Something nice happened on May 24th 2008 - I got stumbled! The fallowing is a detailed analysis of the traffic that StumbleUpon.com sent me during the 13 days that I was Stumbled.
What is StumbleUpon.com?
StumbleUpon is a social media toolbar that is used by more than 5 million people to find new and interesting websites. It lets you specify your interests and afterwards presents you with a button that takes you to a random page that matches your pre-selected topics and that have been recommended by other StumbleUpon users.
StumbleUpon allows you to give a thumbs up when you like a page and thumbs down when you don’t. This teaches the program what you like and ensures that it will refer you to websites that most match your interests.
The more thumbs up a website gets the more traffic StumbleUpon will send it.
During 13 days from May 24th to June 5th FinancialJesus.com got a total of 4313 visits from StumbleUpon.
During this time the total number of visitors to FinancialJesus.com was 6787 - over 63% of my traffic came from StumbleUpon.
Highs and Lows
During the 13 day period I got an average of 308 visitors from StumbleUpon. During that time the number of visitors StumbleUpon sent to FinancialJesus.com was in no way consistent.
Best day - 1082 visits - 8th day after being Stumbled
Worst day - 30 visits - 13th day after being Stumbled
Daily unique visitors from StumbleUpon.com
As you can see there are actually 2 peaks on the graph. The higher one on May 30th and the first one on May 26th.
This is because there were actually 2 different articles Stumbled. The first article was Stumbled on May 24th and the second one on May 30th - that’s why the sudden jump in visitors. The second article that was Stumbled - 3 experiments with money - experienced a lot more sudden increase in traffic than the first one.
During the first day the post 3 experiments with money (2nd article that was stumbled) got a total of 981 unique visitors from StumbleUpon. I was initially expecting the article to get a slow but steady flow of traffic just like I got with the first post, but I was wrong!
Different kinds of traffic
StumbleUpon has the ability to drive different kinds of traffic.
1. Consistent traffic
Here is a graph of the traffic that my first article generated. Notice that after the traffic slows down by May 29th, it suddenly gets a small boost and stays consistent for 5 days.
The day this post got a sudden boost - May 30th - is also the day my second article got Stumbled. Could there be a connection?
Statistics
The average StumbleUpon visitor spent 2 minutes and 21 seconds reading the article - slightly less than the post’s average of 2:44.
The bounce rate was 83%. This means that 83% of visitors from StumbleUpon decided to leave FinancialJesus after reading the article without bothering to read other posts. After taking a look at Navigation Summary in Google Analytics I discovered that for some reason 9% of visitors reloaded the post. This probably means that the actual bounce rate was over 90%.
I managed to get the average bounce rate down to about 75% by May 28th and keep it there by putting a larger than usual link at the end of the article to one of my other posts.
9.93% of all the people clicked on this link:
I also use the Similar Posts plugin to recommend other posts but it seems that writing the link larger than usual has a good effect on click through rates.
2. Sudden burst of traffic
Here is a traffic graph of my second article getting Stumbled. Notice the sharp increase and then the sudden decrease of visitors. The traffic to this article form StumbleUpon is totally different from the traffic I got with my first post.
The article in focus gathered fast popularity on May 30th in StumbleUpon.com - It got picked to StumbleUpon Buzz which is kind of like the front page of Digg. Some sites picked the article up from Buzz and that gave me additional traffic.
The average StumbleUpon visitor spent 2 minutes and 41 seconds reading the article - slightly under the post’s average of 2:54.
The bounce rate was 89%.
I managed to lower it down to 75% by June 3rd by taking a similar approach as mentioned earlier - I put a larger than usual link at the end of the article to one of my other pages.
Unfortunately this link couldn’t get the overall average bounce rate down, since almost 90% of visits came before I added the link - on the first day of getting Stumbled.
Here is a graph comparing traffic from StumbleUpon to both articles
Article 1 is greenArticle 2 is red
By May 29th I wasn’t expecting much StumbleUpon.com traffic anymore to the first Stumbled article, but it seems that the discovery and popularity of the post 3 experiments with money gave a boost to our first Stumbled article. It remains unclear whether these events are connected to each other or not. It could be possible that the StumbleUpon algorithm is built in a way that when a certain page on a domain gets a sudden rush of “Thumbs Up” it will also increase the amount of traffic sent to other Stumbled pages on that domain.
A boost in RSS feed readers
During the 13 days of being stumbled I got 26 new RSS readers. That was a big jump from the 13 readers I had a day before getting Stumbled. On my best day Feedburner reported a total of 52 subscribers (a 400% rise). It seems that some of these people unsubscribed the next day - RSS readers dropped from 52 to 33. After that the total number of RSS feed readers kept crawling up - on June 4th it had climbed back up to 39 (300% rise).
