Blog Marco

Did you know you can actually gamble on which date the Australian election is going to be held. Everyone knows an election is due soon. That's the predictable part of a democracy. The variable is when. Australian Prime Minister John Howard hasn't told anyone yet. Sportingbet Australia has odds of $1.65 for November 24. (Election must be held on a Saturday for all bets to stand) December 1 $3.00, November 17 $3.25, December 8 $7.50, November 10 $8.50, December 15 $13.00, December 29 $81.00, December 22 $151.00 and any Saturday during January or beyond $41.00. But Australian Treasurer Peter Costello may have let slip of the date while talking to comedian Dave Hughes at the AFL grand final breakfast in Melbourne last Saturday: "What are you talking about, the election or the grand final?" Hughes asked. "They all culminate together this time of year, of course - the last day of September, and the last day of November, isn't it?" Mr Costello said. "Is it?" asked Hughes. "You've just called it have you?" In a bid to recover, the Treasurer fired back. "Some time between now and Christmas — and it won't be Christmas Day."

I can't get enough of these court cases dealing with the internet lately. Here's another one in regards to "Virtual Stealing" or better known as "sharing" online. This is the the first US trial to challenge the illegal downloading of music on the internet where a single mother from Minnesota was ordered to pay US$220,000 (AUD$247,549) for sharing 24 songs online. Thats US$9,166.67 per song! It's crazy how this giant corporate company is chasing after the small fry: the harmless individuals. Are they desperate? If they really want to eliminate the problem of sharing songs (i.e. their intellectual property) shouldn't they be chasing down the people behind the file sharing networks and shutting them down? Jammie Thomas, 30, was the first among more than 26,000 people sued by the Recording Industry of America and six major music labels after refusing a settlement. A jury took just five hours to decide that evidence provided by the music labels showed otherwise and found Thomas guilty of copyright infringement, court records showed. The fine could have reached $US150,000 ($168,700) a song if the jury had found "willful" copyright infringement. Had the record companies sued her for all 1702 songs found in the online folder the fine could have run in the millions.

The ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) has dropped their "Deceptive Advertising on Google" case against Google's Australian and Irish subsidiaries. They will now focus their efforts on Google's US parent company and Trading Post. What's all the kerfuffle about? We're still in the Wild West days of the Internet. The frontier is being tested. There is the case of Virgin Australia being sued from breach of copyright from taking an image of Internet website off Flickr. Then there was the case of the 15 year old being sued in Finland for a YouTube video.

In ACCC's case against Google they launched legal action against Google Australia, US-based Google Inc., Google Ireland and the Sensis subsidiary Trading Post in July, alleging misleading and deceptive conduct over search results. In documents filed with the court, the consumer regulator claimed Google did not clearly distinguish between normal organic search results and advertisements at the top of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP), which Google calls "Sponsored Links". Google was therefore misleading search enginer users because they claimed to rank search results based on relevance, not the money it received from advertisers.

Here is yet another way to increase your blog traffic: this time its called the Reciprocal Review Carousel; first started on this page. by Alex Sysoef. I got introduced into the concept by Carlo Selorio. The goal of this linking strategy is to combine Web 2.0 technologies and share some resources to ours and your readers (if you choose to participate - just follow the instructions below...).

— copy and paste the Reciprocal Review Carousel and instructions below this line —

Reciprocal Review Carousel idea is based on few simple and yet effective link-building and bloggin techniques I have learned:

• Build value of the blog by creating a link from within content.
• Provide a value to community by doing a review on blog you personally like.
• Link to YOUR blog has exact anchor text you want and helps you boost Google Rankings.
• No more then 30 outbound links from any page to prevent penalties for link farming.
• Viral effect of the link – as more bloggers participate, link to your blog with YOUR anchor text, coming from quality content post will spread.

Here is How to participate:

• Copy the entire text between the specified lines.
• Create a post on your site and put at least one paragraph explaining how you joined the Reciprocal Review Carousel.
• Paste the text you copied into your post.
• Remove the Bottom Review and At the Top add your own review with a link to a site reviewed, at least 2 sentences about the site and a note – Reviewed by: Your Anchor Text. Link your anchor text to your site. Here is an example:

WordPress Web 2.0 Guide is a blog providing very useful information on building your very own Web 2.0 portal based on WordPress. Detailed instructions and howto guides make it possible for anyone to create a sparkling and engaging blog and join the community of like-minded individuals. Reviewed by: WordPress Web 2.0 Spot-er

Sites Reviewed:

Share Trading is a blog about trading Australian stocks as well as investing and news about the Aussie sharemarket. Reviewed by Marco.

Pinay Pix is a photoblog about international Filipina celebrities. Reviewed by Marco.

Forex Trading HQ is a forex trading blog the latest news in the worldwide foreign exchange markets. Reviewed by Marco.

My Forex Cashback blog reviews forex trading strategies. Reviewed by Marco.

Carlo Selorio's Internet Entrepreneur's Journey is a blog about growing an internet income stream online, growing traffic and Internet marketing. Reviewed by Marco.

Blog Marco Blog is about Celebrity Photos, Videos and interesting insights of a University students travel journey. Reviewed by Carlo Selorio

John Cow dot Com blog is about parody of John Chow dot com. Talking about making money online with all things blogging related. Reviewed by Carlo Selorio

ChrisG.com is a blog about thoughts and advice on the business of new media, blogging and online marketing. Chris aims to teach you ways you can create compelling resources, provide your audience more value, build trust and loyalty, and generate more rewards for yourself. Reviewed by Carlo Selorio

Andy-Coates.com is an original creator of Viralink concept and a blog publishing information on Magic, Personal development and blog development. I have found a wealth of information on getting your blog noticed and generating the traffic for free. Reviewed by: WordPress Web 2.0 Guide

FitForFreedom is well-established blog where you can find multitude of information on achieving financial freedom. Blog is run by Marco Righter and his writing style greatly adds to the value of information he provides. Reviewed by: Alex

Friday Traffic Report run by Jack Humphrey is all about most effective Web 2.0 promotion of your site, link building and proper monetization. One blog I read on daily bases and highly recommend. Reviewed by: Alex

Secure Your PC For Internet blog run by Colin and provides essential information everyone accessing internet should know. Identity theft is becoming more and more of an issue and by visiting his blog you can minimize the risk of being compromised. Reviewed by: Alex

VI-SU blog is all about WordPress, AdSense, SEO and Internet Marketing. Although mostly written in German I have found that using Google translate is worth the effort for his posts. Reviewed by: Alex

— copy and paste the Reciprocal Review Carousel and instructions above this line —

Here is a few of many controversial music videos. What makes a music video controversial? As oppposed to the sexy music videos? It's when the artist pushes the boundaries of what is accepted in society and what is taboo. For example, Björk, the Icelandic artist that she is displays an original and unique form of expression in both her vocal and visual representation of her music. Some may say its plain nudity and therefore its bad. And others may say its a beautiful expression of art. Then you throw in The Enright House's female masturbation into the mix and now do you question - is it a marketing ploy or art? One truth that strings all these controversial music videos is that sex sells. Then you have some that has a political statment like System of a Down's - Boom. Don't even get me started on the videos about drugs, violence, suicide and religion. More after the jump.