
: A classic reflex would be to reduce your blogging activity and your cost. After all, you are going to tell me that you won’t be going anywhere if you lose money each month, right? I’d say that you are half right, half wrong. Invest money, time and energy towards the right activities (those which create value), your blog will grow. You have been spoiled by making money easily, now you have to work to earn a buck. This is the reality of any business. If you thought that the internet or blogging was different, welcome to the real world! Change the word “spend” to “invest”. When you “spend money”, expect a return. Most people doubt in investing strategy for my online company. However, I can tell you that I’ve been growing continuously since 2008. After 4 years of aggressive investment, my expenses are now more stable while my revenues keep growing.
I can never tell people often enough. Diversify your sites, your traffic sources, your income sources, diversify everything. This is the perfect way of not getting brutally hit by any storm. I’m currently running on 4 different servers for the very same reason: if one of my servers goes bust for a day, I’m not losing all my traffic, just 25% of it. There are a lot of ways you can expand your blog to a whole network and become diversified:
- Be active on social media
- Do a podcast
- Create YouTube videos
- Create a forum or group of mastermind bloggers
- Freelance
The 3 Gs (Google’s Good Grace) is the holy trinity of the internet . Getting it back is not an easy task. In fact, I don’t really know how to gain or lose the 3Gs. Getting traffic back or your Page Rank is not easy as there are no clear guidelines. This is why I focused this article on these 8 steps to survive instead of working on getting what you have lost from the very same source. Becoming more independent from the 3Gs is probably the best attitude you can have. Your blog will get a lot stronger if you do that than if you desperately work on what has been lost.
It doesn’t mean don’t make any changes to your site and ignore what just happened. I’ve actually learned a lot from the Panda Update (read lessons learned here). Here’s a resume of what I’ve changed since getting hit:
- Focus on my reader’s experience
- Work on metrics such as number of pages viewed and average time spent on site
- Focus on getting RSS and newsletter subscribers
- Write less articles but more powerful ones (like this one )
- Take clear directions for each of my blogs (so readers really get what they are looking for)
- Implement quarterly objectives to make sure we work on value added projects
- Make sure that each site gets fresh content and with fresh incoming links all the time
I think that focusing on fresh content and fresh incoming links on all our sites was one of the best decisions we ever made. This is being done through various strategies:
- Blogroll exchange
- Carnival submissions
- Comments on other blogs
- Forum posting (with signatures)
- Writing great content so you get more links towards your site
- Highlighting other bloggers (so they are more likely to do the same in the future)
- Create group projects (everybody links to each other and adds a lot of value for readers)
- Write controversial posts (this always brings a lot of comments and links )
- Guest posts
Unfortunately, doing all this won’t necessary get your traffic or Page Rank back from Google. On the other had, it will help you grow your traffic and make more income without being dependent on the 3Gs. If you are somewhat lucky, you will eventually get back the 3Gs on top of gaining traction from all these actions. This is how you will get stronger and become more diversified.
As in any kind of business, there is nothing more important than being diversified. You don’t want to be that guy whose only client is Wal-Mart. If you lose that client, you don’t have a business anymore. This is not having a business model, this is being lucky until the perfect storm strikes.
The day the 3Gs pulls the plug, it sinks your blog . Be independent.
If you have any questions, I’m here to answer on this blog!
View full post on The Financial Blogger
Life Changing Moments Worth Chasing After
February 10th, 2012 | Posted by Global InvestorsAt the beginning of this week, Mike wrote about life changing moments that he has experienced. It was a fun look at some of his accomplishments and defining moments. The changing moments ranged from finishing graduate school to getting married all the way to having kids. Since I’m still in my early-20s (24 is early 20s right?), I wanted to add my perspective here.
I didn’t just want to share my own life changing moments. I wanted to try something different. I’m going to look at life changing moments worth chasing after in your 20s:
Many bloggers like to claim that an education is overrated. I have to disagree with this for the simple fact that college is the best option for the majority of us (unless you’re running a million dollar business at 18) right after high school. What else do you plan on doing at 18 years old?
