Money Making Schemes

Newsmax sent out an email today to
its mailing list touting the presence of Sarah Palin in “a special pre-election
webcast series we will be airing exclusively online” starting October 12.
According to the email, the webcast, to be called “Make America Great Again,”
will be hosted by Michael Reagan and feature Palin as well as “other opinion
leaders such as Dick Morris.”

Morris, of course, has been a longtime
marquee participant in shilling for Newsmax’s money-making schemes. Like
Palin, Morris is a Fox News contributor, making her at least the third Fox News
employee to team up with Newsmax; the other is Bill O’Reilly, who did an
interview featured in an informercial for yet another financial
product (though Fox News denied that it knew O’Reilly would be used in that way).
Palin has also previously touted Newsmax as one of the news sources she reads.

It wouldn’t be Newsmax, though, if
it wasn’t using people like Palin to try and sell you something.

If you sign up for this webcast, you
are directed to a web page (PDF) that gives you the opportunity to upgrade your Palin experience --
for a price, of course. You can continue to pay nothing and receive only “Brief
Clips of the Exclusive Interviews With Governor Palin, Dick Morris, Mike
Reagan, and the Entire Lineup of Important Guests” and “Limited Access to the
‘Make America Great Again’ Attendee Website.” Or you could pay $9.95 to be a
“VIP Member” and receive “Unlimited Access to the Make America Great Again
Campaign, PLUS” a copy of Palin’s forthcoming book.
You also get trial subscriptions to Newsmax’s magazine and one of its financial
reports, which has the usual caveat that you must cancel before the trial
period ends to avoid being automatically charged for a year’s subscription to
them.

Or you can pay Newsmax an extra $20 not
to send you the magazine and newsletter; a $29.95 “Book Subscription” gives you
“all of the benefits of VIP access as noted above, as well as Sarah Palin’s
upcoming new book, but you will NOT receive free trial subscriptions to Newsmax
magazine and The Franklin Prosperity Report.” Seeking payment for not doing
something is an interesting money-making strategy, and it’s a big clue as to
how much the profitability of Newsmax’s promotion depends on people forgetting to
cancel their trial subscriptions.

The web page also gives previews of
the webcast series, which looks like it will be mostly about attacking Obama, reinforcing right-wing talking points,
and encouraging conservatives to vote in November. It also sycophantically
calls Morris “the top political strategist and the man Time magazine referred to as ‘the most
influential private citizen in America’
” – which, as we’ve previously noted,
it did just before Morris resigned in disgrace from Bill Clinton's 1996 re-election
campaign.

Newsmax may not be selling financial
schemes for once, but it sure has a connection with Fox News that it has no
problem exploiting.

I read Foust’s take on the report of the Afghanistan Study Group and came away somewhat . . . puzzled. I haven’t read him before, and don’t had a sense of his perspective, which is part of that, I suppose. Most of his remarks amount to hairsplitting or know-better-ism. He just doesn’t seem to like those who put out the report, for reasons he doesn’t make clear. I’d have been far happier with him simply saying, “Here is a better plan, in contrast to x, y, and z in the report.” [This is not a criticism of the link to his blog post btw.]

I think Foust must know that the function of a report of this kind is not in its analysis but in its locus in policy debate. That is, it’s not the content but the audience. Despite that, Foust wants to parse minituae in analysis which he feels he has better command of than the authors. (And perhaps he does given that what he does say strikes me as sound in its disagreements.) The function of this report by the ASG is to give ’substantive cover’ to those who want to at least build down a US presence/committment in Afghanistan. It doesn’t seem (to the authors) politically possible either to meaningfully negotiate or leave, so they come up with a Third Way. I’m not endorsing that Third Way; there are definitely problems with it. And I suspect that I’d agree with Foust on most of his (undeveloped here) objections with that policy brief. The important thing, to me, is that there is an effort to shift policy away from Up the Surge. —And curiously Foust doesn’t even engage with that aspect. . . . Which seems to me the point of his remarks, somehow. I get the sense he thinks nation-building can be done there, just not at gunpoint. To which I would say, “And not by an occupying power in any way, shape, or form.”

The US occupation of Aghanistan is a straight-forward imperialist punitive action of prerogative. It never had any other stratetic objective than to punish distant indigenees which those in power here didn’t like, nor does it have any now. ‘Nation-building’ was not, is not, and won’t be on any substantive agenda _ever_; what has been done there amounts to Potemkin clinics to give foreign media shills photo-ops and talking points. I could say more in that vein, but I’ll spare all today. —But it’s all gone south(west). It is of vast significance, for example, that a substantial _Uzbek_ insurgency has flared up against the US occupation. This is touched on by Foust, and has been ‘kinda-sorta’ mentioned in the US and UK press without really being pursued. Because this is an imperialist venture, it is not presently conceivable that the US will be willing to _substantively_ negotiate with the insurgency; just too humiliating to actually discuss terms with ‘those brown people.’ And just leaving would look, too, too . . . Russian; too humiliating. So that’s not on anytime soon. That would leave, in effect, a policy direction very nearly like what is proposed in the ASG report, a snuff-and-puff overwatch while pulling most of the boots out; sort of like Iraq presently, with 50k+ US troops in ’select in-country bases.’ Sort of like the US policy to Haiti between the World Wars; own you and kill you when we feel like it, but wouldn’t live in a shithole like that. Sort of.

The illusion to me in this policy suggestion is that it will be _the US_ who will dictate the shape of the outcome, that outcome or any other. The success of the insurgency in Afghanistan, and it is an increasing success, has huge implications for Pakistan. Which potentiality/probability makes any plan for Afghanistan likely worth less than the pixels its postulated with. The most realistic ‘realist’ assessment of prospects in this region is, to me, a containment strategy. We’d get a better deal if we’d eat enough crow to actually negotiate, but I don’t think we’re that smart. Or for that matter that interested in putative success. Our only real goal has been to show ‘those brown people’ we can kill them if we feel like it, and we can keep doing that whether we’re on the ground, winning anywhere, or not. We won’t get a better outcome until we change our attitude, over here. And even defeat is unlikely to do that for us. Unless it’s a massive defeat on a scale we are rather unlikely to experience in our AfPak adventure as presently constituted.

Obama Calls Fox <b>News</b> a `Destructive&#39; Channel - NYTimes.com

The president tells Rolling Stone that Fox News promotes a point of view that is "destructive" to the growth of the United States.

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Kevin Smith&#39;s &#39;Red State&#39; Heading to <b>...</b>

In honor of the news that all six 'Star Wars' films will be re-released in 3D beginning in 2012, we present you with another.

Weather HD comes to iPhone, iPod touch | iLounge <b>News</b>

iLounge news discussing the Weather HD comes to iPhone, iPod touch. Find more Apps + Games news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

benchcraft company scam
benchcraft company scam

Obama Calls Fox <b>News</b> a `Destructive&#39; Channel - NYTimes.com

The president tells Rolling Stone that Fox News promotes a point of view that is "destructive" to the growth of the United States.

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Kevin Smith&#39;s &#39;Red State&#39; Heading to <b>...</b>

In honor of the news that all six 'Star Wars' films will be re-released in 3D beginning in 2012, we present you with another.

Weather HD comes to iPhone, iPod touch | iLounge <b>News</b>

iLounge news discussing the Weather HD comes to iPhone, iPod touch. Find more Apps + Games news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

benchcraft company scam benchcraft company scam

Newsmax sent out an email today to
its mailing list touting the presence of Sarah Palin in “a special pre-election
webcast series we will be airing exclusively online” starting October 12.
According to the email, the webcast, to be called “Make America Great Again,”
will be hosted by Michael Reagan and feature Palin as well as “other opinion
leaders such as Dick Morris.”

Morris, of course, has been a longtime
marquee participant in shilling for Newsmax’s money-making schemes. Like
Palin, Morris is a Fox News contributor, making her at least the third Fox News
employee to team up with Newsmax; the other is Bill O’Reilly, who did an
interview featured in an informercial for yet another financial
product (though Fox News denied that it knew O’Reilly would be used in that way).
Palin has also previously touted Newsmax as one of the news sources she reads.

It wouldn’t be Newsmax, though, if
it wasn’t using people like Palin to try and sell you something.

