I am ready to give up on Twitter

I know someone that was into Twitter.  He was excited about it and for a period of time was addicted to it.  He found some of the comments humorous and involving.  He enjoyed the commentary on politics from national to local and even used it for his own run for a local office as well as raising awareness for local causes.  This went on for awhile but after a few months his interest waned and I believe he only gets on Twitter infrequently to check out the latest current happenings but not with the same level of passion.

But he did have passion at one time and that passion aroused an interest in me to try it out.  The other factor was all the attention that Donald Trump was getting from his use of twitter.  For all the media reporting about what he had said or didn't say on Twitter it made me curious as to whether he actually did say or didn't say that on Twitter and was it real, fake, sound bites, taken out of context, incomplete or just spin.  I wanted to see for myself.

Twitter sounds straight forward enough and is probably the reason we have #hashtags everywhere.  In fact, that is one reason it took me so long to take an interest in Twitter, you have to learn to read code.  Tweets are limited to 140 characters which should make for some short, lively, thoughtful and concise exchanges between a community of tweeters.  The #hashtags are used to link the tweets by subjects and can be a way to explore topics by searching for your favorites.  You can choose to follow an individual or subject/topic and any new post will fill the news feed on your homepage.  So far so good.

Now for the reality.  Not all of your friends are on Twitter and if they are they were only there for a short time before losing interest and don't post regularly anymore nor are they likely to be monitoring what you have posted because they just don't check anymore.  They do Facebook.  Everybody does Facebook.  Facebook does not have 140 character limits.  Why bother with Twitter when it is all on Facebook.  Hard to argue that.

Twitter had a 'right now' feel about it. In other words, you could get on right now and make comments about, or read comments from others about what they were thinking about some event that was taking place right now and there was a good chance that someone somewhere was also out there witnessing that event right now just waiting to share opinions and comments right now.  If you are in the moment and have a need to share with anyone in the moment but are separated by distance and acquaintance then Twitter may work for you, if not you are probably on Facebook which for many can still be an in the moment tool.

It isn't for lack of trying on Twitters part.  From the moment of signup they have tried to connect me into their world by way of multiple e-mails asking about all my interest as well their willingness to link me with all my friends if I just give them access to my e-mail address books.  Sorry Twitter, my respect for my friends trumps your desire to access their e-mail addresses.  But I did take them up on initial suggestions for subjects/topics and Donald Trump.

Speaking of the Donald, least you get the wrong idea, I am not a fan and I am not a hater.  I think he is arrogant, egotistical, not nearly as bright as many would like him to be, and going all the way back to his first book, one that is more about the show than the substance.  Can he get things done?  Like all things political it depends on your definition.  And like all things political if it is something he favors he will take the credit and if it is something he does not favor it is the other guys fault.  So what is new here?  (Replace the name Donald with any politicians name and it will read the same.  Kind of like a horoscope.)

For good measure I also signed up for a couple of other politicians to get a lay of the land.  Most were deleted in short order, but I did leave a couple of the more active current noise makers to get a sense of the state of the union, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.  What I have learned from these three could fill a thimble.  Okay, I might be exaggerating a little.  If I stuck it out long enough it might fill the thimble part way.

What I have learned is that if voters were willing to pay just a little bit more attention to what these people where saying there is no way, shape or form that they would have this kind of power and influence upon this great land and it's people.  Funny what we allow when we aren't paying attention.

So again I ask, what is Twitter?  The one thing that is left when you strip away the value of original intent: advertising.  Twitter advertises like most web sites and I am okay with that.  If however, you pretend that your advertisements are part of the real content then I lose some respect for you.  Also, most advertising is supposedly selected for you based on your interest, tailored if you will, but I have yet to see it work well in practice.  I imagine that after many months of participation they might get lucky and hit a few ads that are relevant but I also imagine that I still wont pay much attention to them.  As long as ads pay the bills and keep the service free to use, I can live with that.

So, since real people that spend time on Twitter are hard to find and phony popular celebrity people are a dime a dozen with mostly one way dialogues, the only other players on Twitter are the businesses that are trying to draw attention to themselves in any way they can.  That also means noise.  What is missing in content is made up for with volume.  I have seen some tweets done 4 or 5 different ways on the same story with a slight variation but with the intent of causing action on the part of the viewer, a ploy of marketing.

Which brings me to my biggest complaint with Twitter, namely that 140 characters is never enough for today's messages and so 98% of the tweets are little more than links to some other page in some other location in some other corner of the world wide web.  That's right, the goal of Twitter is to draw you in so that it can send you away.  As a launching pad or gateway it is no better or worse than what a lot of the internet has become other than you can make better choices for launching down a rabbit hole if you have more to go on than 140 characters and #hashtags.  And with that I have to state that for me Twitter is

No Value Added

and that is the only measuring stick that matters.  Time is too precious to squander on something that delivers so small a return on investment.  It would be interesting to see real statistics on usage, retention, membership new and old and participation rates for Twitter.  I am betting that the stock would not trade so highly if logic and reason prevailed but then if logic and reason prevailed we wouldn't have the Twitter we have today, nor those that make the most noise on it.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farrwest.

I hate teasers

Teasers are those lousy, misleading sound bites and headlines that are designed specifically to entice you to stay tuned or click a link only to be disappointed by the lack of substance that follows.

News shows used to be the worst by stating things like 'research shows that most homes contain an item in your kitchen that could make you very sick and possibly kill you.  We'll let you know what it is after this break' and then they cut to a commercial and you can't wait for them to get back only to learn that if you have the same sponge sitting on your sink for the past 13 months that it might grow some bacteria that might not be the best for you...duh.

The practice has grown beyond any semblance of sensibility on the web.  Sites like MSN and Yahoo have taken this to a whole new level of ridiculous and then they double down with their advertising links from the likes of Taboola.  (By the way if you see any advertisement by Taboola I suggest that you ignore it completely and do not click it even if you think it might be legit as I have never, ever found anything of value associated with them.)  They use titles that sound like something but are really nothing.  They are designed to draw you in but never deliver.  The term for this is click bait.

Yes click bait, just like the bait you find on a hook used to lure a fish to latch on and lose its life thus becoming someone elses' dinner.

They always take a popular subject (and there is always something to choose from) and allude to the possibility of having some new information about said subject or update about your fan favorites.  And then you sucker in only to realize that the only purpose they had was to sucker you in.  The web site they link to may have something to do with said subject (but many times it does not) because the real intent is to overwhelm the viewer with ads in the hope of getting the viewer to act on the ads or at the very least expose you to even more ads.

Even though the percentage of views that actually convert to a buy are probably very, very small it must still be profitable because we continue to be exposed to so much of it.  The cost to load millions upon millions of these ads is less than the revenue they see from their efforts or they wouldn't bother.

And there is a lot of them bothering with it.  It feels like 99% of all these ads are of this nature.  (I am pretty sure it is only 98.9% but I don't have the statistics to prove it.)  And you wonder why we have gotten so good at ignoring ads, whatever they are or wherever come from.

It amazes me that the advertising industry can be this big and spend so much money and have so little concern for their customers or reputations of the companies they represent.  It is so hard to find quality or excellence in advertising on the internet, print or broadcast let alone memorable moments or anything worthy of water cooler discussions.

Even when we want to like and talk about ads and try to make them a main topic of focus as big as the event they are tied to such as the Super Bowl, where the biggest and brightest culminate all their skill and effort into creating the hoped for viral adoration of millions to justify their fees, we can still be disappointed.

As someone who enjoys and prefers the advertising driven content over the paid subscription business model, I am left wondering what the future will bring.  I believe that the volume of advertising to content has driven much of the subscription market where you pay for the content to be ad free.  We have gone from a show that was sponsored by a company that mentioned the sponsors name in the show to a few well spaced and placed ad interruptions but with the majority of the shows hour being content, and now having longer and more frequent interruptions where the content barely covers the majority of the hour.  When a 96 minute movie takes 3 hours of broadcast time you know something is messed up.  No wonder TiVo became so popular with it's ability to skip ahead past the commercials.

And if the quality of the commercials continues to fall off across the board, then you know a vacuum will develop and that means opportunities for those who are willing to offer an alternative to fill that vacuum.  You see it happening already when you see how many have left local radio for internet and satellite broadcast and the big move from cable to internet sourced TV.

The content has to be pretty incredible to overcome what advertisement is doing to it.  That is asking a lot given the current state of programming.  Changes are coming and I am hoping for good things to come from it.  Actually I am counting on it.  I am always looking for a better way.  Let's hope we get it.  This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farrwest.

