Archive Category: Money & Finance
When The Going Gets Tough, ... The Middle Class Goes Shoplifting!
A new survey by the Centre for Retail Research revealed that shopping shoplifting has increased at an astonishing rate:
They found that shoplifting in Britain has increased in the past year by nearly 20 per cent to almost £5 billion, £750 million more than in 2008, keeping Britain at the top of Europe’s shoplifting table. Clothing and fashion accessory shops were hardest hit, with branded designer goods high on thieves’ shopping lists, closely followed by DIY stores.
Neil Matthews, vice-president of Checkpoint Systems, said that he was astonished at the rise of middle-class shoplifters. “We are not simply looking at your traditional shoplifters here. We are seeing more instances of amateur thieves stealing goods for their own personal use rather than to sell on than before,” he said.
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A Counterfeit Penny Made of Gold
Seattle artist Jack Daws made eleven pennies by casting them from 18 karat gold and plating them with copper. One of those pennies was sold for $1,000 as a work of art. Another penny was spent at a news stand in Los Angeles. Yes, Daws sent one of the pennies into circulation in 2007 as a counterfeit -on purpose. He expected never to see it again. Over two years later, a graphic designer from Brooklyn noticed a golden gleam on a penny she was given as change. She put it away to investigate later, as she was a fan of unusual coins.
Then recently, while doing research about a 1924 Mercury-head dime, she remembered the penny and typed “gold penny” into Google, which returned information on science experiments to give a penny a gold color. She added “1970” and found an item about how Mr. Daws had put a 18-karat gold penny, dated 1970 with no mint mark, into circulation. It was heavier and smaller than a real penny.
In disbelief, she weighed the penny on a digital scale. It came in at three grams, one gram more than similar pennies from 1970. And it was slightly smaller than a normal penny, owing to the shrinking after the casting process.
She traced Mr. Daws’s phone number through the gallery and left him the message. When he called back, he knew it had to be his penny as soon as she described it to him.
Reed will keep the penny as a work of art. How many other hands did the gold coin pass through before she found it? We will probably never know. Link -Thanks, Bill!
(image credit: Lynn Rogan)
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Neatorama Penny Pyramid
Remember the record-breaking Penny Pyramid built by Marcelo Bezos? Well, Marcelo had built a "glow in the dark" pyramid featuring Neatorama:
Marcelo's selling the Penny Pyramid, along with the house it comes in:
How do you get a record 3,500 lb. Penny Pyramid out of a house before you sell it ?........ YOU DON”T, you list it as one of the many upgrades and amenities that comes along with it!
Welcome to the current home of the World’s Largest Penny Pyramid! The penny pyramid which was originally built in 2006 to raise awareness for colorectal cancer and the screening process will be auctioned off along with the house it was built in this winter to raise funds in support of the Penny Pyramid Project. Mr. Bezos, the creator and holder of the record is also the founder of the Penny Pyramid Project, a non-profit child philanthropy educational program that uses its signature world record penny pyramid in fundraisers used to support other charitable organizations in the greater Miami area. The Penny Pyramid Project was founded in 2007, it ran its first annual fundraiser that same year raising over 1,200 dollars in pennies alone. Unfortunately, the fledgling program was temporarily forced to go dormant during the 2008 school year. Mr. Bezos, “it is my hope that this unique approach to the sale of the house will generate enough local and national interest that will generate the necessary funding in order to bring back this really neat educational program for our school children.”
and…. if it does not sell?, well then each coin used in the pyramid will be encased in an aluminum outer shell, a lost art only a few companies in the US now can reproduce. In its hay day from 1900-1970, millions of these encased pennies were used to commemorate or used as a premiums to help advertise a company’s product. Mr. Bezos, This type of coining is just a really cool way to showcase what now is the Worlds Largest “Glow” in the dark penny pyramid!”
The current Pyramid has grown to just over 525,000 pennies. The accompanying video series has also been a viral sensation around the world receiving over 3,300,000 views and counting!