If you sign up for this webcast, you
are directed to a web page (PDF) that gives you the opportunity to upgrade your Palin experience --
for a price, of course. You can continue to pay nothing and receive only “Brief
Clips of the Exclusive Interviews With Governor Palin, Dick Morris, Mike
Reagan, and the Entire Lineup of Important Guests” and “Limited Access to the
‘Make America Great Again’ Attendee Website.” Or you could pay $9.95 to be a
“VIP Member” and receive “Unlimited Access to the Make America Great Again
Campaign, PLUS” a copy of Palin’s forthcoming book.
You also get trial subscriptions to Newsmax’s magazine and one of its financial
reports, which has the usual caveat that you must cancel before the trial
period ends to avoid being automatically charged for a year’s subscription to
them.

Or you can pay Newsmax an extra $20 not
to send you the magazine and newsletter; a $29.95 “Book Subscription” gives you
“all of the benefits of VIP access as noted above, as well as Sarah Palin’s
upcoming new book, but you will NOT receive free trial subscriptions to Newsmax
magazine and The Franklin Prosperity Report.” Seeking payment for not doing
something is an interesting money-making strategy, and it’s a big clue as to
how much the profitability of Newsmax’s promotion depends on people forgetting to
cancel their trial subscriptions.

The web page also gives previews of
the webcast series, which looks like it will be mostly about attacking Obama, reinforcing right-wing talking points,
and encouraging conservatives to vote in November. It also sycophantically
calls Morris “the top political strategist and the man Time magazine referred to as ‘the most
influential private citizen in America’
” – which, as we’ve previously noted,
it did just before Morris resigned in disgrace from Bill Clinton's 1996 re-election
campaign.

Newsmax may not be selling financial
schemes for once, but it sure has a connection with Fox News that it has no
problem exploiting.

I read Foust’s take on the report of the Afghanistan Study Group and came away somewhat . . . puzzled. I haven’t read him before, and don’t had a sense of his perspective, which is part of that, I suppose. Most of his remarks amount to hairsplitting or know-better-ism. He just doesn’t seem to like those who put out the report, for reasons he doesn’t make clear. I’d have been far happier with him simply saying, “Here is a better plan, in contrast to x, y, and z in the report.” [This is not a criticism of the link to his blog post btw.]

I think Foust must know that the function of a report of this kind is not in its analysis but in its locus in policy debate. That is, it’s not the content but the audience. Despite that, Foust wants to parse minituae in analysis which he feels he has better command of than the authors. (And perhaps he does given that what he does say strikes me as sound in its disagreements.) The function of this report by the ASG is to give ’substantive cover’ to those who want to at least build down a US presence/committment in Afghanistan. It doesn’t seem (to the authors) politically possible either to meaningfully negotiate or leave, so they come up with a Third Way. I’m not endorsing that Third Way; there are definitely problems with it. And I suspect that I’d agree with Foust on most of his (undeveloped here) objections with that policy brief. The important thing, to me, is that there is an effort to shift policy away from Up the Surge. —And curiously Foust doesn’t even engage with that aspect. . . . Which seems to me the point of his remarks, somehow. I get the sense he thinks nation-building can be done there, just not at gunpoint. To which I would say, “And not by an occupying power in any way, shape, or form.”

The US occupation of Aghanistan is a straight-forward imperialist punitive action of prerogative. It never had any other stratetic objective than to punish distant indigenees which those in power here didn’t like, nor does it have any now. ‘Nation-building’ was not, is not, and won’t be on any substantive agenda _ever_; what has been done there amounts to Potemkin clinics to give foreign media shills photo-ops and talking points. I could say more in that vein, but I’ll spare all today. —But it’s all gone south(west). It is of vast significance, for example, that a substantial _Uzbek_ insurgency has flared up against the US occupation. This is touched on by Foust, and has been ‘kinda-sorta’ mentioned in the US and UK press without really being pursued. Because this is an imperialist venture, it is not presently conceivable that the US will be willing to _substantively_ negotiate with the insurgency; just too humiliating to actually discuss terms with ‘those brown people.’ And just leaving would look, too, too . . . Russian; too humiliating. So that’s not on anytime soon. That would leave, in effect, a policy direction very nearly like what is proposed in the ASG report, a snuff-and-puff overwatch while pulling most of the boots out; sort of like Iraq presently, with 50k+ US troops in ’select in-country bases.’ Sort of like the US policy to Haiti between the World Wars; own you and kill you when we feel like it, but wouldn’t live in a shithole like that. Sort of.

The illusion to me in this policy suggestion is that it will be _the US_ who will dictate the shape of the outcome, that outcome or any other. The success of the insurgency in Afghanistan, and it is an increasing success, has huge implications for Pakistan. Which potentiality/probability makes any plan for Afghanistan likely worth less than the pixels its postulated with. The most realistic ‘realist’ assessment of prospects in this region is, to me, a containment strategy. We’d get a better deal if we’d eat enough crow to actually negotiate, but I don’t think we’re that smart. Or for that matter that interested in putative success. Our only real goal has been to show ‘those brown people’ we can kill them if we feel like it, and we can keep doing that whether we’re on the ground, winning anywhere, or not. We won’t get a better outcome until we change our attitude, over here. And even defeat is unlikely to do that for us. Unless it’s a massive defeat on a scale we are rather unlikely to experience in our AfPak adventure as presently constituted.

bench craft company rip off

Obama Calls Fox <b>News</b> a `Destructive&#39; Channel - NYTimes.com

The president tells Rolling Stone that Fox News promotes a point of view that is "destructive" to the growth of the United States.

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Kevin Smith&#39;s &#39;Red State&#39; Heading to <b>...</b>

In honor of the news that all six 'Star Wars' films will be re-released in 3D beginning in 2012, we present you with another.

Weather HD comes to iPhone, iPod touch | iLounge <b>News</b>

iLounge news discussing the Weather HD comes to iPhone, iPod touch. Find more Apps + Games news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

bench craft company rip off benchcraft company scam

Obama Calls Fox <b>News</b> a `Destructive&#39; Channel - NYTimes.com

The president tells Rolling Stone that Fox News promotes a point of view that is "destructive" to the growth of the United States.

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Kevin Smith&#39;s &#39;Red State&#39; Heading to <b>...</b>

In honor of the news that all six 'Star Wars' films will be re-released in 3D beginning in 2012, we present you with another.

Weather HD comes to iPhone, iPod touch | iLounge <b>News</b>

iLounge news discussing the Weather HD comes to iPhone, iPod touch. Find more Apps + Games news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

bench craft company rip off bench craft company rip off

Obama Calls Fox <b>News</b> a `Destructive&#39; Channel - NYTimes.com

The president tells Rolling Stone that Fox News promotes a point of view that is "destructive" to the growth of the United States.

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Kevin Smith&#39;s &#39;Red State&#39; Heading to <b>...</b>

In honor of the news that all six 'Star Wars' films will be re-released in 3D beginning in 2012, we present you with another.

Weather HD comes to iPhone, iPod touch | iLounge <b>News</b>

iLounge news discussing the Weather HD comes to iPhone, iPod touch. Find more Apps + Games news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

bench craft company rip off

Making Money Advertising

Online forums and communities present a largely untapped opportunity for making money — at least according to Dan Gill, cofounder and chief executive of Huddler.

The San Francisco startup is officially launching today. It’s one of those weird launches where the company has actually been working with customers for more than a year, and is only now getting around to telling the media that it exists. Gill said he wanted to make sure the technology was solid before doing too much to publicize it and attract competition.

Community-building software is a broad category, but Huddler approaches the market with a specific audience and mission. It’s looking for popular, product-focused forums that are built on either vBulletin or phpBB technology. Huddler contacts the owner of the site, offering to modernize the forum and bring in more money too.

Gill gave me a long list of benefits that Huddler can offer over older platforms. It gives the sites a makeover, so they look a bit less old-fashioned, not to mention more advertising-friendly. It optimizes the pages for search engines, and also makes them easier to share through Facebook Connect. And all the software is hosted online, rather than installed on someone’s computer, which means there’s less hassle for whoever’s managing the site.

