Blogging BlogShares

Now We Know

2008-10-28T08:01:00.001-07:00

The SWA is scared of women!

Industry Play for Profit #3: Fundamentals

2008-10-15T12:43:00.000-07:00

Open the page in your Ideas portfolio where you keep the industries you're going to work. Look at the top industry on your page, and see this:

The column on the left indicates the name of the Industry.

The second column from the left indicates:

O: the # of ideas I own
A: the # of ideas on the market, available to purchase
E: the # of ideas that exist in the industry
D: drop ratio ...
B: the # of blogs in the industry

The important number from this column is E: # of existing ideas. More in a bit.

The third column from the left indicates the current price per idea, the average price you paid per idea, and the total value of your ideas holdings in the industry. We won't be paying any attention to these values.

The last column indicates:

U: Upward Pressure
D2: Downward Pressure
Avg10: Avg. # of ideas produced in last 10 drops
Last: percentage price change on last production of ideas
1Week: percentage price change since 1 week ago
2Week: percentage price change since 2 weeks ago

So ...

The relationship of Avg10 to E (existing) is the most important thing we'll pay attention to. This relationship is the primary determinant of whether your ideas are in the green ("last") or in the red. What you're aiming for is this -- the value of "avg10" should be less than or equal to [1/3 the value of "E"(minus its last three digits)].

Sometimes, avg10 will be quite a bit higher than 1/3 E minus its last three digits, and yet the industry will still be in the green. Why? Because the D2 is incredibly low. Ultimately, as you work an industry, D2 will move into the 40s (.41 to .45) before the industry peaks, and U will move into the 90s (.91 to .95). The higher the D2 climbs, the lower the avg10 needs to be in relationship to E.

One more thing about this last column of numbers. When there are ideas on the market, and more drop onto them from a reindex, the price per idea will drop, and some of the ideas already on the market will be consumed. So, it's important that you buy up your ideas at each drop, and even when you're not actively working them that you check them periodically and buy up what's there. Often you'll see that U=0 and last is 7.xx%. This means that the above happened. Usually, one managed drop will reverse both of those and put last back into the green.

Industry Play for Profit #2: Logistics

2008-10-15T12:20:00.000-07:00

Logistics of working industries for profit (using a single window with multiple tabs, or however it works for you)

1a. Open the Ideas portfolio page where you have the industries you're going to work.
1b. In a new tab, open the Ideas Market page.
1c. In a new tab, open the Recent Idea Drops page.
1d. In new tabs, open the industry page for each of the industries you're going to work, with the "top 2000" view option.

2. Pay attention to the "recent drops" timing, and just after a drop what you'll do is this: Start at the bottom of each industry list, and reindex 1 blog per industry (that is, one blog that will produce ideas), then catch the ideas (buy them) at the next drop. With practice, you'll be able to reindex one blog per industry for around 15 industries per drop.

After those ideas have dropped and you've bought them, then go back to your industry pages and reindex the next blog up, again one each per industry. Catch them when they drop, then repeat.

Industry Play for Profit #1: Ideas Production

2008-10-15T12:13:00.000-07:00

To play an Industry for profit, you have to know these basic things about what makes a blog drop (produce) ideas in a given industry:

1. The blog has to have at least one incoming link.
2. The blog has to be voted into the industry, and that industry has to be in the top five industries the blog is voted into.
3. The blog has to be reindexed.
4. The reindex has to be done within 10-11 minutes of the last drop (see "Recent Idea Drops" page for this info).

baking

2008-10-11T06:57:00.001-07:00

Searches: The Shares Market Tool

2008-10-06T07:54:00.000-07:00

For ages, the maximum number of blogs in which a player could hold shares was 1,000. That limit was recently raised to 4,000. This greatly increases the amount of B$ a player can make playing the Shares Market, and it also increases the interest income a corporation's members can make from the invested balances, if players increase the number of blogs they own shares in.

An ideal formula, it seems to me, is to hold constantly in your portfolio shares in 1 to 2 thousand blogs, and rotate in and out of your portfolio 2 to 3 thousand blogs for profit-taking to increase your total wealth.