Amazon ratings warning

I had heard a comment about this before concerning the Amazon Fire Phone where the ratings started out on the rough side and later when they were trying to clear out the old stock with a sale, they cleared the star ratings and basically started over in an attempt to get a better star rating.  I saw this but wondered if it had anything to do with the phone being pulled from the market for a period before giving it one more effort.  They brought it out with a much better price and threw in a year of Amazon Prime for less than half the original introductory price.

If this was merely a second attempt to market the phone and/or a version 2.0 of the phone, then it would make sense to make this the equivalent of a new product and deserving of a new star rating but if it was not, and the fact that they were still listing a rather large number of total reviews given just days after the reset, then they were playing games.

I have read others mention that this was happening and for items other than just the Fire Phone but didn't take a lot of heed.  I couldn't believe, or didn't want to believe that Amazon would do this.  Besides this seemed like a numbers game that others might play but not our tried and true Amazon.

Then I got an e-mail that talks about saving big on Xfinity Internet.  Always looking for a deal I clicked to see and was met with the opening visual:

At first glance it doesn't look too bad other than the price is kind of high for a measly 25 Mbps and excluding equipment, install, taxes and fees.  Go faster and it gets worse.  Still it looks like 916 customers have given it an average of 4 stars.  Pretty good by normal ratings standards.  Remember that on a scale of 1 to 5 the median is 3 and not half of 5 or 2.5.

Now after the first impression, you being the savvy shopper you are, you look down the screen to see what some of those reviews actually say and then com across this:

Initially it is still looking good.  Sure 3.8 is not the full 4 stars that it shows being filled in but 3.8 is still a good way to the higher side of middle ground.  But wait a minute.  86% of the 916 reviewers gave it a one star.  If you have read many reviews you will know that the only reason for some to give a one star review is because they have no way to give them a zero star review.

So let's do some math.  Don't worry, I will keep it simple.
916 * 86% = 788 then times 1 equals 788
916 * 2%  = 18 then times 2 equals 36
916 * 2% = 18 then times 3 equals 54
916 * 2% = 18 then times 4 equals 72
916 * 8% = 73 then times 5 equals 365

Double check 788+18+18+18+73 = 915  within one is better than government.
Now add 788+36+54+72+365= 1,315 for total stars given

so that means if we take the total stars and divide by the number of reviews we should get the real star rating of 1,315/916 = 1.435589519650655 or rounded out to 1.4 stars.  By the way, even if I throw in the extra person to make it a full 916 and give the benefit of the doubt that the missing count would have given a full 5 stars the number still rounds to 1.4 (1.441048034934498 to be exact).

Wait a minute, they calculated it to be 3.8 and rounded it to 4 when filling out the stars to display.  What gives Amazon?  Real math doesn't even come up to half that amount.

Is this just really bad math, somebody falling asleep at the wheel, or are you playing games because you have a deal going with Xfinity that is paying you to push their product on your web site and through you customer's via their e-mails.  If the later, then this is major league bogus, deceptive and fraudulent and should be beneath you or any business that desires to deal from a place of integrity.  If this is an innocent mistake then you have got other problems that need to be addressed and corrected quickly.

I understand that stuff can happen, typos occur and sometimes mistakes are just that.  If it starts to happen often or you start to hear examples coming from more than a few minor sources, it may indicate a trend or a change in policy that may negatively impact the relationship between a company and its customers.  I am not ready to make the call just yet because I have had a pretty good relationship with Amazon myself but this is worth watching to see where it goes form here.  If I were an investor looking at the company, I would definitely want to know more.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farrwest.

Tsu I hardly knew ya

You might remember that I recommended a new site called Tsu some time ago.  It is one of those sites that took me away from many other things.  Sadly it is no more.

It made great promises of revenue sharing with those that contributed content which was a great concept and I imagine some actually made a few bucks as they testified to the fact on the site.

It was also a great way for me to experiment with a social networking site similar to Facebook but with the potential to reap some reward from your original content.  I was certainly intrigued enough to go for it and made a few connections along the way.

A lot of the content became very similar to what others had and did and there was a whole lot of copy and paste and share from others and initially that was okay because that was a way to be introduced to others on the site.  After awhile it was not invigorating enough but you could still happen on to some wonderful nuggets now and then.

It grew fast, fast enough that it scared Facebook into pulling any mention of it from their site for a time before they were pressured to put those mentions back.  You could see new members come and make many post with much enthusiasm and attention.  You could also see those new members fall to the way side as the promises of payout were not big enough soon enough to convince them to stay.  But the model was valid and the promises were possible very much like network marketing.

But then they changed.  (see the previous post and you will know what I am talking about)

They change the payout formula, they changed the way you could interact with others, and then they changed the whole web face and format so that your pages and your community took a back seat to the site itself.  Tsu took center stage and was now only willing to share the spotlight with any outside of its controlled group.  I am sure that was the beginning of the crash.  A couple of months later and the web page became a letter saying thank you but we are done, pick up your belongings.

Not the first Web site to die, not the last.  Regrets? Not really other than a good idea gone sour.  I did learn from it and I did enjoy the ride even if I was not one that made it pay.  Actually it did pay because as I said I did learn from it and I did enjoy the ride.  Payment enough sometimes.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farrwest.

When do you get to it all

I talked about e-mails and keeping up with all the ones that find their way into my inbox, but what about all the other sites out there vying for your time.  Of course there are selective blogs that must be written and read but what about Facebook, and LinkedIn and Twitter, and Snapchat, and Pinterest, and Instagram and all the other sites I don't even know about.

It seems that we have all been told (and especially those in business) that we need to have a presence in all of these sites all over the whole world wide web.  I say WRONG.

The more I have learned about different sites a couple of things stand out.  Some sites are better suited for some people, businesses, cultures, types etc. and some are not.  Find the one that best matches your clan, with who they are and who you are and where they are and where you are and go with it.  That is because of the second thing I have seen.

You will spread yourself too thing and not be able to be in all places at all times.  I am sad to say I am a bad example of this.  I wanted to learn about the other sites and so went on an expedition only to come back to base to find that no one had been keeping the place up.  I was gone for many days, weeks, months between entries in my blog while I was off making entries elsewhere.

I am not the only one with this problem.  Many businesses have tried to put there brand all over the web only to have the site one would go to have the last entry be months and sometimes years ago (outdated and no longer relevant).  If they had multiple sites they might have tried to produce one entry and copy and paste it to all the others and it would leave me asking why bother with the others.  Or, the business had grown beyond a solo player and so different teams would maintain different sites only to end up with a different persona at each of the different web sites.  (Big corporate has a real problem with this even though they think they are just marketing differently to various niches.  Maybe so but it feels more like sending mixed messages.)

So my word of advise for now is to produce our product and placed it where it belongs.  If you produce a different product and it belongs in a different place then so be it.  But don't spread yourself so thin that you can not support who and what you are with what you have.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farrwest.

So Tsu me

Well I did it.  I signed up for a new social network and so far so good.  You might have heard of tsu.co as the alternate Facebook where you can get a cut of the advertising revenue for producing content rather than letting the Zuckerberg boys have all the fun.  At least that is the idea and I am game for that.

Tsu takes a cut of 10% which isn't much these days and then they pay the content producer half the remaining amount with the other half going to the content producers sponsors (kind of like the upline and downline of multi level marketing).

That means you have to have a sponsor or referral to get in.  It is o.k. because you know me and I will be sure to hook you up if you want in.  My link is https://www.tsu.co/EdHWW.  If you know Facebook then you already know Tsu.  Similar if not simpler.  Where I felt lost with Facebook, Tsu comes a bit more intuitively.  I like that in a web site.

It is new and developing and I am sure there are some that think it wont last but I don't care.  It is a work in process.  If this takes off, and it looks like it may, Facebook has something that it hasn't had to worry about up to this point; competition.  Worried?  Probably not but they better not rest on their laurels and start taking care of their core customers because there now is another place to play.

Here is that invite once again.

https://www.tsu.co/EdHWW

It is kind of exciting to be on the leading edge of something.  If it doesn't work fine, but if it does just Tsu me.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farrwest.

Walmart and Visa debit card create big time fail

I generally like Walmart and have done much business with them.  I haven't been caught up in all the chatter about how 'Walmart is evil' which seems to be mostly a hate story merely because of their size.  You can find good and bad policy in almost every corporation in this modern day, it is mostly a matter of what you like to look for.

