Making Money Through

Though social media has proved itself an effective tool in helping journalists gather news and connect with their communities, a pervading question among the skeptics still remains: Where’s the money?

As social sites like Twitter and Facebook build their empires and seek to remedy their own financial instability in the hope of turning profits, news organizations are experimenting with ways to monetize their social media presence and leverage the social web to complete an online revenue puzzle.

The revenue is there, but the social web won’t necessarily solve that puzzle. “There’s no silver bullet,” Jim Brady, the general manager at TBD.com, said at the Online News Association Conference last week. “There’s just shrapnel, pieces of revenue.” Brady, who launched TBD.com this summer, said display ads are certainly not the future in revenue for news and that it will come from multiple revenue streams. News organizations have certainly been experimenting where they can to get revenue in pieces, from mobile applications to launching group buying sites. Here’s a closer look at some of these efforts.

Self-Serve “Real Time Ads”

Much of online advertising consists of static display ads that are sold based on a CPM ad model, a varying price per 1,000 impressions. An advertiser delivers an ad design that then rotates with others on the site. What if small business advertisers could change the message of that ad in real time?

That’s the idea of Minnpost.com’s Real Time Ads, which essentially use customized widgets that pull in messages from an advertiser’s Twitter, Facebook or YouTube accounts. Local businesses can buy the widget space for a specified amount of time, instead of a CPM model, and are able to update the content whenever they’d like, making each message timely and perfect for a daily deal or promotion.

It is especially useful for local business. Even if they don’t have a social profile or an RSS feed to attach to the ad, they can update their ad by e-mailing a new message to their account, said Karl Pearson-Cater, director of operations at Minnpost.com — a non-profit news organization that relies largely on donations.

“Advertisers love real-time ads. The biggest benefit is how easy it is to get set up and how easy it is to maintain,” Pearson-Cater said.

If real-time ads work for Minnpost.com, Pearson-Cater said they can help adapt the platform for other publishers as well. In the past few months, he said they’ve begun to see a significant revenue stream. They now have approximately $15,000 in annual contracts using real-time ads.

At Yahoo! News, Anna Robertson, director of social media and original video, said they’re considering sponsorships around social widgets on pages as well, or another form of sponsored modules. It’s likely that this form of advertising will become more prevalent across news sites.

Revenue Share

At TBD.com, Brady and his team are leveraging a network of blogs to sell distributed ads. When they come to advertisers, they’re able to sell ads across a network of 196 blogs, which they share 35% of the revenue with. It’s a win-win for TBD and its partners that get revenue they may not have gotten otherwise.

Another approach, of course, is being on the receiving end of social partnerships or revenue sharing. YouTube, for example, shares revenue made through AdSense and publishers can have Promoted Videos run on their page. And as of late, YouTube has become even more sophisticated in making money off of copyright infringers, sharing revenue with the original publishers.

In-stream Advertising

On websites, display ads coexist beside content on a page. But more and more content is becoming part of the social news stream. Users are becoming more accustomed to receiving and digesting information in a stream format on Facebook, Twitter and other sites that display updates in real time. Because people often engage the content in the social space and may not even come directly to the site, monetizing social media off-site is just as important, said Mike Orren, president and founder of Pegasus News in Texas.

“The thing that hasn’t been figured out is how to do so without alienating the social media audience that seems generally trained to disdain ’sponsored’ postings,” Orren said. But of course, that could change.

It’s also important to set clear user expectations of what’s what. Robertson from Yahoo! News said if done effectively, while protecting “church and state,” it can be a good option. She said it’s up to the news organizations to be transparent about what is an ad and what’s content in order to protect journalistic integrity.

Twitter has begun releasing several products to monetize its service, including Promoted Tweets, which are sponsored messages that are featured within a user’s stream. However, news companies have experimented with selling in-stream messages to advertisers and sponsors. The Austin-American Statesman experimented with selling sponsored tweets for $300 per day for two tweets. And according to the paper’s social media editor Robert Quigley, who had to approve the tweets before they went out, followers found them non-intrusive.

In fact, sites like Ad.ly work with advertisers who buy sponsored messages that appear on their participating partners’ Facebook Pages, Twitter accounts and mobile and site widgets. Its partners include a slew of celebrities like Kim Kardashian and publications like TIME.com.

Laura Heck, director of business development at TIME.com, said more publishers are starting to experiment with this format. At TIME.com, Heck said they’ve recently begun to offer advertisers access to its 2.2 million Twitter followers and 165,000+ Facebook fans for sponsored messages. Heck said they’ve put strict rules in place for the type of messages they will feature, frequency, etc., to make sure it doesn’t hinder the user experience.

Selling Traffic and Amplification

The ROI for news companies putting resources to build their social presence has often been a more “engaged” community of readers, a notion that is too often measured by a sheer increase in traffic referrals from social sites or more time spent on site. Many defend social investment by showcasing an increase in traffic, traffic that can then, hypothetically, sell more ads.

Ken Doctor, author of Newsonomics and news industry analyst at Outsell, said social networks have become the fastest growing source of traffic referrals for many news sites. For many, social sites like Facebook and Twitter account for 10% to 15% of their overall referrals, but are number one in growth. The results are even more heavy on social for news startups like CapitalNY, Doctor said, who get 40% or more of their traffic from social. And of course, the quality of these referrals is often better than those readers who come from search. They yield better conversation and are more likely to become regular users of the site, he said.

Though many news organizations have driven traffic organically, The Washington Post recently bought #Election as a “Promoted Trend” on Twitter, which then highlighted its tweet above others using the hashtag in Twitter conversation, likely resulting in a big increase in referrals from visitors who came across the Promoted Trend above all others in the Trends sidebar.

“When we talked with Twitter about the idea, we thought it was a great opportunity to be innovative, go to readers and highlight our content front and center with Twitter’s vast and engaged audience,” said Katharine Zaleski, executive producer and head of digital news products. “The idea wasn’t just to sponsor The Post, but rather, we chose a broad hashtag, probably the broadest for elections, to be able to aggregate the best election tweets from multiple sources and not just us.”

But perhaps more importantly, social amplification has become part of the sell. On top of the site metrics and reach, advertisers want to now know how the content will be amplified off the site with social media. Such is the case with content sponsorships. If an advertiser has its name on a piece of content that they sponsored, they also want to know how many times it was retweeted, shared on Facebook, dugg on Digg, etc. For example, TIME worked with an advertiser on a “Stay Connected” package, which included leveraging social features on TIME.com and its social networks.

Making Ads More Social

Advertisers have begun trying to make ads more social by adding a Facebook “Like” button within the frame or a stream of tweets that make the ad something that readers can interact with. It’s a light-weight way to get users to engage with and even sometimes share advertisements with their social networks while helping advertisers increase their one-to-one relationship with readers by growing their own social following, said Heck from TIME.com.

“Ads are increasingly becoming more social as we’re giving users the ability to engage with and share the ad content,” Heck said.

