MakeUseOf » trading

The 6 Best Websites To Trade In Your Used Video Games

Matt Smith — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:31:13 +0000

Video games are an experience, and once that experience is over, you may not have much use for the game anymore. Sure, maybe one day you’ll pick it up and start playing it all over again, but let’s face it. You probably won’t.

Trading in your games can be a good idea, and there are a number of stores that offer this service. They might low-ball you, however. Fortunately, the Internet can expand your options even if you’ve taken up residence at the end of the Earth.

Trading Games For Cash

One of the problems you run into when trading in games is the lack of cash offers. Most stores want you to turn around and buy from them, so they just offer you store credit.

Fortunately, there are two online sites that can help you step around this obstacle by allowing you to trade games online, and they both start with a G – Gazelle and Gylde. Neither site is dedicated to games alone. They are both aimed simply at people looking to get rid of old things, as well as people looking to buy used things. You might think that the freedom of cash would result in a penalty, but I looked at some offers and found them to be roughly comparable, and sometimes higher than, the store trade-in credit typically offered for the same titles.

Of the two I think Gazelle, despite a more muddled front page, is probably the better. They will quote you a price on your trade-in without requiring that you create an account. Glyde, on the other hand, wanted me to create an account complete with credit card information before conducting any activity.

Gazelle is also a direct, no-hassle item for cash trade. Gazelle pays shipping on items over $1 and once the item is received and its condition verified, you will receive cash by check or through PayPal. Glyde lists your item and then sends you a mailer to ship it to the buyer once it sells.

Trading Games For Store Credit

If you’re simply like to trade in your game for credit from a big online retailer, you’ll find that Amazon and Best Buy can help you.

Both of these companies run online trade-in programs and they work in basically the same way. You search for the game you want to sell in the company’s database and receive a price for it. If you accept it, you’ll be sent a free mailing label (but the packaging is up to you). After you send it in, the game is verified and a gift card is sent out.

These are simple, easy services with trusted retailers, which is why they offer low trade-in values. The sacrifice is particularly obvious on Amazon.com. If you browse the used marketplace you’ll find games going for two to three times the amount of store credit Amazon will give you for a trade-in.

That’s the price you pay for convenience. You’ll receive less for your game but you don’t have to wait for your item to sell, you don’t have to worry about buyer feedback and you don’t have to pay shipping.

Peer To Peer Trading

Gamers have been trading games in to companies for cash or credit for years. But what if you could skip the middle man and instead trade directly with other games? Wouldn’t that provide a better value? There are in fact two sites that facilitate such trades – Goozex and Mooch. The idea here is simple. You post the games you have up for trade and the games you’d like to receive, then the system tries to find a match for you.

Despite their similar goals, these two sites differ in how they work. Goozex charges a flat $1.99 fee for all trades. They also provide a shipping label, but you have to pay the price of shipping yourself. That may sound expensive, but it works out to be an amazing deal if you’re looking to trade new and popular games.

Mooch is different. The service can be used for free, but it uses a rather complex system of “Mooch points” to try and balance what are considered uneven trades. Mooch points are pricey, so you’re more or less corralled into the $19.99 yearly membership (which includes 100 free points). You also need a paid membership to have access to customer service and guaranteed trades. Shipping is not covered, so you have to pay that as well.

Of the two, Goozex seems better to my eye and has a better reputation online. It’s a much easier system to use and there’s no chance that you’ll end up wasting money on it, something that’s possible if you buy a Mooch membership but then can’t work out any acceptable trades.

If It Were Your Game….

I tend to sell on Amazon when they’re relatively new. That nets a decent price. I’ve used game trading before, and had a good experience with it. But I find the process to be more time-consuming then I’d like.

What system do you prefer to trade games online? Let us know what you think in the comments.

The BitCoin Dilemma: Can We Trust It?

Angela Alcorn — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 21:31:02 +0000

You’ve probably heard of BitCoin, the Internet’s recent attempt at independent currency. It’s been all over the news for reasons both positive and negative – it’s a useful way of transferring funds anonymously, but the currency itself remains volatile and prone to abuse.

Many finance experts, geeks, and fans of Internet security have been watching BitCoin developments enthusiastically, trying to see whether the system really will work. As for actually making use of BitCoin, most people who want to give it a go have found the process confusing and just given up. So, what’s the deal? Will BitCoin ever find a place amongst respected currencies?

The Difficulty With BitCoin

Despite many useful guides written on how to use BitCoin, there seems to be an element of confusion and difficulty present. Even if potential users do understand the complex system they’re often thwarted when they attempt to purchase or mine BitCoins. People who don’t get hold of any currency straight away tend to lose interest.

BitCoin Limits: Buy, Mine & Trade BitCoins

Once you’re set up to use BitCoin, you can buy, mine and trade BitCoins with other people in the system. But you’ll have to use specialist BitCoin markets and software so that the transactions are verified in the BitCoin system. This isn’t a currency that can be converted at your local Bureau de Change.