Bust some days, a mistake is made.  A mistake that lessons the company in the eyes of its customer's.  In this case, an attempt to purchase a couple of gift cards as birthday gifts.  Rather than getting a store specific card it was decided to get them something that could be used at any place they pleased with a Visa debit card that could be used anywhere.  How easy, how simple, how convenient.  Why not?

A transaction fee that amounted to an extra 10%, that is why not.  I was under the gun so agreed to this outrageous and inconcievable excess and am still having extreme buyers remorse for agreeing to this abusive practice.  As I sit here revealing my regrets, I realize that I could have given the original all purpose, all merchant accepted gift card that never has additional fees (hidden or otherwise) attached, never expires, and only loses value over time the same way that all currency does...and that gift card would be cash.

Will I return to Walmart?  Sure, there is still a lot of good found at Walmart, but I feel like something dear was lost...trust.  I will be skeptical about dealing with them.  I will scrutinize anything that appears to be a deal, or even any transaction that I would assume would work one way only expecting to find the fine print hiding somewhere that makes it feel like the proverbial internet scam rather than trusting it too be a straight up deal.  Things change, companies change, people change, relationships change and when they do we go back to square one and have to rebuild from scratch the things that are lost.

Business that works is business that is mutually beneficial to all parties involved.  When business becomes one sided it can quickly diminish into none existence and that is a shame of the highest order.  It happens to the big boys and it can happen to the little ones as well.  Be sure your integrity and those who represent you is of the highest order in all you do and you will have little to worry about.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farrwest.

Million Dollar Television Network is on the air

Update: The site is back up...hurrah.  Be aware that it is still in development and has some issues.  I am using Firefox and it seems to plug up the memory after awhile and I am forced to hard close the program and flash player add on's every once in awhile but as you see below, this is one that I really like and am hoping for great things to come from it, therefore I am willing to put up with these minor issues to get my dose of possitivity.  My you find something to profit from this site as well.  Enjoy.

More Update: the site is going through yet another evolution??? and may be changing its name once again, this time to www.grrshow.com.  It has some of the same features including the spinning meters counting up your scholarship dollars just for tuning in and as long as they are spinning there is still hope for the network to make a go of it.  I am still hoping for the best.

I talked about this one earlier but when I mentioned it before it was just an on-line radio program.  Now it has gone video and the best thing of all is the deal is still the same, you get paid to listen.  For that reason alone it is worth the time and effort to check it out.

The real reason I like it is the content.  It is positive, optimistic, and contagious.  Marshall Sylver is talking about life lessons that we could all benefit from and although I might not agree with everything he says, but there is much I do.  It is a very refreshing change from the norm.

This is such a great change from the daily grind of talk radio and network news that this becomes the perfect substitute for those trying to break that habit.  I enjoy just letting it play in the background while doing whatever it is I am doing.  And the cool thing is that by just letting it run the meter will spin and grow your balance to the tune of $50 scholarship dollars and hour.

So here is the deal; sign up using my referral link and start listening.

http://www.mdtn.com/registration/joinNow/17026

Your scholarship dollars will grow.  Then you can spend those dollars on educational programs which at first seem like they are way overpriced but remember that you are using free scholarship dollars.  In other words it isn't costing you a thing.

I hear you saying 'the programs must not be worth anything then'.  Au contraire my friend, they like many things in life are worth what we put into them and what we get out of them and I am finding them to be of great value...but there is an option to use your scholarship dollars by converting them to cash (just not at a one to one ratio).  The choice as always is yours.

The next thing to do is to find your referral link to tell others about this program and then you will earn the same amount that they are earning just for having them tune in the same way you do.  This is what is known as a win win in the truest sense.

There is a premium membership that you can add if you are so inclined but the great thing is you do not have to.  You can stay on the coattails of free as long as you like.  So far that is what I am doing.

The program is live from 12 noon to 2 pm pacific coast time.  The rest of the time it is running a continue feed of reruns so you can just tune in and let it run all day and all night if you like and keep your meter spinning.  By the way it is really fun to watch those numbers turn.  It is the closest thing I have found to my dream of making money continually like the jackpot balance on the MegaSlots in Vegas.

That link again is http://www.mdtn.com/registration/joinNow/17026 try it and see if you don't enjoy it as much as I have.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farrwest.

So why making a slow buck on the internet?

I spent a lot of time in casinos in my younger years.

"Are you a betting man Drebin?"  "Only when I order out."

No I am not a gambler but I found the whole thing fascinating.  The money, the action, the people, the business, the marketing, the attitude...I became a student that tried to understand all of it.  Also if I could figure it out maybe I could make it pay...but that didn't happen.

One thing I did learn one night while watching some blackjack at Ceaser's Palace is that those playing at the $100 table where playing in exactly the same way as those that were playing at the $1 table at the Frontier down the street.  In other words the game was the same, the rules were the same, the players were the same, the only difference was a matter of scale.

This was at a time when the 'morons that be' figured they could devalue the dollar and it would improve the balance of trade, but there was a lot more wrong that needed fixing before any meaningful change would happen on that front.  We wanted the Japanese to buy a Chrysler or two but it was cheaper for them to buy the Chrysler building than the car...but that is another story for another time.

The point here is that if you want to win at blackjack you need to learn the rules, tips, tricks and strategies to win at blackjack.  If that is your intent then spend whatever it takes while in the learning stage but by all means spend wisely until you have it figured out.  Remember that the beginning player at the $1 table was learning the same lessons as the beginning player at the $100 table; the final bills for that education just had different totals at the end of the day.

Once you have it figured out then you move in and prove it.  Once you have proved it then you scale up and reap the rewards of your efforts.  If you try to do this out of order it can be vary costly both in time and resources and you might run out of one or both before you reach your goal.

For those that are interested in investing in stocks or commodities or whatever, it is often suggested to the student to begin by doing paper trading.  This is where one goes through the motions of doing the activity in simulation mode first...act as if you are making the trade by recording a buy and sell on paper...no real money changing hands.  You can measure you results positive and negative and determine if your skills are sufficient to make things work in the real world.

Once you are comfortable with your paper trading and the results on paper are giving you a pretty good idea that you are actually able to trade profitably then you get an account and do it for real but at an affordable level, this will validate your efforts.  If your account grows, and not just from injections of fresh capital, then you have something that works for you and you can begin to scale up.

If it isn't working your results will tell you this to.  If it isn't working it is time to stop and go back one step, figure out why, fix it or change it and try something different, then move forward again.

So the paid to click sites I referred to is a no cost, time only effort to step into a lesson plan that can help us learn how to make a buck, internet or otherwise.  Just like the player sitting at the $1 table we can learn some of the lessons and principles that work no matter what level you are playing at.  It is these lessons that I will try to address with future post.

As there isn't a great deal of followers to this blog at this point it might just be me teaching myself but if you are willing to tag along I hope you enjoy.  A smart man learns from his mistakes while a wise man learns from the mistakes of others.  With that said there are some lessons that can be learned from others but there are many lessons that can only be learned through doing.  I can read all about running a marathon but until I actually run one I will never truly know.  That is the reason to offer up the referrals I did.

By the way, I don't intend on running a marathon at the moment but you never know.  This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farrwest.

Finding hope for capitalism in a game on my tablet

Roy H. Williams of MondayMorningMemo has talked about an 80 year cycle that takes our society from the extremes of a me generation to an us generation every 40 years.  We are approaching the apex of an us generation which would explain all the political correctness of socialism at the moment.  So I was pondering on how will society change back to something more moderate when it seems that socialism is all that is taught in the schools and talked about in the media and legislated in our governments.  Have the roots of capitalism been abolished and replaced with the entitlement mentality?  Has the drive of the individual to become the greatest individual they can become been weened out and replaced with a submission of will to serve the common good however the overlords dictate it to be?

Socialism along with it's more forceful cousin Communism are some of the least effective economic models for a nation even without addressing the moral issues of abolishing free agency.  Take a moment to think about how "well" this world would run if every aspect of your life operated by the same bureaucracy that runs the post office or DMV.  There would be no incentive for efficiency or innovation and therefore there can be no growth.

My vision of the future was growing rather bleak when I happened to find hope in the unlikeliest of places...the games I downloaded on my newly acquired tablet.  Within those games are the elements of capitalism.

At first the elements went unnoticed as I was still learning how to play the various games but then I realized that they were there and hopefully were instilling themselves on those that took the time to play the games.

I have narrowed my recent game time to three games in particular, The Simpsons Tapped Out, Star Wars Tiny Death Star and My Muppet's Show.  All of these games are considered Freemiumware (a combination of free and premium software) in that they can be had for free and played for free but there are extras that you can buy with real money to advance the game a little faster or gratify your vanity.