The idea of course is that users are far more responsive to content recommended by their friends or personal connections rather than content from a branded account or page. At TIME.com, Heck said they’re working on identifying ways to include advertiser branding within shared content. But the details of that formula have yet to be worked out.

Sponsored Contests and Social Campaigns

On-site social media contests can often satisfy an advertiser’s need for amplification and offer a way to engage readers and users with their product in a unique way. There are several routes. Contests can be sold as a package –- on their own or as an up-sell to a sponsorship or ad on the site. Orren from Pegasus News said his organization will only run contests for paying advertisers.

“Part of the promise there is a push through all of our relevant social media,” Orren said. “This is still an added value, but increasingly, advertisers want to know about the reach and engagement of our social nets in making their buying decisions.”

Depending on the product readers are competing for, it may have enough value for the news site to simply use it as a tool to drive traffic and engagement among its audience. In such a case, the advertiser gets exposure to its product or company, while the news site has a community that perhaps feels more appreciated. Contests, however, take time and effort by the staff conducting them and the ROI should be strongly considered. It’s not just a display ad, but results in essentially being a campaign for the product. If a contest wasn’t sold, the amount of time and investment should be considered appropriately.

Leveraging Social Site Real Estate

Though display ads may not be the future, they can be simple to integrate on social sites. News organizations like TIME and more recently the Silicon Alley Insider have sold their Twitter backgrounds as a social display ad.

Similar to readers landing on TIME.com and being exposed to display ads on the site, Twitter users landing on @TIME on Twitter were also exposed to a display ad in the background. Thinking creatively and putting effort to sell those spaces can make them more valuable by adding another spot for display inventory.

What’s Next? Personalized Social Ads

The start and glimmer of what’s possible with personalized and more socially targeted ads has been the result of news organizations like The New York Times and others selling advertising that specifically targets readers who came to the site through Facebook or Twitter. Twitter itself has targeted its Promoted Tweets in the stream based on relevancy, though it is sometimes tied to a Promoted Trend.

News organizations could take advantage of building structured data to better target their advertisements to readers, and perhaps even making advertisements more useful. Of course, this already takes place at a lot of organizations. At Pegasus News, Orren said its entire business model centers on using structured data to customize display ads with all of its content being tagged using a hierarchical taxonomy of more than 3,000 local topics and geography. But, he said, the company hasn’t yet figured out how to take that offsite or to open the flow of data between its sites and the social web, while at the same time respecting privacy.

Doctor said he sees social media optimization as a driver of audience and engagement, and that engagement getting monetized through targeting, rather than blasting social marketing pushes. Being able to get more sophisticated in targeting individuals and specific communities will make monetization efforts easier.

Social media, which effectively has infiltrated all corners of the web, has great potential in not only bringing in revenue but also making ads more useful to readers while also satisfying the needs of advertisers aiming to effectively reach the public. The social web can change the way we think about ads, by making them social and personalized to create utility for the user.

Robertson, from Yahoo! News, said we’re just at the beginning of this space. Yahoo acquired Citizen Sports close to a year ago and it’s done a good job of bringing in revenue attached to social media streams. Yahoo is working to scale some of the concepts to news, Robertson said.

“This is still a fairly new space with a lot of opportunity for news organizations and brands to experiment and innovate,” she said.

More Social Media Resources from Mashable:

- 5 Most Engaged Brands in Social Media/> - 5 Winning Social Media Campaigns to Learn From/> - HOW TO: Get the Most Out of Your Business Facebook Page/> - 5 Huge Trends in Social Media Right Now/> - A Field Guide to Using Facebook Places

For more Social Media coverage:

class="f-el">class="cov-twit">Follow Mashable Social Mediaclass="s-el">class="cov-rss">Subscribe to the Social Media channelclass="f-el">class="cov-fb">Become a Fan on Facebookclass="s-el">class="cov-apple">Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

The real message from voters was "Fix this stinking economy." But Republicans have no intention of doing so.

With Republicans in control of the House, forget spending increases or tax cuts to stimulate the economy.

Republicans don't believe in stimulating economies. They think markets eventually clear -- once the pain is sufficient. Or in the immortal words of Herbert Hoover's treasury secretary, millionaire industrialist Andrew Mellon: "Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmer, liquidate real estate. It will purge the rottenness out of the system. People will work harder, lead a more moral life."

Of course, Mellon was dead wrong. Nothing was purged. Instead, the economy sunk into deeper and deeper depression.

So how do we get out of this bog?

By default, all the responsibility is on the Federal Reserve -- which announced this week it will pump $600 billion into the economy between now and June to reduce long-term interest rates ("quantitative easing" in Fed-speak).

The Fed thinks lower long-term rates will (1) push more businesses to expand capacity and hire workers; (2) push the dollar downward and make American exports more competitive and therefore generate more jobs; and (3) allow more Americans to refinance their homes at low rates, thereby giving them more cash to spend and thereby stimulate more jobs.

But without an expansionary fiscal policy, the Fed's goals are pipe dreams.

Lower rates won't spur businesses to expand capacity and jobs because there aren't enough consumers to buy additional goods and services.

Lower rates won't push down the dollar and spur more exports. They'll only spur more competitive devaluations by other nations determined not to lose export shares and jobs.

And lower rates won't allow middle-class and working-class Americans to refinance their homes because banks won't lend to families whose incomes have dropped, whose debts have risen, or who owe more on their homes than the homes are worth. That is, most of us.

Without an expansive fiscal policy that puts more money into the pockets of consumers and gets them out from under their huge debt load, the Fed's billions will just fuel another stock-market bubble.

It's already started. Stocks are up even though the rest of the economy is still down because money is already so cheap. Bondholders who can't get much of any return from their loans are shifting into stocks. Companies are buying back more shares of their own stock. And Wall Street is making more bets in the stock market with money it can borrow at almost zero percent interest.

In other words, with Republicans in charge of the House, the economy remains anemic. It may even succumb to another bubble that bursts.

Could it be that Republicans want to keep the economy this way through Election Day, 2012?

Robert Reich is the author of Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future, now in bookstores. This post originally appeared at RobertReich.org.

eric seiger

Boehner Mum on <b>News</b> Pelosi Running for Minority Leader - The Note

House Republican Leader John Boehner, the next likely Speaker of the House, ignored questions this afternoon from reporters asking him to react to the news that Speaker Nancy Pelosi is running for House Minority Leader in the 112th ...

Fox <b>News</b> Beats USA Network For Top Cable Network On Night After <b>...</b>

Fox News was the top cable network during prime time on Wednesday night, the day after the midterm election, ahead of USA Network's highly-rated NCIS re-runs. Bill O'Reilly had the most-watched show on all of cable, while Sean Hannity ...