For instance, a tourism operator in Asia might consider accepting Pounds Sterling or US dollars for their wares as they know they can exchange the currency to their own local currency later and it means that they make the sale on the spot. This is just not possible with BitCoins as users need to be in the system before they can accept payment. Once a person owns BitCoins they can exchange to their local currency, but only via specialised markets and only if there’s a BitCoin buyer willing to exchange. This severely limits BitCoin’s usefulness outside of its own ecosystem.

BitCoin May Face Government Opposition

Due to BitCoin’s anonymity, BitCoin has become the currency of choice for illegal trade, including at least one brazen site dealing in pharmaceuticals. The same anonymity could also cover the tracks of people moving funds internationally. Governments worldwide are likely to consider the currency itself as a threat because of this power, and will therefore look at ways to shut it down or make trade using anonymous currency illegal.

Who would put their trust into a currency that could be easily made inaccessible to them with the stroke of a pen?

The BitCoin Exchange Rate

In recent days, the BitCoin exchange rate has suffered a huge drop in value. This happened once before due to a scam which devalued the currency. As of yet, it’s not clear what’s causing this current devaluation.

However, it is clear to many observers that this new BitCoin currency just doesn’t have the gold backing of most currencies, nor does it have the public trust required for the value to remain constant.

The BitCoin setup has been carefully managed to avoid hyperinflation, but this will never stop the currency being devalued the instant the public loses confidence in the BitCoin’s worth. Some say it’s a form of fiat money – and in many respects it’s exactly that. BitCoin enthusiasts and pedants would claim this is untrue, but the similarities are clearly there to be seen.

Should We Use BitCoin?

There are a number of great reasons to support an anonymous, peer-to-peer traded currency rather than our regular banking, but the questions still linger: Is it safe? Is it a scam? Will it suddenly devalue out of existence? Is BitCoin mining worth it when you factor in power costs? Given that risks have been identified, is it worth investing in this currency?

Let’s pass this debate over to the readers. Do you use BitCoin? What do you see as the biggest risks of the system? What could BitCoin do to make the system easier for first-time users? Do you think governments will try to stop BitCoin use? What do you think will happen to BitCoins over the next 5 years? Do you have confidence in the value of the BitCoin? Why or why not?

And look out soon for MakeUseOf’s official manual on BitCoin, including how to set up an account, getting free Bitcoins, mining, and more.

guiminer – An Extensive Tool For Bitcoin Mining

Danny Stieben — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 17:30:13 +0000

As of late there’s been a been a great buzz going around about Bitcoin, the latest P2P digital currency. One of the main activities of getting Bitcoins is through a process called mining.

In order to successfully conduct Bitcoins mining, you’ll need a working “miner” that will make good use of your hardware (more about that later). There are a handful of miners out on the Web, but many of them have a narrow window of hardware it can work with, or it is difficult to (easily) control because it only runs via a command line.

No need to fear, though, because there’s a great program that comes with a GUI that does all the dirty work!

What are Bitcoins About?

Before we start, we need to understand a little better what Bitcoins are and what the mining process consists of. Bitcoins are pieces of virtual money that can be traded around just like regular money, but with extremely low transaction fees (paid in Bitcoins). Bitcoins can also be exchanged for other currencies such as the US Dollar, Euro, etc.

Their value changes based on demand, which can be tracked at Mt. Gox or BitcoinCharts. At the time of this article the BTC to USD exchange rate is $10.90/1 BTC, but this rate can change every 5 minutes. Bitcoins are created by solving a puzzle that involves getting a certain result with random hashes, which is effectively what mining is all about. Another important feature of Bitcoin is that everything is done anonymously.

More information about Bitcoin can be found in this well-written article.

Starting guiminer

guiminer is essentially a GUI interface that can control multiple different mining applications at the same time, which come bundled with the program on download. It is available for Windows, and also offers early support for Linux. If you’ve never used Bitcoin before, you must install the official Bitcoin client to have a wallet and Bitcoin address (where you can send and receive Bitcoins from). Once you’ve done that you can go ahead and launch guiminer.

Interface and Miners

The interface is pretty simple. The default miner that opens will use your GPU’s OpenCL capabilities (if it’s from AMD). Otherwise, you can choose to create a new miner. Here you can also choose “Phoenix” (a miner from a different developer), a CUDA miner (meant for nVidia cards), a CPU miner, and a custom option.

I highly recommend you choose OpenCL for AMD cards and CUDA for nVidia cards. You should probably leave the CPU miner alone because the hash rate will be very low compared to your GPU, which is capable of doing many parallel computations at the same time.

For example, my AMD Phenom II X6 1100T processor gets roughly 3.5 Mh/s (megahashes per second) while my AMD Radeon HD 6950 graphics card gets on average 320 Mh/s.

Whom to Mine For

Once you have your miner selected, you can choose where to mine for. You can try doing things solo, where if you manage to land a block, you’ll get a total of 50 Bitcoins, all to yourself. That’s, at the time of this writing, about $545! However, you’ll either have to be very lucky to get a block, or you’ll either have to spend many months running 24/7 before you finally get one. You could also increase the horsepower and add multiple GPUs or even additional mining rigs to get the number of megahashes higher so that it won’t take months and months.

