Forex: Trading Currencies ? What Is It ?

A currency is a form of financial instrument that is used as a medium of exchange and for trading other currencies. Trading currencies is a moneymaking activity wherein the margin of profit could be greater when currencies would be traded in volume.

The purchase and sale of currencies in the foreign exchange market is called currency trading. Currency traders buy and sell different currencies mostly in pairs with the intention to make profits. However, currency trading is regarded a zero-sum game meaning, in every transaction, there is a winner and a loser. There is often a risk of losing similar to other financial and trading activities. Fluctuation in currency values is an inevitable occurrence in currency trading.

Currency trading occurs in the foreign exchange market. This kind of trading between currencies is also called foreign exchange or more simply, FOREX. Trading currencies is one of the largest financial activities in the world. The foreign exchange market is regarded as the largest financial market in the world, larger than stock market or even commodities and futures markets combined.

The thing that makes currency trading amazing is that, to date, the average trading volume reaches over a billion per day. Estimates have it that an average of approximately 2 billion dollars worth of currency is traded every day from different hands.

Moreover, currency trading takes place mostly electronically. Physical trading may occur but not frequently. However, it is deemed that buying and selling currencies don't happen at all in physical state and that transactions occur online where trades exist mostly as computer entries. Large profits can be reaped from the exchange of currencies when the trading involves large volume. Leverage can also be employed to get greater gains. However, it is also probable that large losses may incur.

Currency trading is unique in a lot of ways compared to other financial markets. It may not require large money as initial capital to trade currencies unlike stock market where it may involve initial money requirement to obtain stocks.

When it comes to cost, currency trading is not as costly as other trading activities in the financial markets. Several firms don't ask commission. The commission that may only incur in this kind of activity is the purchase and acquisition of tradable instruments. Likewise, there are no brokers in currency trading only dealers.

Moreover, central clearinghouse does not exist in foreign exchange. There is no central governing body to regulate the currency trading activities. Traders normally transact based on credit agreements.

Currency trading, as mentioned, occurs mostly online. This makes 24/7 trading of currencies possible. However, in most cases, the trading happens on weekdays from Monday to Friday while weekends are trading day-offs.

The fluctuation of currency values makes currency trading a high-risk financial activity. However, if the trading involves extremely risky arrangements, there is also a potential for enormous returns. Foreign exchange market is the most liquid market in the world.

The fluctuation in currency values can have something to do with the law of supply and demand. A currency tends to become valuable when the demand for it is greater than its availability. Less demand for the currency inversely proportional to its available supply lessens its worth.

Speculation is another reason for the fluctuation that occurs in the FOREX market. Drastic change may happen to a country's economy from speculative demand for a currency. Because of speculation, traders and investors can purchase or sell currencies accordingly.

Dealers of currency trading are mostly financial institutions or employees working in financial companies. However, the popularity of FOREX in the Internet paves way for more retail dealers. However, similar to other financial markets, currency trading is not for everyone. It requires greater understanding theoretically and demonstratively to know extensively the fashion of currency trading.

Top Bloggers Who Earn Big Bucks... $$

These bloggers did not count on making big money; they sound like they all became unexpected successes in the world of content publishing. Note that these statistics and earnings were taken sometime in the past — as a snapshot in time — so I suspect much higher traffic and MUCH healthier revenues for these bloggers today. In fact, I know very well that smaller blogs in some great niches make pretty good money along these lines.

BoingBoing.Net

Launched: January, 2000 Stats: 2.6 million unique visitors and 22 million page views in one month Advertising Rates: $350 for a small ad button for one week $2,000 to $3,000 for banner ads sold through the Federated Media ad network Posting Frequency: 20 to 40 times a day by 4 authors Revenue: Over $1 million per year

All I can say is WOW! Although I’m still trying to grasp what it is they write about.

I Can Has Cheezburger?