Lindy guarantees it, or did he? - Sabres Edge - Blogs - The <b>...</b>

The Buffalo News updated every day with news from Buffalo, New York. Links to national and business news, entertainment listings, recipes, sports teams, classified ads, death notices.

eric seiger

Though social media has proved itself an effective tool in helping journalists gather news and connect with their communities, a pervading question among the skeptics still remains: Where’s the money?

As social sites like Twitter and Facebook build their empires and seek to remedy their own financial instability in the hope of turning profits, news organizations are experimenting with ways to monetize their social media presence and leverage the social web to complete an online revenue puzzle.

The revenue is there, but the social web won’t necessarily solve that puzzle. “There’s no silver bullet,” Jim Brady, the general manager at TBD.com, said at the Online News Association Conference last week. “There’s just shrapnel, pieces of revenue.” Brady, who launched TBD.com this summer, said display ads are certainly not the future in revenue for news and that it will come from multiple revenue streams. News organizations have certainly been experimenting where they can to get revenue in pieces, from mobile applications to launching group buying sites. Here’s a closer look at some of these efforts.

Self-Serve “Real Time Ads”

Much of online advertising consists of static display ads that are sold based on a CPM ad model, a varying price per 1,000 impressions. An advertiser delivers an ad design that then rotates with others on the site. What if small business advertisers could change the message of that ad in real time?

That’s the idea of Minnpost.com’s Real Time Ads, which essentially use customized widgets that pull in messages from an advertiser’s Twitter, Facebook or YouTube accounts. Local businesses can buy the widget space for a specified amount of time, instead of a CPM model, and are able to update the content whenever they’d like, making each message timely and perfect for a daily deal or promotion.

It is especially useful for local business. Even if they don’t have a social profile or an RSS feed to attach to the ad, they can update their ad by e-mailing a new message to their account, said Karl Pearson-Cater, director of operations at Minnpost.com — a non-profit news organization that relies largely on donations.

“Advertisers love real-time ads. The biggest benefit is how easy it is to get set up and how easy it is to maintain,” Pearson-Cater said.

If real-time ads work for Minnpost.com, Pearson-Cater said they can help adapt the platform for other publishers as well. In the past few months, he said they’ve begun to see a significant revenue stream. They now have approximately $15,000 in annual contracts using real-time ads.

At Yahoo! News, Anna Robertson, director of social media and original video, said they’re considering sponsorships around social widgets on pages as well, or another form of sponsored modules. It’s likely that this form of advertising will become more prevalent across news sites.

Revenue Share

At TBD.com, Brady and his team are leveraging a network of blogs to sell distributed ads. When they come to advertisers, they’re able to sell ads across a network of 196 blogs, which they share 35% of the revenue with. It’s a win-win for TBD and its partners that get revenue they may not have gotten otherwise.

Another approach, of course, is being on the receiving end of social partnerships or revenue sharing. YouTube, for example, shares revenue made through AdSense and publishers can have Promoted Videos run on their page. And as of late, YouTube has become even more sophisticated in making money off of copyright infringers, sharing revenue with the original publishers.

In-stream Advertising

On websites, display ads coexist beside content on a page. But more and more content is becoming part of the social news stream. Users are becoming more accustomed to receiving and digesting information in a stream format on Facebook, Twitter and other sites that display updates in real time. Because people often engage the content in the social space and may not even come directly to the site, monetizing social media off-site is just as important, said Mike Orren, president and founder of Pegasus News in Texas.

“The thing that hasn’t been figured out is how to do so without alienating the social media audience that seems generally trained to disdain ’sponsored’ postings,” Orren said. But of course, that could change.

It’s also important to set clear user expectations of what’s what. Robertson from Yahoo! News said if done effectively, while protecting “church and state,” it can be a good option. She said it’s up to the news organizations to be transparent about what is an ad and what’s content in order to protect journalistic integrity.

Twitter has begun releasing several products to monetize its service, including Promoted Tweets, which are sponsored messages that are featured within a user’s stream. However, news companies have experimented with selling in-stream messages to advertisers and sponsors. The Austin-American Statesman experimented with selling sponsored tweets for $300 per day for two tweets. And according to the paper’s social media editor Robert Quigley, who had to approve the tweets before they went out, followers found them non-intrusive.

In fact, sites like Ad.ly work with advertisers who buy sponsored messages that appear on their participating partners’ Facebook Pages, Twitter accounts and mobile and site widgets. Its partners include a slew of celebrities like Kim Kardashian and publications like TIME.com.

Laura Heck, director of business development at TIME.com, said more publishers are starting to experiment with this format. At TIME.com, Heck said they’ve recently begun to offer advertisers access to its 2.2 million Twitter followers and 165,000+ Facebook fans for sponsored messages. Heck said they’ve put strict rules in place for the type of messages they will feature, frequency, etc., to make sure it doesn’t hinder the user experience.

Selling Traffic and Amplification

The ROI for news companies putting resources to build their social presence has often been a more “engaged” community of readers, a notion that is too often measured by a sheer increase in traffic referrals from social sites or more time spent on site. Many defend social investment by showcasing an increase in traffic, traffic that can then, hypothetically, sell more ads.

Ken Doctor, author of Newsonomics and news industry analyst at Outsell, said social networks have become the fastest growing source of traffic referrals for many news sites. For many, social sites like Facebook and Twitter account for 10% to 15% of their overall referrals, but are number one in growth. The results are even more heavy on social for news startups like CapitalNY, Doctor said, who get 40% or more of their traffic from social. And of course, the quality of these referrals is often better than those readers who come from search. They yield better conversation and are more likely to become regular users of the site, he said.

Though many news organizations have driven traffic organically, The Washington Post recently bought #Election as a “Promoted Trend” on Twitter, which then highlighted its tweet above others using the hashtag in Twitter conversation, likely resulting in a big increase in referrals from visitors who came across the Promoted Trend above all others in the Trends sidebar.

“When we talked with Twitter about the idea, we thought it was a great opportunity to be innovative, go to readers and highlight our content front and center with Twitter’s vast and engaged audience,” said Katharine Zaleski, executive producer and head of digital news products. “The idea wasn’t just to sponsor The Post, but rather, we chose a broad hashtag, probably the broadest for elections, to be able to aggregate the best election tweets from multiple sources and not just us.”

But perhaps more importantly, social amplification has become part of the sell. On top of the site metrics and reach, advertisers want to now know how the content will be amplified off the site with social media. Such is the case with content sponsorships. If an advertiser has its name on a piece of content that they sponsored, they also want to know how many times it was retweeted, shared on Facebook, dugg on Digg, etc. For example, TIME worked with an advertiser on a “Stay Connected” package, which included leveraging social features on TIME.com and its social networks.

Making Ads More Social

Advertisers have begun trying to make ads more social by adding a Facebook “Like” button within the frame or a stream of tweets that make the ad something that readers can interact with. It’s a light-weight way to get users to engage with and even sometimes share advertisements with their social networks while helping advertisers increase their one-to-one relationship with readers by growing their own social following, said Heck from TIME.com.