The latest work has caused the outer coins to glow in the dark turning the current structure into the Worlds Largest “Glow” In The Dark Penny Pyramid!
Link - Thanks Marcelo!
Update 11/3/09: Marcelo gave us further info on the Neatorama Penny Pyramid statistics:
The letters are made up of the following number of piles and coins
All pennies are uncirculated 2009 D Professional Series.
N= 57 piles 570 pennies
E= 63 piles 630 pennies
A= 64 piles 640 pennies
T= 61 piles 610 pennies
O= 40 piles 410 pennies
R= 56 piles 560 pennies
A= 64 piles 640 pennies
M= 65 piles 650 pennies
A= 64 piles 640 pennies
1. takes about 1min 30 to process each pile so it glows, (secrete process, last about 600 hours when subjected to continous UV light)
2. took about 5 hours to insert in pyramid
ok, that’s a total of 534 piles or 5340 pennies
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Al Gore: World's First "Carbon" Billionaire?
Climate change may be serious stuff for many of us, but for Al Gore, it’s seriously profitable. He’s about to become the world’s first "carbon" billionaire:
Few people have been as vocal about the urgency of global warming and the need to reinvent the way the world produces and consumes energy as Mr Gore. And few have put as much money behind their advocacy and are as well positioned to profit from this green transformation, if and when it comes.
Critics, mostly on the political right and among global warming sceptics, say Mr. Gore is poised to become the world’s first "carbon billionaire," profiteering from government policies he supports that would direct billions of dollars to the business ventures he has invested in.
Representative Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, has claimed that Mr Gore stood to benefit personally from the energy and climate policies he was urging Congress to adopt.
Mr Gore had said that he is simply putting his money where his mouth is.
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Nicolas Cage is Broke
If you’re feeling a tad poor because of the economic meltdown, tell yourself that at least you’re not Nicolas Cage. The highest paid actor in Hollywood is broke:
How could one of Hollywood’s highest paid actors find himself owing $6.3 million in back taxes and deep in money troubles? The answer is, "Easy," if you believe Nicolas Cage.
In a lawsuit filed Oct. 16 in Los Angeles, the National Treasure star, 45, claims that his longtime business manager, Samuel J. Levin, "lined his [own] pockets with several million dollars in business management fees while sending Cage down a path toward financial ruin."
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Money is the Root of All Evil T-Shirt
Money is the Root of All Evil – $11.95
You’ve heard the common saying "Money is the root of all evil," and now it’s been conclusively proven with mathematical precision. From the Neatorama Shop: Link | More Geektastic Science T-Shirts
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Your Prefix of the Day: Yotta-
Mr. Dalton Chiscolm sued Bank of America for $1,784 billion trillion dollars. That’s $1,784,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. In the International System of Units this amount would be expressed as 1.784 yottadollars.
The range of SI unit prefixes is shown above; “yotta” is the largest accepted prefix, used to measure things like the diameter of the known universe (in yards).
U.S. District Judge Denny Chin, who heard the case in Manhattan’s federal court, presided over the Bernie Madoff trial, and thus is familiar with large amounts of money – but even he was impressed by the size of Mr. Chiscolm’s claim. If every person on earth had as much money as Bill Gates, that total wealth would still only be 1/1000th of the amount requested.
The plaintiff was asked to provide further evidence to support his claim.
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Top 11 Oddball Tax Deductions
People have deducted swimming pools, breast implants, and body oil from their income for tax purposes -and the IRS allowed it! You can deduct anything if you can justify it as a legitimate business expense. Eleven people did just that in this article from Kiplinger.
1. Pet food. A couple who owned a junkyard were allowed to write off the cost of cat food they set out to attract wild cats. The feral felines did more than just eat. They also took care of snakes and rats on the property, making the place safer for customers. When the case reached the Tax Court, IRS lawyers conceded that the cost was deductible.
(image credit: Flickr user play4smee)
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Das Kapital Money Bank
Das Kapital Money Bank – $19.95 + s/h
This one will make Karl Marx spin in his grave (you may be surprised to find where the father of communism was buried. No, not the Soviet Union. Karl Marx was buried in London.)