It took an average of 165 unique visitors from StumbleUpon for one person to sign up for my RSS feed.
Conclusion
StumbleUpon can generate different kinds of traffic. It can give you a steady flow of visitors or a sudden peak. The visitors are not eager to click on links to other posts but their behavior can be influenced by adding an extra large link to another article at the end of the post.
StumbleUpon also gives a decent amount of RSS readers of whom some unsubscribe a few days later. Depending on your current amount of readers the boost can be significant or you may not even notice it!
After 14 days of getting decent traffic the flow of visitors has dropped significantly but has yet to come to a standstill.
I’ve gone over more than 10 “How to calculate your net worth” guides, only to realize that none of them really give what people want - a good real-life example.
Here is a tutorial on how to calculate your net worth based on my current real life situation. Yes all the “money numbers” in this post are real - they are not made up.
What is Net Worth?
Your Net Worth is basically a sum of money that you will have when you sell all your worldly possessions and pay off all your debts. The bigger the number that you get, the better.
Calculating your net worth can be a good way to bring you down to earth - it only takes into account the things you have already done in your life and doesn’t take into account the fact that in the future your knowledge and education can be major source of wealth.
This keeps things in perspective.
When first calculating their net worth most people are startled to find that they are worth a lot less than they thought. The first time I calculated my net worth I was very surprised to find it negative - I had more debt than valuable assets that I could sell. It was a blow to my ego - I had always thought better of myself.
Basics of Calculating Your Net Worth
Calculating your Net Worth consists of 3 main parts:
Adding together the value of everything you own
Adding together all your debt
Subtracting all your debt from everything you own
Your Net Worth is positive when you can pay off all your debts after selling everything you own.
Your Net Worth is negative when your total amount of debt is greater than the total value of the things you own.
Why Calculate Personal Net Worth?
It is safe to assume that most people calculating their net worth for the first time will find it negative - this is not necessary a bad thing. The goal of calculating your net worth is that it enables you to improve your financial situation.
My Net Worth
Assets
Ownership in companies – $ 1 076 Pension funds – $ 940 Real estate – 0 $ Cars – 0 $ Stocks – $ 571 Cash on hand at the moment – $ 2 179
Things I own
Mobile phone – $ 395
Camcorder – $ 148
Digital camera – $ 30
Laptop – $ 592
All assets combined – $ 5 931
Liabilities
Student loan – $ 4 685
Credit card – $ 66
Laptop payment - $ 316
All liabilities combined - $ 5 067
Net Worth = Assets – Debts
My Net Worth = $ 5 931 - $ 5 067 = 864 dollars
As of June 5th 2008 my net worth is 864 dollars!
Why is my Net Worth like it is?
As you can see above I don’t like buying expensive stuff and I don’t like borrowing. I only take a loan when there is absolutely no other way.
That being said I am not satisfied with my current net value because I feel I should be worth a lot more. But that’s just the emotions talking, not the facts.
The facts are that I own very little and at the same time I owe very little. My assets and liabilities pretty much cancel each other out.
I am more than certain that there are people reading all this that have a lot more assets but at the same time their total net worth is lower than mine (this means that they also have a lot more debt than I have).
Tips on getting started
Different people calculate their net worth differently. As you can see I have included the things I own all the way down to my digital camera that I estimate to be worth only about 30 dollars. Some people don’t include things that are worth less than 500 or 1000 dollars. It would just end up being too complicated and take too much time to complete.
Of course I have things that are more expensive than the things on the list, but I did not include them because they are very difficult to sell.
Two week rule
Coming up with the values of your assets can be tricky. I usually take an educated guess – For how much could I sell this in two weeks? Whatever time frame you choose - stick to it with all your assets. You should only consider doing an exception to costly assets like a house or maybe a car. Expensive things take a little longer to sell.
Check the prices of similar things
If you are not sure about your “educated guess” you should check the local classified ad magazines or the internet for prices of similar things. If you live in the US a good place to start is Craigslist or Ebay.
Don’t exaggerate
Take care to list everything you own with the prices you could really sell them for. While inflating the price of your house on paper can make your net worth look bigger, there is really no benefit in doing so. It might give you a false sense of security and thus do you more harm when you are suddenly in need of selling your assets. If anything it’s a good idea to list your assets as little cheaper than they really are - that way you can be absolutely sure that you can sell them for the price that you have listed.
Should you include the money in your pension plan or a 401K?
Yes you should. While this money might not be accessible to you at the moment it is still YOUR money and on some occasions you can use this money to secure a loan.
I have a house and a mortgage. Do I need to put both of them on my net worth?
Yes. List the price that your house would sell for under assets and the mortgage you still need to pay under liabilities.
