Practice Trading in the 'Virtual Stock Exchange'

The power of hands-on learning is indisputable. But when it comes to investing your money in the stock market, however, making a beginner's mistake can cost you more than just your self-esteem. Thankfully, the web makes it easy to practice with virtual money. Virtual stock trading allows you to get in the driver's seat and manage your own fantasy stock portfolio while competing risk-free against friends and strangers.

There are a multitude of online investment games like Investopedia, and Questrade that play with virtual money, but not all of them are easy for beginners. Here are five of the best free (because you shouldn't have to spend real money to play with fake money) online games for getting your feet wet.

1. Wall Street Survivor

Invest $100,000 in virtual cash via drop-down menu choices. A friendly cartoon version of stock guru Mark Brookshire helps you make your final decision by providing some rating numbers when you input a stock. These include a rating for survivor sentiment, fundamentals, technical and a Motley Fool Rating.

For additional help choosing stocks, the site has an impressive resource library that spans beginner, intermediate and advanced levels. Start with Investing 101 and consider taking advantage of the community forums if you have specific questions. Those who need a little help getting started can also choose to adapt one of the preset portfolios created by proven traders.

While the $100,000 competition is most popular, anybody on the site can create a contest. Prizes vary, but most often consist of competitive pride.

2. HowTheMarketWorks

Owned by the same company as Wall Street Survivor, this game is great for investors looking to gain experience with a new type of portfolio. In addition to stocks and indexes, there are options to experiment with Forex portfolios, penny stocks, mutual funds and short selling.

Beginners can execute market order-based trades in a "fun mode" without worrying about things like set hours, maximum number of trades per day, per stock and order expiration. A "realistic mode" amps up the complexity after they've mastered the beginner level.

Players can manage up to three stock portfolios and three Forex portfolios on the site at once. For each portfolio, they select a starting value between $100 and $500,000 and set how much virtual commission you are charged per trade.

The competition aspect is optional. General monthly contests give each player $25,000 as a virtual starting point. Other public contests include challenging restrictions like "short sells only" or "penny stocks only." Users can create their own password-protected games as well, which is a feature that teachers find helpful for creating class competitions.

3. Young Money Stock Market Game

Young Money Magazine's stock exchange game is easy to learn but also fairly realistic, which is a hard balance to strike.

Realistic aspects include a virtual commission that's taken out of each trade, adhering to market hours and rules about how you can invest. Unlike many investing games, trades are made at a real-time price. Learning aspects include convenient help icons on key terms and an intuitive tabbed interface.

The site runs a monthly contest with a $100 (real) cash prize that goes to whoever gained the highest percentage. Players can also create their own contests or join other user-made contests.

4. MarketWatch Fantasy Earnings Trader Game

MarketWatch will run this mock stock market contest for a total of four weeks, awarding the winner of each week with an iPad. It's on week three right now, but there's still time to get in on the competition for week four.

You must have your selections picked before the week starts on Monday. The shares that you select are "purchased" at Monday's open and will "sell" automatically at Friday's close.

The catch is that all players can only use the 15 to 20 symbols selected for each week. The companies are selected by the game owner for companies that are projecting their earnings during each week. Lining up picks is easy — players simply drag the company's logo to their trading card and designate if they want to sell short or go long.

Although there are some pros playing, this game is especially manageable for beginners due to the limited stock options for each week.

5. Virtual Stock Exchange (VSE)

Start with $1,000,000 cash balance you use to buy; stock, exchange traded fund, commodities, foreign currencies and more. Featuring 30+ of the world's stock exchanges.

The use of metrics and customization allow for readily accessible use of the software. Comparatively, VSE is less restrictive than some competitors thanks to; higher starting cash, 1,000,000 trades and helpful competitor information.

Challenges are optional, you can join an existing challenge or start your own for friends, classmates, clubs or strangers.

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So whether you play for fun or have the intention to trade with real money some day, these are all valuable resources.

Leave a comment and share which system you like best, or if there is another that should be on the list. 

Lego Zombies

Lego Zombie images combine the fun memories of childhood with the excitement of modern zombie culture. Courtesy of Zombie-Opolis.

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For more Lego Zombies visit, Zombie-Opolis Lego.

Dynamic View Template: Unreliable

I've been using Blogger's patented Dynamic View blog template for a while and on a couple of different blogs and I've learned something. While it looks good, and is unique in comparison to the other templates offered. I've determined the Dynamic View is unreliable, I am saying this because more often than not; the Page bar doesn't load, side bar doesn't load, cannot customize layout and is very slow to load. If a blogger can't design his/her site the way they see fit, and if half the content never shows up, it doesn't matter how dynamic a template is, it simply isn't worth using. For this and other reasons I have decided to move my Dynamic View blogs away from this template and search for new designs. Maybe I will go with the good old reliable Simple template.

Some sites currently using Dynamic View:

Canada

United States

India

Have you as a blogger or visitor ever experienced technical errors with the Dynamic View template? Share your views bellow in the comment section.

