I am happy to report my initial experiment with peer-to-peer lending at Prosper.com has been a success. Returns My investment has earned 11.11% so far, far greater than the <1% that money was earning in savings. There is more risk and it’s not as liquid but I’m happy with the results. Strategy As part of … Read more
WhatsYourPrice.com is an online dating website where “generous” suitors pay for dates with “attractive” singles. It’s a business model that really stands out in a crowded space, and is the perfect example of the free market at work. Customers browse the profile of prospective dates and bid cash for the privilege of taking them out … Read more
If you’ve shopped online at all in the past 4 years, you’re probably familiar with RetailMeNot.com. The online coupon aggregator generates millions of page views each month and enjoys top Google ranking for almost every “_______ coupon” query. How Profitable is RetailMeNot? This is a company that literally prints money — an estimated $30 million … Read more
If you’ve shopped at Safeway any time in the last few years, you’ve probably been asked to make a donation to some charity when you checked out. Some shoppers get really offended by this, but each year Safeway raises millions of dollars for breast cancer research and a host of other causes. In 2009, their … Read more
I was working on a project that I was NOT looking forward to. You know the kind: hours of tedious mind-numbing work with no foreseeable shortcuts or efficiencies or automation. About Mechanical Turk Just when I was about to start I remembered hearing about a service from Amazon I’d been wanting to try. Amazon Mechanical Turk … Read more
VigLink and Skimlinks are two companies that aim to help bloggers and other website owners monetize their content and traffic. They do this by transforming regular outbound links into affiliate links wherever possible. If any sales result from those links, the website owner earns a commission. (Technically, VigLink or Skimlinks earns the commission, which they … Read more
CareerExcuse.com is a company that provides fake work histories and professional references for job hunters. If you are unemployed and haven’t yet resorted to lying on your resume, maybe you’re not trying hard enough. With plans starting at just $20/month, CareerExcuse.com will help you lie your way into a new job. It is a fascinating … Read more
This list of ugly cars is highly subjective. For instance, the people who bought them probably didn’t think they were ugly. But then there’s the rest of us. What do you think? 1. Chevy HHR A blatant ripoff of the PT Cruiser, only uglier. Total unit sales through 2010: approx. 489,000. (image source) Did You … Read more
I had a hypothesis that text messaging is a huge cash cow for mobile phone carriers; a high-value product with virtually no variable expense. So I did some homework and found out I was right, and it was even worse than I imagined. Text Message Pricing On Verizon, text message pricing is as follows: $0.20 … Read more
I got an interesting mailer the other day from a company called storesonline.com. It said, “FREE Livermore Dinner Conference… Two Tickets Enclosed…” and, “Dinner Table for Nicholas Loper and guest.” Now, knowing that nothing’s free, I was even more curious to find out about this company and what the sales pitch was going to be. … Read more