If the price of your house is less than the mortgage then it means that after selling it you would need to come up with extra money to pay for your home loan.
If you take a close look of my net worth above you will see that I did exactly the same thing with my laptop that I recommended you do with a house.
I still need to make 316 dollars worth of payments for my laptop (as seen under debt) and I estimate it to be worth about 592 dollars when I would need to sell it right away. That means that after selling my laptop and paying back the debt I would end up with 276 dollars.
Why Everyone Should Calculate Their Net Worth?
A good reason to start calculating your net worth is to increase your financial situation. By calculating it regularly you will have an overview whether your decisions during the last month made you financially better or worse off. Learning from your own mistakes is the surest way to success.
I recommend making the calculating of your net worth a monthly habit. It does magic on making you think about your finances.
If you start thinking about your net worth your chances of multiplying what you already have grow exponentially
If you wish to get more real life information about calculating your net worth be sure to sign up to our full feed RSS or subscribe via email.
If you have questions regarding how to calculate your net worth, leave them in the comments and I am more than happy to answer them and update this article accordingly.
Below is a strange video starring the former president of Russia - Vladimir Putin.
It is my belief that the best way to learn about success and how to get successful is to study carefully the people who already are good in what you strive for.
Vladimir Putin is one of the most powerful political leaders in the world. In the following video the former prime minister of Ukraine Victor Janukovich offers candy to Dmitry Medvedev - the new president of Russia - who happily accepts. When Vladimir Putin notices, Janukovich also offers some candy to Putin - he doesn’t accept.
This video is only 30 seconds long and in first glance rather insignificant. For some reason I was very intrigued by the video and watched it at least 10 times in a row.
It seems that Putin immediately sees when the Ukrainian ex prime minister takes the candy out of his pocket but does a face like he doesn’t notice it. After Medvedev willingly accepts the candy Putin suddenly “notices” but doesn’t accept. A few seconds after he slightly nods his head.
I’ve been studying people’s body language while being a door-to-door salesman and to me Putin’s head nodding shows that he is thinking about the situation and what he could have done differently.
Hopefully this video says something about the personalities of Russias ex and new presidents.
What do you think this video says?
“Money does not smell” was first said by Roman Emperor Vespasian to his son Titus, when he ordered a new tax on public bathrooms (or toilets, as we say here in Europe).
What he probably meant was this:
“If you see an opportunity to make money - use it!
I have written the following story on several of my notebooks and on my calendar.
It is by far the best story about success that I have ever heard.
A young man wanted to know how to be successful
He was sent to a wiseman who made him promise to follow his instructions very carefully.
He agreed and the wiseman took him to a river.
The wiseman asked him to kneel down in the water and submerge his head.
Once under the water, the wiseman grabbed his head so he couldn’t come up for a breath. After the young man failed and fought for a minute, the wiseman released him, threw him up on the bank, and started walking away.
“You crazy old man!! How did THAT teach me how to be successful?!”
The wiseman turned and said:
“You will be successful if you want something as bad as you wanted that breath of air”
Research shows that income rises with happiness, but being too happy can be bad for you.
University of Illinois psychology professor Ed Diener is the author of numerous studies that show the relationships between happiness and money.
Money can’t buy happiness
Ed Diener’s various studies have shown that money can’t buy happiness, but happy people tend to make more money. His studies show that happiness is not the consequence of having more money - just the opposite is true - having more money is the consequence of being happy.
Too much happiness can be a bad thing
In his latest study professor Diener and his team studied the income levels of people who had previously rated their happiness with a score from 1 to 10.
The results were somewhat surprising.
The amount of money a person made grew with their happiness but not all the way to the top level. The 10s (happiest people) made significantly less money than people who rated their happiness with an 8 or 9. The people whose “happy levels” were a bit less than 10 were also more likely to attend college and save money!
Happy people are strivers
Diener’s conclusion was that people who are happy but understand that it is possible to be even more satisfied with their life are strivers (people who rated their happiness with 8 or 9). These people understand that whatever their current situation, it is possible to be better off.
This insight seems to make people tick. They know that there is something to strive for.
Don’t be too happy
The top happy people who rated their happiness level with a 10 were money wise a lot worse off than the people who rated their happiness with an 8 or 9.
The explanation to this is also quite logical.
Tremendously happy people are always happy - whatever happens. If you work in McDonalds and you are happy with it, why look for a better job? If you get fired but you are still happy, why look for a job at all?
Overly happy people make bad decisions
According to a study done in Duke University the people who rate their happiness level with the maximum grade tend to overestimate their lifespan by more than 20 years. They also found that extreme optimists can have problems with controlling their urges - but they are happy with it.