Behold the Das Kapital Money Bank – a secret storage case shaped like his Das Kapital manifesto. And at $19.95 over at the Neatorama Shop, you don’t have to be the bourgeoisie to buy one: Link
See also: Good Marx, Bad Marx T-Shirt
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Seats of Gold
Sportswriter Wright Thompson tried out the “Legends” section at the new Yankee Stadium. The seats originally went for $2,500. Now they are mostly empty, even though the price has dropped to $1,250. In telling the story of how such an exclusive luxury section came to be, Thompson relates the changes in baseball with the state of the economy.
A recent poll discovered an unsettling trend emerging for the first time. American families whose household income is $75,000 or less now have zero dollars of discretionary income. According to Luker, that means about 75 percent of the country can never responsibly afford to go to a live professional sporting event. Franchises want them to be fans, to buy the gear and pull for their teams and watch the telecasts the leagues are paid billions for. But they don’t need them to come to their stadiums. There are, right now, plenty of rich people who love games. The prices reflect that. The reason sporting events cost so much now, Luker’s research shows, is because they are designed to be affordable only to those making $150,000 or more a year.
This wasn’t always true. Ten years ago, it was cheaper to go to a baseball game than to a movie in half of the big league markets (take away parking at the game, and it was cheaper in every market). Today, there isn’t a single city in America where it costs less to go to a major league game than to a movie. Everywhere we turn, we see examples of the collapsing middle class. This is where that issue lives in the world of sports, and it has predictable consequences.
You don’t have to be a baseball fan to relate to this story of a business choosing short-term profits over long-term growth. Link -via Metafilter
(image credit: Julie Jacobson)
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Wack-A-Banker
Engineeer and cartoonist Tim Hunkin created an arcade game that at first appears to be an ATM or banking kiosk. When coins are inserted, the banking poster drops and reveals Wack-A-Banker, giving you an opportunity to take your aggressions out on a group of financially oppressive stereotypes. See more pictures and read how this project came about at Tim’s site. Link -via Everlasting Blort
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Kids and Allowance
Families differ on how they give their kids money. Kelly writes about how her family does it, and the many questions that go along with allowances.
* Should the allowance be given freely OR tied to chores?
* Should I only pay for extra chores?
* How much money should I give my kid?
* Should I let them spend it on what they want OR should I force them to save a portion of it?
* Coins, bills, or a savings account?
* How often should I give him/her allowance?
Personally, I give the kids a set amount every week, in order to teach them by trial and error how to handle money. The amount is less than their friends get, which forces them to think hard about how they spend it. Their allowance is not tied to performing family chores, but occasionally I give a bonus to someone who has been extra helpful (only as a surprise). How does your family handle children and their money, or how do you plan to do it? Link -via Consumerist
(image credit: Flickr user Pingu1963)
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Marcelo Bezos' Penny Pyramid
Marcelo Bezos has been collecting pennies for the past 35 years, and when his father-in-law died from colorectal cancer, he decided to do something to raise awareness for the disease: building a record-breaking pyramid out of pennies!
Here’s the video clip of the Penny Pyramid Project from 2006 – the structure contained some 280,000 pennies (Marcelo’s most recent pyramid contains over 435,000 pennies):
[YouTube - turn your speakers down if you don't like O Fortuna from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, the techno version]
Thanks Marcelo!
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2 Out of 5 Californians Are Jobless
Out of a job? If you live in the Great State of California, you’re in good company: two out of five working-age Californians do not have a job!
“The current recession stands apart from prior downturns for both the depth and breadth of destruction in the job market,” the report says. “California has lost more jobs at a faster rate in the past two years than during any prior recession for which data are available, and employment has fallen in nearly every major sector of the economy.”
Because of the decline in the number of jobs coupled with growth in the labor force, the report finds that the percentage of working-age Californians who hold jobs has fallen to its lowest level in 32 years. Citing U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics, the report says just 57.5 percent of California adults are working.