Financially, there’s not much risk to the forum owner, since the software is free. Huddler is only paid by through a percentage of the increased revenue that it brings to a site. That revenue boost comes in a number of ways, Gill said — since the sites are product-focused, Huddler creates a product page with a link where visitors can buy the item in question. It also allows companies selling related products to create their own pages on the forum and engage with the community. And of course the sites can run advertising.

The transition to Huddler can be a challenging one because of the technology issues, as well as the likelihood that change will upset some forum members. Gill didn’t offer any details, but he hinted that he has seen his share of angry comments from users who didn’t like a new forum. But Huddler has become more proficient at both moving content to a new site and preparing users for the change, he said.

There are now 24 sites using Huddler, adding up to a total of 9 million unique monthly visitors. The success stories include EpicSki, which saw a 70 percent increase in natural search traffic after switching to Huddler, and DenimBlog, which doubled pageviews in two months and is now bringing in three times the amount of revenue.

Huddler raised $5.5 million in funding from New Enterprise Associates last year. For now, the company is focusing on existing forums because they’ve already got the audience, but Gill said, “There’s no reason you won’t be able to start your own Huddles in the future.”

[image via Flickr/Daniel Borman]

Next Story: Salesforce: Yes, Chatter really does improve productivity Previous Story: Otoy scores important deals for its server gaming technology

This post originally appeared on Forbes.com, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about social media, business and technology.

Why do web startups raise money? And how? These are two questions that account for a huge corpus of tech and financial discussion. Despite the complexity involved in these questions, their answers can be condensed into an eight-word statement: Someone somewhere thought he’d make his money back.

If you consider a few notable fundraising efforts from popular web startups, you begin to see how this aforementioned hypothetical “someone” might think his investment would be prudent and even profitable. Here are five popular web startups we’ve seen raising large amounts of money since the 2008 downturn, and a quick look at how they were able to do so.

1. Groupon

Groupon offers daily discounts for local businesses; these coupons can be redeemed only when a significant number of people choose to use them. For example, Groupon recently partnered with Gap to offer shoppers $50 worth of clothing and accessories for $25.

While daily deals and critical-mass coupons are fine and dandy for retailers and consumers, Groupon also takes its cut. The company usually keeps half of the coupon price and is expected to report $400 million in revenue for 2010.

Groupon has brought in increasing interest from investors. Since its relatively modest $1 million angel round in 2007, this startup has gone on to garner a total of $173 million over the past three years, the vast majority of which was raised after the 2008 economic crash. After collecting $6.8 million during its Series A round of funding, Groupon managed to bring in $30 million during its Series B round in December 2009, which was led by Accel Partners. Its headline-making $135 million Series C was led by Digital Sky Technologies, the famous investors behind Zynga and class='blippr-nobr'>Facebookclass="blippr-nobr">Facebook.

Without question, having a revenue stream as a core part of the company’s main product is a popular feature (with VCs) of funded startups. Groupon has that covered. Aside from the value the product offers, at scale, it also is intended to generate massive amounts of revenue. Unlike some social networking apps that require partnerships and advertising dollars to support an unrelated product for end users, generating revenue is Groupon’s most basic function.

2. Zynga

Zynga, creator of popular casual games, including FarmVille and Mafia Wars, boasts a revenue model based on small end-user transactions in virtual currency, which users spend on virtual goods. Zynga has proved that microtransactions at the scale of Facebook’s platform are big business worth serious investment.

Despite violating a core tenet of web startup wisdom: Never build your business on someone else’s platform, Zynga has racked up huge rounds and equally huge valuations. All told, Zynga has taken $519 million in funding, the bulk of which was raised after December 2009. In that month, the company closed a $180 million Series C from such firms as Andreessen Horowitz, Digital Sky and others. And in June 2010, Zynga took a $300 million Series D from class='blippr-nobr'>Googleclass="blippr-nobr">Google and SoftBank. With more than 56 million Americans playing social games, it’s no wonder why investors are putting down serious money in this industry.

3. Twitterclass="blippr-nobr">Twitter

Since its launch in 2006, micro-blogging service Twitter has become a social media darling, raising a total of $160 million since its 2007 Series A. The company raised $135 million over two rounds in 2009 from such firms as Benchmark, Morgan Stanley, Union Square and others.

Notably, all this money was raised before Twitter had found any significant source of revenue. This fact bucks a major trend in investment (that VCs like to see clear revenue stream before investing), but Twitter pulled it off because of one major factor: People.

Not only was the service growing exponentially, but it also had the endorsement (and daily usage) of pop culture celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher and Justin Timberlake. But nothing topped Twitter’s Oprah appearance, a watershed moment that brought a deluge of mainstream attention and a glut of new users.

Between the escalating adoption and increasing media attention, Twitter has become an opportunity investors can’t turn down.

4. Asana

Facebook Co-Founder Dustin Moscovitz and Facebook engineering lead Justin Rosenstein teamed up after leaving Facebook to found Asana, a startup that is reportedly building project management software. It is still in early development and hasn’t launched a product yet. This is one case where the product is presumed to be a sure bet because of the past experience and intellectual caliber of its creators.

Sometimes, a startup can raise money with nothing but pure pedigree. When a handful of big tech company engineers leave the mothership to found a startup, as happens in Silicon Valley from time to time, they can often drum up a round of funding before pencil meets paper.

Over seven months in 2009, the team was able to raise $10.2 million in two rounds of funding. In this case, investors are banking on Moscovitz’s and Rosenstein’s past successes. In a way, it’s as if they are investing in Beethoven’s next symphony or Van Gogh’s next canvas (i.e. the next Facebook).

5. Ustreamclass="blippr-nobr">ustream

Finally, there’s Ustream, a live interactive broadcast platform, which raised an impressive $75 million round of funding earlier this year from SoftBank. Previously, the startup had brought in nearly $13 million between a small 2007 seed round and a 2008 Series A. That’s a huge jump.

Despite a range of competitors in the online video world, including class='blippr-nobr'>YouTubeclass="blippr-nobr">YouTube, Ustream has made its mark on the live video market. Ustream has demonstrated mass-scale success in this arena by brokering deals to show live online footage of red carpet events, celebrity press conferences and even the 2008 Presidential Inauguration.

While challenging an industry leader like YouTube isn’t usually a prudent path to funding, doing so successfully through innovative technologies and user acquisition strategies can pay off.

More Business Resources from Mashable:

- 10 Emerging Social Platforms and How Businesses Can Use Them/> - 10 Free WordPress Themes for Small Businesses/> - The Future of Ad Agencies and Social Media/> - HOW TO: Run Your Business Online with $10 and a Google Account/> - 5 New Ways Small Business Can Offer Location-Based Deals

Image courtesy of iStockphotoclass="blippr-nobr">iStockphoto, Sage78

For more Business coverage:

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

Obama Says Fox <b>News</b> Promotes &#39;Destructive&#39; Viewpoint - NYTimes.com

Fox News Channel responds to President Obama's sharp critique of the channel in a Rolling Stone interview.

Brad Friedman and Desi Doyen: Green <b>News</b> Report: September 28 <b>...</b>

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Halliburton Makes the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (and pigs fly); More than 100 Arrested at White House Demanding End to Mountaintop Removal; Australian climate activists close down world's ...

Obama Says Fox <b>News</b> Is Hurting The Growth Of The United States

President targets Murdoch, hedge fund executives, and whiny Democrats in Rolling Stone interview.

halloween costumes

Obama Says Fox <b>News</b> Promotes &#39;Destructive&#39; Viewpoint - NYTimes.com

Fox News Channel responds to President Obama's sharp critique of the channel in a Rolling Stone interview.

Brad Friedman and Desi Doyen: Green <b>News</b> Report: September 28 <b>...</b>

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Halliburton Makes the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (and pigs fly); More than 100 Arrested at White House Demanding End to Mountaintop Removal; Australian climate activists close down world's ...

Obama Says Fox <b>News</b> Is Hurting The Growth Of The United States

President targets Murdoch, hedge fund executives, and whiny Democrats in Rolling Stone interview.

Online forums and communities present a largely untapped opportunity for making money — at least according to Dan Gill, cofounder and chief executive of Huddler.