The place to start is to find available blogs on the open market. I've built my portfolio up to close to 4 thousand blogs by using the Searches tool, the link to which is found on the right-hand side of each B$ page, in the "Members Area" in the list of links starting with "Profile" "Shares" "Ideas" etc. See it?

When you click on the "Searches" link, you'll go to your searches page. Click on the link near the top that says "Create a new search". You'll actually be creating 3 searches, which I'd title "1 Million" "500 Thousand" and "100 Thousand". Here's how to fill in the "1 Million" Search:

(click on the image to see a larger view of it)

I've indicated the areas to fill in with the pale yellow text on top of the dark blue background.

Just plug in those things, then click on "Save Search" at the bottom of the screen. You'll have to confirm your search next, then go back to the "Searches" page to "generate" it (just click on the link).

Now what you do is create two more searches. The first one should be named "500 Thousand" and should be filled in like the "1 Million" search, except the Min $ Valuation should be 500,000 and the Max $ Valuation should be 999,999. Remember to select the "Valuation (DESC) sort" then save and confirm.

The next is the "100 Thousand" search, and should be filled in like the other two, except the Min $ Valuation should be 100,000 and the Max $ Valuation should be 499,999.

In each case, remember to choose the maximum number of results to be returned (500), which you choose just below the title of your search.

By now, when you return to your "Searches" page, the "1 Million" search list has probably been generated. Open all the pages in tabs (all 10 pages might have blogs available, or it might be fewer pages, depending on how many blogs were on the market at the time your search was generated). On each page, check all and buy.

Now you'll have 1250 shares each of up to 500 blogs in your Main Shares folder. Every 20 minutes, you refresh that folder, then buy the next lot of available shares. I buy them in these lots:

1250
1250
1250
50
50
50
50
10
10
10
10
10

Actually, I always do the first three buys at 1250 shares, but the remaining ones depend on the PE. Most of the blogs will all be in the same PE range at each purchase, but some will have much higher PEs and some lower. In those cases, I adjust the number I'm buying: more when the PE is higher. Buying this way is time-consuming, but it will take the PE of most of the blogs you buy to over 200 PE, which is ideal for either holding or selling.

Once you've begun to cycle blogs, you'll get more and more that start at higher PEs, so you won't have to do as many buying cycles (1250,1250,1250,250 in most cases will give you a good PE).

What I do next, once I've accumulated all the available shares in a blog, is to run them through the Stock Broker, 40 blogs at a time. I reindex the ones that the Stock Broker indicates are due for a PE increase. For those due for a decrease, I sell my shares in all that will drop to below 100,000 valuation (checking the "remove from my portfolio" box), and then reindex them after I sell them so they won't get picked up in my next search at a falsely inflated PE.

Give it a try!

Once you have your portfolio filled out, you can use other methods to fill it out with some proven-quality blogs, but that's done one blog at a time and should be done once you've got this method down and several thousand blogs in your portfolio.

fubar

2008-08-29T07:30:00.000-07:00

1000 blogs in my portfolio, and only 28 of them in a way to have their valuation increased by indexing, according to my Stock Broker.

FUBAR!

RIP Del Martin

2008-08-28T10:13:00.000-07:00

Lesbian rights pioneer activist dies at 87. She's memorialized in the Artefact for the Lesbian industry:

"On February 12, 2004, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon made history when they became the first same-sex couple to be legally married in the United States.

Recognized as founders of the lesbian rights movement, they had been together 51 years at the time of their San Francisco wedding. Martin was 83; Lyon, 79.

Their activism has spanned five decades, ranging from co-founding America’s first lesbian organization in 1955, to successfully changing, in coalition with others, California’s sex laws in the 1960s, to writing two highly influential books in the 1970s and playing a key role in the American Psychiatric Associations’s 1973 decision to remove homosexuality from its diagnostic manual, to serving as delegates to the 1995 White House Conference on Aging, to being featured in a 2002 documentary, No Secret Anymore: The Times of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon.

“Martin and Lyon occupy a particularly important position as founding mothers of the modern glbtq movement, having participated in the movement's evolution from the timid first steps of the homophile organizations to the heady days of the gay and lesbian liberation to the achievement of more mainstream political clout.” (Tina Gianoulis, glbtq.com)"

I am Anne Elliot!

