This Guerilla Shopper is too busy with her day job this week! However, thought you might enjoy the above from shoe innovator, te casan.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Domain Home (furniture): Chapter 11?
Yes, so remember how I wrote the other day about the great armoire I bought on clearance sale from Domain Furniture a couple of weeks ago? Well I got it and it is great. But when I called to find out about getting my "Free Delivery with Rebate" as advertised on the site, I was told that they had just filed Chapter 11 and that if I wanted my rebate I should file with the courts in Delaware!
So while I want my damn $135 back, I am also thinking...might this mean that they will be selling ALL of their stuff at cheap cheap cheap prices in the very near future...a la Bombay Company?
Kids, I think we might just have a recession on our hands.
So while I want my damn $135 back, I am also thinking...might this mean that they will be selling ALL of their stuff at cheap cheap cheap prices in the very near future...a la Bombay Company?
Kids, I think we might just have a recession on our hands.
Monday, January 21, 2008
STICKLEY Furniture: Winter Sale
It may not be known to the public yet, but the Stickley Furniture winter sale has begun right about now. I know this because while I have not bought clothes for weeks upon weeks, I have been intently researching and purchasing furniture and other related items to upgrade my living space. I am also buying additional renter's insurance (as you should if you don't have it! Call the Cafarelli Agency in Smithtown, NY at 631-543-6363 NOW! Seriously, it's cheap and can save your financial life should something like, say, a FIRE destroys your home).So I traipsed on over to the new-ish NYC location on W. 25th St. right off of 7th Avenue and met with my man Kevin. I am the soon to be proud owner of a new Metropolitan bookcase (see photo) sleeper chair-and-a-half, as well as a recliner covered in upholstery that took me no less than an hour to pick out. And while this stuff is in no way cheap and barely verging on affordable, it is great quality and SO FRIGGING NICE. And with the current sale going on, you really can't go wrong. Oh, and if you want to get an extra 5 percent off, find someone you know who is an interior decorator or architect to send them a note requesting a "professional discount." I did!
Friday, January 18, 2008
Caravan Sale: Jan. 21-31
I wouldn't have told you, but New York magazine's Best Bets did, so I may as well too....
Caravan is unloading Vivienne Westwood coats for $200, Erotokritos Grecian dresses for $100, and men's Blue Marlin hoodies for $40 at the winter sale.
When: 1/21–1/31 (call for store hours).
Where: 2 Great Jones St., nr. Broadway (212-260-8189) and 128 E. 91st St., nr. Lexington Ave. (212-722-7282).
Caravan is unloading Vivienne Westwood coats for $200, Erotokritos Grecian dresses for $100, and men's Blue Marlin hoodies for $40 at the winter sale.When: 1/21–1/31 (call for store hours).
Where: 2 Great Jones St., nr. Broadway (212-260-8189) and 128 E. 91st St., nr. Lexington Ave. (212-722-7282).
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Project Runway - The Avant-Garde Episode
Did you watch Project Runway last night? OH MY GOD. I have to say the Chris/Christian team and the Jillian/Victorya teams produced some of the best designs I have ever seen in the show's four seasons. While I would DIE to own and wear J/V's outfit (black coat), I was happy that C/C won (dress) - they really created a piece of breathtaking art.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Poem: A Small Man's Shoe Struggle
I tried on many Steve Maddensbut they maddened me
actually, I tried on boot that I liked
but it was without a partner
like Cindarella's slipper
and no prince came to find it for me
just a gay black stock boy
and he gave up quickly
Debonair Magazine: For Men
Debonair magazine - It's an online new men's magazine that talks about health, fashion and all kinds of sh*t that dudes are supposedly into. Their mission is: Open the pages of a typical men's magazine and you will often find a medley of frivolous gadgets, preposterous travel destinations and clothing that rivals the price of a small automobile. We think it's time for a change. Money is not the determining factor in one's happiness. While other publications advertise lavish fantasies, Debonair offers exciting realities. Regardless of who you are, what you do or where you live, a better lifestyle awaits.