It was found that extreme optimists tended to overspend and accumulate debt. They were happy to take a loan, because they were mistakenly positive that they could pay it back.
One of my favorite stories was told by a man who had left work with a major brokerage firm. He told me about the training he had received a few years earlier when he started work with a major and well-respected brokerage firm. He and the other brokers in training were told to split their potential client list in half. They were told to call half and tell them to buy a particular stock. The other half were to receive calls telling them to sell the same stock.
In two weeks, these “financial advisor” trainees were told to see which way the stock had moved, up or down. Whichever way it had moved, half of the potential client list would think the trainee was pretty smart, to be able to pick a stock like that.
They were told to split the “successful” half of their group again, and do the same thing.
If they started with a call list of 120 potential clients and did this three times, they had 15 “warm leads” - people who had enough confidence in their ability to pick stocks and to become clients.
Unethical selling tactics by people who really don’t have a clue what’s going on is the reason I am taking care of my own stock portfolio - and you should too.
However I have to agree that this story gives a great example how everyone could start their own brokerage company without knowing anything about stocks!
For more tips on How to Start Your Own Brokerage Company without knowing a thing or two about stocks, please sign up for our full feed RSS or subscribe via email.
In 2001 the world’s largest airline caterer served 427 million meals to airline customers.
Make your own conclusion
This puts the real world into perspective. Things as tiny as 1 olive can save a large company more than some people make. An airliner who serves 427 million meals and gets an olive for 1 cent saves 4.27 million dollars by eliminating 1 olive from every meal.
Moral of the story?
Small things can make a difference. That’s probably also why elephants are afraid of mice
Here is a fun and addicting game to all you money loving FinancialJesus.com readers.
In the Fed Chairman Game you are in charge or the national monetary policy of the US.
Your goal is simple - you must adjust the Federal Funds rate in order to keep the inflation and unemployment rate stable. This game makes you realize just how difficult it is to steer the national monetary policy.
It took me at least 10 tries to keep inflation in the target 2% area, while at the same time keeping the unemployment rate at around 5% and finishing the game successfully. See if you can do better.
The Federal Funds rate is the interest rate that Federal Reserve (the central bank of US) uses to lend money to other banks. By changing this interest rate the FED has the ability to control the supply of money in the U.S economy. Among many things this basically gives them the power to control the amount of business done in the US and also the unemployment rate.
While working on a post about countries with cheapest gas prices I came across Saparmurat Niyazov - the former president of Turkmenistan. He died in 2006 but before that he was probably the coolest guys to ever live. He was also one of the worlds most totalitarian and repressive dictators.
Here’s 17 things that Mr. Saparmurat Niyazov did while being a dictator
He officially renamed the months after the members of his family.
He made the media refer to him as “His Excellency”
Mr. Saparmurat won a “democratic” election with 99,9% of the votes
He changed the entire alphabet (it’s actually not as bad as it sounds - he replaced the Russian letters with the Latin alphabet)
He closed down all companies providing internet access except for one (It’s easier to monitor 1 company than an entire bunch).
Mr. Saparmurat banned ballet and opera in the entire country. “Ballet and opera are unnecessary”
He forbade men from growing long hair and beards
He made a law that everyone who had a driving license needed to take a morality test. Most American’s probably wouldn’t pass
Mr. Saparmurat prohibited all TV newsreaders to wear make-up. You probably can’t see the difference from a black and white TV anyway…
He closed down all the hospitals of Turkmenistan except for 1. “Sick people can come to the capital to treat themselves”
He closed all libraries in Turkmenistan. “Ordinary Turkmen don’t read books”
He took away old-age pensions of one third of all old people in Turkmenistan. A lot of old people died because of that.
He systematically lowered salaries of teachers who didn’t praise him during classes.
He changed the word bread to the name of his mother - Gurbansoltanedzhe. “I’ll take one Gurbansoltanedzhe with that milk”
He prohibited car radios and recorded music
He prohibited all dogs from the city he lived in because “They smell bad“
Mr. Saparmurat put a picture of himself on every single bank note. No harm done when you look that good!
So here you go - a couple of ideas what to do as a dictator.
You know what they say - Good ideas never die!
This is a personal finance website with the main focus on psychological aspects of money.
FinancialJesus.com is also about my discoveries and experiences related to investing, tips on success and life in general.
Following FinancialJesus.com will help broaden your horizon and become a more successful person in whatever you do.
About Me
My name is Roman - I'm a 25 year old university student from Estonia. During my short life I have been a door-to-door salesman in USA, a project manager in a mobile services company and currently am trying to start my own company! Contact me: roman[at]financialjesus.com
![](http://www.financialjesus.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/stumblers-top10.gif "Total unique stumblers to \")