Another choice is to choose to enter a mining pool. Mining pools combine the efforts of all the members involved in order to get blocks a lot faster. The resulting Bitcoins then usually get split proportionately among all the involved and active contributors. It will most likely take you just as long to get 50 Bitcoins through a mining pool, but you’ll get paid after every couple hours of work you contribute instead of waiting until you get a lump sum of 50 BTC. guiminer comes with a number of preconfigured mining pools, so you can choose any of them, register beforehand, make sure you entered your Bitcoin address in your profile so you can get paid, and then start mining for that pool.

Extra AMD Graphics Card Settings

If you’re an AMD/ATI graphics card holder, you’ll want to be aware of the AMD Overdrive feature in your Catalyst Control Center software. This feature allows you to overclock as well as underclock your graphics card, to give you either more performance (and more megahashes) or more power and heat savings (and less megahashes). If you feel safe to do it, you can play around with the settings on that page, but please stay on it for a while and monitor the stats about graphics card, especially the temperature. If it starts climbing too high, you’ll either need to change your settings or manually adjust the fan speed if you can (should be on the same page).

For more information, you can check out this article.

Conclusion

Despite all it’s criticisms, Bitcoin seems to be picking up speed at a rapid pace. There are also an increasing number of online stores that accept Bitcoins as a valid way to pay, so keeping some in stock may be a good idea. However, if you have the time and resources, getting Bitcoins from almost nothing through mining is quite a reward. If you stick to it (and possible add some extra omph to your hardware), you’ll have a nice sum of money at the end.

What do you think of Bitcoin? Are you interested in or do you already do Bitcoin mining? Anything else you want to address on this matter? Let us know in the comments!

BitCoin – Buy, Sell & Trade Using Anonymous Peer-To-Peer Currency

Tim Brookes — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 23:31:50 +0000

Earlier this month two prominent US politicians (Senators Charles Schumer of New York and Joe Manchin of West Virginia) wrote to US Attorney General Eric Holder to express concerns about the rise of a new online currency – BitCoin, abbreviated as BTC.

The anonymous, peer-to-peer currency has become very popular over the last few months, with websites popping up all over cyberspace enabling BitCoins to be exchanged or donated with nothing more than a unique, non-identifying public key.

What Is BitCoin?

In 2007 a supposedly Japanese programmer began working on BitCoin under the pseudonym “Satoshi Nakamoto” with the technology officially released in 2009. The currency is currently breaking new ground, and has already been heralded as one of the first working implementations of a crypto-currency.

By using cryptography (the act of hiding information) to both generate and transfer the currency, “Nakamoto” created a theoretically anonymous and self-contained economy. The idea was to cut out middlemen, denying a central authority the ability to issue currency or track transactions. Instead, these tasks are handled by the network of connected peers and no identifying information is recorded (try masking your IP for total peace of mind).

Here’s an example of how it all works – you want to send your friend (let’s call him Mark) a BitCoin. On your side, Mark’s public key is added to the coin and this is signed on your end via a personal private code. Mark now owns the BitCoin, and you’re prevented from using it again thanks to the BitCoin network, which records and verifies transactions.

Luckily none of this is done by hand, but by free software which handles your BitCoin banking. This software is available for Windows, OS X and Linux and only requires a user’s public key to make a payment. You can download a version for your operating system and learn about storing your BitCoins on the BitCoin website.

How Do I Get BitCoins?

There are a couple of ways to acquire BitCoins, with the easiest way being simply buying them. Using a BitCoin exchange like Mt. Gox or #bitcoin-otc on IRC or by finding a BitCoin trader on TradeBitCoin.com. For asking prices you can check out how the BitCoin markets are doing on BitCoin Charts.

It may also surprise you that you can generate your own BitCoins – a process known as mining. This is essentially a way of processing and verifying transactions, by generating “blocks” which are permanent records of BitCoin activity on the network (a block includes all recent transactions, a random number and the preceding block’s hash) and new BitCoins.

These blocks are then added to the “block chain” in chronological order, and once added to the chain a block is very difficult to modify (making it hard to “double spend” your BTC) as each subsequent block must also be modified.

Once a block has been created, a bounty (currently 50BTC) is awarded to the individual who created it. This bounty halves every 210,000 blocks, and it is estimated that by the year 2140 the maximum number of BitCoins – 20,999,999.9769 BTC – will have been generated. The fact that transaction “fees” can be added to BitCoin transactions means that mining can remain profitable, even when the maximum number has been reached.

If you’re thinking of mining for BTC then you’ll need the right hardware and the right software. Mining using your PC’s processor (CPU) is inefficient and likely to be removed from BitCoin altogether, according to the official wiki, so you won’t need to spend lots on a speedy quad core chip. Instead you’ll have more joy using a graphics processor (GPU) on a high-end graphics card. Why? The BitCoin wiki explains:

A CPU core can execute 4 32-bit instructions per clock (using a 128-bit SSE instruction) or 8 via AVX (256-Bit), whereas a GPU like the Radeon HD 5970 can execute 3200 32-bit instructions per clock (using its 3200 ALUs or shaders). This is a difference of 800 (or 400 in case of AVX) times more instructions per clock. As of 2011, the fastest CPUs have up to 6, 8, or 12 cores and a somewhat higher frequency clock (2000-3000 MHz vs. 725 MHz for the Radeon HD 5970), but one HD5970 is still more than five times faster than four 12-core CPUs at 2.3GHz.