The San Francisco startup is officially launching today. It’s one of those weird launches where the company has actually been working with customers for more than a year, and is only now getting around to telling the media that it exists. Gill said he wanted to make sure the technology was solid before doing too much to publicize it and attract competition.

Community-building software is a broad category, but Huddler approaches the market with a specific audience and mission. It’s looking for popular, product-focused forums that are built on either vBulletin or phpBB technology. Huddler contacts the owner of the site, offering to modernize the forum and bring in more money too.

Gill gave me a long list of benefits that Huddler can offer over older platforms. It gives the sites a makeover, so they look a bit less old-fashioned, not to mention more advertising-friendly. It optimizes the pages for search engines, and also makes them easier to share through Facebook Connect. And all the software is hosted online, rather than installed on someone’s computer, which means there’s less hassle for whoever’s managing the site.

Financially, there’s not much risk to the forum owner, since the software is free. Huddler is only paid by through a percentage of the increased revenue that it brings to a site. That revenue boost comes in a number of ways, Gill said — since the sites are product-focused, Huddler creates a product page with a link where visitors can buy the item in question. It also allows companies selling related products to create their own pages on the forum and engage with the community. And of course the sites can run advertising.

The transition to Huddler can be a challenging one because of the technology issues, as well as the likelihood that change will upset some forum members. Gill didn’t offer any details, but he hinted that he has seen his share of angry comments from users who didn’t like a new forum. But Huddler has become more proficient at both moving content to a new site and preparing users for the change, he said.

There are now 24 sites using Huddler, adding up to a total of 9 million unique monthly visitors. The success stories include EpicSki, which saw a 70 percent increase in natural search traffic after switching to Huddler, and DenimBlog, which doubled pageviews in two months and is now bringing in three times the amount of revenue.

Huddler raised $5.5 million in funding from New Enterprise Associates last year. For now, the company is focusing on existing forums because they’ve already got the audience, but Gill said, “There’s no reason you won’t be able to start your own Huddles in the future.”

[image via Flickr/Daniel Borman]

Next Story: Salesforce: Yes, Chatter really does improve productivity Previous Story: Otoy scores important deals for its server gaming technology

This post originally appeared on Forbes.com, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about social media, business and technology.

Why do web startups raise money? And how? These are two questions that account for a huge corpus of tech and financial discussion. Despite the complexity involved in these questions, their answers can be condensed into an eight-word statement: Someone somewhere thought he’d make his money back.

If you consider a few notable fundraising efforts from popular web startups, you begin to see how this aforementioned hypothetical “someone” might think his investment would be prudent and even profitable. Here are five popular web startups we’ve seen raising large amounts of money since the 2008 downturn, and a quick look at how they were able to do so.

1. Groupon

Groupon offers daily discounts for local businesses; these coupons can be redeemed only when a significant number of people choose to use them. For example, Groupon recently partnered with Gap to offer shoppers $50 worth of clothing and accessories for $25.

While daily deals and critical-mass coupons are fine and dandy for retailers and consumers, Groupon also takes its cut. The company usually keeps half of the coupon price and is expected to report $400 million in revenue for 2010.

Groupon has brought in increasing interest from investors. Since its relatively modest $1 million angel round in 2007, this startup has gone on to garner a total of $173 million over the past three years, the vast majority of which was raised after the 2008 economic crash. After collecting $6.8 million during its Series A round of funding, Groupon managed to bring in $30 million during its Series B round in December 2009, which was led by Accel Partners. Its headline-making $135 million Series C was led by Digital Sky Technologies, the famous investors behind Zynga and class='blippr-nobr'>Facebookclass="blippr-nobr">Facebook.

Without question, having a revenue stream as a core part of the company’s main product is a popular feature (with VCs) of funded startups. Groupon has that covered. Aside from the value the product offers, at scale, it also is intended to generate massive amounts of revenue. Unlike some social networking apps that require partnerships and advertising dollars to support an unrelated product for end users, generating revenue is Groupon’s most basic function.

2. Zynga

Zynga, creator of popular casual games, including FarmVille and Mafia Wars, boasts a revenue model based on small end-user transactions in virtual currency, which users spend on virtual goods. Zynga has proved that microtransactions at the scale of Facebook’s platform are big business worth serious investment.

Despite violating a core tenet of web startup wisdom: Never build your business on someone else’s platform, Zynga has racked up huge rounds and equally huge valuations. All told, Zynga has taken $519 million in funding, the bulk of which was raised after December 2009. In that month, the company closed a $180 million Series C from such firms as Andreessen Horowitz, Digital Sky and others. And in June 2010, Zynga took a $300 million Series D from class='blippr-nobr'>Googleclass="blippr-nobr">Google and SoftBank. With more than 56 million Americans playing social games, it’s no wonder why investors are putting down serious money in this industry.

3. Twitterclass="blippr-nobr">Twitter

Since its launch in 2006, micro-blogging service Twitter has become a social media darling, raising a total of $160 million since its 2007 Series A. The company raised $135 million over two rounds in 2009 from such firms as Benchmark, Morgan Stanley, Union Square and others.

Notably, all this money was raised before Twitter had found any significant source of revenue. This fact bucks a major trend in investment (that VCs like to see clear revenue stream before investing), but Twitter pulled it off because of one major factor: People.

Not only was the service growing exponentially, but it also had the endorsement (and daily usage) of pop culture celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher and Justin Timberlake. But nothing topped Twitter’s Oprah appearance, a watershed moment that brought a deluge of mainstream attention and a glut of new users.

Between the escalating adoption and increasing media attention, Twitter has become an opportunity investors can’t turn down.

4. Asana

Facebook Co-Founder Dustin Moscovitz and Facebook engineering lead Justin Rosenstein teamed up after leaving Facebook to found Asana, a startup that is reportedly building project management software. It is still in early development and hasn’t launched a product yet. This is one case where the product is presumed to be a sure bet because of the past experience and intellectual caliber of its creators.

Sometimes, a startup can raise money with nothing but pure pedigree. When a handful of big tech company engineers leave the mothership to found a startup, as happens in Silicon Valley from time to time, they can often drum up a round of funding before pencil meets paper.

Over seven months in 2009, the team was able to raise $10.2 million in two rounds of funding. In this case, investors are banking on Moscovitz’s and Rosenstein’s past successes. In a way, it’s as if they are investing in Beethoven’s next symphony or Van Gogh’s next canvas (i.e. the next Facebook).

5. Ustreamclass="blippr-nobr">ustream

Finally, there’s Ustream, a live interactive broadcast platform, which raised an impressive $75 million round of funding earlier this year from SoftBank. Previously, the startup had brought in nearly $13 million between a small 2007 seed round and a 2008 Series A. That’s a huge jump.

Despite a range of competitors in the online video world, including class='blippr-nobr'>YouTubeclass="blippr-nobr">YouTube, Ustream has made its mark on the live video market. Ustream has demonstrated mass-scale success in this arena by brokering deals to show live online footage of red carpet events, celebrity press conferences and even the 2008 Presidential Inauguration.

While challenging an industry leader like YouTube isn’t usually a prudent path to funding, doing so successfully through innovative technologies and user acquisition strategies can pay off.

More Business Resources from Mashable:

- 10 Emerging Social Platforms and How Businesses Can Use Them/> - 10 Free WordPress Themes for Small Businesses/> - The Future of Ad Agencies and Social Media/> - HOW TO: Run Your Business Online with $10 and a Google Account/> - 5 New Ways Small Business Can Offer Location-Based Deals

Image courtesy of iStockphotoclass="blippr-nobr">iStockphoto, Sage78

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

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Obama Says Fox <b>News</b> Promotes &#39;Destructive&#39; Viewpoint - NYTimes.com

Fox News Channel responds to President Obama's sharp critique of the channel in a Rolling Stone interview.

Brad Friedman and Desi Doyen: Green <b>News</b> Report: September 28 <b>...</b>

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President targets Murdoch, hedge fund executives, and whiny Democrats in Rolling Stone interview.

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Obama Says Fox <b>News</b> Promotes &#39;Destructive&#39; Viewpoint - NYTimes.com

Fox News Channel responds to President Obama's sharp critique of the channel in a Rolling Stone interview.