“Ads are increasingly becoming more social as we’re giving users the ability to engage with and share the ad content,” Heck said.

The idea of course is that users are far more responsive to content recommended by their friends or personal connections rather than content from a branded account or page. At TIME.com, Heck said they’re working on identifying ways to include advertiser branding within shared content. But the details of that formula have yet to be worked out.

Sponsored Contests and Social Campaigns

On-site social media contests can often satisfy an advertiser’s need for amplification and offer a way to engage readers and users with their product in a unique way. There are several routes. Contests can be sold as a package –- on their own or as an up-sell to a sponsorship or ad on the site. Orren from Pegasus News said his organization will only run contests for paying advertisers.

“Part of the promise there is a push through all of our relevant social media,” Orren said. “This is still an added value, but increasingly, advertisers want to know about the reach and engagement of our social nets in making their buying decisions.”

Depending on the product readers are competing for, it may have enough value for the news site to simply use it as a tool to drive traffic and engagement among its audience. In such a case, the advertiser gets exposure to its product or company, while the news site has a community that perhaps feels more appreciated. Contests, however, take time and effort by the staff conducting them and the ROI should be strongly considered. It’s not just a display ad, but results in essentially being a campaign for the product. If a contest wasn’t sold, the amount of time and investment should be considered appropriately.

Leveraging Social Site Real Estate

Though display ads may not be the future, they can be simple to integrate on social sites. News organizations like TIME and more recently the Silicon Alley Insider have sold their Twitter backgrounds as a social display ad.

Similar to readers landing on TIME.com and being exposed to display ads on the site, Twitter users landing on @TIME on Twitter were also exposed to a display ad in the background. Thinking creatively and putting effort to sell those spaces can make them more valuable by adding another spot for display inventory.

What’s Next? Personalized Social Ads

The start and glimmer of what’s possible with personalized and more socially targeted ads has been the result of news organizations like The New York Times and others selling advertising that specifically targets readers who came to the site through Facebook or Twitter. Twitter itself has targeted its Promoted Tweets in the stream based on relevancy, though it is sometimes tied to a Promoted Trend.

News organizations could take advantage of building structured data to better target their advertisements to readers, and perhaps even making advertisements more useful. Of course, this already takes place at a lot of organizations. At Pegasus News, Orren said its entire business model centers on using structured data to customize display ads with all of its content being tagged using a hierarchical taxonomy of more than 3,000 local topics and geography. But, he said, the company hasn’t yet figured out how to take that offsite or to open the flow of data between its sites and the social web, while at the same time respecting privacy.

Doctor said he sees social media optimization as a driver of audience and engagement, and that engagement getting monetized through targeting, rather than blasting social marketing pushes. Being able to get more sophisticated in targeting individuals and specific communities will make monetization efforts easier.

Social media, which effectively has infiltrated all corners of the web, has great potential in not only bringing in revenue but also making ads more useful to readers while also satisfying the needs of advertisers aiming to effectively reach the public. The social web can change the way we think about ads, by making them social and personalized to create utility for the user.

Robertson, from Yahoo! News, said we’re just at the beginning of this space. Yahoo acquired Citizen Sports close to a year ago and it’s done a good job of bringing in revenue attached to social media streams. Yahoo is working to scale some of the concepts to news, Robertson said.

“This is still a fairly new space with a lot of opportunity for news organizations and brands to experiment and innovate,” she said.

More Social Media Resources from Mashable:

- 5 Most Engaged Brands in Social Media/> - 5 Winning Social Media Campaigns to Learn From/> - HOW TO: Get the Most Out of Your Business Facebook Page/> - 5 Huge Trends in Social Media Right Now/> - A Field Guide to Using Facebook Places

For more Social Media coverage:

class="f-el">class="cov-twit">Follow Mashable Social Mediaclass="s-el">class="cov-rss">Subscribe to the Social Media channelclass="f-el">class="cov-fb">Become a Fan on Facebookclass="s-el">class="cov-apple">Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

The real message from voters was "Fix this stinking economy." But Republicans have no intention of doing so.

With Republicans in control of the House, forget spending increases or tax cuts to stimulate the economy.

Republicans don't believe in stimulating economies. They think markets eventually clear -- once the pain is sufficient. Or in the immortal words of Herbert Hoover's treasury secretary, millionaire industrialist Andrew Mellon: "Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmer, liquidate real estate. It will purge the rottenness out of the system. People will work harder, lead a more moral life."

Of course, Mellon was dead wrong. Nothing was purged. Instead, the economy sunk into deeper and deeper depression.

So how do we get out of this bog?

By default, all the responsibility is on the Federal Reserve -- which announced this week it will pump $600 billion into the economy between now and June to reduce long-term interest rates ("quantitative easing" in Fed-speak).

The Fed thinks lower long-term rates will (1) push more businesses to expand capacity and hire workers; (2) push the dollar downward and make American exports more competitive and therefore generate more jobs; and (3) allow more Americans to refinance their homes at low rates, thereby giving them more cash to spend and thereby stimulate more jobs.

But without an expansionary fiscal policy, the Fed's goals are pipe dreams.

Lower rates won't spur businesses to expand capacity and jobs because there aren't enough consumers to buy additional goods and services.

Lower rates won't push down the dollar and spur more exports. They'll only spur more competitive devaluations by other nations determined not to lose export shares and jobs.

And lower rates won't allow middle-class and working-class Americans to refinance their homes because banks won't lend to families whose incomes have dropped, whose debts have risen, or who owe more on their homes than the homes are worth. That is, most of us.

Without an expansive fiscal policy that puts more money into the pockets of consumers and gets them out from under their huge debt load, the Fed's billions will just fuel another stock-market bubble.

It's already started. Stocks are up even though the rest of the economy is still down because money is already so cheap. Bondholders who can't get much of any return from their loans are shifting into stocks. Companies are buying back more shares of their own stock. And Wall Street is making more bets in the stock market with money it can borrow at almost zero percent interest.

In other words, with Republicans in charge of the House, the economy remains anemic. It may even succumb to another bubble that bursts.

Could it be that Republicans want to keep the economy this way through Election Day, 2012?

Robert Reich is the author of Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future, now in bookstores. This post originally appeared at RobertReich.org.

eric seiger

Boehner Mum on <b>News</b> Pelosi Running for Minority Leader - The Note

House Republican Leader John Boehner, the next likely Speaker of the House, ignored questions this afternoon from reporters asking him to react to the news that Speaker Nancy Pelosi is running for House Minority Leader in the 112th ...

Fox <b>News</b> Beats USA Network For Top Cable Network On Night After <b>...</b>

Fox News was the top cable network during prime time on Wednesday night, the day after the midterm election, ahead of USA Network's highly-rated NCIS re-runs. Bill O'Reilly had the most-watched show on all of cable, while Sean Hannity ...