Finishing your education is a life changing moment because it provides you with a great sense of accomplishment. You were able to complete four years of study. You were able to stick it through. You were also able to survive all of the late night cram sessions and binge drinking weekends to actually make it out alright.
I highly recommend finishing your education in your 20s. You won’t regret it.
There’s nothing like starting your own business and making that first dollar on your own. You can go the traditional route of starting some sort of a service business or you can jump on board and start making money online. Either way it totally makes sense to try starting some sort of a side business while you have all of this energy and youthfulness on your side.
The best part is that you can start a business right now with no money. If you think that you need money to start a business, I have to let you know that you’re thinking is incorrect. With a few dollars, some time, and lots of ambition, you can easily start some sort of a side business in your 20s.
The toughest part with any business is just getting started. Once you start and get momentum on your side, anything can happen. There’s just so many opportunities out there in 2012 and moving forward.
I traveled over a dozen times in my life. In 2011 I finally ventured off to Europe on my own. This was easily one of the most life changing experiences of my life. It’s easy to go down to a party place with your buddies for a week and go wild. It’s another thing to go somewhere on your own and have to fend for yourself.
I showed up in Poland with no real plans. I had to find a place to stay, grab some food, and of course meet new friends somehow. Traveling alone was very humbling. I would totally advise any 20-something reading this to try traveling on your own at some point. It’s the best way to grow as a person and decide what you want to do next.
I’ve been told that getting married can be a pretty great thing. I don’t know much about the topic, but I’ll let you guys add your thoughts on this one.
Life changing experiences define who you are. It would be a shame to miss out on all of those great moments that are waiting for us.
Those are life changing moments that I recommend chasing after. You can have totally opposing thoughts on this topic. What did I miss? What are some of your most memorable life changing experiences?
View full post on The Financial Blogger
Ally Bank Checking Update After 3 Months As Primary Account
July 13th, 2011 | Posted by Global Investors
It’s been a few months since I opened up an Ally Interest Checking account to complement my existing 5-year CDs and online savings account. Click here for a rundown of features that show why I made the switch. I’ve managed to try out many of their “perks”, including their official Perks program. Here are my experiences:
Unlimited ATM Rebates
I’ve made a few ATM withdrawals at random ATMs, and the surcharges have been credited at the end of the month as promised. (I wish they were credited immediately.) Actually being charged those fees made me realize how fast $2-$5 a pop can add up. My fee rebates were almost higher than the interest I earned one month! I actually feel bad making Ally pay for something I could avoid, so whenever possible I still use my local bank’s ATM card for now. I haven’t tried out the international fee rebates yet.
Free Overdraft Transfers from Savings
The checking account pays less interest than savings, so it is best to open both and keep as much money as you can in the savings. The Ally Online Saving account currently pays APY, and is one of the places I keep my emergency fund cash. With their free Overdraft Transfer Service, Ally will automatically transfer the required funds from savings if your checking goes negative. I actually initiated this last month when I wrote a check, here’s the screenshot from my account:
Ally transferred an amount equal to a round number near the overdraft amount plus $100. Alternatively, you can set it to auto-transfer a preset amount over if your checking balance dips to a certain threshold.
eCheck Online Deposit
As mentioned earlier, Ally is rolling out eCheck deposit where you can scan in your checks over the internet with a desktop scanner. (A smartphone app is supposedly in the works.) If you aren’t already enrolled, you can contact them and ask to be on the next wave of signups. I just got my invitation two weeks ago, and have made a deposit successfully on a Mac after following their instructions carefully. (On Mac OS X, users have to use 32 bit mode for Firefox or Safari and Javascript. Chrome is always 32-bit.)
The process is straightforward. You must endorse your check with your signature, the phrase “For Ally eCheck Deposit Only”, and your account number. You can also deposit directly into your Online Savings account. The funds availability policy is such that checks submitted before 4pm Eastern will post the next business day, otherwise the 2nd business day. Your deposit starts earning interest as soon as the check posts, although for large deposits you may have a hold preventing immediate withdrawal.