Make Money with your Face on the Bill

I came across a neat website called LunaPic where you can upload a picture of yourself (or whatever you want) and it will be inserted into the portrait of your choice of an American denominations of; $1 $2 $50 $100 $500 or $1,000 bills.

There are more edit/animation/effect options like any other online photo editor so theres lots to play around with and create some whacky photos.

Your face on Money: http://www132.lunapic.com/editor/?action=dollar-bill

Anniversary Gift Phenomenon

So wedding season is approaching. I can't speak for other places around the world but in Ontario, Canada, every year, this time of year usually has more weddings than any other month. Just something to think about, and share with us if there is another wedding season that you can think of.

Anyways, since so many couples have gotten married around this time of year, their anniversaries are coming up. One year, ten years, fifty years, whatever. So thanks to this cooky trend, I've been reading up on anniversary gifts and the likes. Lots of info out there. I'd like to thank, Wedding Anniversary Gifts for making the nightmare manageable. And while I don't believe people are meant to be together at all, let alone stuck together for years, people are solitary by nature and are just too dumb to realize intimacy is the leading cause of depression.


Fun Fact
The longest living married couple I could find is between "Karam Chand" & "Kartari Chand," married on 6 January 1925, married almost 88 years, living in Bradford, UK and both still alive and kicking.

I was unaware of the different categories of anniversary gifts, there are three by the way:

•  Traditional
•  Modern
•  Flowers

So that's neat. It makes sense because the majority of the traditional gifts aren't very practical anymore, things like; copper and iron, they aren't used as gifts anymore, so they've been replaced with gifts like; travel, platinum, diamonds, etc. I don't know where the flowers came from but it makes sense.

Revolver Maps

I added 'Revolver Maps' to the site about two weeks ago and I am happy with it's performance thus far.

Revolver Maps are interactive visitor globes rendered by the Revolver Engine. The Revolver Graphics Engine is a strongly specialized 3D renderer. It's available as a Java version as well as a Flash version. Now have a closer look: Every visitor leaves an eternal dot on the globe, recent visitors are tagged by the labels showing flag, city and state.

Providing live statistics to see where your audience is in real time, as well as long term records.

Customize Your Earthball

1. Select A Map

2. Choose Dimensions:

3. Choose Marker Color:

4. Advanced Settings:

• visitor counter

• recent hits

• stars

• custom background color

choose code version:

Flash version via JavaScript, display Java version if Flash Player is not installed (recommended)
Flash version via HTML (MySpace etc.)

[more code options for experts]

5. Copy The Code To Your Site...*

All in all I think Recolver Maps is a nifty tool and useful for tracking site traffic.

You can make your own at
Revolver Maps - Home 

Job Opportunity With Facebook

Think your a skilled gamer?
Like using Facebook applications?
Want an opportunity to tell the world what you think?
Want to get payed for talking about games?

Game Time, is looking for insightful and talented writers to review Facebook applications. Get paid to play and write about Facebook apps, work from anywhere and anytime you want. As much or little as you want.

Why should I write for Game Time? Work into your own schedule. Make your own decisions, be your own boss. Earn a Residual income (also called passive, or recurring income) is income that continues to be generated after the initial effort has been expended. Get paid for doing what you do everyday. Can work anywhere and anytime. Get payed what you deserve, limitless opportunity.

Applications are being submitted to Game Time's Accounts Manager Jim Hume, the application process asks for a sample application review, get started by checking out some reviews on the Game Time website. 


Good luck!

Zombie-Opolis Fansite

I've always enjoyed the Zombie genre in every which form it can be conceived through. So I would like to share this neat zombie fansite I came across. Zombie opolis has a lot of cool content, like; games, must see movies, galleries, apocalypse survival rules and more.

Shuffle on over and check it out, Zombie site.

Drop3

Similar to classic Tetris with a physics-puzzle style genre. 

Drop3 is a really fun game by Frosmo on Swagbucks. Falling circles, triangles, squares and rectangles in a variety of colors drop from the sky and it's up to you to group them in bundles of three (or more) to clear them from the board and thus progress through the game. Something I really like about Drop3 that is unique is that game pieces behave like coiling pillows and can affect each other.

An unexpectedly attractive puzzle game which cannot be done justice in writing, you need to play it to get the full effect. Drop3 and more available here.

DoubleClick Ad Planner

DoubleClick Ad Planner by Google is a free media planning tool for publishers to focus market there target audiences. I found really cool was the 1000 most-visited sites on the web check it out here stating that Facebook is number one at the moment and updates every month.

Which websites attract your target customers? 

Refine your online advertising with DoubleClick Ad Planner, a free media planning tool that can help you: 

Identify websites your target customers are likely to visit

• Define audiences by demographics and interests.
• Search for websites relevant to your target audience.
• Access unique users, page views, and other data for millions of websites from over 40 countries. 

Easily build media plans for yourself or your clients 

• Create lists of websites where you'd like to advertise.

• Generate aggregated website statistics for your media plan.

DoubleClick Ad Planner can be followed here for those of you that want to learn more or just want to check it out.  I would strongly suggest you check out the 1000 most visited sites list, at least the first page, it's quite interesting.