Lindy guarantees it, or did he? - Sabres Edge - Blogs - The <b>...</b>

The Buffalo News updated every day with news from Buffalo, New York. Links to national and business news, entertainment listings, recipes, sports teams, classified ads, death notices.

eric seiger

eric seiger

eric seiger

Boehner Mum on <b>News</b> Pelosi Running for Minority Leader - The Note

House Republican Leader John Boehner, the next likely Speaker of the House, ignored questions this afternoon from reporters asking him to react to the news that Speaker Nancy Pelosi is running for House Minority Leader in the 112th ...

Fox <b>News</b> Beats USA Network For Top Cable Network On Night After <b>...</b>

Fox News was the top cable network during prime time on Wednesday night, the day after the midterm election, ahead of USA Network's highly-rated NCIS re-runs. Bill O'Reilly had the most-watched show on all of cable, while Sean Hannity ...

Lindy guarantees it, or did he? - Sabres Edge - Blogs - The <b>...</b>

The Buffalo News updated every day with news from Buffalo, New York. Links to national and business news, entertainment listings, recipes, sports teams, classified ads, death notices.

eric seiger

Though social media has proved itself an effective tool in helping journalists gather news and connect with their communities, a pervading question among the skeptics still remains: Where’s the money?

As social sites like Twitter and Facebook build their empires and seek to remedy their own financial instability in the hope of turning profits, news organizations are experimenting with ways to monetize their social media presence and leverage the social web to complete an online revenue puzzle.

The revenue is there, but the social web won’t necessarily solve that puzzle. “There’s no silver bullet,” Jim Brady, the general manager at TBD.com, said at the Online News Association Conference last week. “There’s just shrapnel, pieces of revenue.” Brady, who launched TBD.com this summer, said display ads are certainly not the future in revenue for news and that it will come from multiple revenue streams. News organizations have certainly been experimenting where they can to get revenue in pieces, from mobile applications to launching group buying sites. Here’s a closer look at some of these efforts.

Self-Serve “Real Time Ads”

Much of online advertising consists of static display ads that are sold based on a CPM ad model, a varying price per 1,000 impressions. An advertiser delivers an ad design that then rotates with others on the site. What if small business advertisers could change the message of that ad in real time?

That’s the idea of Minnpost.com’s Real Time Ads, which essentially use customized widgets that pull in messages from an advertiser’s Twitter, Facebook or YouTube accounts. Local businesses can buy the widget space for a specified amount of time, instead of a CPM model, and are able to update the content whenever they’d like, making each message timely and perfect for a daily deal or promotion.

It is especially useful for local business. Even if they don’t have a social profile or an RSS feed to attach to the ad, they can update their ad by e-mailing a new message to their account, said Karl Pearson-Cater, director of operations at Minnpost.com — a non-profit news organization that relies largely on donations.

“Advertisers love real-time ads. The biggest benefit is how easy it is to get set up and how easy it is to maintain,” Pearson-Cater said.

If real-time ads work for Minnpost.com, Pearson-Cater said they can help adapt the platform for other publishers as well. In the past few months, he said they’ve begun to see a significant revenue stream. They now have approximately $15,000 in annual contracts using real-time ads.

At Yahoo! News, Anna Robertson, director of social media and original video, said they’re considering sponsorships around social widgets on pages as well, or another form of sponsored modules. It’s likely that this form of advertising will become more prevalent across news sites.

Revenue Share

At TBD.com, Brady and his team are leveraging a network of blogs to sell distributed ads. When they come to advertisers, they’re able to sell ads across a network of 196 blogs, which they share 35% of the revenue with. It’s a win-win for TBD and its partners that get revenue they may not have gotten otherwise.

Another approach, of course, is being on the receiving end of social partnerships or revenue sharing. YouTube, for example, shares revenue made through AdSense and publishers can have Promoted Videos run on their page. And as of late, YouTube has become even more sophisticated in making money off of copyright infringers, sharing revenue with the original publishers.

In-stream Advertising

On websites, display ads coexist beside content on a page. But more and more content is becoming part of the social news stream. Users are becoming more accustomed to receiving and digesting information in a stream format on Facebook, Twitter and other sites that display updates in real time. Because people often engage the content in the social space and may not even come directly to the site, monetizing social media off-site is just as important, said Mike Orren, president and founder of Pegasus News in Texas.

“The thing that hasn’t been figured out is how to do so without alienating the social media audience that seems generally trained to disdain ’sponsored’ postings,” Orren said. But of course, that could change.

It’s also important to set clear user expectations of what’s what. Robertson from Yahoo! News said if done effectively, while protecting “church and state,” it can be a good option. She said it’s up to the news organizations to be transparent about what is an ad and what’s content in order to protect journalistic integrity.

Twitter has begun releasing several products to monetize its service, including Promoted Tweets, which are sponsored messages that are featured within a user’s stream. However, news companies have experimented with selling in-stream messages to advertisers and sponsors. The Austin-American Statesman experimented with selling sponsored tweets for $300 per day for two tweets. And according to the paper’s social media editor Robert Quigley, who had to approve the tweets before they went out, followers found them non-intrusive.

In fact, sites like Ad.ly work with advertisers who buy sponsored messages that appear on their participating partners’ Facebook Pages, Twitter accounts and mobile and site widgets. Its partners include a slew of celebrities like Kim Kardashian and publications like TIME.com.

Laura Heck, director of business development at TIME.com, said more publishers are starting to experiment with this format. At TIME.com, Heck said they’ve recently begun to offer advertisers access to its 2.2 million Twitter followers and 165,000+ Facebook fans for sponsored messages. Heck said they’ve put strict rules in place for the type of messages they will feature, frequency, etc., to make sure it doesn’t hinder the user experience.

Selling Traffic and Amplification

The ROI for news companies putting resources to build their social presence has often been a more “engaged” community of readers, a notion that is too often measured by a sheer increase in traffic referrals from social sites or more time spent on site. Many defend social investment by showcasing an increase in traffic, traffic that can then, hypothetically, sell more ads.

Ken Doctor, author of Newsonomics and news industry analyst at Outsell, said social networks have become the fastest growing source of traffic referrals for many news sites. For many, social sites like Facebook and Twitter account for 10% to 15% of their overall referrals, but are number one in growth. The results are even more heavy on social for news startups like CapitalNY, Doctor said, who get 40% or more of their traffic from social. And of course, the quality of these referrals is often better than those readers who come from search. They yield better conversation and are more likely to become regular users of the site, he said.

Though many news organizations have driven traffic organically, The Washington Post recently bought #Election as a “Promoted Trend” on Twitter, which then highlighted its tweet above others using the hashtag in Twitter conversation, likely resulting in a big increase in referrals from visitors who came across the Promoted Trend above all others in the Trends sidebar.

“When we talked with Twitter about the idea, we thought it was a great opportunity to be innovative, go to readers and highlight our content front and center with Twitter’s vast and engaged audience,” said Katharine Zaleski, executive producer and head of digital news products. “The idea wasn’t just to sponsor The Post, but rather, we chose a broad hashtag, probably the broadest for elections, to be able to aggregate the best election tweets from multiple sources and not just us.”