Within these games there are usually two kinds of currency whether they are called credits, or bux, or vegetables or donuts.  One of the currencies is easy to get and is the basic measuring unit of the game while the other is much more difficult to get but there is always the opportunity to get more in exchange for real life currencies i.e. you real life wallet.  As an added feature of my gaming experience, I make it a point never to use real money in the virtual world .

The games become an analogy of life as they are played.  You are asked to perform certain task for which you earn credits.  These credits can then be used in the game to obtain the next level, a new character or an extra power or decoration.  These will in turn help you earn more credits and at a faster pace in order to obtain more new things that are better, faster, cooler than the last thing and almost always at a higher price.

These are mini simulations of life played out in a somewhat benign way through a computer screen.  Instead of berating our kids for wasting too much time playing video games perhaps we should be playing those games with them and then having discussions with them to help them see the lessons there to be had, lessons we may have missed or forgotten along the way.  The longer you play the game, and the more games you play, the better you will recognize the rules of the game and learn how to play it well.

As the next generation grows up on a diet of these types of games they will provide the energy to reverse the cyclical societal momentum we face and let the pendulum swing back towards a more moderate approach in our lives.

And with that thought my hope was restored.  I remembered that good can be had even in times of extremes.  It is that hope that drives man forward, to challenge the odds and the mandates and give it a go anyway.  It is that spirit that will overcome the oppressive nature of a collective society.  It is that spirit that we should foster to grow and survive not only in ourselves but in others.

I will discuss further some of these lessons I have seen from playing these games and doing the paid to clicks.  Maybe they haven't been such a timesuck after all.  For now this is Ed Nef with a view from the Farrwest.

Making another slow buck on the internet

If you read my last post you know that I have been surfing the internet to find ways to make a quick buck and finding that to be mostly bunk I started looking for any worthwhile ways to make any money on the internet, in particular making the slow buck on the internet.

It mostly comes from doing some of the same things you would anyway such as searching, playing games, being exposed to endless ads but with a little effort you can actual make a little pocket change for your time.  It sure beats doing it for nothing, or even worse paying for the privilege.

My latest find is one I came across a couple of years ago that was o.k. then but it has gone through some changes and came out slightly better and now worth mention.

If you are not where you want to be now, and you know it, then you will have to change.  Change is not always easy and it does take effort but if you have the desire and it is strong enough you will make the change that you are after.  Even if it means doing homework.  Are you willing to do what it takes to change into whatever it is you are seeking, be it gaining health, losing weight, building wealth, adding knowledge, changing attitudes?

If you wish to work on your wealth you may need to change some of your thought processes.  The popular book Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Richard Kiyosaki, has one major premise I really like; namely that rich people think differently than poor people.  I have found that to be true.  It doesn't take much more than a conversation with your co-workers to realize this.

If you are surrounded by the attitude that "money is evil", "I could be rich if only I compromised my principles", "rich people are lucky or cheaters", or any other like sentiment that keeps you in the "I will never, could never be..." mode, then maybe you need to change your thought patterns and attitudes.

I am not talking about having blind, misapplied optimism but having some positive optimism is not a bad place to start.  It is hard to have a positive attitude if you fill your head with normal drivel that is contained in the typical editorial pages, nightly news, and most talk radio programs.  If your thought diet consist of only these things then daily scriptures and weekly church attendance may not be enough to buoy you up.  You need to expose yourself to a lot of offsetting good to overcome all that depressing noise.

Well one of those things that helps change your thinking in a good way is to listen to others that are thinking the way you want to be thinking,  Expose yourself to others that are interested in becoming healthier, wealthier, wiser.  Those that have the traits you would like to obtain can provide an example to follow for which you can learn from.  By learning how they see the world around them and how they deal with daily problems, we may learn some new techniques that will help us deal with our daily problems.  Big fat hairy deals might just become a little smaller with an adopted change in perspective.

One site with a view on the being wealthier front is Marshal Sylver's GetRichRadio.com, and you can join using my referral at http://getrichradio.com/join/17026.  Give it a try and as with most things I recommend, it cost you nothing unless you want it to, but I like the part that cost us nothing while still can getting something worthwhile.

Marshal Sylver's GetRichRadio pays you to listen to his online radio program.  Granted they pay you in scholarship dollars and they are highly inflated.  You can save up to $250,000 and cash it out into $50 real dollars through pay pal or you can use the scholarship dollars to buy education programs that are offered on the web site.  These programs cover things like marketing, real estate investing, auctions, sales, probate, business credit, and stuff like that including one labeled what would a millionaire do?

This is where the real value is.  If you haven't been exposed to these kinds of programs it may open you to a whole new world.  If have been exposed and always wanted to try some of these programs but were not willing to pay those over the top prices...well now you can and do it all using the house's money.

You get paid $50 per hour to listen to getrichradio once you have registered and also a matching amount from those you refer.  Just let the program run in the background while you do something else, like build your swagbucks account, and soon enough you will have more than enough in your getrichradio account to get a program or two.  And through it all you will expand your knowledge and work on that change of attitude that will help you move in the desired direction.

I admit that much of what I have heard here is a regurgitation of things I have heard before but repetition has served me well, especially when it reinforces an idea from a different perspective.  Sometimes you have to go through a lot of earth to find a few nuggets but nuggets are kind of what we are after.

Sometimes you never know where your next discovery will come from so it is worth having a curious nature and a thirst for knowledge.  I love to explore and have found this site one worth spending some time on.  Give it a try.  I don't agree with everything he says but I have found some things that are worth listening to.

As always, this is Ed Nef with a view from the Farrwest.

6380 page views as of 12 November 2013

Hello all,
I have been away for a little while but I came back over to take a look and noticed that the Google formats have all changed.  I wasn't even sure if I still had an account or not, but if my nosing around is correct I have had 6,380 page views of my first 140 entries and I wish to thank each and everyone of you that took the time to make a visit.  I hope it was worth your time and I am now motivated to be once again a blog publishing author.

I am surprised at how long it has been since my last post.  Time flies in the face of a life.  Someone once said that life is what happens to you while you are making other plans.  It sometimes feels like life is what happens to you to spite your other plans.  It may feel like the world is plotting against your plans but I also think that it is a good indication that you are on the right track when you start running into opposition.  It is that opposition that helps you determine if there is enough energy in your plans or whether you will quickly lose interest and forget what it was you were after in the first place.  Personal goals are like that for some reason.

What I am getting at I guess is that there are many obstacles to the meaningful things in our lives and some of those obstacles take the form of distractions.  Distractions are those things that divert your attention away from what you really should be focusing on, those important goals in your life that are truly yours.

I have found myself chasing down several time-sucks lately thinking that they were useful in the pursuit of the goals that I think are important, and even though the time-sucks might move me toward my goals they are doing so in a glacially slow manner.  I need to speed up the process if I still wish to complete some of these goals within the normal life span of a normal bloggers life.

I think that means that I will have to give up something good for something much better (kind of the definition of sacrifice).  Of course much of knowing if you are going to something better is a matter of trial and error.  So I have done some trial and and done some error.  I haven't discovered the correct path just yet but I am still working on it.  That is the thing about worthwhile goals, you only lose if you give up on them.  As long as you continue towards a worthy goal you are making progress.  You will either complete the goal and be ready to move on to the next one or in the midst of working toward step one you will see step two and no longer need to complete step one.  Progress is progress, recognize it and move forward.

As you can tell I have still been working with and thinking about goals and such and I am sure there will be more to follow.  I will also have some things to say about time-sucks, but that as they say is for another blog post.

And as always (even with the pauses) this is Ed Nef with a view from the Farr West.

Thomas Paine had common sense

I came across this quote today and knew I just had to share it.

Public money ought to be touched with the most scrupulous conscientiousness of honor. It is not the produce of riches only, but of the hard earnings of labor and poverty. It is drawn even from the bitterness of want and misery. Not a beggar passes, or perishes in the streets, whose mite is not in that mass.

-- Thomas Paine


Did this man know what he was talking about or what? If ever there was a time when this truth needed to be known by it's people it is now.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farr West.

Credit Consumers Beware

I still can not believe how stupid people think I am. I hope that they do not think the same of you.

What causes me to say such a thing has to do with the lame wad advertisements that come in the mail wanting me to do something extremely foolish such as take out a loan with them. The latest one came today from an 'American General Financial Services' company that thinks I am dumb enough to fall for the spiel that I can end the Credit Card Hassle by locking in fixed monthly payments and APR with them. They are even so kind as to let you pick a monthly payment due date that works best for you.