Launched: January, 2007
Stats: 500,000 to 1.5 million page views a day
Advertising Rates:

• $500 to $5,400 a week through BlogAds
• Unknown earnings from Google AdSense and Adbrite

Revenue: $5,600 per month

Behind this site is Eric Nakagawa, another software developer turned accidental entrepreneur. The blog allows you to submit cute pictures of furry animals and other critters, with fun captions. For the number of page views this site has, I believe their earnings are vastly understated. Plus, according to the Wikipedia, some investors “acquired” this site for a cool $2 million around a year ago. Is that for real? 

ShoeMoney

Launched: October, 2005
Stats: 20,000 unique visitors a day
Revenue: $12,000 a month

Okay, Shoemoney’s blog revenue accounts for 3% of his company’s total revenue, given that he does a lot of other online ventures. .

Kottke.org

Launched: March, 1998
Stats: 250,000 to 300,000 unique visitors a month
Revenue: $5,300 a month from a single, exclusive ad

Perez Hilton

Launched: September, 2004
Stats: 4 million unique visitors a day
Post Frequency: 24 posts on an average day, 40 posts on a very active day
Revenue: $111,000 a month based on ad rates

TechCrunch

Launched: June, 2005
Stats: 5 million page views a month
Ad Rates:

• $300 per week, for a small text ad
• “Thousands” for banner ads

Revenue: $200,000 to $240,000 a month

“When I started the blog, it was just a hobby,” says Arrington. But, after a while, “It was pretty clear that I could make more money blogging than from anything else.”

Go Fug Yourself

Launched: July, 2004
Stats: 3.5 million unique visitors a month

Ad Rates:

• $60 for a simple text ad
• $3,000 for fancier banners

Revenue: $6,240 a month

These lovely ladies are making great money with their blog, but with their traffic, they can probably make a lot more!

Problogger.Net

Launched: November, 2004
Revenue: Over $100,000 a year

The original problogger.

As you can see, there’s a lot of opportunity in blogging… It’s the perfect type of work for creative types who can wear many hats. If you’re a jack of all trades who enjoys spending some amount of time in front of the computer, then this could be a great way to increase your income.

So if you ever say to yourself I cant make money writing, come back here and read this again..It will make you think twice.

Why Its Smart To Write Your Own E-Book

E-Books are part of the new frontier of cyberspace. They are an entirely new medium for sharing marketing information, ideas, techniques, and expert knowledge. Each day the number of people accessing the Internet grows, causing the exposure of your E-Book to increase incrementally. It's obvious why electronic self-publishing has become so popular so quickly.

The publishing industry, I hope, does not intend to forever banish the printed word to the dustbin of history. Books in print have their own special qualities and merits, and the world would be diminished by their disappearance.

Having said that, let's look at what makes E-Books so important and so unique.

• E-Books have certain abilities and qualities that other mediums do not possess. For example, E-Books are fairly easy to produce, and their production cost is inexpensive. Just think about it: you don't need a publisher, an agent, a printing press, offset film, ink, paper, or even a distributor. You just need a great concept, the ability to write it or to hire a writer, and the right software.

• Additionally, E-Books are easily and rapidly distributed online. They are also easily updated; they do not require a second print run. All you need is to go into your original creation and modify the text or graphics. Because of this flexibility, E-Books can change and grow as fast as you can type.

• E-Books are also immediately obtainable. You don't have to go to a bookstore or search through endless titles at an online bookstore. All you have to do is download it from a website, and presto! It's on your computer, ready to be read.

• E-Books are interactive. This is one of the most unique and specific qualities that E-Books offer. You can add surveys that need to be filled out, order forms for customers to purchase your products or goods, sound and video that draw your reader into the virtual world of your E-Book, even direct links to relevant sites that will expand your E-Book outward. The potential is virtually limitless.

• E-Books have a particular kind of permanence that other mediums do not possess. Television shows and radio shows air once, and then may rerun a few times. E-Books remain on your computer for as long as your choose, and they can be read and reread whenever you choose to. They can even be printed out and stored on the shelves of your traditional home library.