But perhaps more importantly, social amplification has become part of the sell. On top of the site metrics and reach, advertisers want to now know how the content will be amplified off the site with social media. Such is the case with content sponsorships. If an advertiser has its name on a piece of content that they sponsored, they also want to know how many times it was retweeted, shared on Facebook, dugg on Digg, etc. For example, TIME worked with an advertiser on a “Stay Connected” package, which included leveraging social features on TIME.com and its social networks.

Making Ads More Social

Advertisers have begun trying to make ads more social by adding a Facebook “Like” button within the frame or a stream of tweets that make the ad something that readers can interact with. It’s a light-weight way to get users to engage with and even sometimes share advertisements with their social networks while helping advertisers increase their one-to-one relationship with readers by growing their own social following, said Heck from TIME.com.

“Ads are increasingly becoming more social as we’re giving users the ability to engage with and share the ad content,” Heck said.

The idea of course is that users are far more responsive to content recommended by their friends or personal connections rather than content from a branded account or page. At TIME.com, Heck said they’re working on identifying ways to include advertiser branding within shared content. But the details of that formula have yet to be worked out.

Sponsored Contests and Social Campaigns

On-site social media contests can often satisfy an advertiser’s need for amplification and offer a way to engage readers and users with their product in a unique way. There are several routes. Contests can be sold as a package –- on their own or as an up-sell to a sponsorship or ad on the site. Orren from Pegasus News said his organization will only run contests for paying advertisers.

“Part of the promise there is a push through all of our relevant social media,” Orren said. “This is still an added value, but increasingly, advertisers want to know about the reach and engagement of our social nets in making their buying decisions.”

Depending on the product readers are competing for, it may have enough value for the news site to simply use it as a tool to drive traffic and engagement among its audience. In such a case, the advertiser gets exposure to its product or company, while the news site has a community that perhaps feels more appreciated. Contests, however, take time and effort by the staff conducting them and the ROI should be strongly considered. It’s not just a display ad, but results in essentially being a campaign for the product. If a contest wasn’t sold, the amount of time and investment should be considered appropriately.

Leveraging Social Site Real Estate

Though display ads may not be the future, they can be simple to integrate on social sites. News organizations like TIME and more recently the Silicon Alley Insider have sold their Twitter backgrounds as a social display ad.

Similar to readers landing on TIME.com and being exposed to display ads on the site, Twitter users landing on @TIME on Twitter were also exposed to a display ad in the background. Thinking creatively and putting effort to sell those spaces can make them more valuable by adding another spot for display inventory.

What’s Next? Personalized Social Ads

The start and glimmer of what’s possible with personalized and more socially targeted ads has been the result of news organizations like The New York Times and others selling advertising that specifically targets readers who came to the site through Facebook or Twitter. Twitter itself has targeted its Promoted Tweets in the stream based on relevancy, though it is sometimes tied to a Promoted Trend.

News organizations could take advantage of building structured data to better target their advertisements to readers, and perhaps even making advertisements more useful. Of course, this already takes place at a lot of organizations. At Pegasus News, Orren said its entire business model centers on using structured data to customize display ads with all of its content being tagged using a hierarchical taxonomy of more than 3,000 local topics and geography. But, he said, the company hasn’t yet figured out how to take that offsite or to open the flow of data between its sites and the social web, while at the same time respecting privacy.

Doctor said he sees social media optimization as a driver of audience and engagement, and that engagement getting monetized through targeting, rather than blasting social marketing pushes. Being able to get more sophisticated in targeting individuals and specific communities will make monetization efforts easier.

Social media, which effectively has infiltrated all corners of the web, has great potential in not only bringing in revenue but also making ads more useful to readers while also satisfying the needs of advertisers aiming to effectively reach the public. The social web can change the way we think about ads, by making them social and personalized to create utility for the user.

Robertson, from Yahoo! News, said we’re just at the beginning of this space. Yahoo acquired Citizen Sports close to a year ago and it’s done a good job of bringing in revenue attached to social media streams. Yahoo is working to scale some of the concepts to news, Robertson said.

“This is still a fairly new space with a lot of opportunity for news organizations and brands to experiment and innovate,” she said.

More Social Media Resources from Mashable:

- 5 Most Engaged Brands in Social Media/> - 5 Winning Social Media Campaigns to Learn From/> - HOW TO: Get the Most Out of Your Business Facebook Page/> - 5 Huge Trends in Social Media Right Now/> - A Field Guide to Using Facebook Places

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The real message from voters was "Fix this stinking economy." But Republicans have no intention of doing so.

With Republicans in control of the House, forget spending increases or tax cuts to stimulate the economy.

Republicans don't believe in stimulating economies. They think markets eventually clear -- once the pain is sufficient. Or in the immortal words of Herbert Hoover's treasury secretary, millionaire industrialist Andrew Mellon: "Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmer, liquidate real estate. It will purge the rottenness out of the system. People will work harder, lead a more moral life."

Of course, Mellon was dead wrong. Nothing was purged. Instead, the economy sunk into deeper and deeper depression.

So how do we get out of this bog?

By default, all the responsibility is on the Federal Reserve -- which announced this week it will pump $600 billion into the economy between now and June to reduce long-term interest rates ("quantitative easing" in Fed-speak).

The Fed thinks lower long-term rates will (1) push more businesses to expand capacity and hire workers; (2) push the dollar downward and make American exports more competitive and therefore generate more jobs; and (3) allow more Americans to refinance their homes at low rates, thereby giving them more cash to spend and thereby stimulate more jobs.

But without an expansionary fiscal policy, the Fed's goals are pipe dreams.

Lower rates won't spur businesses to expand capacity and jobs because there aren't enough consumers to buy additional goods and services.

Lower rates won't push down the dollar and spur more exports. They'll only spur more competitive devaluations by other nations determined not to lose export shares and jobs.

And lower rates won't allow middle-class and working-class Americans to refinance their homes because banks won't lend to families whose incomes have dropped, whose debts have risen, or who owe more on their homes than the homes are worth. That is, most of us.

Without an expansive fiscal policy that puts more money into the pockets of consumers and gets them out from under their huge debt load, the Fed's billions will just fuel another stock-market bubble.

It's already started. Stocks are up even though the rest of the economy is still down because money is already so cheap. Bondholders who can't get much of any return from their loans are shifting into stocks. Companies are buying back more shares of their own stock. And Wall Street is making more bets in the stock market with money it can borrow at almost zero percent interest.

In other words, with Republicans in charge of the House, the economy remains anemic. It may even succumb to another bubble that bursts.

Could it be that Republicans want to keep the economy this way through Election Day, 2012?

Robert Reich is the author of Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future, now in bookstores. This post originally appeared at RobertReich.org.