They just ran an article on the best places for men to shop in NYC that they thought my readers would enjoy - so have at it and let me know what you think!
Lurve, GSNYC
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
WSJ: New Services Help Bloggers Bring in Ad Revenue
For all you bloggers out there, let's make 2008 the year we actually make money off these things! The following article details lots of ideas. Now I just have to figure it all out...
Small Business
Best of Independent Street / Excerpts from WSJ.com's Blog for Entrepreneurs
15 January 2008
The Wall Street Journal
New Services Help Bloggers Bring in Ad Revenue
---
Users Can Customize Appearance of Spots, Use Video and Audio
If you're not making money off your blog, 2008 might be the year.
As more people see potential in earning money off the Internet, there is a quickly expanding array of advertising services and tools for bloggers that go well beyond the standard pay-per-click text ads or display ads.
Many of the most widely used programs are adding features to allow users to customize the appearance and placement of ads on their sites. Some also are introducing newer money-making mediums such as audio and video ads.
"There's going to be a lot of new business models in 2008 that are geared toward more monetization," says Pete Blackshaw, executive vice president of strategic services for Nielsen Online, the Web analysis unit of the Nielsen Co.
Blog publishers could certainly use the help in making money. The vast majority of publishers make less than $10 or $20 a month through advertising, according to Internet-advertising experts. How much money is made through advertising on a site depends much on how much traffic a site gets, the trustworthiness of the content and how relevant the ads are to the visitors.
Starting Feb. 1, San Diego-based V2P Communications is offering five-to-eight-second audio ads, called NetAudioAds, that will automatically play when a visitor lands on a blog or Web site. Publishers sign up for the free service and V2P then lines up advertisers, who bid on rates they will pay to have their ads played on a given blog. Bids generally start around $14 per 1,000 plays. Blog publishers get a 25% cut of the ad revenue.
About 25,000 publishers have signed up so far, says Michael Knox, V2P's co-founder, and several large companies and 2008 presidential campaigns have expressed interest in becoming advertisers through the service. A site that gets 2,000 unique visitors per day with an advertiser paying $14 per 1,000 plays might earn $28 a day, or $196 a week.
Another model that's expected to gain traction this year are ads connected to videos. Revver Inc.'s Revver.com lets advertisers tack on ads to videos uploaded to the video-sharing site. Publishers who then put those videos on their sites, earn 20% of all ad revenue generated from plays of the videos on the blogs. Revver and the videos' creators, often amateurs, split the remainder.
In October, Google Inc. released Video Units, a program that allows Web-site publishers who use its AdSense program -- which places Google-brokered ads on other Web sites based on the sites' content -- to add YouTube videos to their blog sites and have ads appear on the video player.
Some ad services are trying to help publishers expand their advertising by putting ads in their blog's Really Simple Syndication, or RSS feeds, which send blog posts out to subscribers. Some services even specialize in providing ads to publishers that pop up when someone visits the blog from a mobile phone.
Many of the most widely used ad programs -- such as AdSense and Amazon.com Inc.'s affiliate-marketing program, where publishers get a cut of all sales generated from ads on their site -- also are trying to make ads more appealing. For instance, they have rolled out new features in recent months to give publishers more control over how the ads look and where they are placed.
AdSense recently began testing gadget ads, which are more visually stimulating with graphics and interactive features than the traditional basic text ads the program offers.
"One of the biggest things we're trying to do is create more ad formats for publishers," says Google spokesman Brandon McCormick, adding that AdSense paid $3.5 billion to publishers in the first three quarters of 2007.
Meantime, Amazon.com in September introduced several free widgets -- easy-to-use programs that, by plugging a code into a site or blog, let publishers customize how and where ads appear in a blog. One widget lets people embed links to Amazon products in their text, while another lets publishers create a slideshow of relevant Amazon products displayed on their site. Amazon affiliates earn up to a 10% commission on all sales directed from their ads.