• Another wonderful quality is that E-Books have no barriers in terms of publishing. You don't need to go through the endless process of submitting your manuscript over and over again, and then once you land an agent, having the agent submit your manuscript over and over again. Nor do you have to shell out thousands of dollars for printing a self-published book. All E-Books require is a writer and appropriate software.

Figure out your market, write your book, post it on your website, and with the right business savvy, your audience will come to you.

Finally, you have creative control over your E-Book. You don’t have to compromise with an editor or the publishing trends of the time. You don't have to haggle with a designer or wait for copy edited galleys to arrive by snail mail. You are in complete control of the design and the text.

Advertising On Mobile Phones is Next Big Business For Entrepreneurs

The Next Gold Mine for Online Entrepreneurs....$

ADVERTISING on mobile phones is a tiny business. Last year spending on mobile ads was $871m worldwide according to Informa Telecoms & Media, a research firm, compared with $24 billion spent on internet advertising and $450 billion spent on all advertising. But marketing wizards are beginning to talk about it with the sort of hyperbole they normally reserve for products they are paid to sell. It is destined, some say, to supplant not only internet advertising, the latest fad, but also television, radio, print and billboards, the four traditional pillars of the business.

At the moment, most mobile advertising takes the form of text messages. But telecoms firms are also beginning to deliver ads to handsets alongside video clips, web pages, and music and game downloads, through mobiles that are nifty enough to permit such things. Informa forecasts that annual expenditure will reach $11.4 billion by 2011. Other analysts predict the market will be as big as $20 billion by then.

The 2.5 billion mobile phones around the world can potentially reach a much bigger audience than the planet's billion or so personal computers. The number of mobile phones in use is also growing much faster than the number of computers, especially in poorer countries. Better yet, most people carry their mobile with them everywhere—something that cannot be said of television or computers.

In September Blyk, a new mobile operator, launched a service in Britain that aims to do just that. It offers subscribers 217 free text messages and 43 free minutes of voice calls per month as long as they agree to receive six advertisements by text message every day. To sign up for the service, customers must fill out a questionnaire about their hobbies and habits. So advertisers can target their messages very precisely. “Britain is the largest, but also the trickiest European ad market, so if it works here it will work everywhere,” says Pekka Ala-Pietila, chief executive and one of the founders of Blyk.Yet the biggest selling point of mobile ads is what marketing types call “relevance”. Advertisers believe that about half of all traditional advertising does not reach the right audience. Less effort (and money) is wasted with online advertising: half of it is sold on a “pay-per-click” basis, which means advertisers pay only when consumers click on an ad. But mobile advertising through text messages is the most focused: if marketers use mobile firms' profiles of their customers cleverly enough, they can tailor their advertisements to match each subscriber's habits.

Last year America's Virgin Mobile tried something similar with its “Sugar Mama” programme, which offers subscribers the choice between receiving an ad via text message or viewing a 45-second advertisement when browsing the internet in exchange for one free minute of talk time. Those who spend five minutes filling out a questionnaire online get five more minutes. Sugar Mama is proving popular: at the end of August Ultramercial, the company that manages the scheme, reported that Virgin Mobile had given away more than 10m free minutes.

Vodafone, a big mobile operator based in Britain, sees mobile advertising as a potentially lucrative source of additional income. For the time being, most of the ads on its network are still text messages, although it has begun displaying ads on Vodafone live!, its mobile internet homepage, through which subscribers access the internet and download videos and music. Vodafone is also running several pilots, says Richard Saggers, the head of its mobile advertising unit, in which subscribers receive free content in exchange for viewing ads. Earlier this year, subscribers in Britain were given the option of downloading footage from “Big Brother”, a reality-TV show, in exchange for viewing a promotional video clip. The firm has also offered free video games punctuated with ads to customers in Greece, and free text messages to Czech students who agree to accept ads in the same format.

