Unexpectedly Intriguing!
15 February 2008

Carnival Midway from The Jerk Welcome to the Friday, February 15, 2008 edition of On the Moneyed Midways, the only review of the best posts from best of the past week's major business and money-related blog carnivals!

It's surprising to us how far blog carnivals have fallen in terms of traffic. Just three years ago, it was not uncommon for a hosting blog to have more than a thousand additional visitors on the day it hosted a carnival. Today, it's exceptionally rare if you see that in a week.

Here's a couple of snapshots in time. First, here's our post summarizing our experience hosting the Carnival of the Capitalists back on 25 July 2005, which includes graphics revealing our site traffic for that week. Now, compare that with the latest data for the Carnival of the Capitalists at its new permanent home at Bizosphere.com.

Over that time, two things have happened that have really contributed to the drop-off in blog carnival traffic. First, search engines got better at indexing blog content, which means that all it takes to effectively create a blog carnival based on a central theme is a Google blog search of posts on a related topic over the past week.

Second, blog carnivals were really an early version of social media, which has been markedly improved by such Web 2.0 type interfaces like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. While creating a good blog carnival takes a lot of effort on the part of its weekly host (at least, if it's done properly!), the social network opportunity originally represented by the blog carnivals has largely been replaced by resources like these that make it much easier to do.

There's still a market for a well-hosted (read: well-edited) old-fashioned blog carnival, which is why we bring you the best posts we find in the best of them each week, but if you're a host looking for the old days of having a significant traffic spike to your blog, we hate to tell you those days are gone.

Speaking of the best posts from the best blog carnivals of the week that was, well, they're awaiting you below!

On the Moneyed Midways for February 15, 2008
Carnival Post Blog Comments
Carnival of Debt Reduction How I Paid Off My Student Debt in Six Months squawkfox The key, says squawkfox, is to keep living like a college student, but more than that, new graduates should pay attention to both sides of the income and spending equation!
Carnival of HR 3 Sure Fire Ways to Alienate People of Color at Your Meeting Race in the Workplace Carmen Van Kerckhove provides invaluable advice for how to stage a panel and avoid putting people into a race ghetto if the demographics at your company aren't all that diverse.
Carnival of HR A Rescinded Offer Evil HR Lady Absolutely essential reading! The Evil HR Lady explains what to do when that next job you had lined up goes "poof" after you've given notice to your current employer.
Carnival of Personal Finance The All Cash Spending Experiment Is Over (Yes, Already) Chief Family Officer Cathy's family's experiment at living the all-cash lifestyle derailed after just two days - she explains why and finds better ways to save money.
Carnival of Real Estate Commitment Letter Is No Letter of Commitment Matrix Jonathan Miller reveals the change in outlook in homebuyers as they changed from focusing on their down payment to focusing on their monthly payment. The Best Post of the Week, Anywhere!
Carnival of Taxes Q&A: Do I Need to Collect Sales Tax? Ebiz Tax Tips For those who have online businesses, Kristine McKinley explains when you have to charge sales tax and whether or not you have to show it as income on your tax return.
Carnival of the Capitalists Special K is SOOOOoo NOT Getting My Business - Ever! Lipsticking Yvonne was, shall we say, highly offended by an inexplicably sexist commercial seeking to sell cereal. Absolutely essential reading!
Cavalcade of Risk Excessive Risk-Taking The Frontal Cortex Jonah Lehrer finds that the budding science of neuroeconomics might help explain why people are willing to pursue highly risky investing strategies.
Economics and Social Policy Food Shortages The Human Imprint Louise Manning faults the politically-driven subsidies that are driving a change from producing fuel instead of food on farmland for the growing risk of food shortages in the developing world.
Festival of Frugality Why My Perimeter Is More Expensive Than My Aisles I've Paid for This Twice Already… Paidtwice isn't used to shopping on the perimeter of the grocery store, where non-processed foods are mostly found, ending up paying nearly twice what she normally does when buying food.
Festival of Stocks Consistent Cash Creators Fat Pitch Financials George screened through thousands of stocks to find the companies with a strong history of continously increasings their free cash flows!
Odysseus Medal (Real Estate) Blogging Etiquette - The Blog Comment Policy - Do You Need One? The Real Estate Tomato The Black Pearl winner in a week without an outright Odysseus Medal winner, Jim Cronin discusses what policies regarding comments a blogger needs to state and enforce on the site supporting their business.

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