Some bloggers already are seeing results. Rhett Butler, founder of Mongabay.com, a site with articles on rainforest conservation and other environmental issues, makes $15,000 to $18,000 a month from AdSense, using various types of ads. Mr. Butler says his blog currently gets about 1.3 million unique visitors per month.
He's planning to eventually experiment with Google's video player ads and create his own video content for the site. "The rainforest has always been my passion, but I never expected to make a living off of it," says Mr. Butler, who quit his job as a product manager in 2003 when he realized he could make a living off his site.
Darren Rowse, the Melbourne, Australia-based writer of ProBlogger.net, a popular blog that teaches other bloggers how to make money, earned roughly $250,000 in 2007 off ads on three blogs he writes. Mr. Rowse says he makes the most off traditional display advertising, where advertisers pay a fee to appear, but he also has used affiliate ads and Google AdSense.
Mr. Rowse says publishers should experiment with several types of advertising and use an analytics program to figure out which ones are most effective. Once they do that, bloggers should, for the most part, rely on just one or two advertising programs "so they don't clutter the site," he says. Bloggers should be careful to pick advertising that doesn't appear to taint the content or reputation of the site, he adds.
Mr. Rowse says certain types of advertising can be most effective for certain sites. For instance, affiliate programs, such as Amazon's, tend to work best on sites with loyal followers who trust their blogger for recommendations. Sites with lots of general search-engine traffic but fewer devotees may do better with a contextual ad program, such as AdSense. Regular display ads can also be very effective, he says, depending on how well the ad matches the site's content.
Small Business
Best of Independent Street / Excerpts from WSJ.com's Blog for Entrepreneurs
15 January 2008
The Wall Street Journal
New Services Help Bloggers Bring in Ad Revenue
---
Users Can Customize Appearance of Spots, Use Video and Audio
If you're not making money off your blog, 2008 might be the year.
As more people see potential in earning money off the Internet, there is a quickly expanding array of advertising services and tools for bloggers that go well beyond the standard pay-per-click text ads or display ads.
Many of the most widely used programs are adding features to allow users to customize the appearance and placement of ads on their sites. Some also are introducing newer money-making mediums such as audio and video ads.
"There's going to be a lot of new business models in 2008 that are geared toward more monetization," says Pete Blackshaw, executive vice president of strategic services for Nielsen Online, the Web analysis unit of the Nielsen Co.
Blog publishers could certainly use the help in making money. The vast majority of publishers make less than $10 or $20 a month through advertising, according to Internet-advertising experts. How much money is made through advertising on a site depends much on how much traffic a site gets, the trustworthiness of the content and how relevant the ads are to the visitors.
Starting Feb. 1, San Diego-based V2P Communications is offering five-to-eight-second audio ads, called NetAudioAds, that will automatically play when a visitor lands on a blog or Web site. Publishers sign up for the free service and V2P then lines up advertisers, who bid on rates they will pay to have their ads played on a given blog. Bids generally start around $14 per 1,000 plays. Blog publishers get a 25% cut of the ad revenue.
About 25,000 publishers have signed up so far, says Michael Knox, V2P's co-founder, and several large companies and 2008 presidential campaigns have expressed interest in becoming advertisers through the service. A site that gets 2,000 unique visitors per day with an advertiser paying $14 per 1,000 plays might earn $28 a day, or $196 a week.
Another model that's expected to gain traction this year are ads connected to videos. Revver Inc.'s Revver.com lets advertisers tack on ads to videos uploaded to the video-sharing site. Publishers who then put those videos on their sites, earn 20% of all ad revenue generated from plays of the videos on the blogs. Revver and the videos' creators, often amateurs, split the remainder.
In October, Google Inc. released Video Units, a program that allows Web-site publishers who use its AdSense program -- which places Google-brokered ads on other Web sites based on the sites' content -- to add YouTube videos to their blog sites and have ads appear on the video player.