Ally Perks Debit Card Rewards
This is a free rewards program that is linked to your Ally Checking debit card. It’s not a % cashback program on everything like that offered at Perkstreet Financial, but instead is more of a coupon-style service that works at specific online or brick-and-mortar merchants. I did see a few opportunities for some easy savings, for example $1 off a $1 minimum purchase at iTunes. The coupon amount is deposited directly into your checking account. I plan on checking in from time to time for any useful discounts, but this program certainly won’t convince me to buy things on their debit card. I’ll stick with credit card rewards.
Related posts:
Ally Bank Checking Update After 3 Months As Primary Account from My Money Blog.
© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2011.
View full post on My Money Blog
Carmen Montenegro Arrested After Seen Pushing Trash Can Filled With Body Parts
May 31st, 2011 | Posted by Global InvestorsONTARIO, Calif. — California authorities say a San Bernardino woman was arrested for investigation of murder after she was seen pushing a trash can with body parts inside.
Police arrested 51-year-old Carmen Montenegro Sunday night in an Ontario neighborhood.
View full post on The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com
Snooki In Custody After Cop Car Crash
May 31st, 2011 | Posted by Global InvestorsSnooki was taken into custody in Florence, Italy on Monday after crashing into a police car … TMZ has learned.
Read More…
More on Jersey Shore
View full post on The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com
Doreen Remen: ‘After Hours: Murals On The Bowery’: Behind Closed Grates
May 29th, 2011 | Posted by Global InvestorsBefore there were murals for Art Production Fund’s “After Hours: Murals on the Bowery”, there were… the shop owners. The project is presented in conjunction with the New Museum as part of their Festival of Ideas for the New City, sponsored by Sotheby’s with additional support from The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, but in order to get the murals installed we still needed to convince the shop owners. Mostly long time business people on the Bowery, these shop owners and managers possessed the one thing we wanted: the right to paint on their metal roll down grates. Our objective was clear: to convince them that signing away their grate to be used as a canvas by complete strangers – all for free – was a terrific idea. It took a few trips to collect our required number of locations, but along the way we met some of the most wonderful citizens of our great city. These were the people behind their counters who valued community, who sensed the power of art, and who understood the merit of joining a good cause. We salute all those who said “YES!” Below is a sampling of new friends hosting murals on their site and their thoughts on the project, two weeks in:
Read More…
More on Architecture
View full post on The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com
Delta Flight 2284 From Pittsburgh Evacuated After Landing At Atlanta Airport
May 28th, 2011 | Posted by Global InvestorsATLANTA — Firefighters say four people have sustained minor injuries as a result of a Delta Air Lines jet blew at least one tire landing in Atlanta and suffered an engine fire.
Atlanta Fire Department Capt. Jolyon Bundrige said 49 passengers were evacuated from Flight 2284 after a troublesome landing around 4:15 p.m. Saturday at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. He said none of the injured needed to be taken to a hospital.
View full post on The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com
Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s ‘Sturdy’ Marriage Endures New Strain After Rape Charges
May 23rd, 2011 | Posted by Global InvestorsPARIS — Anne Sinclair is sacrificing millions of her family’s fortune on her husband’s bail and house arrest. Dominique Strauss-Kahn declared his love for his wife in a public letter, and blew her a kiss across a New York courtroom where he was charged with trying to rape a hotel maid.
This display of devotion by one of France’s most famous couples isn’t just for show, say those who know them. They say the force that binds the two is so strong that these grave allegations are unlikely to separate them, and express little surprise that Sinclair is sticking by her husband in this dark hour.
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Southern Sudan Appeals For International Help After Northern Sudanese Forces Seize Abyei
May 22nd, 2011 | Posted by Global InvestorsJUBA, Sudan — Southern Sudanese officials appealed for international help Sunday after northern Sudanese troops seized a disputed border town, but foreign diplomats say they have little leverage to dislodge northern soldiers from a flash point that threatens to re-ignite the country’s civil war.
“The present occupation (by the northern government) is illegal, this is the responsibility of the (U.N.) Security Council to see that they are withdrawn,” said Barnaba Marial Benjamin, the south’s information minister.
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