The last time the percentage was that low was in 1977, a time when many women voluntarily chose not to work outside their homes. The percentage of employed adults peaked in 1989 at 64.9 percent.
Timm Herdt of Ventura County Star has the grim news: Link | California Budget Project Press Release [PDF]
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No fingerprints? No cash!
Steve Valdez of Tampa, Florida had a check written to him from his wife. He took a check to her bank to cash it. Bank of America requires a thumbprint to cash a check from anyone who does not hold an account there. The problem is that Valdez was born without arms. The bank refused to cash the check.
According to Valdez, when he gave the teller the check, she said “Obviously you can’t give a thumbprint.” But Valdez says the manager refused to cash the check unless he did.
When Valdez told the manager giving a thumbprint would be impossible, she suggested he either bring in his wife or open an account. Valdez says that’s not the way the bank would treat someone without prosthetic arms, and he refused.
A spokesman for Bank of America said that the bank should have made accommodations for Valdez. Link -via J-Walk Blog
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Israel's Richest Woman Can "See The Future"
Businesswoman Shari Arison, who happens to be Israel’s richest citizen worth some $2.7 billion by Forbes’ most recent estimate), has revealed a secret: she can see the future!
This is much bigger than a parlor trick. In her new book published this summer in Israel, the 51-year-old Miami native says she felt the Indonesian tsunami sweeping over the land two months before it happened and sensed Hurricane Katrina pummeling New Orleans. In an interview, Arison says she also "saw the writing on the wall" before the global economic crash. Reading about Arison’s extrasensory perception makes you ache for a heads-up, maybe a blog entry or a tweet or a phone call to Brownie or Greenspan or somebody who might have helped.
Arison explains that she has finally dropped the fear that has held her back from doing more about what she has perceived. Armed with the insight gained through work with Florida-based psychiatrist Brian Weiss, a proponent of regression therapy and the exploration of (take your pick) deep memories or past lives, she says she is ready to go public with her visions and bring together her spiritual and business goals.
Unfortunately, seeing the future isn’t the secret to her wealth. She got rich the old fashioned way … by inheriting her fortunes! Link
(Photo: Andrea Bruce for The Washington Post)
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Exploiting Chaos - New Book by TrendHunter's Jeremy Gutsche
Our pal Jeremy Gutsche, the founder of TrendHunter Magazine – one of the neatest websites around, by the way – has an interesting new book titled Exploiting Chaos: 150 Ways to Spark Innovation During Times of Change
Perhaps you’ve heard the saying popularized by John F. Kennedy that the Chinese word for crisis is composed of two characters, danger and opportunity. That turned out to be a fallacy, but the reasoning behind it is actually not all that bad.
In his book, Jeremy outlines ways you can utilize chaos and the current economic uncertainty for your benefit (shades of Obama White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel saying "… Never let a serious crisis go to waste" perhaps?). For example:
Crisis creates opportunity
Prior to the Great Depression, the only cereal brand that mattered was Post. After your great-grandfather silenced the piercing bells of his wind-up alarm clock, he savored the delicious taste of Post Grape-Nuts. Launched in 1897, the cereal dominated the marketplace leading up to the 1930s.
As the Great Depression tightened its angry claws on America, Post found itself hungry for cash. The prominent cereal maker assumed they "owned" the market. How could anyone stop lusting for Grape-Nuts? Accordingly, advertising budgets were cut to weather the storm.
As the managers of Post reclined in their rawhide chairs, bracing for a slow economy, a hungry tiger lurked in the shadows. That tiger was the Kellogg Company. Their mascot, Tony the Tiger, had not yet appeared, but his insatiable spirit was already born.
While Post retreated, Kellogg doubled their ad spend. In 1933 their campaigns introduced slogans like "Snap! Crackle! Pop!" and "You’ll feel better": motivational mantras during a gloomy era. The investment paid off. Americans loved the message and sales began to grow. Kellogg’s became the go-to pick for breakfast cereal and your great-grandfather abandoned his beloved Post Grape-Nuts.