Brad Friedman and Desi Doyen: Green <b>News</b> Report: September 28 <b>...</b>

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Halliburton Makes the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (and pigs fly); More than 100 Arrested at White House Demanding End to Mountaintop Removal; Australian climate activists close down world's ...

Obama Says Fox <b>News</b> Is Hurting The Growth Of The United States

President targets Murdoch, hedge fund executives, and whiny Democrats in Rolling Stone interview.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_18/b4032066.htm

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http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_18/b4032066.htm

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Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics:

O�DONNELL ACCUSED OF PAYING RENT WITH CAMPAIGN FUNDS: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has filed complaints with the U.S. Attorney�s Office in Delaware and the Federal Election Commission, asking them to investigate the finances of Tea Party-backed Christine O�Donnell, the Republican U.S. Senate nominee in the First State. 

The complaint is outlined in a CREW press release, which states O�Donnell�s former campaign manager, David Keegan, said in a sworn statement that the U.S. Senate candidate paid two months of her rent out of campaign donations in 2009 because she was "out of money." On FEC forms, the expenditures are line-itemized as "expense reimbursements."

The Washington Post talked to O�Donnell, who said the claims are false. She has since said that she is no longer doing national interviews. 

In terms of fund-raising, O�Donnell is trailed her Democratic opponent, Chris Coons, as of Aug. 25 -- the date campaign finance reports are last available. Coons has raised upwards of $1.6 million and still has more than $844,000 cash on hand leading up to the election. O�Donnell, through Aug. 25, reported slightly more than $20,000 left from her $376,000 raised.

But unconfirmed reports from the O'Donnell campaign suggest she's raised hundreds of thousands of new dollars since defeating her GOP primary opponent, Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.), earlier this month. Castle had raised almost $3.5 million and spent $1.5 million of that total by the time of the primary.

GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT GETS BIG SPONSORSHIP: The Tea Party Patriots announced Tuesday a $1 million grant to build local Tea Party groups around the country. The sponsor of the grant remains anonymous, and the funds expire on Election Day, Slate magazine reported.

The funding cannot be used to endorse specific candidates, so organizers say they are still figuring out how to use the money appropriately. Around the country, 2,800 groups are eligible to apply for a grant, which supporters call "fertilizer for the grassroots."

Unlike the big-spending Tea Party Express political action committee (also known as the Our Country Deserves Better PAC) the Patriots, a so-called 501(c)4 organization, focus more on local movements and does not have a PAC of its own, the group�s site shows.

HOW MUCH DID YOUR VOTE COST?: Politics is a game you have to pay to play. However, a new chart by the Washington Post shows that having the most money doesn�t guarantee a "W" in the win-loss column.

The Post has taken the amount of campaign cash major self-funding candidates have raised and divided it by the number of votes they received in the election � essentially generating a number that they call, �dollars per vote.�

An interesting subject is Republican U.S. Senate hopeful, Carly Fiorina of California, who spent $5.5 million up until the primary and received almost a million votes -- giving her the smallest �dollars per vote� spent among candidates studied, with $6 per vote.

Have a news tip or link to pass along? We want to hear from you! E-mail us at press@crp.org.

Washington (CNN) - Fresh on the heels of Joe Miller's surprising win over Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the Alaska Republican Senate primary, the Tea Party movement is setting its sights on Delaware.

Now the Delaware Republican Party is taking heed – and taking on – the Tea Party-backed candidate in the state's Republican Senate primary, sparking a war of words between the state's establishment GOP and the Tea Party movement.

It's a race that pits conservative Tea Party favorite Christine O'Donnell against moderate Rep. Mike Castle, Delaware's former two-term governor and lone Congressman since 1993.

Both candidates' campaigns have become increasingly caustic, especially as Tea Party-backed candidates across the country have picked up win after win against GOP establishment candidates.

The Tea Party Express endorsed the conservative O'Donnell in July, and recently committed to spending at least six-figures in the state.

"We are launching an aggressive multimedia and multi-platform campaign to help propel Christine O'Donnell to victory, and we've only just begun," Amy Kremer, Chairman of the Tea Party Express, said in a statement.

The group originally planned to spend about $250,000 on the race, but is now considering expanding their presence with TV and radio ad buys in Philadelphia, said Tea Party Express political director Joe Wierzbicki.

A similar last minute media blitz by the Tea Party Express is credited with propelling Miller – a formerly little known candidate – to victory over Murkowski, the Republican Party-backed incumbent.

The group launched a series of TV and radio ads Thursday that support O'Donnell, and rail against Castle as a liberal candidate who "just keeps supporting the failed policies of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid."

It's a move that has the Castle campaign fighting back.

"Out-of-state interest groups have threatened to spend half a million dollars to fund the disgusting tactics being used by the O'Donnell campaign to make accusations," said Castle campaign manager Mike Quaranta.

Meanwhile, the Castle campaign has launched therealchristine.com, a site devoted to aggregating negative news about O'Donnell.

Tom Ross, state committee chairman of the Delaware Republican Party, defended the negative nature of the site. "The stories might not be flattering, but they are factual. ...Sometimes it is necessary to make sure that the facts get out there," Ross said.

O'Donnell has faced criticism over her personal finance issues and leftover debt from previous, unsuccessful bids for a Delaware Senate seat. She has also been accused of misstating the results of her run against Joe Biden.

When asked to clarify her remarks in an interview Thursday with radio host Dan Gaffney of WGMD, O'Donnell seemed to grow increasingly frustrated, and ultimately blamed her statements on a grueling campaign schedule.

Ross, who is backing Castle, said that O'Donnell's history is troubling.

"This is a group and candidate that clearly seem to have a problem with facts. It is shocking that they would come in and support a candidate of Christine O'Donnell's ilk," he said.

"It is sad that the group didn't investigate the candidate that they're supporting… and surprising they would take their supporters' money that they donated and squander it in such a fashion," Ross said.

Ross also questioned whether O'Donnell is capable of pulling off an upset similar to Miller's win in Alaska.

"In Alaska, it was that Joe Miller is an Ivy League grad, a war hero, excellent standing in the community," Ross said. "Look at Christine O'Donnell. She has none of those attributes. She is career politician. She's run unsuccessfully for Senate three times."

Yet, Wierzbicki criticized Ross for dismissing O'Donnell, calling her a true conservative.

" is everything that is wrong with the establishment of the Republican Party. He should be fired for serving to undermine a Republican candidate who stands on conservative principles. It's his job to advance all Republicans in the state of Delaware. Instead he has become a tool for those who wish to thwart the Republican Party platform and turn the GOP into a Democrat-lite outfit. We find him reprehensible and shameless," Wierzbicki said.

Republican Gov. Chris Christie of neighboring New Jersey endorsed Castle Thursday.

The winner will face Democrat Chris Coons in the race for Vice President Joe Biden's former seat.

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Ngmoco releases We City | iLounge <b>News</b>

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iLounge news discussing the Ngmoco releases We City. Find more Apps + Games news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

Small Business <b>News</b>: An Owner&#39;s Manual

If only there were an owner's manual that came with your small business telling you what works, what doesn't and what are the best ways to move ahead in your.

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Ngmoco releases We City | iLounge <b>News</b>

iLounge news discussing the Ngmoco releases We City. Find more Apps + Games news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

Small Business <b>News</b>: An Owner&#39;s Manual

If only there were an owner's manual that came with your small business telling you what works, what doesn't and what are the best ways to move ahead in your.

Diane Sawyer: ABC World <b>News</b> Goes Home: Looking for What Works in <b>...</b>

We at ABC's World News are heading out to search for innovative ideas that are helping turn the economy around. Real change is often born out of a simple act. And one ripple can lead to a powerful transformation.

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This post is from staff writer Sierra Black. Sierra writes about frugality, sustainable living, and getting her kids to eat kale at Childwild.com. This post is part of Book Week at Get Rich Slowly.

Since my twin victories of paying off our last credit card and funding a summer of travel, my husband has begun to show interest in personal finance.

It’s not that he wasn’t supportive of my efforts before — he just preferred to support them from a safe, ignorant distance. A distance from which I handed him an envelope of cash each week to do the grocery shopping, he didn’t ask too many questions, and somehow we were climbing out of debt. He was more than happy to adopt any frugal-living strategy I suggested, as long as he didn’t have to think about the Big Picture.