You can find suitable software to become a BitCoin miner on this software page. If you have reduced grunt in your mining rig then you might want to consider pooled mining.

Silk Road, Spending & Safety

The two US Senators who initially raised the Attorney General’s attention to the BitCoin phenomena had noticed the popularity of a certain anonymous trading place called Silk Road. As BitCoins are also anonymous, they are currently Silk Road’s currency of choice for the sale and purchase of illicit drugs and other such illegal products.

The website requires Tor, a security tool which ensures visitors do not leave a trace on the website and uses BTC exclusively for all trades. It is likely that much of the negative press that has attached itself to BitCoin has come from Silk Road. The website operates both as a reputation system and as an internal escrow, though this doesn’t make it safe (all purchases are sent by snail mail, after all).

If you’d rather buy legal things with your BitCoins then check out the exhaustive list of merchants on the official BitCoin wiki. You might also want to visit weusecoins.com, which has plenty of privacy and security advice for newbies interested in BitCoin.

If you are going to invest time, money and effort into BitCoin mining or trading then beware that much like any risky financial venture the markets can crash and lose you a lot of money. This has already happened once, with the value of a single BTC falling more than 30% in a day, eventually recovering by 15%.

Physical safety is also a concern, especially if you’re intending on buying a lot of mining rigs and leaving them on 24/7. BitCoin Mining Accidents is a tongue-in-cheek website dedicated to reports of injury from around the mining world. According to the website one anonymous miner now has a touch of permanent brain damage due to his mining operation, and he warns you not to make the same mistakes.

Oh, and your electricity bill is bound to suffer too!

Conclusion

It remains to be seen whether BitCoins will be a total success, though early signs suggest that merchants are at least receptive to the new currency. The BitCoin wiki has a Myths page that runs through many misconceptions and sceptical statements, though it is naturally weighted towards the currency and thus biased. Only time will tell if BitCoin really is a viable, sustainable and usable decentralised currency.

What do you think of BitCoin? What do you think of Silk Road? Tried mining your own? Massive fad that’ll burn out? The future of online trade? Everyone’s got an opinion, and yours belongs in the comments box below this post.

Image Credits: BitCoin Miner PC

5 Money Saving Sites Which Uses The Bartering System

Bakari Chavanu — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 23:31:12 +0000

You may or may not know about the age-old practice of bartering, but there are several sites on the Internet that could possibly save you money through the process of exchanging goods and services in lieu of monetary compensation.

Say you have web design skills but you can’t afford to buy an iPad, well you just may be able to exchange your skills for that popular mobile device. Or maybe you have a Canon camera but you’re looking to trade it for a Nikon of a similar model. Bartering websites are similar to eBay in which ads are posted for items and services of exchange. Barterers contact one another and make an offer for those exchanges. Though there is some risk involved, it’s best to start bartering on a local level where you can meet the person you’re making the exchange with. But as you will see, there are bartering sites set up that can assist in making your exchange with other barterers across the country or even around the world.

Craigslist

As you might expect, Craigslist is not only a free and widely known place to buy and sell goods and services, but you can actually also barter items and services on there as well.

Simply find your local Craigslist homepage and click on “Barter,” listed under the “For Sale” section. Depending on the city or town where you live, you will find a whole host of offers. In my area, barter listings included a “Car for the weekend,” a “A Beautiful Honora Pearl Necklace,” “video services,” and “baseball/softball lessons.”

When you find an item or service you’re interested in, you contact that person and make the seller or buyer an offer. Likewise you can post your own sales. In using Craigslist, depending the what you’re bartering, you might want to set up an insurance payment via PayPal, cash or cashier’s check, that is acceptable to both parties. It’s also a good idea to barter on a local level, if possible.

Swap.com

Swap.com is a very straightforward trading site that focuses on the trading of books, CD’s, movies, and video games. You need to be a Facebook member to register on the site. Once you’re a member, you simply create a “have list” and a “want list” of items. When you’re ready to swap, choose the item you want to trade and an email will automatically be sent to the other trader in the transaction. If the trader(s) accepts, you’ll get an email letting you know the trade is completed and you will then be provided the shipping address where you need to ship your item.

The only cost associated with swapping on Swap.com is shipping costs. Similar to eBay, members of the site are rated by other members about how fast they shipped the item and if the item was what it was described to be.

SwapTreasures

SwapTreasures.com seems to feature almost any item you may want for trade – from antiques, to electronics, to video games. You can follow SwapTreasures on their Facebook and Twitter pages, but you’re pretty much on your own when it comes to setting up a trade.

There are absolutely no sign-up fees or point systems for this site. You send or receive offers, set up the trade, and make the exchange. Each member has a membership page, and positive and negative ratings can be left about members. You can also do a search in your local area for wanted items.