The upbeat impact of a crisis is that competitors become mediocre, and the ambitious find ways to grow.
For such a serious topic, the book Exploiting Chaos is a rather breezy read. Jeremy himself acknowledged that our reading habits have changed (I blame texting) – you can browse the colorful book in a sitting. Anyhow, the real gem here isn’t the anecdotes that you get from the book, but the ideas, impetus, or kick-in-the-pants or whatever you want to call it – that you may get from reading it.
Check out the first chapter of Exploiting Chaos, available as a free PDF download here: Link | Exploiting Chaos website | Book available starting Sept 1, 2009 – Thanks Jeremy!
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The Value of United States Currency in Circulation
Millions of US coins and bills are exchanged daily and billions of them are in circulation. Visual Economics put together a great graphic to compare the values and number of currency in circulation, and even looked at how long each stays in circulation.
Would you have guessed there are almost 6 times as many $100 bills in circulation as there are $20 given that most ATMs use only $20s? Would you have guessed the $5 bill has the shortest life expectency of any bill, or that there are 4 times as many pennies than any other coin?
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Why Do Pro Athletes Almost Always Go Broke?
They earn millions playing pro sports and doing product endorsements, yet consider these startling statistics:
Similar to lottery winners, with no financial prowess or discipline, most pro athletes go completely broke in less than 10 years after retirement.
In fact, 60% of retired basketball players go broke in 5, and 78% of football players in 2! Athletes are forced to sell their homes, sell their championship rings, and file for bankruptcy.
Here’s an interesting article on the 6 main reasons pro athletes go broke after their careers are over: Link
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Cost of Parenthood: $221,190
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is apparently concerned with more than raising crops, has announced that the estimated cost of raising a child born in 2008 from birth to age 18 is $221,190. If you adjust for expected inflation before the child reaches adulthood, that figure is $291,570. Your mileage may vary.
The report by USDA’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion notes that family income affects child rearing costs. A family earning less than $56,870 per year can expect to spend a total of $159,870 (in 2008 dollars) on a child from birth through high school. Similarly, parents with an income between $56,870 and $98,470 can expect to spend $221,190; and a family earning more than $98,470 can expect to spend $366,660. In 1960, a middle-income family could have expected to spend $25,230 ($183,509 in 2008 dollars) to raise a child through age seventeen.
When you consider the income levels in these calculations, it doesn’t seem all that bad. Many families spend more than that on a house. Then again, the child’s shelter expense is the biggest item on the total bill, comprising 32% of the total. Link -via J-Walk Blog
(image credit: Flickr user Matt Stratton)
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Wedding Processional Pays Off
The video of Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz and their attendants dancing down the aisle at their wedding has over 13 million views on YouTube. Neither Chris Brown, whose song “Forever” served as the processional music, nor Sony Music demanded a takedown of the video. Rather, they requested click-to-buy links to Amazon and iTunes from YouTube, and sales of the year-old song skyrocketed. But what about Jill and Kevin? They appeared on morning TV to talk about the video, but haven’t made any money. Instead, they are using their sudden fame to raise funds for charity. From their website:
We have been through a lot in life, but have come through each experience stronger and more in love with each other. Our experience since we posted the video has been incredible. We would never have expected this response to our wedding entrance in a million years.
We hope to direct this positivity to a good cause. Due to the circumstances surrounding the song in our wedding video, we have chosen the Sheila Wellstone Institute.
Sheila Wellstone was an advocate, organizer, and national champion in the effort to end domestic violence in our communities.
There is a donation button on the site. Link
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The Highest-grossing Movies of All Time
You might read about how much money a certain movie makes and gasp at the numbers. But can you name the highest-grossing movies of all time if the ticket prices are adjusted for inflation? In this mental_floss quiz, you have five minutes to name the top 15 -if you can! I only guessed ten of them. Link
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Why Do People Fall For Payday Loans?