2008-08-26T16:21:00.000-07:00

Playing B$ takes one to all kinds of places. Here's the result of one of the many I landed at today:

Take the Quiz here!

kicking and screaming

2008-08-18T17:23:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's true. I've never been much of a Shares Market player. Ideas are the way to personal wealth. When duty calls, though, I put my hand in the Shares Market, and while I've resisted learning the new Shares math and how to play with it, duty has called. I've been working it hard for 4-5 days, and here's the result:

Beautiful, isn't it?

voting?

2008-07-15T06:12:00.000-07:00

System doesn't seem to want to take votes this morning. When it does, this one needs a vote for Croatian.

Easter

2008-03-24T13:55:00.000-07:00

What one come across in one's travel through the BlogShare's-indexed blogosphere:

Easter, as you probably know, is when Christians celebrate their myth of a dark-skinned Middle Eastern man emerging from his tomb looking like a very white, neatly-bearded Mid-Western Bible salesman wearing a dressing gown and sandals.

(The Easter Story, American Fez, March 21, 2008)

Pitiful

2008-03-23T06:49:00.000-07:00

Now Mr. Rantzypants says he was never my friend. Interesting. I suppose that's why he introduced me to his wife, right, because we weren't friends? And why we played so hard together, right, because we weren't friends? And why he was constantly telling me about his most important relationships, right, because we weren't friends?

And why would he tell me about the pain and disappointment he experienced about the behavior of his former lover, the father of his precious Birds, if he didn't think of me as a friend?

Or tell me about ...

the intimate details of his personal life

the details of his medical conditions

about his boss and his work life

about his daily pain levels

Those are things you'd talk about with someone who wasn't your friend, right?

Let's see. What else. Oh yes, here are some other topics of conversation between us. They clearly indicate that Rantz never thought of me as his friend:

his need to leave work, or stay home from work, or go on vacation

his efforts to get promoted

his beliefs

his home life, his apartment, his proximity to the beach

his plans to move in a year or so

where he had lived in the past, where he came from

his former lovers

his first, middle, and last names, his heritage, etc.

who he found attractive/ who he'd "do"

Yeah, it sounds like he never thought of me as his friend.

Especially when you consider how often he asked me about how I was feeling physically, and how often I asked him the same. Chronic pain is an experience we have in common. But again, that kind of frequent checking in with each other certainly doesn't connote friendship, does it?

Right.

You engage in intimate sharing of private information and feelings with someone, but you don't consider her to be a friend. OK. Some times when it looks like a friend and acts like a friend it turns out not to be a friend.

I was mistaken, deluded, right?

Pitiful.

loving the skew-er, hating the skew

2008-03-04T08:47:00.000-08:00

Today, while looking for a few good blogs in the 500-750 top blogs list, I ran across the Pownce blogs of various players, so I checked them out. And there I found Rantz spewing more skew.

He asks indirectly if I remember the day I asked if he, BB, and I should exchange passwords so we could cheatypants.

ROFL. PIFFLE. SKEW.

Backstory: An age ago, Rantz, BB, Hildy, and a handful of others, including me, were playing in the trenches together against the coalition of super players who were and had been dominating the wee little bit of the Shares Market that was worth playing. We were hooking up in YM conferences all the time, we had our little blog where we communicated, tracked who owned what blog, and who owed whom money for arte uses. Yep, we were a regular little corp in the days before corps were created: friends, friendly, chatting with each other all the time while fiendishly hyping, buzzing, PRDing, slumping, PPing, passing blogs around among ourselves, and strategizing. We were having fun, working and playing together, and smarting off all the time. The language was fierce, as was the play.

Rantz' (indirect) question has reminded me of those times, and of a tough battle that had artes worn out and victors giddy, when I said something like "I don't suppose we should share passwords with each other, should we?" It was a rhetorical question, a bit of banter among players-in-arms and nothing more. I'd say I'm surprised to hear that Rantz took it as a serious request, a serious suggestion to cheat among Index Managers, but unfortunately I have to say I've learned, to my sadness, that Rantz has ways of seeing things that are at odds with the experience of my senses.