U-Exchange

U-Exchange, an international site for US, UK, and Canadian citizens, is similar to SwapTreasures. There are no membership fees involved. U-Exchange makes its revenue from advertising on the site.

As with other bartering sites, you create or respond to items you want to trade and email contacts about the trade offer. You don’t have to be a member of the site to start making contacts, but the process of contacting registered members of the site is easier if you too are signed up. Listings for this site include items and services, bartering for vacation housing, and vehicle and boat trades.

You can use the site’s Google map and keyword features to search for local listings as well. Many of the listings that I linked to didn’t include photos of items up for trade. Providing a few photos as you would on eBay is one of the best ways to get your listing responded to. U-Exchange is not a very well designed site, but its listings seem pretty wide and varied.

BarterQuest

BarterQuest is the most well designed and active bartering site of the ones listed for review. Categories for trading items and services are varied, including cameras, furniture, sporting goods, video and computer games, and even gift certificates.

While the trading is absolutely free, you must have your account verified, which costs $9. However, this one-time verification fee is waived if you can get three of your friends to sign up on the site as well. You still can search the site before getting verified and begin making a list of the things you have to trade and another list of things you’re looking for.

BarterQuest uses a matching system to match your “have” items and services with your “wants.” The site also has a point system so that if you don’t have something of “equal value” to trade, you can use points as part of your negotiation.

One other great feature about BarterQuest are Clubs, which are focused on particular types of traders, e.g. freelancers, animal lovers, technology gurus, small business owners, book lovers, etc.

Bartering with strangers online may feel a little risky, but depending on what you’re trying to barter, the process could save you some money if you’re on a tight budget.

Let us know what you think of the online bartering system. Have you ever tried it? What were the results?

Image credit: Shutterstock.com

Practice Stock Market Trading on Mobile with Market Millionaire

Ryan Dube — Fri, 21 May 2010 16:31:51 +0000

Have you ever thought that you may have what it takes to become a multi-millionaire through buying and selling stocks on the stock market? Lots of people have done it, so it isn’t out of the question, but how can you be sure that you have what it takes to make the right stock choices and trade wisely?

Here at MUO, you’ll find a lot of articles about making good stock market choices with websites like Stock Lamp, or the UpDown trading simulator that David reviewed. Well, now I’d like to present a popular mobile phone stock trading multiplayer game called Market Millionaire, created by Chicken Brick Studios.

Consider it a trial by fire, or a safe trial run with fake money – this online game has attracted a significant user base ever since it first started. When you sign up, you can play to compete with thousands of other players to make it to the top of the leaderboard by buying and selling stocks, and earning profits when the stocks rise (or losing your shirt when they fall). By practicing your hand through Market Millionaire, you can prove to everyone (as well as to yourself) that you have what it takes to become a stock market mogul.

In this article I’ll give you a preview of what the Market Millionaire mobile phone stock trading game looks like on the Android, but keep in mind that you can also download the iPhone version from the Chicken Brick Studios website.

Investing Like A High Roller

Everyone starts out on Market Millionaire on the same footing. You have $100,000 to spend, and many thousands of stocks to choose from. Choose wisely, and you’ll increase your cash value and race up the rankings. Choose poorly, and you’ll lose your shirt. Failing miserably is doubly embarrassing because this game is a huge social network of other investor enthusiasts who are competing against you.

From the main page, you’ll see your current cash value, the value of the assets (stocks) that you own, and your current position in the rankings. You can start moving up quickly enough by simply buying a few stocks. Don’t buy aimlessly. Click on the magnifying glass “search” menu option and type in a company name or stock symbol to look up companies that you know and admire, and would want to invest in.

This mobile game extracts the latest market data and display it to you in both numerical and chart format. You’ll see the current value, the daily change, daily high and low and a variety of other stock information. Does the stock trend look promising? Should you buy it? This is also the screen where you’ll sell the stock if you own any. Personally, I didn’t really like the look of Google, so I dove into researching health care investments and came across a stock that looked promising, so I clicked on “Buy.”

The buy screen is extremely simple. Simply type in the number of units you want to buy (or use the slider to quickly allot a percentage of your overall budget). The app automatically calculates the total cost of the trade or sale, and displays it as an addition or subtraction under your current balance. Once you’ve added a number of stock investments to your portfolio, your main page will look a bit different. Now, you have all of your purchases displayed on the main window.

Keep a close eye on these values every day so that you can react quickly to a profile by selling the stock and adding the profit to your cash balance. Or, if you see a loss, you can either hang tight or cut your losses and sell the stock. This main screen is your overview for the whole game – and it’s where you’ll go to obsessively check your current progress in the game!

Clicking on the trophy menu option at the lower right takes you to your area of the leaderboard. Yes, being number 25,000 may feel a little bit disheartening, but have no fear – before long you’ll be racing up the charts with your superior insight and your market intuition. Make just a few good trades and you’ll see your rank start to climb. Keep at it every day, playing the game with your mobile phone while you’re waiting in the waiting room or while you’re on the train, and before you know it you’ll be rising to the very top of the chart.