Most mobile advertising strategies now rely on text messages, since few customers have taken to more elaborate services that allow them to download music, games and videos and to surf the web. Only 12% of subscribers in America and western Europe used their mobiles to access the internet at the end of 2006. Most people think mobile screens are too small for watching TV programmes or playing games, although newer models, such as Apple's iPhone, boast bigger and brighter screens.

That is not the only problem. While consumers are used to ads on television and radio, they consider their mobiles a more personal device. A flood of advertising might offend its audience, and thus undermine its own value. Tolerance of advertising also differs from one market to another. In the Middle East, for example, unsolicited text messages are quite common, and do not prompt many complaints. But subscribers might not prove so open-minded in Europe or America.

Another hitch, says Nicky Walton-Flynn of Informa, is that operators have lots of databases with information about their clients' habits that would be of great interest to advertisers. But privacy laws may prevent them from sharing it. Moreover, advertisers, operators and middlemen have not agreed a common format for this information, nor worked out how to share the revenue it might yield.

Some think these obstacles will confine mobile advertising to a niche for years to come. But others see a whole new world of possibilities, as more people use their phones to access the internet and consumers grow used to the intrusion. Mobile phones, some of which are now equipped with satellite-positioning technology,  could be used to alert people to the charms of stores or restaurants they are walking or driving past.

Typing ads to online searches from mobile phones is another potential goldmine. A subscriber typing in “pizza” for instance, could receive ads for nearby pizza parlours along with his generic search results. Such a customer, mobile operators hope, is likely to be more grateful than annoyed by the intrusion. What could be more relevant than that?

Submit Articles On Fastbutter.com

Fastbutter.com

I have recently come across a very nice place to submit articles. One of the great things about this site is the writer has the opportunity to become a part of something new and fresh. Fastbutter.com is exactly that place. You can submit new articles or write about reviews and gain recognition for your articles being published. Also the great thing about this site is they are new and you wont become lost in the maze of thousands of writers. You get the opportunity to grow with them and becomeing a featured writer. basicall you can become a rising star.

Here is what they have to say about their website :

"FastButter is an article & link oriented social community that allows you to either write or share articles and news in a easy and userfriendly way.

With the functionality to socialize with other members in FastButter community we also allow you to have a fun time discussing anything and connect with new friends. The site was launched (in beta mode) officially in September 2010 with no funding. "

Here are some great features about Fastbutter.com that I like:

1. Write your own news, articles or simply post links to your

   favorite articles, images, or videos on the web.

2. Discover and bookmark stories submitted by other users.

3. Let the FastButter community discover your blog or website.

4. Link Your Blog to their community to gain exsposure.

5. grow with a fast and upcoming article submission community.

So if you want my opinion, Join this group of people like I have and start being  part of something new and rewarding at Fastbutter.com 

13 Ways To Promote Your Blog

13 Ways to Promote Your Next Blog Post

1. Pitching Other Bloggers

One of the most effective ways of getting the word out about a new post is to let other bloggers know about it. There isn’t much more powerful a way to find new readers than another blogger recommending something you’ve written to people who trust them.

Getting other bloggers to link to your posts is not always easy though – particularly in the early days of a blog or if you don’t have some sort of profile or pre-existing relationship with the bloggers that you’re pitching. However it isn’t impossible. Here are a few tips on how to pitch your posts to other blogs:

• Relevancy is key - don’t pitch stories to other bloggers that have little or no relevance to their blog. You’ll just be wasting their time and yours.
• Only pitch your best posts - you will have a much higher success rate at getting a link if you only do it with your best stuff. I would only ever do this with around 1-2% of my posts.
• Give them an angle – don’t just shoot the link over – tell the blogger what the story is about and why it might be relevant to their blog. Save them a little work by showing how the post might be interesting to their readers.
• Keep it brief – if the blogger wants lots of details about your post they’ll click the link. Be to the point, communicate what you need to say and then let the blogger get on with their day.
• Be polite – don’t assume you’ll get the link or insist that they link to you – make the suggestion and let the blogger decide if it’s relevant for them.
• Be personal – use their name, their blog’s name and show you are not just spamming thousands of blogs with your email.