If I were anal, or a true geek, I'd have a copy of that YM, but I don't. (Yes, I looked.) To the extent I can even remember it, I remember something said in fun, in adrenalin overdrive, in jest. I suppose if I were really a cheatypants, there'd be lots of other players who could come forward and remind me of the day I asked them to cheat with me. Probably some other IMs, too. But there aren't. And they won't. Cause I didn't.

This charge is, well, sheer piffle.

And that's the thing. Rantz. Did you think I meant seriously to engage you and BB in cheating, when our primary connection was a joint venture of protecting and defending the integrity of the Index? Did you think that and not bother to discuss it with me? It's not like we weren't having weekly meetings where we discussed IM/Index things and personal things, too. Or did you just add this to an apparently growing list of dissatisfactions that you never mentioned to me, despite those weekly meetings? Apparently so, and how sad that is.

It's not the first glimpse I've had of your skew. In some blog post when you were pissed off at Island Dave, you said you left the game (the first time) because BOD wouldn't let you present your (whatever) case to them. Rantz, have you forgotten the meeting I worked hard to organize, the one that you, Dave, Rob, Jason and I all agreed to, and scheduled? Did you not understand that I went out of my way to make this happen, just one more of the many ways I supported you as Lead IM? Did you not understand that Dave went out of his way to agree to a meeting, when he had been rarely on site because of family and work demands? Did not the conversations you had started in the Water Cooler suffice, conversations that both Game Admins (and SubWolf, too, if I remember correctly) participated in?

Clearly not. And then, what did you do? You cancelled the meeting out of the blue, told us you were going to take the weekend to decide whether to continue with B$ or not, and then after that, you quit.

I still don't know why you quit in such bitterness and acrimony, but of course we've seen that happen again since then. You posted crap about me on your blog and refused to let me respond there. Why is that, Rantz? We'll never know, since there's only skew, innuendo, and gossip where there should be straightforward communication and confliction resolution, adult behavior among adults of good will.

If by some miracle you've read this far (any of you), I'd just like to go on the record as saying this:

Rantz, I love you. You'll never know how much I grieved the loss of our friendship.

Sage

w00t!

2008-01-25T09:08:00.000-08:00

This is a rare event, so rare I had to capture it for posterity. Ephemeral, and fleeting, for this moment I'm enjoying it!

Nutbar

2007-12-22T11:47:00.000-08:00

You know, the guy is a total nutbar.

moving forward

2007-12-14T15:36:00.000-08:00

Since I last posted, I've resigned, finished my apprenticeships, flagged a new corporation, finished working my shares portfolio up to 9990 live blogs, and finally worked my assets to the place where I can now focus on voting and dead-reporting to increase karma and sigma. To wit:

SME

2007-09-18T05:57:00.000-07:00

Given the delays involved in major upgrades to the game, including the introduction of Industry Captains, I've decided to hire Subject Matter Experts to review and redesign the industries. The Law industry is complete, and Libraries is underway, with several more on the plate.

Forever

2007-09-07T14:50:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's what it's been ... forever since I posted.

So much has gone on behind the scenes and right out in the spotlight. Newest project: Subject Matter Experts.

More later!

Mozambique Politics

2007-03-18T07:53:00.000-07:00

Oy! A duplicate industry. I'm fixing that, and also a few industries that have no blogs according to BlogShare's Princes of Ideas. How? By fleshing out the Bolivia industry — specifically by adding the nine administrative departments of the country and adding the capital city for each.

Once this has been done, the duplicate Mozambique Politics industry will disappear (becoming La Paz Department), as well as Sudanese and Bailey's Crossing.

To make the MP vote disappear on the only blog in that industry, I'm going to have to reindex it, some time after 15:00 system time today.

The "industries" Industry

2007-03-05T04:47:00.000-08:00

I've added some blogs to the Index in the last while, and also added some new categories (industries):

Tunbridge Wells (Kent, England, UK)
Usage (Grammar)
Guadeloupe (Caribbean)
Leesburg (Virginia)
Sumedang (West Java, Indonesia)
Kuningan (West Java, Indonesia)
Ciamis (West Java, Indonesia)
Tasikmalaya (West Java, Indonesia)
Lung-Related Conditions
Celiac Disease
Imperia (Liguria, Italy)

But what I thought would be a quick voting session on some recently added blogs has led me down a path I've started down before: looking at BlogShare's "Industry" industries. This morning, like before, I've looked around a bit, done research, and been stopped by seeming contradictions and discrepancies, both in the hierarchy and in the industry descriptions. This morning, unlike before, I'd just like to tear my hair out over this. It's going to have to be cleaned up. I'm going to have to do it.