That system worked, but I longed for more active participation from him. Not only because I wanted us to share equally in the journey toward financial freedom — I do want that — but also for a selfish reason. I wanted him to participate because he’s better at this stuff than I am. He’s a whiz at spreadsheets. The man has a Ph.d in Physical Chemistry. You don’t get one of those without doing a few math problems.

Lately, I’ve been getting my wish. My husband has been talking with a financial advisor at the university he works for, and having clear, honest conversations with me about our money.

This seemed like the perfect time for me to read Mary Hunt’s How to Debt-Proof Your Marriage.

Relationship first

Hunt’s book covers the basics of personal finance and debt destruction, with a special focus on doing it as a couple. Before she even begins talking about financial management, Hunt talks about strengthening the foundations of your marriage. You can’t have financial harmony without emotional intimacy, she says.

I couldn’t agree more. It’s clear in my own marriage that spending time relaxing together on vacation helped my husband and me both chill out and have better conversations during our family finance meetings too.

Hunt and I part ways in the chapters about how to achieve that emotional intimacy, though. She bases her prescription for marital bliss on traditional gender roles. She includes chapters for each sex on how to make deposits in the other’s Love Bank — a metaphorical bank of goodwill made of small, loving gestures.

The Love Bank is an adorable idea, one I’m tempted to put into practice here in my own home. I’m pretty sure I won’t be making my deposits to my husband’s Love Bank by biting my tongue when I disagree with him, though. Likewise, I don’t expect him to express his love for me by bringing me flowers and handling all the tough decisions for me like the natural leader of our family should.

Hunt is a generation (or two) older than I am, and what works for her marriage is so foreign to my young, feminist mind that it was actually a little hard to read. But leaving aside the details of how you get to an intimate marriage, though, she and I agree wholeheartedly that it’s important to get your emotional needs met before you can effectively work together with your spouse to manage your finances.

Money second

The personal-finance half of the book will be familiar to most GRS readers. Hunt advocates an approach similar to Your Money or Your Life and Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover, one that begins with calculating your net worth and tracking your expenses. From there, she covers the basics of setting up an emergency fund, creating a spending plan, and starting a debt snowball (though she uses different terms for these steps).

Like her ideal of a healthy relationship, Hunt’s financial advice seems a little dated in places. A lot of it has to do with how to organize your three-ring binders, or how to painstakingly accomplish by-hand calculations that Mint can do for you in a few minutes. If you’re a devotee of the pen-and-paper approach, though, her chapters on how to track and plan your spending are rock solid and detailed enough to easily follow.

The one thing in this book that made me want to put it down, run to my office, and implement it on the spot was, in fact, her filing system. Hunt takes a few pages to go over exactly what personal records you should be keeping, and outlines an elegant effective way to organize them. I spent an hour tearing apart my filing cabinet yesterday as soon as I read those pages. I may not want my marriage to look much like hers, but I’m delighted to have made over my filing cabinet in Mary Hunt’s image.

Different views

There are a few areas where Mary’s financial advice deviates from the usual Get Rich Slowly formula. One is the matter of the debt snowball. She encourages readers to start saving 10% of their income towards an emergency fund immediately, while still paying the minimums on their credit cards. Only after saving up a fully funded six-month emergency fund would Hunt advise you to roll those savings into your credit card payments.

Given the relative interest rates on credit cards and savings accounts, this approach will almost certainly cost you money. If it works for you psychologically, though, by all means pursue it. No matter what order you do them in, the key steps of tracking your spending, creating an emergency fund, and snowballing your debt payments will lead you to financial security.

Another place where she breaks with conventional wisdom is in her savings and spending ratios. GRS readers are familiar with the Balanced Money Formula that encourages us to use 50% of our money for living expenses, 30% for fun and 20% for savings. Hunt advises 10% for giving, 10% for saving and 80% for spending.

The order of those percentages is vital to her. A devout Christian, Hunt feels that all the money that comes into your life is a blessing from God, and promptly giving 10% of it back to God shows you can be trusted with this blessing, and more of it will come your way.

I’m not a Christian, but I admire Mary’s faith and devotion to charitable giving. It’s a goal of mine to give 10% of my income. I’ve written about that here before, and readers made a persuasive case for waiting until my debts were paid before giving so much away. For now, I give a modest amount and look forward to giving more in the future.

I think that for Hunt, the psychological benefits of giving 10% and saving 10% before you make any spending decisions at all outweigh the financial benefits of paying off your debts as fast as possible and then beginning to accumulate and donate wealth.

It’s an interesting approach, and one that might work for a lot of people. Particularly if you’re a devoted Christian and looking for a personal-finance book that reflects your values, you’ll find a lot of good in How to Debt-Proof Your Marriage. If you’re looking for a book that’s totally focused on financial savvy and relationship skills, though, this might not be your best bet.

This post is from staff writer Sierra Black. Sierra writes about frugality, sustainable living, and getting her kids to eat kale at Childwild.com. This post is part of Book Week at Get Rich Slowly.

Since my twin victories of paying off our last credit card and funding a summer of travel, my husband has begun to show interest in personal finance.

It’s not that he wasn’t supportive of my efforts before — he just preferred to support them from a safe, ignorant distance. A distance from which I handed him an envelope of cash each week to do the grocery shopping, he didn’t ask too many questions, and somehow we were climbing out of debt. He was more than happy to adopt any frugal-living strategy I suggested, as long as he didn’t have to think about the Big Picture.

That system worked, but I longed for more active participation from him. Not only because I wanted us to share equally in the journey toward financial freedom — I do want that — but also for a selfish reason. I wanted him to participate because he’s better at this stuff than I am. He’s a whiz at spreadsheets. The man has a Ph.d in Physical Chemistry. You don’t get one of those without doing a few math problems.

Lately, I’ve been getting my wish. My husband has been talking with a financial advisor at the university he works for, and having clear, honest conversations with me about our money.

This seemed like the perfect time for me to read Mary Hunt’s How to Debt-Proof Your Marriage.

Relationship first

Hunt’s book covers the basics of personal finance and debt destruction, with a special focus on doing it as a couple. Before she even begins talking about financial management, Hunt talks about strengthening the foundations of your marriage. You can’t have financial harmony without emotional intimacy, she says.

I couldn’t agree more. It’s clear in my own marriage that spending time relaxing together on vacation helped my husband and me both chill out and have better conversations during our family finance meetings too.

Hunt and I part ways in the chapters about how to achieve that emotional intimacy, though. She bases her prescription for marital bliss on traditional gender roles. She includes chapters for each sex on how to make deposits in the other’s Love Bank — a metaphorical bank of goodwill made of small, loving gestures.

The Love Bank is an adorable idea, one I’m tempted to put into practice here in my own home. I’m pretty sure I won’t be making my deposits to my husband’s Love Bank by biting my tongue when I disagree with him, though. Likewise, I don’t expect him to express his love for me by bringing me flowers and handling all the tough decisions for me like the natural leader of our family should.

Hunt is a generation (or two) older than I am, and what works for her marriage is so foreign to my young, feminist mind that it was actually a little hard to read. But leaving aside the details of how you get to an intimate marriage, though, she and I agree wholeheartedly that it’s important to get your emotional needs met before you can effectively work together with your spouse to manage your finances.

Money second

The personal-finance half of the book will be familiar to most GRS readers. Hunt advocates an approach similar to Your Money or Your Life and Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover, one that begins with calculating your net worth and tracking your expenses. From there, she covers the basics of setting up an emergency fund, creating a spending plan, and starting a debt snowball (though she uses different terms for these steps).

Like her ideal of a healthy relationship, Hunt’s financial advice seems a little dated in places. A lot of it has to do with how to organize your three-ring binders, or how to painstakingly accomplish by-hand calculations that Mint can do for you in a few minutes. If you’re a devotee of the pen-and-paper approach, though, her chapters on how to track and plan your spending are rock solid and detailed enough to easily follow.

The one thing in this book that made me want to put it down, run to my office, and implement it on the spot was, in fact, her filing system. Hunt takes a few pages to go over exactly what personal records you should be keeping, and outlines an elegant effective way to organize them. I spent an hour tearing apart my filing cabinet yesterday as soon as I read those pages. I may not want my marriage to look much like hers, but I’m delighted to have made over my filing cabinet in Mary Hunt’s image.