A tip for success – keep an eye on the green line. While this is by no means expert trading advice, one of the simplest ways to tip the odds a bit in your favor is to look for stocks with a current value that’s well enough below the projected earnings. As you can see above, CVH is projected to reach about 21.5, and today’s value is just a bit below that projects – so I purchased a bit of the stock. Obviously, you’d want to look for stocks with more of a profit margin – a wider gap between today’s value and the projected value – but this isn’t always an easy task. Spend enough time searching though, and you’ll find them.

One more tip – if you want to beat the leaders, you have to understand what they are doing to maintain such a high level of success. As you browse the leaderboard, click on any player’s name and you can see all of their purchasing activity – all stock purchases and sales. By observing the techniques of the leaders, you might recognize a helpful pattern or stock choice that could help you with making the right stock decisions.

As you buy and sell your way up the rankings and grow your cash value each month – once you attain stunning financial success – you’ll need to ask yourself one important question. If you can trade this successfully in the virtual world, then why couldn’t you do it in the real world?

Play this exciting and popular mobile game and experience the fun world of networked competitive games from your mobile phone. After a while, you won’t be able to stop checking your current balances, and you may very well prove to yourself that you do have what it takes to become a successful stock market investor.

Do you know of any other cool multiplayer mobile games like this one? Do you use any other apps to simulate the mobile phone stock trading experience? Share your insight or feedback in the comments section below.

5 Websites Where You Can Learn To Invest Money

Taty — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 01:30:42 +0000

With the new economy, many people have found themselves looking for more information to learn to invest money. Be it because they have lost money that was badly invested and decided to take the matters into their own hands, or because they want to fully understand what others are doing to their money.

Some have also become more interested because they see the moment as an opportunity to make some money on stocks that are down now but which can grow in value rapidly if the economy continues to recover. But how can you learn to invest money if you have no intention of going to school now and have no real information on how to go about it?

Well, the magnitude of the World Wide Web has once again come to the rescue. There are some sites that can help you learn the ins and outs of the stock market and some that can be a fun place to practice your newly acquired skills to find out if you have what it takes to start investing with real money.

Investopedia

With a nice collection of free tutorials that can take you from the most basic skills to advanced information, this site can be considered one of the best beginner’s resource online to learn to invest money. There are even real exercises and mock tests to help you if you are taking CFA professional exams.

To help even more, it also has a stock market emulator, so you can deal in real stocks without having to cash some money to test the waters. The one aggravating thing is that because you are dealing with real stock names, when you do really well, there is that sense of loss that feels like: ” I should have played those winning lottery numbers last week”

The Motley Fool

One of the biggest and oldest investment sites around, The Motley Fool is a great source of information that has been giving out stock recommendations to millions since 1994. It is especially useful after you’ve learned the basics. It is also a great resource of expert opinions and a very large community to exchange ideas with, but because it is used by a lot of professionals, there is a slight intolerance to very newbie questions, so brush up on some basics from tutorials before you start engaging in conversations in the forums.

Investing For Dummies

Another great resource of tutorials, investment terms and articles to answer most of your questions. Written in the typical style of the “For Dummies” books, the material is simple and instructive. Not as comprehensive as some of the other sites, but a solid source of information divided into very clear topics and written in a very approachable manner and friendly manner, so it’s certainly worth checking it out.

HSX.com (Hollywood Stock Exchange)

So you think you understand the entertainment business? How about testing those skills while practicing your investment instincts at the same time? HSX is a pretend stock market where the stocks sold are the artists and their movies. You can buy stock on most celebrities and invest on movies. Grow your portfolio and sell when the time seems propitious. It’s a great way to see if all those hours spent in front of a movie screen could finally pay off and if you can trust your instincts. Even if the money is fake”¦

Virtual Stock Exchange (VSE)

Created by Market Watch, VSE is a simulator, much like the ones above, to help you learn to invest money by measuring how well you would do in a real market. What differentiates it from the other simulators is that they are set up as games. You can join existing games, where you will compete against other players to see who makes the most money. You can even create your own game, open to anyone or you can choose to play only against your friends and family. Some of the most popular public games include: StockMarket4Dummies, Obamanomic, MakeEndsMeet or even FlounderingFools.

So if you think you have what it takes to start investing, or would at least like to understand what everyone else is talking about, check out some of the sites above and let me know what you’ve learned.

Do you have any other sites worth checking out?

UpDown Online Stock Market Trading Simulator Lets You Play Without Losing Money

David Pierce — Tue, 26 May 2009 21:00:41 +0000

As of right now, I’m in the “not-so-fun” position of starting to learn about the stock market. I’m increasingly in control of my own money, and trying to figure out how to best save and invest it without making any huge mistakes and losing my hard-earned cash!

The thing is, the best way to learn about these things is just to get involved. Put some money into the pot, and call it a learning experience. Since that’s easier said than done, there’s a way to play with what’s essentially “Monopoly” money ““ it’s called UpDown.

UpDown gives you a virtual portfolio of money to manage and invest, while teaching you about how finance, stocks, and the like really work.