Here's a wee example: We have no Automotive Industry, but there are automotive industry blogs in the Transportation Industry category. Well, that makes some sense, except the Transportation Industry description neglects to include automobiles in it:

Blogs in this category discuss the transportation industry, such as airlines, buses, trains, and watercraft, as well as commercial transportation industries.

I considered just adding "automobiles" to the list, but then considered that while the airlines industry is included here (seems reasonable), we also have a separate Aviation Industry category.

And then there's our "Manufacturing Industry" category. The automotive industry is certainly a manufacturing industry. Perhaps it could go there. Or perhaps "Manufacturing Industry" should be transformed into a parent industry, with several of the industries we have listed as its children, and other parent industries created, such as "Entertainment Industry," as parent to the existing Film and Music Industry categories. Or perhaps, well, I should just tear my hair out.

New Blog Categories

2007-02-27T10:50:00.000-08:00

The following cities and their corresponding regencies are new BlogShares categories (what we call industries): Sumedang, Kuningan, Ciamis, Tasikmalaya — all from West Java and submitted by the stellar Indonesian player we know as [IS] Just For Fun.

Two new categories added to the Ailments, Illnesses, and Diseases category: Lung-Related Conditions and Celiac Disease.

And finally, I added Imperia, a city in Liguria, Italy.

Added to the Index

2007-02-22T12:31:00.000-08:00

inter-office danceparty
Blog Category (BlogShares Index): English
Possible Blog Categories: Female Americas Canada Edmonton Alberta
(these are votes from this blog's predecessor, the now "dead" blog fiften feet of pure white snow)

Blog
Blog Category: English
Possible Blog Categories: Education Musical Instruments
(these are votes from this blog's predecessor, the now "dead" John Wesley Barker's Blog)

Cancer

2007-02-21T14:29:00.000-08:00

The blog category "Cancer" in the BlogShares Index got some new additions today:

Bladder Cancer
Blogs in this category offer significant content on cancer of the urinary bladder. They may be written from the personal perspective and focus on experiences with the ailment, or they may be written from medical, scientific, holistic, nutritional, environmental or other perspectives and focus on prevention, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, research and other aspects of the ailment.

Colon Cancer
Blogs in this category offer significant content on colorectal cancer, also called colon cancer or bowel cancer. They may be written from the personal perspective and focus on experiences with the ailment, or they may be written from medical, scientific, holistic, nutritional, environmental or other perspectives and focus on prevention, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, research and other aspects of the ailment.

Endometrial Cancer
Blogs in this category offer significant content on endometrial cancer. They may be written from the personal perspective and focus on experiences with the ailment, or they may be written from medical, scientific, holistic, nutritional, environmental or other perspectives and focus on prevention, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, research and other aspects of the ailment.

Pancreatic Cancer
Blogs in this category offer significant content on pancreatic cancer, also called cancer of the pancreas. They may be written from the personal perspective and focus on experiences with the ailment, or they may be written from medical, scientific, holistic, nutritional, environmental or other perspectives and focus on prevention, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, research and other aspects of the ailment.

I added these to the existing blog categories of Breat Cancer, Childhood Cancer, Leukemia, Lung Cancer, Lymphoma / Hodgkin's Disease, Ovarian Cancer, and Prostate Cancer. That rounds out our blog index of major cancers, at least for the U.S. population. The descriptions for these categories need to be updated -- a good task for Industry Captains once we have them.

Added to the Index

2007-02-21T14:02:00.000-08:00

Some of the blogs I added to the BlogShares Index in the last three months:

SMOKEHARD
Blog Category: ?

A Poor Player
Blog Category: Theater

bloginfo
Kanguhru's Spirit
Younes Lazrak - Le Blog
Blog Category: French

A Temerarius Existence
Blog Category: ?