.

2. Social Messaging

An increasingly large source of traffic for my own blogs over the last year has been Twitter and other social messaging sites (like Friendfeed and Plurk). I use a mixture of automated tools and personalized tools to drive this traffic. 

I find that this works best if your blogs feed is not the only thing that you’re putting up on Twitter. Add your own personal tweets, link to other people’s content, ask readers questions etc – the more you mix it up the more effective your own automated tweets will be accepted and clicked upon by your followers.

Don’t be afraid to use social messaging to promote posts that have good discussion on them also. I find that 12-24 hours after my post goes live can be a good time to shoot out another tweet if there’s a particularly hot conversation going on (in fact this can drive even more traffic than the first TwitterFeed automated tweet as it alerts your followers to a conversation rather than just content).

3. Social Bookmarking

This is something that I only do on selected posts – those that I think could do well on bookmarking sites like Digg or StumbleUpon.

4. Internal Links

A great deal of blog promotion tips focus upon how to promote your blog on other people’s blogs and sites – but a great way to promote your blog post is to do it on your own blog.

One thing that I try to do with my best posts after I publish them is to think about where I could promote it on my own blog.

While it is at the top of my blog’s front page (the primary place to promote it) if you think hard you’re bound to find a few other posts in your archives that you could link to this new post. Find places where you’ve covered similar topics before and add your link as a ‘related reading’ link or even add a link to your new post within the content of an old post.

You might also want to add your new post to previously written ‘sneeze pages‘ or your sidebar if it’s a key post. Every link you add on your own blog to your new post potentially sends your current readers to your new post but also helps your blog with Search Engine Optimization (internal links count too).

5. Newsletters

If you have a newsletter list on your blog and you’ve written what you consider to be a key blog post – include a link to it in your next newsletter. Doing this will drive traffic but also signal to your readers that it’s a pillar post that you feel deserves their attention.

As with each of the points above – only do this with your best and most relevant posts. If you do it with every post reader will become desensitized to your recommended reading.

6. Other Blogs Comments Sections and Forums

NOTE: tread carefully with this one and only do it occasionally and in a way that adds value.

If you’ve got a post that you think relates strongly to something that another blogger has written about or that is the topic of discussion on a forum – leave a link to your own post.

The key to pulling this off without being labled a spammer is to leave a genuinely useful comment on the blog or forum. The comment itself should add value, be right on topic and contribute to the conversation. Then if you include a link introduce it with a ‘I’ve written more about this at….’ type comment rather than just a spammy call to action.

The other option is to email the other blogger first and ask if they’d mind if you leave the link. You might even find that the blogger will add the link to the post itself (don’t assume this).

7. Email Signatures

If you use a service like Feedburner they have a little widget that you can add to your email signature that highlights your latest blog posts. I’m not sure how effective that this is at driving traffic but the principle is a good one.

I know of a couple of bloggers who do the same thing by hand – they pick one or two of their latest key posts and add links to them as ‘featured posts’ in their email signatures. Many of us have links to our blog’s main URL in our email signatures but it strikes me that a link to a recent individual post could actually be more effective as it sends people to your very best content – food for thought.

8. Followup Posts

If you’ve just written a post that you feel is important a great technique to give it a second round of attention is to write a second post extending the first in some way.

This technique is very powerful at adding a sense of momentum to your blog.

9. Advertise Your Post

This one won’t be for everyone and is definitely only for those special posts that you write that you particularly want to drive traffic to – but why not put a little budget aside to promote a post with some advertising.

Key posts that have a high ‘usefulness factor’ to potential readers are a great way to find new loyal readers to a blog. Rather than advertising the front page of your blog a high quality post can actually be the perfect landing page for an advertisement.

There are a variety of ways to advertise a blog but one of my favorites is on StumbleUpon where you can actually start an organic rush of traffic to a good blog post with a relatively small budget. Learn more on how to do it at