Creating a free account with UpDown is easy ““ just supply usernames and passwords, and you’re set to go. You’ll have to wade through a bit of advertising, but it’s a pretty simple process to get UpDown up and running for you.

Once you’ve got an account, you get to start investing! UpDown provides you with $1,000,000 USD that you’re free to invest any way you want ““ you can make trades and invest by clicking the “Trading” tab. Buying and selling stocks is easy because, well, it isn’t real money.

The rest of the whole system is real, though. The stock prices are a reflection of the real market, and the process of buying and selling works much like it would elsewhere. There are tons of tools to track how your stocks are doing, what’s causing their rise and fall, and how your money would be faring if you were investing real money. Your goal is to make as much money as possible by investing. That’s really the only difference between UpDown and say, eTrade – you’re not using money you can lose.

UpDown’s whole purpose is education ““ it’s a super-low risk way to learn a lot more about the markets, and how money and stocks really work. I’ve found that even things like the vocabulary of finance is difficult; UpDown helps you figure out what the heck an annualized return really is. The site provides a constant stream of news and information related to both the markets as whole, and the particular stocks and companies you’ve invested in.

The “Home” tab provides a great overview of what people are talking about on UpDown, as well as what the markets was like and how your stocks fared in the last day. You can compare companies by their critical statistics ““ things like revenues, earnings, and more. UpDown tries to give yo (the fake investor) a sense of the numbers and data you’ll need to make informed decisions, and teaches you how to read the information as well.

The really cool part of UpDown, though, is how well the community works together. It’s easy to see what other people are buying and selling, to get a sense of what the UpDown market is doing at any given time. There are also groups and networks that you can join based on your interests or background, both of which help you with investment advice, lots of tips and a greater understanding of the whole process.

You can add friends on UpDown as well, and communicate with them about anything you’d like. It’s always nice to have someone looking over your shoulder as you invest, and UpDown allows your friends to do just that.

In reality, that’s just the tip of the iceberg ““ UpDown hosts tons of contests, keeps a variety of educational tools on hand, and does a great job of keeping you actively investing by providing a stream of tips and tools for improving your skills in (fake) investments. And that’s the beauty of UpDown. It’s a no-pressure, easy-to-learn, simple way of gaining an understanding of how the financial world really operates. There’s no risk of money loss, no gaming of systems ““ just a plethora of tools designed to help you better understand how to invest your real money wisely.

UpDown has been described as “fantasy football meets the trading floor” and that’s exactly what it is. It’s a way to learn the players, learn the system, and see how the game works before (or while) you get involved in a meaningful way. If you play it well, you can even make a few real bucks through contest and referrals.

Not into stock markets? How about spending your money wisely?

Are there other sites like this to help you with your investment skills? What’s your favorite?

Photo: Donald1976

Oodle – Another Craigslist, But Slightly Better

Stefan Neagu — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:01:11 +0000

Created by ex-Excite executives Craig Donato, Scott Kister and Faith Sedlin, Oodle offers a significantly better experience than Craigslist. Reported to be the fastest expanding classifieds website, Oodle might just be Craigslist’s nemesis.

In addition to powering classifieds listings to several major newspapers, it recently welcomed Facebook Marketplace, AOL Classifieds as well as MySpace to their network. Why is Oodle the best player when it comes to online classifieds?

First of all, let’s talk about the interface. Craigslist has received a lot of criticism for its barebones 1990′s design but it has a major advantage that most didn’t perceive at first glance:

An extremely simple interface means a low barrier to entry for new users.
No graphics, animations; no distractions at all for the user. While not exactly pleasant for the eye, it means the user would get in and find what they were looking for fast.
Minimal operating costs; transferring text has the lowest bandwidth requirements and it doesn’t use too many CPU resources either. You could literally run a million dollar business out of your closet. No need to hire coders to maintain the service, debug code; designers to create new promotional images/videos/layouts.

The idea behind Craigslist is genius, and so is the implementation ““ to a point. Create a balance between eye-candy, usability and costs and you’ve got a Craigslist killer: Oodle.

What’s special about Oodle?

It mashes together “˜80,000 sources’ according to their website; which isn’t that far fetched considering they manage classifieds for a number of big players in the market.

Oodle covers listings from national and local marketplaces in 289 regions, 494 colleges in the United States, 120 cities and 84 universities in the UK, and 39 regions and 31 universities in Canada. ““ Oodle Blog

It has an alert system that notifies the user once a product is available. Instead of searching every day, you sit back and receive the notification in your inbox.
A large inventory ““ many sources means more products and a good angle for negotiating.
Other classifieds sites use Oodle’s API to provide results ““ which means your posting will reach more than one single service. These sites are in the “˜hundreds’.
Oodle generates more revenue by attracting advertisers and having a paid inclusion program. Submission to the site is still free ““ but if you want more exposure you can pay for it.
International reach ““ just recently opened for Ireland and India.

Oodle is definitely a better implementation of the online classifieds idea ““ and while it is not as revolutionary as Craiglist was when it first appeared ““ it does the job better and that’s always what matters for the end-user.