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Boehner Mum on <b>News</b> Pelosi Running for Minority Leader - The Note

House Republican Leader John Boehner, the next likely Speaker of the House, ignored questions this afternoon from reporters asking him to react to the news that Speaker Nancy Pelosi is running for House Minority Leader in the 112th ...

Fox <b>News</b> Beats USA Network For Top Cable Network On Night After <b>...</b>

Fox News was the top cable network during prime time on Wednesday night, the day after the midterm election, ahead of USA Network's highly-rated NCIS re-runs. Bill O'Reilly had the most-watched show on all of cable, while Sean Hannity ...

Lindy guarantees it, or did he? - Sabres Edge - Blogs - The <b>...</b>

The Buffalo News updated every day with news from Buffalo, New York. Links to national and business news, entertainment listings, recipes, sports teams, classified ads, death notices.

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Boehner Mum on <b>News</b> Pelosi Running for Minority Leader - The Note

House Republican Leader John Boehner, the next likely Speaker of the House, ignored questions this afternoon from reporters asking him to react to the news that Speaker Nancy Pelosi is running for House Minority Leader in the 112th ...

Fox <b>News</b> Beats USA Network For Top Cable Network On Night After <b>...</b>

Fox News was the top cable network during prime time on Wednesday night, the day after the midterm election, ahead of USA Network's highly-rated NCIS re-runs. Bill O'Reilly had the most-watched show on all of cable, while Sean Hannity ...

Lindy guarantees it, or did he? - Sabres Edge - Blogs - The <b>...</b>

The Buffalo News updated every day with news from Buffalo, New York. Links to national and business news, entertainment listings, recipes, sports teams, classified ads, death notices.

eric seiger

Boehner Mum on <b>News</b> Pelosi Running for Minority Leader - The Note

House Republican Leader John Boehner, the next likely Speaker of the House, ignored questions this afternoon from reporters asking him to react to the news that Speaker Nancy Pelosi is running for House Minority Leader in the 112th ...

Fox <b>News</b> Beats USA Network For Top Cable Network On Night After <b>...</b>

Fox News was the top cable network during prime time on Wednesday night, the day after the midterm election, ahead of USA Network's highly-rated NCIS re-runs. Bill O'Reilly had the most-watched show on all of cable, while Sean Hannity ...

Lindy guarantees it, or did he? - Sabres Edge - Blogs - The <b>...</b>

The Buffalo News updated every day with news from Buffalo, New York. Links to national and business news, entertainment listings, recipes, sports teams, classified ads, death notices.

eric seiger

Boehner Mum on <b>News</b> Pelosi Running for Minority Leader - The Note

House Republican Leader John Boehner, the next likely Speaker of the House, ignored questions this afternoon from reporters asking him to react to the news that Speaker Nancy Pelosi is running for House Minority Leader in the 112th ...

Fox <b>News</b> Beats USA Network For Top Cable Network On Night After <b>...</b>

Fox News was the top cable network during prime time on Wednesday night, the day after the midterm election, ahead of USA Network's highly-rated NCIS re-runs. Bill O'Reilly had the most-watched show on all of cable, while Sean Hannity ...

Lindy guarantees it, or did he? - Sabres Edge - Blogs - The <b>...</b>

The Buffalo News updated every day with news from Buffalo, New York. Links to national and business news, entertainment listings, recipes, sports teams, classified ads, death notices.

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eric seiger

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Boehner Mum on <b>News</b> Pelosi Running for Minority Leader - The Note

House Republican Leader John Boehner, the next likely Speaker of the House, ignored questions this afternoon from reporters asking him to react to the news that Speaker Nancy Pelosi is running for House Minority Leader in the 112th ...

Fox <b>News</b> Beats USA Network For Top Cable Network On Night After <b>...</b>

Fox News was the top cable network during prime time on Wednesday night, the day after the midterm election, ahead of USA Network's highly-rated NCIS re-runs. Bill O'Reilly had the most-watched show on all of cable, while Sean Hannity ...

Lindy guarantees it, or did he? - Sabres Edge - Blogs - The <b>...</b>

The Buffalo News updated every day with news from Buffalo, New York. Links to national and business news, entertainment listings, recipes, sports teams, classified ads, death notices.

big seminar 14

So many people have the dream of making money working from home. The reasons vary. For some it is more of a necessity while for others it's more of a want.

A former housewife may find herself a newly single Mother and the job she landed in a hurry barely covers the rent and utilities. A second income is must to survive and will determine whether she and the kids have to move in and crowd in a room with her Mother or whether they can stay in their own place.

Other people simply hate a boring routine of going into work everyday and working to make someone else rich. They don't need to work from home but they have a need deep inside themselves to do their own thing and be their own boss and not be stuck in a boring routine everyday.

Some people may find themselves laid off from good jobs in our uncertain economy, some people want to save up for that vacation or new car, some have a big pile of debt to pay off, some working Mother's want to stay home with their kids but can't afford to not have an income and the list goes on and on.

The problem most every one faces who wants to start working from home is how to start? The truth is, it is overwhelming. It will usually take a lot of searching to find out what is right for you.

The most common trap people face when starting is falling for scams and hype. The hype is everywhere. Do an internet search on make money from home and there's no shortage of websites and hype to tell you exactly what to do. There are infomercials all over TV. If John Doe can make thousands of dollars working a few days a month why can't you?

There are all sorts of programs that promise easy and quick money if you just sign up for their program for a certain amount of money. There are some opportunities which you have no clue what you are supposed to do, but whatever it is, you are sure to make a ton of money. There's no shortage of testimonials of common everyday people who are now living a life of luxury. You get excited and imagine all your money worries are over and you are living in a nice beach house.

The truth is, these so called opportunities full of hype are just people getting rich off of the hopes and dreams millions of people have to work from home. Don't fall for it.

If you really want to make money from home, the first thing to do is realize it will actually take time, work, and investment and don't fall for anything that promises easy money or never, ever sign up for anything where you don't know exactly what you will be doing first.

The hardest part of being your own boss may be deciding what to do. There's so much out there to choose from and it will most likely take a lot of searching to find what is right for you.

What works for one person may not work for another. Several factors determine what will work or not. Two of the most common factors are location and personality. What works in one area doesn't mean it will work in another. The only way to find out if something will work in your area is to try. Some areas may be oversaturated with the business you are interested in and will not do good. Another area will not have this business available and will do well. You may be highly successful with a certain business in one area, but in another, you may do terrible. That's just the way it is. Know when to fold 'em. If you have put your very best effort into a business, if you have advertised and gotten your name out there and promoted yourself like crazy, but you still can't get customers or make a profit, then you either have to move or try something else. It's better just to get out than to keep losing money every month. It will be disappointing, but take it as a learning experience.

Another factor is personality. Different people have different strengths, weaknesses and passions. What works for Tina may not work for Jodie. Some people are outgoing natural sales people while others are shy. Different people have different skills and interests and should use those when looking for a business to start.