Some ad services are trying to help publishers expand their advertising by putting ads in their blog's Really Simple Syndication, or RSS feeds, which send blog posts out to subscribers. Some services even specialize in providing ads to publishers that pop up when someone visits the blog from a mobile phone.
Many of the most widely used ad programs -- such as AdSense and Amazon.com Inc.'s affiliate-marketing program, where publishers get a cut of all sales generated from ads on their site -- also are trying to make ads more appealing. For instance, they have rolled out new features in recent months to give publishers more control over how the ads look and where they are placed.
AdSense recently began testing gadget ads, which are more visually stimulating with graphics and interactive features than the traditional basic text ads the program offers.
"One of the biggest things we're trying to do is create more ad formats for publishers," says Google spokesman Brandon McCormick, adding that AdSense paid $3.5 billion to publishers in the first three quarters of 2007.
Meantime, Amazon.com in September introduced several free widgets -- easy-to-use programs that, by plugging a code into a site or blog, let publishers customize how and where ads appear in a blog. One widget lets people embed links to Amazon products in their text, while another lets publishers create a slideshow of relevant Amazon products displayed on their site. Amazon affiliates earn up to a 10% commission on all sales directed from their ads.
Some bloggers already are seeing results. Rhett Butler, founder of Mongabay.com, a site with articles on rainforest conservation and other environmental issues, makes $15,000 to $18,000 a month from AdSense, using various types of ads. Mr. Butler says his blog currently gets about 1.3 million unique visitors per month.
He's planning to eventually experiment with Google's video player ads and create his own video content for the site. "The rainforest has always been my passion, but I never expected to make a living off of it," says Mr. Butler, who quit his job as a product manager in 2003 when he realized he could make a living off his site.
Darren Rowse, the Melbourne, Australia-based writer of ProBlogger.net, a popular blog that teaches other bloggers how to make money, earned roughly $250,000 in 2007 off ads on three blogs he writes. Mr. Rowse says he makes the most off traditional display advertising, where advertisers pay a fee to appear, but he also has used affiliate ads and Google AdSense.
Mr. Rowse says publishers should experiment with several types of advertising and use an analytics program to figure out which ones are most effective. Once they do that, bloggers should, for the most part, rely on just one or two advertising programs "so they don't clutter the site," he says. Bloggers should be careful to pick advertising that doesn't appear to taint the content or reputation of the site, he adds.
Mr. Rowse says certain types of advertising can be most effective for certain sites. For instance, affiliate programs, such as Amazon's, tend to work best on sites with loyal followers who trust their blogger for recommendations. Sites with lots of general search-engine traffic but fewer devotees may do better with a contextual ad program, such as AdSense. Regular display ads can also be very effective, he says, depending on how well the ad matches the site's content.
BigCityDirect: Laptop Computer
Since we're in the BIG CITY, it only makes sense that I write about BigCityDirect. Especially because they hooked me up recently, where Buy.com merely drove me batty.In urgent need to replace my slow and huge Dell PC that rivals the size of WOPR, I decided I needed a slick lap top. This would move me into the 21st Century and simultaneously provide me with some extra space as I quest for Feng Shui-ity.
My friend who loves all things computers began to look out for the good deals on Buy.com. These kinds of sites offer refurbished computers that are hundreds of dollars cheaper than new ones, and in most cases are pretty much brand new.
The rub with Buy.com was that I provided them with a mailing address different from my billing address so they kept cancelling my order on me. Then I called and talked to a live person about the situation and she took my order again...and d'OH! Cancelled again. So after four tries my computer friend suggested BigCityDirect. Not one problem. A little more expensive - but worth it. I shall be turbo-blogging in no time!
Monday, January 14, 2008
Movement at Pinkberry
Almost like the Oompa Loompas at Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory - I spotted workers sneaking around the Pinkberry site on 3rd Avenue and 26th St. today. I believe they were singing in tandem -- however, they were not orange from what I could tell.Work quickly my Pinkberrymen, so that I may enjoy in your swirly goodness!
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