Different views

There are a few areas where Mary’s financial advice deviates from the usual Get Rich Slowly formula. One is the matter of the debt snowball. She encourages readers to start saving 10% of their income towards an emergency fund immediately, while still paying the minimums on their credit cards. Only after saving up a fully funded six-month emergency fund would Hunt advise you to roll those savings into your credit card payments.

Given the relative interest rates on credit cards and savings accounts, this approach will almost certainly cost you money. If it works for you psychologically, though, by all means pursue it. No matter what order you do them in, the key steps of tracking your spending, creating an emergency fund, and snowballing your debt payments will lead you to financial security.

Another place where she breaks with conventional wisdom is in her savings and spending ratios. GRS readers are familiar with the Balanced Money Formula that encourages us to use 50% of our money for living expenses, 30% for fun and 20% for savings. Hunt advises 10% for giving, 10% for saving and 80% for spending.

The order of those percentages is vital to her. A devout Christian, Hunt feels that all the money that comes into your life is a blessing from God, and promptly giving 10% of it back to God shows you can be trusted with this blessing, and more of it will come your way.

I’m not a Christian, but I admire Mary’s faith and devotion to charitable giving. It’s a goal of mine to give 10% of my income. I’ve written about that here before, and readers made a persuasive case for waiting until my debts were paid before giving so much away. For now, I give a modest amount and look forward to giving more in the future.

I think that for Hunt, the psychological benefits of giving 10% and saving 10% before you make any spending decisions at all outweigh the financial benefits of paying off your debts as fast as possible and then beginning to accumulate and donate wealth.

It’s an interesting approach, and one that might work for a lot of people. Particularly if you’re a devoted Christian and looking for a personal-finance book that reflects your values, you’ll find a lot of good in How to Debt-Proof Your Marriage. If you’re looking for a book that’s totally focused on financial savvy and relationship skills, though, this might not be your best bet.

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Apple&#39;s MobileMe <b>News</b> details how iWork for iPad works with iDisk

The details were posted on MobileMe News, the blog of the MobileMe team. Windows users can point a browser to me.com/idisk and upload existing Microsoft Office documents. Once the documents are in the cloud, they can be opened from the ...

BREAKING <b>NEWS</b>: Lindsay Lohan Ordered Back To Jail; Bail Revoked <b>...</b>

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Making Money Online Forum

Online forums and communities present a largely untapped opportunity for making money — at least according to Dan Gill, cofounder and chief executive of Huddler.

The San Francisco startup is officially launching today. It’s one of those weird launches where the company has actually been working with customers for more than a year, and is only now getting around to telling the media that it exists. Gill said he wanted to make sure the technology was solid before doing too much to publicize it and attract competition.

Community-building software is a broad category, but Huddler approaches the market with a specific audience and mission. It’s looking for popular, product-focused forums that are built on either vBulletin or phpBB technology. Huddler contacts the owner of the site, offering to modernize the forum and bring in more money too.

Gill gave me a long list of benefits that Huddler can offer over older platforms. It gives the sites a makeover, so they look a bit less old-fashioned, not to mention more advertising-friendly. It optimizes the pages for search engines, and also makes them easier to share through Facebook Connect. And all the software is hosted online, rather than installed on someone’s computer, which means there’s less hassle for whoever’s managing the site.

Financially, there’s not much risk to the forum owner, since the software is free. Huddler is only paid by through a percentage of the increased revenue that it brings to a site. That revenue boost comes in a number of ways, Gill said — since the sites are product-focused, Huddler creates a product page with a link where visitors can buy the item in question. It also allows companies selling related products to create their own pages on the forum and engage with the community. And of course the sites can run advertising.

The transition to Huddler can be a challenging one because of the technology issues, as well as the likelihood that change will upset some forum members. Gill didn’t offer any details, but he hinted that he has seen his share of angry comments from users who didn’t like a new forum. But Huddler has become more proficient at both moving content to a new site and preparing users for the change, he said.

There are now 24 sites using Huddler, adding up to a total of 9 million unique monthly visitors. The success stories include EpicSki, which saw a 70 percent increase in natural search traffic after switching to Huddler, and DenimBlog, which doubled pageviews in two months and is now bringing in three times the amount of revenue.

Huddler raised $5.5 million in funding from New Enterprise Associates last year. For now, the company is focusing on existing forums because they’ve already got the audience, but Gill said, “There’s no reason you won’t be able to start your own Huddles in the future.”

[image via Flickr/Daniel Borman]

Next Story: Salesforce: Yes, Chatter really does improve productivity Previous Story: Otoy scores important deals for its server gaming technology

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Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 9/23 - Arrowhead Pride

We're over the hump and headed into Sunday. The Kansas City Chiefs are seeing a lot of guarded love. For the most part, people can't ignore our record and at the same time can't ignore our offensive production. Here's today's news.

Small Business <b>News</b>: The Times They Are A Changing

In the 60's it was a song of revolution when change was just not as common. Today, it reflects a fact of life, at least for small business owners and.

Official Google Blog: Google <b>News</b> turns eight

Today we celebrate the eighth birthday of Google News. Not long after the tragic events of September 11, 2001, we started building and testing Google News with the aim of helping you find current events from a wide variety of global and ...

Online forums and communities present a largely untapped opportunity for making money — at least according to Dan Gill, cofounder and chief executive of Huddler.

The San Francisco startup is officially launching today. It’s one of those weird launches where the company has actually been working with customers for more than a year, and is only now getting around to telling the media that it exists. Gill said he wanted to make sure the technology was solid before doing too much to publicize it and attract competition.

Community-building software is a broad category, but Huddler approaches the market with a specific audience and mission. It’s looking for popular, product-focused forums that are built on either vBulletin or phpBB technology. Huddler contacts the owner of the site, offering to modernize the forum and bring in more money too.

Gill gave me a long list of benefits that Huddler can offer over older platforms. It gives the sites a makeover, so they look a bit less old-fashioned, not to mention more advertising-friendly. It optimizes the pages for search engines, and also makes them easier to share through Facebook Connect. And all the software is hosted online, rather than installed on someone’s computer, which means there’s less hassle for whoever’s managing the site.

Financially, there’s not much risk to the forum owner, since the software is free. Huddler is only paid by through a percentage of the increased revenue that it brings to a site. That revenue boost comes in a number of ways, Gill said — since the sites are product-focused, Huddler creates a product page with a link where visitors can buy the item in question. It also allows companies selling related products to create their own pages on the forum and engage with the community. And of course the sites can run advertising.

The transition to Huddler can be a challenging one because of the technology issues, as well as the likelihood that change will upset some forum members. Gill didn’t offer any details, but he hinted that he has seen his share of angry comments from users who didn’t like a new forum. But Huddler has become more proficient at both moving content to a new site and preparing users for the change, he said.

There are now 24 sites using Huddler, adding up to a total of 9 million unique monthly visitors. The success stories include EpicSki, which saw a 70 percent increase in natural search traffic after switching to Huddler, and DenimBlog, which doubled pageviews in two months and is now bringing in three times the amount of revenue.

Huddler raised $5.5 million in funding from New Enterprise Associates last year. For now, the company is focusing on existing forums because they’ve already got the audience, but Gill said, “There’s no reason you won’t be able to start your own Huddles in the future.”

[image via Flickr/Daniel Borman]

Next Story: Salesforce: Yes, Chatter really does improve productivity Previous Story: Otoy scores important deals for its server gaming technology

robert shumake

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We're over the hump and headed into Sunday. The Kansas City Chiefs are seeing a lot of guarded love. For the most part, people can't ignore our record and at the same time can't ignore our offensive production. Here's today's news.

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In the 60's it was a song of revolution when change was just not as common. Today, it reflects a fact of life, at least for small business owners and.

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Today we celebrate the eighth birthday of Google News. Not long after the tragic events of September 11, 2001, we started building and testing Google News with the aim of helping you find current events from a wide variety of global and ...