Payday loans can have a annual interest rate of 400%, but people who take them don’t look it it that way when they borrow $100 and pay back $115 in two weeks. Many fall into the trap of taking a second, third, or more loans to cover the shortfalls caused by the previous loans. University of Chicago economists Marianne Bertrand and Adaire Morse ran an experiment in which they explained the terms of payday loans in detail, and gave statistics on how the average borrower must continue getting loans.
In a nationwide experiment, Bertrand and Morse found that providing a clear and tangible description of a loan’s cost reduced the number of applicants choosing to take payday loans by as much as 10 percent. Better information, it turns out, may dissuade borrowers vulnerable to the lure of quick cash while maintaining the option of immediate financing for those truly in need.
Among the other 90%, some won’t change their behavior no matter what, but many have no other credit options available. Link
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Doing Without Money (on purpose!)
Daniel Suelo lives in a tiny cave in Utah. Instead of working for money, he spends his time foraging for food because he believes that living without money is a better way. Nine years ago, after volunteering with the Peace Corps, working in a women’s shelter, and living in Thailand and India, he decided to be a “vagabond in America”.
I tell him that living without money seems difficult. What about starvation? He’s never gone without a meal (friends in Moab sometimes feed him). What about getting deadly ill? It happened once, after eating a cactus he misidentified—he vomited, fell into a delirium, thought he was dying, even wrote a note for those who would find his corpse. But he got better. That it’s hard is exactly the point, he says. “Hardship is a good thing. We need the challenge. Our bodies need it. Our immune systems need it. My hardships are simple, right at hand—they’re manageable.”
Is this a grand experiment or a retreat from reality? Read the entire story at Men.Style. Link -via Digg
(image credit: Mark Heithoff)
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Economists Predict Recession to be Over Soon. What Do YOU Think?
Predicting the economy is a lot like reading tea leaves – but a lot less certain. Indeed, economist Edgar Fiedler famously said "Ask five economists and you’ll get five different answers – six if one went to Harvard."
Still, the economists at the ECRI (Economic Cycles Research Institute) are darn smart and have a pretty good track record, so perhaps there’s truly something to their latest prediction: the economy is turning around and the recession will soon be over.
NPR’s All Things Considered has the scoop:
"The reason we’re so convinced — and we are quite convinced — that the recession is drawing to a close is because of leading indicators," Lakshman Achuthan, managing director at the institute, tells NPR’s Guy Raz.
The ECRI categorizes indicators, like unemployment rates and productivity, as leading, lagging or coinciding with the business cycle. A lagging indicator would be the unemployment rate. Leading indicators include "drivers of the economy," such as housing activity, productivity, money growth and credit.
Different sequences of indicators point to different types of events. Achuthan says the ECRI sees a robust sequence of events that happen at the beginning and end of recessions, and indicators are showing it is likely that there will be a recovery soon.
"The key is that there is no one piece that we’re hanging our hat on. It is a pervasive upturn in these leading indicators, and that is the hallmark of something that is going to persist for a few quarters, a year at least," Achuthan says. "And it is going to be pronounced."
Achuthan says that when you add up all the indicators without bias into a leading index, the picture becomes clear: These indexes are shooting up. And that says a lot. In the time that these indicators have been in existence, they have not made a mistake on a recession or a recovery poll, he says.
What do you think? Will the economy recover soon or are you pessimistic?
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South African ATMs Are Weaponized with Pepper Spray
South Africa is apparently one really dangerous place. Case in point: ATMs there are weaponized – yep, weaponized – with pepper spray. What could go wrong? Apparently, this:
The technology uses cameras to detect people tampering with the card slots. Another machine then ejects pepper spray to stun the culprit while police response teams race to the scene.
But the mechanism backfired in one incident last week when pepper spray was inadvertently inhaled by three technicians who required treatment from paramedics.
Patrick Wadula, spokesman for the Absa bank, which is piloting the scheme, told the Mail & Guardian Online: "During a routine maintenance check at an Absa ATM in Fish Hoek, the pepper spray device was accidentally activated.