Never start something just because it worked for your friend unless you are genuinely interested in it. If you are not interested in doing something, don't do it. Why work a business you hate? You will be happier and make more money if you do something you enjoy.

Don't put everything you have into starting your own business. Some businesses fail. Actually, a lot do unfortunately. Try testing it out before you really go all out and see what the response is and do your research. Figure out your costs. How much will it cost to advertise? How much will supplies and anything else you need cost? Check out your competition.

Some people can get started right away into a business with a little investment and start making money right away. Some people. This is the exception and not the rule. Some people can join a direct sales company for little or no cost, buy a bunch of catalogs, have home parties and pass them out to everyone and start seeing good profits right away.

Whatever you decide to do, it will definitely take work. You can't just pay a fee and start making a large amount of money right away for doing almost nothing no matter what those people on TV say.

After you know what you want to do, it will take time and a lot of work to get your name out there and to get business and start making profits. If you can get a loyal customer base, you can find that working from home can be very profitable and lucrative.

What it will cost to work from home depends on several factors. There are some opportunities you can start for a very nominal fee and others will require quite a large investment.

If you decide to join a direct sales company, where you get paid a percentage of what you sell and also make a percentage off of people you recruit in the business, there are some companies where it is completely free to join. Many however require you buy a starter kit which will contain products and some business supplies. Even if you find a company that is free to join, you still will have to invest money into catalogs, business cards, and advertising.

If you want to offer your own service, your investment will be the products/equipment required as well as the basics of advertising. Some businesses will require that you be licensed and insured. Some businesses to start from scratch are your own craft business, cleaning business, baby newspaper business, pet sitting, computer repair, graphic design, home daycare, sewing/alterations, and tutoring.

An exclusively online business is great for shy people who are uncomfortable selling, but this is a whole different ball park. Profits usually come quicker and easier in the real world than online. If you want an exclusive online business, that will require a lot of research. You will need to spend hours and hours educating yourself to avoid costly mistakes and disappointment.

Don't get me wrong, if you can learn how to do it, that's great. Nothing beats waking up in the morning and finding out you just made money while you were sleeping. But you will need a theme to build a website on that isn't oversaturated, something to make it stand out, and most importantly you have to learn how to get traffic. Without traffic, your website will be worthless. Remember you will have fierce competition so that's why educating yourself is important.

Once you know what you want to do, you will have to either build yourself a website or have it built for you (which is usually expensive). Then you will have to find a host and pay for hosting. And last, you will need to do a lot of marketing to drive traffic and hopefully customers to your site.

Many people who really need money, desperately, look to making money from home. They may invest money they can't afford thinking they will make it back plus a lot of profit, just to find themselves more broke and disappointed. They probably just fell for some hype and wrongly thought it would be quick and easy to make money.

If you are desperate for money, or are looking to make money fast, then it's not a good time to actually start your own business. If you are unemployed then you should spend your time looking for a regular job as disappointing as this sounds, so you can have a steady paycheck, then try working from home on the side. For fast money, there are ways you can still make some money from home.

You can have a yard sale. If you enjoy children, put out ads and flyers offering to watch children in your home. There is always a big demand for childcare. If you have furniture or any bigger items you don't need, sell them. Put out flyers or ads in a local (small) paper offering services you can provide such as house cleaning, pet sitting, ironing, sewing, cooking, painting, or handy man jobs. Ads like these usually work best in small town papers and are cheaper but don't do so well and are more expensive in big city areas.

Or, if you are a good salesperson and know a lot of people, a direct sales business is probably a fast way to make money. Find a company that offers a good percentage, find a company that is free to join or offers a plan where you can get started for free and buy the required kit later. Then buy some catalogs and sell away to everyone you can. This way, your only cost will be the catalogs and you can make a profit on the very first day. This of course is for an outgoing person who is good at selling.

If you have a green thumb, grow flowers, herbs and plants and then sell them. If you are good at crafts, sewing, or knitting, make and sell your crafts. You can do this through newspaper ads, flyers, word of mouth, and online at www.etsy.com.

Online, you can set up a blog for free and put Google Adsense on the blog. Everytime someone clicks on an ad, you get paid. The hard part about this is actually getting traffic to your blog. You can do it, but it does take time and effort.

If you enjoy writing you can also write articles for Associated Content, (like I'm doing now). If you article is accepted, you get paid. What you get depends on what they decide your article is worth.

You can also be a freelance writer. There is a great need for writers with the explosion of websites and people looking for original website content for better search engine rankings. Be prepared for fierce competition however and be prepared to work for low amounts in the beginning until you get established.

Whatever you decide to go with, the truth is there is no secret to getting rich from home. There are two ways to really make an income from home. Good old fashioned hard work and effort or scamming people with a get rich quick scheme. So I am sorry to disappoint anyone who thought they could learn how to start making a thousand dollars a week instantly working only a few hours. But if you have a valid credit card, there are several guys willing to sell you ebooks promising some sort of secret to getting rich easily and quickly.

The moral of the story is, it takes time, effort and hard work to make a decent income from home. It's not easy and it doesn't happen overnight regardless of the hype that's out there. If you aren't willing to work hard at it, it probably won't happen. You need to have determination to make it work and you have to keep at it. You reap what you sow and if you put the time and work into it, you will be rewarded once it pays off.


eric seiger

Boehner Mum on <b>News</b> Pelosi Running for Minority Leader - The Note

House Republican Leader John Boehner, the next likely Speaker of the House, ignored questions this afternoon from reporters asking him to react to the news that Speaker Nancy Pelosi is running for House Minority Leader in the 112th ...

Fox <b>News</b> Beats USA Network For Top Cable Network On Night After <b>...</b>

Fox News was the top cable network during prime time on Wednesday night, the day after the midterm election, ahead of USA Network's highly-rated NCIS re-runs. Bill O'Reilly had the most-watched show on all of cable, while Sean Hannity ...

Lindy guarantees it, or did he? - Sabres Edge - Blogs - The <b>...</b>

The Buffalo News updated every day with news from Buffalo, New York. Links to national and business news, entertainment listings, recipes, sports teams, classified ads, death notices.

eric seiger

Boehner Mum on <b>News</b> Pelosi Running for Minority Leader - The Note

House Republican Leader John Boehner, the next likely Speaker of the House, ignored questions this afternoon from reporters asking him to react to the news that Speaker Nancy Pelosi is running for House Minority Leader in the 112th ...

Fox <b>News</b> Beats USA Network For Top Cable Network On Night After <b>...</b>

Fox News was the top cable network during prime time on Wednesday night, the day after the midterm election, ahead of USA Network's highly-rated NCIS re-runs. Bill O'Reilly had the most-watched show on all of cable, while Sean Hannity ...

Lindy guarantees it, or did he? - Sabres Edge - Blogs - The <b>...</b>

The Buffalo News updated every day with news from Buffalo, New York. Links to national and business news, entertainment listings, recipes, sports teams, classified ads, death notices.

eric seiger