Paul Boutin has a great article on The Standard regarding those Facebook “Stimulus” ads. They are usually with some guy holding a check or showing off a roll of cash with a tagline of  “Get your Obama check” or “$12,000 Stimulus Checks”.  Sound too good to be true? Trust your gut.

Get the money that the government owes you. Each year, the US Government gives out billions and billions in Grants to people just like you. No one ever thinks they can really get a grant,which makes it easier for the few people who actually try!

You can search for grants yourself on Grants.gov. No need to pay $1.99. Check for yourself if you qualify for individual grants. I couln’t find anything.

In response to some of the comments on my 5 reasons why “Get the bar” will fail, here’s a visual for you. I received this by some lady at an festival in December. Is this honest?

This is from Facebook

With the economy in the crapper, it’s never been more important to know about modern job searching. If I were laid off, one would probably update their resume, ping friends/relatives, contact headhunters, and search/post their resume on a jobsite such as Hotjobs. That’s what I did when I was laid off over a year ago from Restoration Hardware. That process was considered Jobs2.0. With that process now being the norm, how does one stand out from the crowd? How does one go beyond the jobsites?

I believe employers want to hire people who are naturally passionate for the job.  The perfect employee would be one who would be “into” his industry even if they were not in the industry. If I was looking for a car salesman, I would look for someone who’s a car fanatic 1st and a salesman 2nd. It’s all about transferable personal interests. So how do you get employers to know what your passions are?

1st, let’s define the 3 stages of job hunting:

Jobs1.o – Pre-internet
Newspapers, agencies, friends, relatives, co-workers

Jobs2.0 – A connected world
Monster, Hotjobs, Craigslist, Jobster

Jobs3.0 – An OPEN world
Besides going through the Jobs1.0 & Jobs2.0 process, one must go to the next level as competition is tough. A resume will no longer cut it. Some of the new job tools are:

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Look out for invites to join the “Next Google” from your friends.

Be a Part of the NEXT GOOGLE! Get PAID NOW TO BE ON THE INTERNET!!!

Your friends are valuable to you… now make them priceless. Share FREE Membership with everyone you know. Share FREE Money with everyone you know. FREE Membership equals FREE Money. The more friends that Join the more money you ALL make. Finally, you all get compensated for your time on the web. Your friends will love you for life!

Sign up before one of your friends signs you up and make money now. It’s FREE! and you make money just from clicking. The toolbar shows you exactly how many friends you’ve signed on and how much money you are making real time!

1st of all, it’s not the next Google. They are not even in the same business.

1) There’s no such thing as FREE Money – Any business that screams FREE Money is suspect2

2) The business model has failed before – While this uses (Multi-Level Marketing) MLM, the business model isn’t very different from the defunct AllAdvantage and Agloco. I used AllAdvantage and made about at the most $20 after hours of trying to make money with the toolbar. From Wikipedia:

AllAdvantage is perhaps most remembered for its successful adaptation of the “viral marketing” concept, a term first coined by the venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson. In viral marketing, members of the service promote it to their friends and acquaintances, which AllAdvantage enhanced by adding a compensation component, rewarding users for the number of members they successfully referred.

A spin-off AllAdvantage, Agloco launched in 2006 and also shut down. Read about it here, here, and here. With advertising $$$ being the main revenue maker, it’s doomed. Online advertising has been hit hard with this recession. Companies are also advertising less to build their brand with a more targeted manner. The days of blanket advertising is over. Advertising is dead. Robert Stephens, founder of Geek Squad says “Advertising the the tax you pay for being unremarkable”. ‘Nuff said.

3) No transparency – The parent company Boloto Group, Inc, has no business information on bolotogroup.com. There’s no About us or contact information, just screenshots of their websites. Doing a whois on bolotogroup.com shows that it’s registered by Investorhelp, Inc who’s nowhere to be found online. Digging through Alexa, you see that they are a seller of an investing CD-ROM. Going to Investorhelper.com leads to GetTheBar.com. It’s a full circle of nothing. Who runs this business? It’s common practice of these get rich quick companies to not have company information. They setup a quick website, make money, and then shut it down.

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In a move to practice what i preach, I installed Kampyle on my PinoyTattoos.com website. I thought it would be a good idea to also add it on this site as well. After poking around the user interface for 3 minutes (2.5 minutes too much) looking how to add a new website profile, I gave up hit the Live Support link to chat with someone who can point me in the right direction. I’ve had great customer service chat experience with AT&T and Comcast in the past and prefer it rather than calling.

I filled out the form and noted my issue. Once I hit submit, the pop-up closed. I tried it on Firefox & IE with the same end result. I assume that “Live Support” is off line. I’ve seen other companies have a status of “Online” or “Offline” next to their “Live Support” link.

If your not online to support the live support chat as advertised (I did this on a Sunday morning), then take off the link. There are live support chat applications that will either remove or display online/offline status. Failure to do so will result in an unsatisfied customer.