Previously on Neatorama: Anti Car Jacking Flame Thrower Car Mod
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$23 Quadrillion Restaurant Bill
A meal at Wolfgang Puck restaurant can be pricey, but $23 quadrillion? That’s what Jon Seale got charged on his Visa. And to make matters worse, he got charged an overdraft fee!
In New Hampshire, Josh Muszynski said he swiped his debit card at a gas station to buy a pack of cigarettes and when he later checked his account online found that he had been charged the 17-digit number — a stunning $23,148,855,308,184,500.
In North Texas, Jon Seale saw the same 17-figure bill on his credit card statement, presumably for a meal July 13 at a restaurant owned by celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck, NBC affiliate KXAS TV reported.
"For that amount of money, I could actually own Wolfgang Puck himself," Seale said.
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Follow the Money Trail
Link – via boingboing
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Rent Dodger Lives Here: A Landlord Resorted to Public Shaming to Oust Rent Dodger
When landlord Elaine Stenson couldn’t get her tenants to pay their rent for months and ignored legal notices to vacate the premises, she decided on a very old (medieval, actually) technique: public shaming.
And while the technique worked, it sparked an outrage by some:
A letting agency in Dundee is taking radical measures to name and shame tenants who are running up rent arrears. Lease2Keys are installing “for sale”-style signs outside properties with "Rent Dodger Lives Here", emblazoned on them. [...]
Gordon MacRae of the homeless charity Shelter is outraged by the letting agents’ actions. He said: “We thought tarring and feathering went out with the middle ages. People who find themselves in rent arrears usually have multiple reasons for being in debt.
Do you think it’s right to publicly embarrass a rent dodger or a deadbeat?
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Hosting Bills Killed the Internet Star
The issue of monetizing a website (through ads, or in Neatorama’s case both ads and e-commerce*) is something I continually think about. As many of you know, the blog started out with no ads whatsoever and throughout its growth (thanks, Neatoramanauts!) we’ve added text and banner ads to keep up with the hosting and bandwidth bills**.
So I really wasn’t surprised to hear the news that SilkTricky, a Portland interactive studio behind the web hit The Outbreak (posted on Neatorama before here), had to shut down the popular website because of hosting bills.
Todd Denis of Jawbone.TV interviewed Lynn Lund of SilkTricky about the decision to pull the plug:
Put aside for a moment the internal costs that a boutique design studio or maddened creator racks up in producing original production of a consumable magnitude (for the Outbreak, figure three months full-time for the writer/director/producer team, plus a system admin, a Flash guy, and hard costs for actors, props, equipment, etc., and it’s easily into the hundreds of thousands of dollars). The real killer, as endless lines of bankrupt indie filmmakers will attest, is ‘out-of-pocket’ expenses.
“We’ve been spending anywhere from $500 per month to $4,500 per month, depending on the traffic,” claimed Lynn Lund, Producer at SilkTricky. “As you can imagine, it adds up. We’ve spent about $20,000 in hosting alone since we launched in September [2008]. Since we funded this project out of our own pockets, it’s been tough to keep the site afloat.” [...]
For Lund, the equation was simple. “With the economy as it is and no means to monetize what we did with the Outbreak, we had to find a way to save some money so that we could put it towards a new project … we had to pull the plug.”
*Undoubtedly, many bloggers are familiar with instability of ad revenues for publishers, which forced some to be creative. Om Malik of the excellent tech blog Giga Om started a subscription-based Giga Om Pro, which features exclusive in-depth content geared toward IT professionals. We opted to open an ad-independent stream of revenue, the Neatorama Online Store.
**I’ve had many conversations with bloggers who don’t understand why it’s so expensive to run a large blog. After all, they could run theirs for a few dollars a month. Indeed, that’s how this blog started, but as traffic grew, we got kicked out of our shared hosting plan, and had to upgrade to VPS, then a dedicated server, then multiple servers in a load-balanced environment with content delivery network to serve images. As you can imagine, the cost of hosting and bandwidth increase very rapidly. The cost of running this blog runs into the five figures every year, and growing.
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