Thankfully they no longer hide the worst of it though there is the ever present small print, it just isn't as small as it used to be. So in big bold letters they tell me that my payment will be $156.31 per month for a loan of $5,150 (a strange number to be sure)for 48 months at (now get this) 19.85% APR. Who in there right mind would even consider a deal like this? People very hard up that haven't learned any better that's who and that is why I hope you are never in a position to do anything but laugh at the joke and the company that sends these out.

Now if that wasn't bad enough, they have the wonderful asterisk that refers to the note of small print at the bottom, this one at least is big enough that even I can read it, which might have been a mistake because it just adds to the insanity, so here goes.

"*Not a guaranteed offer. All loans subject to our normal credit policies. Rates and terms advertised are for very well-qualified borrowers and require collateral. Rates will vary based on individual creditworthiness and loan size. Rates will be higher for unsecured loans. Reply by..."

Can you believe anybody besides the government would have the gall to make you such an offer? What kind of fool do you take me for? How did you get my name and if you bought it off a list I want a cut to cover the abuse.

This is not the first offer from them nor the first from companies like them but I seem to be in the zone for these kinds of offers lately. Another one that came recently was a very official looking tri-fold envelope where you rip off the edges just like an official government notice. It had a picture of the statue of liberty on it, the words 'Form 1008-S Payment Reduction Notification' in the upper left corner and a warning that there is a "$2,000.00 Fine or 5 Yrs. Imprisonment or both for any person who interferes with or obstructs delivery of this letter or otherwise violates - 18 United States Code 1702 et seq. Advertisement - Newsletter". Pretty scary stuff...so I immediately handed it to my wife to open.

I saw it coming a mile away. It was more crap, an offering to do a refinance with them compete with many goofy references to the economic stimulus act which I had trouble following because I tend to read things a little more carefully than the next guy. The small print did indicate that it was a legal advertisement (aren't they all) and that "Schroeter Law Group is not sponsored or affiliated with you current lender (no edit check here) and this advertisement is not authorized by your current lender and your loan information was not provided by your current lender." I guess not since the name they used was not my current lender, nor were any of the amounts listed.

By the way, they go to the county recorders office and buy this information from our local public officials thereby having access to your name and address if you have bought or sold or refinanced a house recently. Again, we should somehow be able to stop this at the source, or at the very least get a cut back for a referral fee.

The last one I will mention came from a Dorcy Law, whoever that is, and I only find that out by their slightly referred too web address at the end of the letter. The rest of the letter came with the same illusionary mentions of the Obama Administration's Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan of 2009 but nothing much else to go on. I say illusionary because I don't recall in all the hoopla and media hype about the stimulus packages passed and/or talked about, that an actual name was placed on an actual program actually instituted by the government, let alone any details on how it would work or who it would benefit. Rightly or wrongly I probably just assumed that I wouldn't qualify to receive, I would only qualify to pay for it.

Any way, it came from the Loan Modification Division, something that surely sounds more like an office section than the name of a company but that is what they had listed in the address heading along with a Washington DC address. (Does anything good come out of Washington DC these days?) In fact, there were no other names given than mine and the name of the original lender from the court records from way back when, and the only way I found a possible real company name (or at least a tie to one) was the reference in the web address at the bottom of the sheet. The letter wasn't even signed (how hard is it to get a computer to sign its own letters, I mean really) but was closed with the words "Sincerely, Sr. Home Retention Specialist". I wonder if they felt bad about printing the 800 number to contact them based on their level of effort to remain as anonymous as possible.

I do get upset when I see these things come in the mail and almost get to the point of wanting to call them up and expressing myself to them (or at the very least play with their heads and gain a little amusement for the effort) but then I get over it and decide that it really isn't worth the effort. These people are hopeless...but I don't have to be. And neither do you. There are so many loser organizations out there currently vying for your attention that we just shouldn't waste any more time on them that we have to. Thankfully some are way, way more obvious than others. Just do me a favor and watch out. If no one falls for their nonsense they certainly won't last long.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farr West.

Beware credit companies, the consumer is coming

You may have noticed an increase in credit and credit card offers lately. Don’t be drawn in. The rules are about to change and the increase in offers is an attempt to lock in the old rules on those willing to play by the old rules.

So what are the old rules vs. the new rules? I am not sure, but I do know this, they involve high fees and high rates with harsh penalties, new or old. Like so many things coming out of Congress these days in the way of financial regulation, the details somehow get lost in the delivery to the public. I do know that there are rules trying to reign in the current almost obscene method credit card companies are using to adjust rates and charge fees.

In fact if you have listened to Clark Howard, Suze Orman or Dave Ramsey you have probably heard at least one call from a listener telling their story of how the credit card company was changing the rules on them mid stream and wondering what they could do about it seeing how they had been a long time good customer with that company. If they do not have any free cash available to close out their account then most times the answer seems to be try to negotiate with the company or try to live with the new terms. (Wherever possible provide yourself some options.)

Trouble is many people have been living on the edge for so long that there is no room for new terms. All of their spending money is pre committed and they are stretched to pay the minimum balance on these credit cards as it is. Sad to say but many people had a very hard time making their new minimum payment the last time Congress got involved and raised the required minimum payment on outstanding balances as the Congress’ way of trying to help (by force) people to lower their debt levels.

The latest round of increased minimum payment is coming about because of changes in the interest rates charged to the card holders by the card companies. The higher the rate, the higher the interest charges and the higher the minimum payment based on that higher charge. These rate changes come about because of changing terms that made your fixed card now a variable card or even worse. Some card companies have added clauses that state if you are late or default not only on their account but that of anybody else’s account they will raise your rate to loan shark levels, and they are doing it.

“But I had an agreement with them” you say “they shouldn’t be able to change the rules mid stream.” They shouldn’t but they do and it comes in the form of a little tiny printed piece of paper that comes with your statement every so often. Do you take the time to read all of them all the way through? Buried in the legalize is the change and if you aren’t paying attention they have you because it usually comes with a phrase or two that indicates your options are two, either continue to use the card and by default accept the new terms, or notify us now and we will cancel your account and your bill is now due in full for the outstanding balance.

If you are able then my suggestion is to pay off the amount in full and close out the account. Let’s put the power of the consumer back in our pocket. There are still lots of competition for credit cards out there if the number of offers I get is any indication which means there are still many companies that should be competing for my business. I as the consumer have the power to pick and choose who has the best deal to meet my best interest. I get to decide which if any is right for me, and I will vote with my hard earned dollars who I will work with, even if that means none at all.

After the new rules go into effect we should begin to see a new set of offers from companies that are trying to decide how best to play the new game in town. If you can hold off till then I think you will be better off for it. When it comes, I think it will be in all of our best interest to take a close look at what the new offers are and compare them to what we have now and actively switch to a better provider if one is found. Credit Card Companies you have officially been put on notice. If you don’t treat me better, and with the respect I deserve then You Are Fired.

The new rules Congress is laying down should make it harder for the companies to change your rules mid stream like they are doing in abundance now, but to get the new rules to apply to you it sounds like you will need to create a new account where the new rules will apply. I hope that is not the case but if it is I see it as an opportunity for those willing to spend the time and effort to search out better and more trustworthy companies to work with in the future. I will share with you my ideals of standards for a credit card in a later entry.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farr West.

New Vision - a follow up to ForteBuilder

This is a quick follow up to my look at ForteBuilder and Cyber Incomes Inc. and the MLM company they are associated with New Vision International. If you read the last entry you will remember that ForteBuilder and Cyber Incomes Inc. were merely a sponsor and recruiting system for the real company of New Vision International, even if they didn’t tell as much in all the computer generated e-mail traffic they sent me. In fact, I am not sure when in the process they would get around to telling me that since it seemed they were more interested in getting you on their roles and collecting their $19.95 a month fee for their assistance in your having a successful business. Since I couldn’t tell if that meant recruiting for you or just sending you more computer generated e-mail traffic telling you to do what they did I decided to forgo forming an alliance with them.

I did become interested in New Vision International however and decided to take a look. The Google search that lead me too their web site was really where I should have started looking in the first place. Here is where I found out information about the product, or should I say products. Where the best I could get out of ForteBuilder and Cyber Incomes was that the product was an Acai juice, the New Vision International web site showed that they did more. The main product seems more like diet systems that are centered on the use of Forte juice (the Acai juice spoken of), Mangosteen juice and OrganicGreens®. You can of course buy the stuff outside of the diet packages, as well as other vitamin and mineral supplement products.