Nosemonkey / Europhobia
Blog Categories: Politics English National Politics UK Europe
Possible Blog Category: Rhetoric
(industry vote from the “dead” Europhobia)

Republitarian
Blog Categories: Political Campaigns, Virginia

Blessings Photography
Blog Category: North Dakota

Lilja segir satt að vanda
Blog Category: Icelandic

Money Matters

2007-02-09T14:52:00.000-08:00

BlogShares! Where cleaning the Index of useless blogs pays off in ways beyond earning Sigma and Chips. I came across this online tool while cleaning up personal debt blogs and think it's something I'll use sooner than later: NetworthIQ.

I should mention: I found this link through Blogging Away Debt, a well-written blog with a cornucopia of links and information.

Other interesting blogs covering a variety of Money Matters that I've come across while playing my way through the BlogShares Index:

Make Love, Not Debt!

A Journey to Wealth: Amit has been blogging since late 2004, but he recently started a series of posts on Beginning Investing. I've caught up with his 7th post in the series (concerning Insurance), posted today, and I'm looking forward to following him through this series.

Sovereign Speculator: This blogger played the game for awhile; I didn't know about him until he posted his "Time to Leave BlogShares" mission.

He sited strange political tones at the site as his reason for leaving, which is sort of strange, but hey -- I love it when people know when it's time to move on from something, so I salute Sovereign Speculator for his decision.

I did pop over to his site, and found some interesting links to explore in terms of thinking about creating wealth, among them Building Wealth, which differentiates from investing and speculating. Good stuff to explore.

A Case of Mistaken Gender?

2007-01-31T14:43:00.000-08:00

I've added several blogs to the BlogShares Index in the last 24 hours, but yesterday the geeks at Blogger forced me to transit all my blogs to the "new blogger." I've been steadfastly refusing to do that, but yesterday when I wanted to log in I was trapped. No way into my blogs at the "old blogger." The only way open to me was forward.

So, I clicked on the button after burning incense to the code gods, hoping that I wouldn't find a major disaster or three on the other end of the process. Many hours later (yes, hours), I finally had access to my account, my blogs, and my templates, and so far it looks like the big blogs with custom templates seem to have made it through ok. Whew!

I've been thinking of leaving blogger for some time now. First, I suppose, I'll see how I like this "new" situation.

In any case, added today:

The Argus: Life & health: Weblogs: Sarah Lewis

This is the new home of the blogger formerly at zender bender, who appears in our Index as male. Hmmm.

zender bender does say, in the last post at zb, that at her new blog:

"(My identity is finally revealed!)"

Well, perhaps that explains the male vote (and moderator approval). It will be interesting to see whether the new blog gets a Female vote for gender....

Quotations, Teachers / Training

2006-12-23T14:29:00.000-08:00

In addition to much voting activity today, I tightened a couple of industry descriptions:

Quotations: Blogs in this category are characterized by the frequent use of quotations in their content, usually accompanied by the blogger's commentary (brief or extensive) about the quoted material. Quotations are fragments of human expression and may be taken from literature, lyrics, speeches, movies, journalistic writing and broadcasts, famous sayings, and even from elements of a painting or sections of a musical composition.

Teachers / Teaching: Blogs in this category offer substantial content about teachers and teaching, and may be written by teachers and non-teachers alike. The content may range from formal discussions of pedagogy to informal/personal observations about teaching and teachers.

I also added Society > Organizations and Groups > Youth Groups and two subs to it (Boy Scouts of America, Girl Scouts of the USA). I'll stop there for now and add other subs if they are requested in the Forums.

Radio Blog: Aquarium Drunkard

2006-12-11T14:18:00.000-08:00

I've been playing more than working this am, and having fun listening to alternative XMAS songs on Aquarium Drunkard's Radio Blog. I found it in the BlogShares Index, naturally....

Cuisine

2006-11-25T14:00:00.000-08:00

I'm recovering from multiple meals of chicken, cornbread dressing, carrots and green beans, and molasses-pumpkin pie, so adding African, Asian, Caribbean, European, Indian Subcontinent, Latin American, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, Native American, Nonregional Cuisines, North American, Oceanian, and South American Cuisine categories to the Recipes / Techniques (Cooking) Industry seems to be perfect timing.

Today, I'm making a traditional Spanish soup for tonight's card party: caldo gallego. Imagine navy beans, ground sausage and beef, chicken broth, spices, and kale! It's delicious.