Youtube Statistics

I came across YouTube's Press Room Statistics, which I thought was quite interesting so here you go:
As of June 2012.

Statistics

Traffic

• Over 800 million unique users visit YouTube each month
• Over 3 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube
• 72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute
• 70% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the US
• YouTube is localized in 43 countries and across 60 languages
• In 2011, YouTube had more than 1 trillion views or around 140 views for every person on Earth
• Millions of subscriptions happen each day. Subscriptions allow you to connect with someone you're interested in — whether it's a friend, or the NBA — and keep up on their activity on the site

YouTube Partner Program

• Created in 2007, we now have 30,000+ partners from 27 countries around the world

Monetization

• Thousands of advertisers are using TrueView in-stream and 60% of our in-stream ads are now skippable
• We have more than a million advertisers using Google ad platforms, the majority of which are small businesses

Mobile and Devices

• Traffic from mobile devices tripled in 2011
• More than 10% of global YouTube views come from mobile devices
• 3 hours of video is uploaded per minute to YouTube from mobile devices
• YouTube is available on 350 million devices

Content ID

• Content ID scans over 100 years of video every day
• More than 3,000 partners use Content ID, including every major US network broadcaster, movie studio and record label
• We have more than eight million reference files (over 500,000 hours of material) in our Content ID database; it's among the most comprehensive in the world. The number has doubled in the last year
• Over a third of YouTube's total monetized views come from Content ID
• More than 120 million videos have been claimed by Content ID

Social

• 500 years of YouTube video are watched every day on Facebook, and over 700 YouTube videos are shared on Twitter each minute
• 100 million people take a social action on YouTube (likes, shares, comments, etc) every week
• More than 50% of videos on YouTube have been rated or include comments from the community
• Millions of videos are favorited every day
• Clicks on the ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ button on YouTube have doubled since the start of 2011. For every ‘dislike,’ we get 10 ‘likes’- people like to tell other people about the stuff they love.

The 'Doctor Who' MMORPG

Geronimo! A massive multiplayer role playing game created by BBC World Wide and Three Rings allows users to step into the TARDIS for puzzle solving adventure in Doctor Who: Worlds in Time.

The first ever Doctor Who online game. Explore the universe with your friends or make some new ones. Solve puzzles to defeat classic foes. The time stream has begun to shatter and the Doctor has started recruiting adventurers to assist him with putting the universe back together before it falls apart.

Travel through time and space reliving familiar stories and completely new story lines.

Adventure with friends, form a team and watch each others backs whilst using your sonic screwdriver to complete challenges of; lock-picking,repair, hacking, wits, defense and barricading.

Decorate your very own room on the Tardis with furniture, collectables and upgrade your sonic screwdriver.

In think, Doctor Who: Worlds in Time is a cool new game with good potential. For those who were, and therefore are (because you can never stop being a Doctor Who fan) a fan of The Doctor need to check out the game because it is fantastic and at least worth a try even if you aren't a dedicated gamer. And for those who do enjoy games regularly I think DW:WiT is one that you should consider considering the diverse and playful gaming environment. Also, if the game becomes half as wonderful as the show, it's a real winner.

You can play here.

SwagBucks

Swagbucks.com is a search engine dedicated to helping you earn digital dollars called "Swag Bucks", which can be redeemed for exclusive Swagbucks merchandise. Do what you do everyday plus earn free stuff at the same time. 

How it works!

• Searching the Web
• Trusted Surveys
• Voting in the Daily Polls
• Sending In Prize Photos and Videos
• Watch Videos
• Invite Your Friends to Join
• Completing Special Offers
• Finding Swag Codes

EARN
You are awarded Swag bucks from these activities and more.

REDEEM
Redeem your Swag Bucks for exclusive Swagbucks.com products and more in the SwagStore. Tons of prizes to choose, ranging from trading cards to iPhones, clothes to jewelery and a lot more.

I think Swagbucks is definitely worth checking out, because I search the web very often and never before was I able to accumulate currency for things I would actually want. The arcade and community are also cool and there is always stuff happening.

Do you know the etiquette of your own county?

So this is a cool site I found called International Business Etiquette, Manners, and Culture (IBEMC) it has a bunch of information on the countries all around the world, starting with an introduction about the Country in questions. Like how Canada has just less than 30 million people twice the size of the United States.  Fun facts are also detailed. The Geert Hofstede Analysis goes over some neat data and compares the country to others in important detail. Next is the appearance criteria, for business, casual, dress for weather and more, this one is interesting to me, especially for someone who travels to new places.  Another cool one is the regional behavior, this part is great and has stuff I never knew. Also communication, this part is cool, like how in Canada a firm handshake and good eye contact  are so important in North America but in a lot of places in the world it is thought of as confrontational  or else. Lastly a list of Resources are given at the end, which is great for someone doing research for schools or business or what ever. And for the general information seekers such as myself I've spent loads of time reading on IBEMC.

Visit the IBEMC