Now the amazing thing is I could find out about the products content, size and price with very little effort on this web site. Well done. I was even able to find out that the company was founded in 1995 by the President and CEO BK Boreyko, is based in Scottsdale, Arizona, is family owned and operated, and is raking in many dollars for their efforts. In other words they appear to be a successful organization though since they are privately held I cannot see the financial statements that would tell the real amount of their profitability.

The web site goes on to tell BK Borelyko’s story of how he was living in Canada working in another unnamed MLM that went under that was the driving force behind starting the new company.

Now the really, really amazing thing about the web site is they are recruiting new members directly and explain all the things that didn’t seem to be too important to ForteBuilder Cyber people that were trying to recruit me. They even have a page or two (several in fact) dedicated to the Compensation Plan. Amazing, simply amazing.

Did I sign up immediately with my new found information, and did I sign up directly with the company figuring that if ForteBuilder and Cyber Incomes couldn’t even tell me what the product was how could I trust them to relay any relevant information on the MLM building side of things, and was I all jazzed up about starting another new venture into the world of nutrition?...Nah.

Although the product sounds good it is still $36.95 retail for a 32 ounce bottle with no extraordinary claims that go with it. There are really quite a lot of this types of products on the market today as I said before and many sell for as little as an eight the price. The member price is only $32.95 which is not a very big margin for a retail business meaning the real program is again a friends and family signup MLM kind of business.

So on the MLM side is it worth it? There is an annual fee to be a member is called a Content Management Fee and is a lot more reasonable at $5.95 but what does it do exactly, I am not sure, but they say it is to help them cover content cost and that it is not a franchise fee I am guessing there are legal issues there. There is an order form that had my number pre filled in; the same number issued to me by ForteBuilder/Cyber Inc., how convenient for them. There is also information on where you can and can’t sell the product, which seemed kind of limiting.

But what about the compensation plan? It is there, listed as well as short video synopsis staring the company president and CEO BK Borelyko. Does it make sense? Not to me. I am beginning to think it might just be me. I have run across a couple of these things now and there are many similarities but it is still in a completely new language, one that I am not yet familiar with. There are many different levels, up lines and down lines, team building, and more, some of which make some sense or at least there is something there enough for me to make assumptions on however they could be all wrong.

It is all the other talk that gets my head spinning. Talk of QV (qualifying volume) or CV (commissionable volume), dynamic levels, directors, and about a dozen bonuses that you may or may not qualify for depending on your group and QV/CV for a given volume period. You become one of these if this happens and you get this if that happens and you become one of those if two of them are under you which means…ugh stop already, my head is hurting. Not really, but come on. Why be upfront with as much as you have to this point only to lose me in this game called compensation plan. You even tell me not to get too concerned if I don’t understand it now because I will in time. Hooey. Hogwash.

I think it was Warren Buffet that said (and I am paraphrasing here) that if it can’t be explained simply on a paper napkin over lunch then it is too complicated and he would not invest in it. That might have kept him out of a lot of good high tech companies but it also kept him out of a lot of nonsense as well. There is no reason to make the rules of the game so hard to understand. On the other hand, those that get to know the rules and understand them are in a much better position to win that game and in the world of MLM that is why there is a small group of people in each company that win and win big. They understand the rules, play the right game and take home all the bonuses, the same bonuses that they brag about to get you interested in playing the game in the first place.

So until I understand the language (and I am beginning to think there are common threads throughout the MLM world) I will not understand the rules, and until I understand the rules I will not have much chance at winning the game, and until I have a reasonable chance at winning at the game I will not play that game but will instead look for another better game to play. One I can understand and one I have an honest shot at winning.

O.K. so I wasn’t very quick in my feedback, but doing your homework does take a little time and look at how much more I was exposed to MLM wise. I think I am a little wiser for the effort. I am a numbers guy and if I can’t see through the numbers or crunch them to the point they work then I know it is time to start looking elsewhere. After I had looked at the product and its pricing I knew this was not for me but I dug deeper and came away with a little better insight on the business side of things.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farr West.

The tell of ForteBuilder and Cyber Incomes, Inc.

In looking at the various money making ideas that are out there somehow I have come across one called ForteBuilder with the sponsor Cyber Incomes, Inc.; or should I say they found me. I started receiving e-mail from them nearly three months ago with the latest stating that my three months of inactivity were nearly up and they were about to give up on me.

I guess it is about time for you to go ahead and give up on me ForteBuilder because I had pretty much given up on you shortly after the first e-mail, but I did try to give you the benefit of the doubt.

Speaking of e-mails, I have received 102 that I have saved (I might have thrown away a few) and all of them were roughly the same message in a computer generated form with about 6 variations. Once I had the gist of it, it took no time to go through later versions because they were all about the same, (great time saver for me). Also, by way of this repetition, it was quickly evident that they were computer generated items that were personalized the way all computers do so well, by inserting your name automatically in certain areas of the message. O.K. no biggie, seen it before, will see it again, but 102 times to someone you are wishing to build a business relationship with, gosh, I feel so important.

I think the e-mails started when in my searching I happened on to a web site that claimed a wonderful money making idea and to just enter here (I don’t know why these places always hide behind a cover web page) and the very next page that opens up is a call for all your contact information. Now why they need that before they give you any information at all is also beyond my comprehension but I was willing to play a little because the first few lines were enticing. Trouble is they wanted more information than I was willing to give and the page would not go to the next page (the one with all the information or so I hoped) without it so instead of giving anything more I cleared out what I had entered and went my merry way not realizing that they had already captured my e-mail address (one piece of information too many) and would now include me in their weekly computer generated delivery system. The only problem was, I still didn’t have any real information on them or more importantly the business.

So the e-mails came and welcomed me in to the ForteBuilder team and that I could with no obligation test drive the website and with that they issued me a temporary ID # and password. I was bestowed the honorary title of Pre-Enrollee and they were beginning to build a down line under me. It got even more exciting as I learned that whenever any of these pre-enrollees below me made the decision to “upgrade” to paid member that I would receive an e-mail notifying me that I had instantly earned a commission. In my excitement I somehow missed the part about me having to become a paid member myself to realize that commission. I found it out later with much rereading.

I followed the included web link to try to find out more about this opportunity to use the easy system and make serious money and actually see if I could learn anything about this business opportunity as I hadn’t been able to in the early attempts. Guess what?

After much time and effort I still know very, very little about this company, my supposed sponsor, the payout plan or the pay in plan, or more importantly the product itself. Now I fancy myself a pretty good detective at times and thought that I might be able to discover at the very least the product because without a real product you have nothing. Turns out they produce an Acai Juice, shake mix, calcium chewable, diet something or rather.

Sorry guys, but there are dozens of outfits in the Acai business, and the one page that talks about product doesn’t give any detail as too what yours contains let alone what makes it stand out above the rest. It only has generic statements about the benefits of Acai with the ever present disclaimer that the statements have not been approved by the FDA. Also missing from the description of the products, its ingredients or method of use is the price of the product a key component in any merchandising endeavor.

I think the reason for neglecting this information is because they are more interested in selling the MLM than the product. In fact, you cannot buy the product directly from the site, but a sample does come with your paid upgrade to full member. Now this is really pretty cheap compared to a lot of programs that charge a lot more to get your foot in the door so for just under $20 you can take a fling, tempting but again, why should I have to pay up front to see what the program is let alone the product? Why not let me know up front what the deal is then let me decide if I want to play or not.

Well if you go to the next page, the order page, or upgrade page (whatever) you will see in bright red letters “75% of all millionaires are self made”. Wait a minute, does this mean that I will have to do all the work myself if I am going to make it (the answer to this question is always yes by the way) and does that mean it isn’t going to be as easy as they say and that the automatic plan that they are using is working for them and not for me?

At the top of the order form is the request for me to give them more personal info including the all important payment method, and then the fun begins. You get to choose which plan you want to start with. Each plan is just $19.95…the first month. Then every month after that you will be charged anywhere from $75.95 to 129.95 on top of the $19.95, but this will cover your monthly buy of product and help make you eligible for your payouts and bonuses, whatever they are and however that works.

Okay they said somewhere in the prose that they would send you a sample of the product with your first months $19.95 but looking over the order sheet page, I don’t see it. I do see that after you pay this amount you will receive a welcome letter (computer generated I’m sure) as part of the “Free Business Preview Pack”. This will include a success report, a brochure of why people drink Acai and a how to make money CD. No mention of product, sample or otherwise. No mention of the program, payout or tiers only briefly brushed over in the order form. In fact the product doesn’t start to come until the next month (after the large monthly additional charge) and the billing starts going to another company, New Vision which is the supplier of the juice and commission checks.