I’ve asked Kirsten Bollen, from Public Relations at Oodle, a couple of questions:

What makes Oodle, in your opinion, better than Craiglist? What feature would you say differentiates you from the other services?

A: Oodle operates the largest network of classifieds services in the U.S., so buyers can easily find the best deals with access to more than 40 million listings aggregated from more than 80,000 different sites. Oodle also offers a compelling platform for sellers to promote their listings by leveraging the reach of Oodle’s extensive network of more than 250 partner sites, including AOL, Comcast and MySpace, among many others.

Q:How would you see the service evolve in the future?

A: Oodle recently launched Facebook’s new Marketplace, where we introduced a new feature – Sell For a Cause – which allows you to donate the proceeds from items you sell to over a million participating charities including UNICEF, the Sierra Club and local organizations like the Boys and Girls Club of San Francisco.

I’d like to hear what you think about Craigslist and Oodle. If you haven’t tried it yet, go to Oodle.com.

The 10 Best Websites To Swap Books, Movies, Games & CDs

Tina Sieber — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:01:54 +0000

Do you have a ton of books sitting on your shelves? Would you like to get rid of them and make space for new books? With the websites introduced in this post you can swap your books movies, games and music CDs for stuff you really want.

Bookcrossing in this post refers to exchanging the books you have for books you want. However, there also is a website called BookCrossing that follows quite a different strategy. You sign up with BookCrossing, register the books you would like to give away, print the ID for each book, put it into the books and set them free in a public place. The lucky finder will eventually report your book using its ID and post a comment about how he liked it. Likewise, you may find a book that was registered at BookCrossing and share your feedback using its ID.

Now let’s look at the sites that allow you to swap items.

Title Trader

Through this website you can swap books, DVDs or CDs with people around the world.

To participate you sign up and create a list of the things you are offering. This procedure is quick and easy as the site supports ISBN numbers to identify items. Then you have to wait until someone is interested in one of your items.

Once someone has received an item you sent them, you receive a request credit which you can trade in for an item you want from somebody else. The service is free, but you cover the postage.

There are two more ways you can earn request points. First of all you can purchase them. Secondly, you receive points for referring new, active members.

BookMooch

BookMooch works very much like TitleTrader, but it’s limited to books. It’s a multilingual, community-driven site that works based on a point system.

The site supports English, Deutsch, EspaÃ±ol, FranÃ§ais, Italiano, Japanese, and PortuguÃªs and is available to anyone around the world. Points are earned by providing someone with the book they want and these points can be spent by requesting and receiving a book you want. The only fee you pay is the postage to send books.

Using the MoochBar browser toolbar (IE, Firefox, Opera, Safari, OmnniWeb) you can search books on Amazon and then see if they are available for trade on BookMooch.

SwitchPlanet

This site allows to trade DVDs, CDs, video games and books. The mission is to reduce environmental waste, help those who need it most and support arts/culture and education.

Much like Title Trader and BookMooch, SwitchPlanet works based on a point or currency system and adds the community aspect. Users can create profiles, and join groups. Also, SwitchPlanet hopes to collect donations from its members. This money will be used to help needy families.

Textbook Revolt

Textbook Revolt is made for students around the world who cannot afford to buy new college textbooks all the time.

The limit is that you need a valid .edu address to register. However, if you are a student, would like to participate, but don’t have such an eMail address, you can contact the site owners and request to be added.

Other than that, Textbook Revolt works very similar to the sites described above. Through Twitter you can keep track of all new books listed or requested.

Read It Swap It & Swapz

This is a service for people from the UK to exchange books.

Books are swapped between two users, which eliminates the necessity of credits. If you find an item on someone’s list, you can ask them to swap with you. If there is nothing on your list they like, they can deny to swap with you and you’ll have to find somebody else to swap with.

Swapz is a similar page. It’s also limited to residents of the UK. However, you can exchange any item you have or want including collectibles, instruments, stamps or clothes.

Swaptree & PaperBack Swap

Recently, Wendy wrote about a site through which US residents can swap books, CDs, DVDs and video games for free.

Items are listed based on their ISBN numbers and users can add a short description. Like on Read It Swap It, users are matched for swapping an item.

PaperBack Swap is a club for swapping books that is also limited to US residents.

The cool thing about this site is that books are sent using a wrap that contains all essential information, like address and sender details. The book can simply be wrapped into this printed piece of paper, which simplifies the packing and labeling process.

The advantage of sites limited to residents of a specific country is that postage costs remain predictable for all members.

SwapAce

SwapAce allows you to swap, buy or sell items and meet members. The site supports any type of item, such as electronics, services and of course books.

Users can use the system to barter and negotiate for items or services. This makes the site extremely flexible.

Neighborrow

Finally, here is a page that makes anything possible.

Join neighBORROW hoods and trade items within these groups. They can be made up of strangers around the world or your personal neighbors, friends or students from your campus. You can borrow, lend, sell, buy or trade anything with whomever you like.

Are you familiar with any other good websites to swap books, movies and games? Remember the story of the guy that started swapping stuff online and ended up with a house? What was your best swap? Let us know in comments