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Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 9/23 - Arrowhead Pride

We're over the hump and headed into Sunday. The Kansas City Chiefs are seeing a lot of guarded love. For the most part, people can't ignore our record and at the same time can't ignore our offensive production. Here's today's news.

Small Business <b>News</b>: The Times They Are A Changing

In the 60's it was a song of revolution when change was just not as common. Today, it reflects a fact of life, at least for small business owners and.

Official Google Blog: Google <b>News</b> turns eight

Today we celebrate the eighth birthday of Google News. Not long after the tragic events of September 11, 2001, we started building and testing Google News with the aim of helping you find current events from a wide variety of global and ...

Free Making Money

Today, SocialVest is launching its online and in-store shopping platform that makes it easy for consumers to support non-profit organizations while making purchases. The free service works by rewarding users with cash back for purchases from retailers. Money earned by SocialVest users can then be donated to over one million registered non-profits with the service.

Here’s how it works. Consumers sign-up for SocialVest with their info and credit card details and can then start shopping in its online mall or at physical stores with whom SocialVest has partnered. The startup currently has partnerships with over 500 retailers including Target, Macy’s, Home Depot, Best Buy, Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdales. When the user make a purchase at one of these stores using the registered credit card, SocialVest will give users a cash rebate ranging from 1% to 15% of qualifying purchase prices. Funds are accrued in users’ SocialVest accounts, and can then be pledged to any non-profit.

SocialVest has also partnered with Causes, and will be the exclusive registered credit card shopping partner for the community. The startup, which has raised $500,000 in seed funding, faces competition from CauseOn, Causeworld and Endorse For A Cause.

Would you like to have these great bargains delivered right to your inbox? Join over 57,000 fellow deal seekers and subscribe to Deal Seeking Mom. Also become a fan of Deal Seeking Mom on Facebook for more conversation, additional deals and a peek at the freebies I receive in the mail. Thanks for visiting!

We all know that drinking more water has tons of health benefits. So why don't more of us take advantage of it? Well, let's face it -- plain water can get pretty boring.

Up until recently I'd been drinking a lot of SoBe Lifewater, but now that the great B1G1 coupon offer is over, it can be a real budget buster. So I've been looking for an alternative beverage, and I think I may just have hit upon one!

I remembered today that Mandi mentioned to me when we were on vacation that her family enjoys drinking cucumber water. I just happened to have a cucumber in the refrigerator that was leftover from making some delicious Tangy Sesame Cucumber Salad for dinner tonight, so I sliced one up and tossed it in this new reusable water bottle from Aladdin. It's really quite tasty and very pretty too!

It also occurs to me that it's a much better alternative for the environment. I've been increasingly aware of the amount of trash our family generates, and this is one way to cut back on our output of plastic bottle waste.

To promote awareness of the environmental effects of disposable product packaging, Aladdin is encouraging people to Do The Reuse Challenge. This is a 30-day commitment to give up disposable paper cups, water bottles, or food containers -- difficult, but definitely doable,.

You might be surprised at the impact just one person can have by reusing:

• Seven million barrels of oil are used to produce the disposable bottles Americans go through in one year.


• In the United States, 50 billion disposable water bottles are consumed per year; 137,000 per day; 1,585 per second.


• It costs about $165 a year to make drip coffee at home versus $636 to buy drip coffee at your local café.


• Unless we change our habits, 23 billion paper coffee cups will be thrown out in 2010.


• Nine dollars will generally cover a decent lunch out. If you buy rather than pack a lunch five days a week, you shell out about $2,350 a year.

By accepting the Do The Reuse Challenge you’ll be able to get discounts and free shipping on selected Aladdin products. Follow Aladdin on Facebook to stay in the loop about this challenge!

How do you cut back on disposable product packaging? Will you be taking the Do The Reuse Challenge?

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Phil Pruitt Joins Yahoo! <b>News</b> As Politics Editor

USA Today Deputy Managing Editor/News Phil Pruitt has left the newspaper to join Yahoo! News as its new Politics editor.

Today, SocialVest is launching its online and in-store shopping platform that makes it easy for consumers to support non-profit organizations while making purchases. The free service works by rewarding users with cash back for purchases from retailers. Money earned by SocialVest users can then be donated to over one million registered non-profits with the service.

Here’s how it works. Consumers sign-up for SocialVest with their info and credit card details and can then start shopping in its online mall or at physical stores with whom SocialVest has partnered. The startup currently has partnerships with over 500 retailers including Target, Macy’s, Home Depot, Best Buy, Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdales. When the user make a purchase at one of these stores using the registered credit card, SocialVest will give users a cash rebate ranging from 1% to 15% of qualifying purchase prices. Funds are accrued in users’ SocialVest accounts, and can then be pledged to any non-profit.

SocialVest has also partnered with Causes, and will be the exclusive registered credit card shopping partner for the community. The startup, which has raised $500,000 in seed funding, faces competition from CauseOn, Causeworld and Endorse For A Cause.

Would you like to have these great bargains delivered right to your inbox? Join over 57,000 fellow deal seekers and subscribe to Deal Seeking Mom. Also become a fan of Deal Seeking Mom on Facebook for more conversation, additional deals and a peek at the freebies I receive in the mail. Thanks for visiting!

We all know that drinking more water has tons of health benefits. So why don't more of us take advantage of it? Well, let's face it -- plain water can get pretty boring.

Up until recently I'd been drinking a lot of SoBe Lifewater, but now that the great B1G1 coupon offer is over, it can be a real budget buster. So I've been looking for an alternative beverage, and I think I may just have hit upon one!

I remembered today that Mandi mentioned to me when we were on vacation that her family enjoys drinking cucumber water. I just happened to have a cucumber in the refrigerator that was leftover from making some delicious Tangy Sesame Cucumber Salad for dinner tonight, so I sliced one up and tossed it in this new reusable water bottle from Aladdin. It's really quite tasty and very pretty too!

It also occurs to me that it's a much better alternative for the environment. I've been increasingly aware of the amount of trash our family generates, and this is one way to cut back on our output of plastic bottle waste.

To promote awareness of the environmental effects of disposable product packaging, Aladdin is encouraging people to Do The Reuse Challenge. This is a 30-day commitment to give up disposable paper cups, water bottles, or food containers -- difficult, but definitely doable,.

You might be surprised at the impact just one person can have by reusing:

• Seven million barrels of oil are used to produce the disposable bottles Americans go through in one year.


• In the United States, 50 billion disposable water bottles are consumed per year; 137,000 per day; 1,585 per second.


• It costs about $165 a year to make drip coffee at home versus $636 to buy drip coffee at your local café.


• Unless we change our habits, 23 billion paper coffee cups will be thrown out in 2010.


• Nine dollars will generally cover a decent lunch out. If you buy rather than pack a lunch five days a week, you shell out about $2,350 a year.

By accepting the Do The Reuse Challenge you’ll be able to get discounts and free shipping on selected Aladdin products. Follow Aladdin on Facebook to stay in the loop about this challenge!

How do you cut back on disposable product packaging? Will you be taking the Do The Reuse Challenge?

robert shumake

Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue heads PSN PlayStation 3 <b>News</b> - Page 1 <b>...</b>

Read our PlayStation 3 news of Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue heads PSN.

Facebook Making Changes to <b>News</b> Feed, Requests, Bookmarks to <b>...</b>

After the changes take effect, people who do not play games will no longer see news feed stories from friends who do play games — same goes for any other third-party app. Because news feed stories were a main way that people found games ...

Phil Pruitt Joins Yahoo! <b>News</b> As Politics Editor

USA Today Deputy Managing Editor/News Phil Pruitt has left the newspaper to join Yahoo! News as its new Politics editor.

robert shumake

Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue heads PSN PlayStation 3 <b>News</b> - Page 1 <b>...</b>

Read our PlayStation 3 news of Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue heads PSN.

Facebook Making Changes to <b>News</b> Feed, Requests, Bookmarks to <b>...</b>

After the changes take effect, people who do not play games will no longer see news feed stories from friends who do play games — same goes for any other third-party app. Because news feed stories were a main way that people found games ...

Phil Pruitt Joins Yahoo! <b>News</b> As Politics Editor

USA Today Deputy Managing Editor/News Phil Pruitt has left the newspaper to join Yahoo! News as its new Politics editor.