Are you starting to get the warm fuzzies yet?

Now it is not without some computer generated effort that they have tried to get me hooked. They offered up links to a youtube testimonial which is o.k., nothing great but a homemade testimonial of what can be accomplished diet wise by a motivated individual. It does allude to the product and that there might be more than one product available and that she might be a success at this business venture. One small detail, the link on the youtube site to her personal web site is a dead link. Therefore this is a dead end.

The other offered help is from the sponsor, who offers to hold weekly conference calls to anyone willing to call long distance on your own dime. (Other outfits will often at least extend a toll free number.) I thought too much of my time and my dime to try the call as I really only expected a rah-rah session that wouldn’t really answer any questions without having a long drawn out parlay. Now they also offered to answer my questions by e-mail but aren’t they the same ones that created all the questions in the first place by not providing any details in any of their myriad of computer generated e-mails? Do I really want to open up that kind of dialogue? Besides how good are they really?

Well if you go to the leader board section of the back office at the web site that I can access because of my temporary ID and password, I found that Cyber Incomes, Inc was number 7 for the month of November with a total recruitment of 13. Is this impressive or not?

If you consider that I have a built up down line of potential members (that is they are all pre-enrollees like I am having not paid to upgrade to full member) totalizing 6,792 in the past three months as reported by their back office genealogy sheet for me, and that their ID numbers associated with my genealogy range from 9123530 to 9418148 an increase of nearly 300,000 during that same time frame, and that for the month of November, the top 35 recruiting leaders for this system only recruited a total of 250 members and that the recruiters on the list after position 12 had 2 or less recruits, and knowing that the only way to have MLM really work tremendous wonders is to gain a large following under you, I must say that I am not too impressed. It is said that a 1% – 3% response rate from a mass marketing effort is consider a success. They are slightly behind that but just think of what that means your chances are.

Not only do you have to gain a down line but you have to keep it. Without knowing what the payout is, and only just guessing what the pay in is based on the sign up order form, I would guess that there is a large rate of attrition. That is one of the unspoken truths of many MLMs.

But they will assist you, or so they claim. That is another area I would have liked to have seen more detailed information. They did refer me to another site that gave millionaire training from the hands of a millionaire. I think what this turns into is another revenue stream for the company or its sponsors as they try to promote your success by promoting their products. I have seen a fair share of companies that rope you in for level one, only to present level two for the intermediate student and the level three for the more advanced, each time providing additional product or services that you can’t live without and new prices that you can’t afford.

Lastly, if you Google New Vision and select the one that isn’t the leading newspaper of Uganda, you will finally find out a little more about the product and the program. So why didn’t I start there? Because it took me a long time to work through the noise to get to the meat of the issue. In other words, New Vision wasn’t mentioned until the order form and it was there that I found out that they are the basis for the company. Cyber Incomes, Inc. and ForteBuilder are just recruiting shells whose only function it seems is to recruit.

So did they do their job? I do not know enough about New Vision International to make that call yet but as far as Cyber Incomes Inc. and ForteBuilder are concerned no, not very well at all. I was not well informed (at least not well enough to take the step forward) and most of the information that I would like to have had to make an informed decision was masked or hidden behind hyperbole. The glammer and glitz were not enough to overcome my logical questioning nature (and it never should be), and the lack of substance kept me looking for more answers. In the end, they look like they were taking a cut off the top directly from you for their recruiting efforts and gave little more than an introduction to the real company for the trouble. You know, I could almost live with that if they were upfront about it from the beginning but I feel like the deception was deliberate and therefore no trust is established.

Did I do my job? That would be a resounding yes. I took the time and effort needed to answer any and all my questions. I looked in as many places as I had available. I tried many web searches to find out if the company I was thinking about working with was legitimate and worth creating a business alliance with. In the end, I came up with the conclusion that they were not for me.

Am I disappointed, maybe a little, but not really. I have added to my arsenal of knowledge a few more things to look for when making these evaluations. My skepticism has grown a little more but my hope is still intact, it wasn’t washed away completely as it might have been if I had suckered into a program with overly enthusiastic expectations, only to have them washed away after a few months of heavy automatic deductions with minimal rewards. That would really be disheartening.

If you are really interested in pursuing a business venture of any value, you must be willing to put forth the effort that it takes. I believe that there can be 'get rich quick' and 'get rich easy' plans that can succeed but they still take work and time and effort and knowledge. The ones that come to you on a silver platter with all the trimmings, and no effort on your part seldom if ever deliver the promised goods.

But also, just because one way failed to deliver does not mean that there are no more possibilities left for me. In fact, I think there are numerous possible ways for me out there, and I will keep looking for each and every opportunity that passes by. Many will be made just for me. And many are made just for you. Let’s keep looking together.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farr West.

A quick how to evaluate MLM and other businesses

As I may have mentioned I am in the process of looking for money making opportunities on the web and somehow I have stumbled across a web site that latched onto my e-mail address and started sending me e-mails about the wonderful offer to join and make lots of money with their multi-level marketing program. I have since been studying multi level marketing or MLM and been trying to learn some of the basics as well as some of the language. It seems to come with its own set of dialect and you really need to understand it if you are contemplating entering the world of MLM. Also, I found some common themes to look out for if you are considering becoming a participant. Some of these criteria will eliminate many MLM plans before you get to involved and so that you don’t waste too much time yourself, I will share on these pages some of what I have found.

First of all my fast and friendly rules or rather questions for evaluation:

Is this a legitimate business opportunity? Having an accounting and business background the first thing I try to do is evaluate whether or not this is a viable business. All business is based on selling goods and/or services to a customer that has a need for those goods and/or services. If you are able to provide those goods and/or services to your customer at an agreed upon price you have a business. If not then you have something else.

If there is even anything remotely illegal or shady then walk away. If you are presented with a clever way of doing something to avoid taxes or protect assets in a questionable way or you are obtaining goods through other than normal channels then avoid it. There are many legal ways of making money and you want to be honest in all your dealings with your fellow man.

With that said, be fair in your evaluations. If you don’t understand a business you are looking at then keep asking questions until you do or decide right there and then that this is not for you and move on. Just because you don’t understand a business concept/plan/product does not make it illegal. Nor does a bad business plan and an overpriced product make it a scam or a pyramid scheme though because of misunderstandings and the way it is operated it might appear so. The label of scam is thrown out too easily by the many people who got involved in something that they didn’t understand. They didn’t realize just exactly what it was they were getting involved in especially in MLM type businesses generally no one was there to correct the misunderstanding.

That brings up another thing to look at, namely the people you will be dealing with, from the company itself to the network of dealers and representatives you will interface with on a regular basis. Is there integrity there and can you trust them? Can they and will they act as a support group to help you through the lean tough times that will creep up? Are they knowledgeable and are they willing to share that knowledge freely? Is there a mentor that you can look to for advice, counsel, and encouragement?

The next question then for me is to look at the product itself and ask ‘Is this something I would buy as a consumer and would I be willing to pay full retail for it?’ Notice that this is a two level question and both parts must be answered honestly. There are many products out there that I would love to enjoy but am unwilling to pay the exorbitant amounts required either on a one time or regular basis without a great change in my personal financial dynamics. (Sorry Bentley but I am staying with the Honda for now.) There are also many items that I would not be fond of whatever the price (with certain “music artist’s” that come to mind). The product has to be one that I believe in and be proud enough to let others know that I am a part of. Without that, how will you ever be able to share it with others and grow your business?

This brings up many other sub questions that relate to any business you might be contemplating a purchase of or participation in be it an MLM, a franchise, an existing business, or stock in a corporation. What does the business do? Who are the customers (demographics)? What is the business plan/model/process, in other words how do you work the business to make the business work? For an existing business or franchise the operations of the business should be pre defined with a successful method that can be easily replicated; that is how you have places like McDonalds.

Also in that light, what competition is there? Are there many others that are selling alternative products? What advantages/disadvantages does this product have compared to other products? How does it compare on price/quality/value? How informed is the consumer? Will you have to compete with others that are selling the same product, in other words, what is your territory and do you have any exclusive rights or will you have to share? In our world of information modern society has loaded us up with alternative solutions and competitive pricing. How will the product stack up, not only today but tomorrow?

We all have certain skills/knowledge that can be applied in the building of a business and we all lack certain skills/knowledge that will make the going harder at times than at others. Do we have the commitment and/or resources to obtain the skills/knowledge ourselves and do we have sources available to obtain them as needed? Are you willing to look for them when they are needed? An honest evaluation of yourself is need here to determine if you have what it takes to take on this business and if not do you have what it takes to obtain it. Are you willing to put forth the effort to obtain the reward?

Notice now please that I have come quite a long way before mentioning the one thing most business is based on and most MLMs are sold on and that is the money you can make. Theoretically, the amount of money any business can make is unlimited or relatively so as a business can be grown, expanded, merged, and so on into whatever you decide to create. Realistically, there are obstacles that must be overcome all along the way and how you deal with these will in large part determine your success…or failure. But eventually everyone wants to know, “what’s in it for me?”, and they should. Is this effort going to be worthwhile? What can I “reasonably” expect to take away from all of this? What will be the realistic expectations for my return on investment?

Unfortunately this is where most sales pitches for businesses start and sadly where most businesses end. It is easy to get the emotional glands charged up with talk of grandeur and have you salivating about mansions, hot cars, second homes, yachts and living like the stars on TV, because that is what fuels the fire in many of these businesses. Once your eyes glaze over and you are dreaming in lala land you are less likely to pay attention to the reality of the numbers. The accountant in me is always trying to look at the numbers, trying to make sense of what is being presented, and even if the simple math is correct (and many times it isn’t) are the numbers that are being used an accurate realistic portrayal of fact or are they a work of idealistic fiction? If the numbers are valid and the math is good, what is the timeframe for which they are referencing? It is easy to make a million dollars, for one it might take a year and for another it might take a lifetime, but it can be done.

Remember that you are evaluating a return on investment which should have you asking “what are the costs?” Look at all the costs, those for product, those to join, those to recruit, those to market, and those for daily operations and then ask yourself “will I have enough revenue to cover those costs and still have something leftover for me?” It is important in any scenario to have something leftover for me, and with proper money management you should. Proper money management with the aid of a legitimate business opportunity should be able to lead you down the path that will make the houses, and cars, and trips a real possibility.

Even the traditional job will get you there with proper money management but most of us are looking for a way of getting there that is a little more productive and exciting that the traditional job route hence the search for alternatives.

There is a lot to consider before putting up your hard earned money and making the commitment that goes into these decisions. Many do so on impulse without full understanding and therefore many suffer the consequences of their actions impacting those around them as they go. That is also part of the reason for the high turnover rates seen in MLM.

Many will join in the heat of the moment or for the sake of a close relative or friend without any intention of making a go of it. Many don’t understand that there is work involved and an effort of time and stepping outside their comfort zone all the things they weren’t counting on when they had the fast cars and trips dancing in their heads. Frustration then sets in as they look out the window and don’t see the fancy new sports car sitting in the driveway while the write another check for yet another box of product that they don’t even use. Then they think of the one that talked them into this in the first place and can’t remember when the last time was that they last talked and they tell themselves that it is no big loss.

I have seen this happen to friends and strangers and want to learn from the mistakes, and as always try to pass these things on to you. As I look at some of these things I run across I will share with you what I see and we will all grow wiser. Look for further entries on specific examples as I continue my search.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farr West.

iRazoo do you, or do I?

Have you heard of iRazoo? In my effort to find new ways to be compensated for wasting my time on the internet and providing a second or third or even thirtieth supplemental income I happened onto a web site called iRazoo, and as all things such as these I will pass on my findings to let you know if it is worth it or just a waste of time.

iRazoo is a new search engine web site that adds a twist of earning points with each search and letting its users provide feedback on the usefulness of the site through comments and a vote of yes or no to recommend a site also earning points. These points can then be traded in for toys or gift certificates. Seems simple enough but how does it deliver.

First off you will notice that as a search engine it is kind of weak. It will pull in sites for you but it is quite a mix with many entries seeming far off target. In fact they look like plants (paid advertisements) that have little to do with the subject at hand. That means that you will not be using this site as an alternative to do your regular searches. So the real use of this site is to gain points and earn stuff.

Points are relatively easy to earn, in fact it was so easy that they changed the rules within days of my joining. It seemed that some would just hit the site, grab points and move on without any seriousness in evaluating the recommended sites, so they added a timer which means you cannot vote for a site until 30 seconds have past. That is o.k. because the site comes up in a new tab, and while you are waiting for the 30 seconds to pass, you simply go back to the search page and click on another site to open up, and another one after that.

Update: They will only let you open one searched page tab at a time now so no multi-tasking means it will take 3X as long.

Three is the limit however as you can only earn points on three sites per search term used, and that is not a daily limit, that appears to be for all time. That means you have to get tricky if you want to search on a topic you are familiar with. For example, you might look for ‘Mini 500’, ‘helicopter’, ‘mini 500 helicopter’, ‘mini helicopter’, ‘500 mini’, ‘500 helicopter’… anyway you get the picture. Also each page can only be used once for points so you will have to choose carefully. Notice I did say page and not site so each page on the site can bring you points.

The three click limit is very…well limiting. Again, as a search engine iRazoo is less than stellar for those that know there are thousands and millions of web sites out there for just about any topic and to hold yourself to just the first three is rather silly.

The next limit that you will become familiar with is the daily earning limit which is currently set at 300 points per day. Because of the way the points are paid out, 8 here and 8 there, I don’t think I have hit an exact 300 yet. 300 divided by 8 gives you 37.5 so I always have a number that leaves me short and it doesn’t look like it will pay you partial points to fulfill your max. This just means it takes you longer to reach a prize level.

So what are the prize levels, or in other words, how long will it take to get something for nothing? First thing to remember is that there is very seldom a something for nothing; you are trading your time, interest, and feedback if nothing else. Even with the layered multi opened page approach I use it takes about 20 to 30 minutes to max out my points (your mileage may vary). In the iRazoo advertisements they say that you can earn a prize in as little as 10 days but that has to be 11 now since you can’t reach a full 300 point day to make the 3,000 point minimum prize level in 10 days.

So what do you get for your 3,000 points of effort? A $5 gift certificate to Amazon. Now you will have to run the numbers for yourself and decide if 5 hours worth of effort over an 11 day period is worth a $5 gift certificate but $1 per hour hardly seems worth the time, especially if the usefulness of the search engine just isn’t there.

If you wish to accumulate your points there are higher prizes to be had such as a Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3 40gb, or Xbox 360 60gb for 100,000 points. An unlocked 16gb iPhone can be had for 600,000 points (that’s 2,000 days or 5.479 years for those that are counting). Or you good just hold out for the $25 Apple iTunes music card for 18,250 points (about 61 days work).

Can you get more points and can you get there faster? Yes, sort of. Two ways are offered, one is that there will be banners appearing for which you can take up an offer or buy product and the sponsor will credit you with points, eventually, (allow 6 to 8 weeks…you know the drill) and in the mean time you have given you info out to yet another someone on the web and possibly some hard earned dollars for a product you might not really have wanted for which there are plenty of other sites to get rebates on your purchases. If you can’t tell, I don’t think I trust the banners.

The other way to get points on iRazoo is to put a link to iRazoo on your web page about iRazoo or tell a friend about iRazoo so that they can join iRazoo and take advantage of this thrilling iRazoo search engine web site by joining iRazoo themselves and earning their own iRazoo points and iRazoo rewards, and for each person that joins iRazoo based on your sponsorship and promotion of iRazoo you will receive 50 iRazoo points and the person referred will also receive 50 iRazoo points. So feel free to click on any of the hyper linked mentions of iRazoo and you can play iRazoo also. Did I mention that only half of your points used can come from iRazoo referrals’, yet another limit placed on your iRazoo efforts at iRazoo.


Although I haven’t been on iRazoo very long, maybe a month or so, (it has been a busy month) and I certainly haven’t been on it every day, I am up to 2,418 points and am working on my first Amazon gift card. Why, I don’t know. I just want to see if it works for one thing and the pursuit of something for nothing still intrigues me. I also can’t tell you how quickly they pay out or how true to their word they are because I haven’t hit that spot yet either. They do have a promo going where you can win a search and win $5 Amazon gift certificate but I haven’t won one yet, and I’m not holding my breath.

One more suggestion for those willing to try, leave your radio or TV on in the back ground so when you are drawing a blank on what to do for the next search word just use the first word or phrase you hear coming out of the radio or TV. Do this carefully though, for it might be a word from a commercial that you really aren’t too anxious to learn more about.

Now that I have taken the ground work for you, it is up to you to decide if it is worth it for you. If I get one gift card I will be happy but I will also move on to hopefully bigger and better things. And as I continue to look for them I will continue to share my findings with you.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farr West.