I, like many others, can’t get enough knowledge. I constantly want to learn new things, and also being an entrepreneur, learning about making money is a great passion. Using my iTunes gift cards, I got myself an audio book to play while I was driving.

I took great care over this purchase as I do everything, and the positive reviews of The Richest Man in Babylon make me purchase it. What a waste of $4.95 that turned out to be.

The first issue I had with it was that it was read in an old English tone. I put up with it, but it would really bug some listeners. The total was only just over 4 hours in length.

If you are young and keen to learn the basic principals of money making, then this book will appeal to you. If you have been in the game a while like me, you will find the whole experience somewhat underwhelming. There are stories to decode, and the odd hidden meaning, but the main principals are made blatantly obvious.

The Richest Man in Babylon shoots itself in the foot by confusing the characters in the tales, as the stories themselves are very simple and basic. It all ends up as a bit of a mish-mash.

The main principal that this book teaches you is nothing new. You will spend 70% of your income on your living expenses, 20% on clearing your debts and 10% on investments.

The main bits of advice are the kind that you can recite backwards in your sleep; don’t gamble more than you can afford, don’t seek advice from those who aren’t experts, etc.

All this is well and good if you are either a child or a bit of an idiot, but if you have to be told this stuff you shouldn’t be working in finance.

The Richest Man in Babylon may have had great reviews, but unless you are an absolute beginner who doesn’t even have a bank account, you will learn absolutely nothing from this book and it will be four hours of your life that you will never get back again. That may sound harsh but I am a successful business man seeking more success, not looking to go over stuff that I learnt at grade school.

This author additionally frequently blogs about things like Francis Francis espresso maker and Capresso espresso machine.

Unless one has been living under a space rock without electricity for the past few weeks, chances are you have seen the hilarious Old Spice ads starring a handsome, shirtless gentleman having a rather intimate conversation with the women of America about how her man could smell like this rogue. Now, I could sit here and write about the brilliance of the comedic timing and writing but what has been rather striking to me are the core principles at work here in this advertisement.

In 2007, Old Spice (a Proctor & Gamble brand) made a daring move that shook up Madison Ave when they hired the Wieden & Kennedy Agency. The smaller collective was best known for their assertive, daring ads -amongst which were Nike’s iconic “Just do it.” campaign.

As a product based company, Proctor and Gamble has long capitalized on the efficacy of it’s products, and used the old-school idea of straight comparison (my brand is better than brand X) to convince consumers their product is the best to buy. The Internet entrepreneur is a product based company as well. Except that product is not detergent or deodorant, it’s YOU Inc.

Back to the Old Spice ad. So what is it about this commercial that has resonated so astoundingly with consumers all across the globe? As I type this, the commercial has received over 4.4 million views on YouTube (talk about going viral). One could argue it’s the pure comedic quality of the commercial, but I would argue it’s something much more simplistic than that.

1. Consumers want you to: “Talk with them, not at them” The character is constantly speaking directly to the audience. Engaging and prompting even your very movements at home (look down, now up…where are you?). This type of conversation keeps the audience attentive, relaxed, and psychologically establishes an immediate bond.

2. Invention of Personality You are what you present. Authenticity stems from an unbridled presentation of your personality. It does no one any good to be overly reverential about yourself, take yourself too seriously, or worse be obviously reverential and taking yourself too seriously! If you want people to know your product or service is fun, rewarding and simple. Be fun, rewarding and simple in your ads!

3. Brand Building Laboratory Brand building is always an experiment. No profitable company, in the history of the modern world, has maintained the exact same marketing or advertising strategy from start to finish. Break rules, try new things, let your imagination guide your experimentation and most importantly of all, be yourself! Who knows what you might come up with!

By the way, I’m on a horse. Have a great weekend.

To connect or learn more about Jay, go here: Jay Kubassek

Google’s decision to second-guess its relationship with China has raised some interesting questions recently. Namely, whether Google’s decision sprang from their moral opposition to censorship, or simply from a decreased financial interest in a country with a much more popular search engine, known as Baidu. So far, the controversy appears to be more of a commercial, as opposed to a political dilemma. A private, business-related concern. But whenever the question of morality, of a battle between good (Google) and evil, comes into play in the news, you can be sure that the blogosphere will start freaking out.

Probably the most quoted passage in the outpouring of articles on Google China (or Google.cn) is Google’s well-polished credo: “Don’t be evil.” The more opinionated news outlets cite this as the reason that Google is shying away from China, because censoring websites and people’s freedom of speech is, you know, “evil.” But the real question is, are China’s actions any more “evil” than Google’s decision to set up shop in a Communist country already well-known for their web censorship in the hopes of making a profit to begin with.

On the evil scale, though, I’m taking Google’s side on this. At least for now. In Google’s statement on January 12th, they claimed that they launched the site in China “in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results.” Sounds convincing enough. This came with the proviso that they would carefully monitor the conditions in China, since there has been growing tendency toward web censorship in the country, the latest victim being porn websites. Google’s statement said that, should China ramp up their censorship policies, they would not hesitate to reconsider their agreement.

So what did China do, again, that got Google’s jocks in the ringer? As has been widely reported, in December a series of “cyberattacks” originating in China took place against Chinese human rights advocates living inside the country and in other parts of the world. Their Gmail accounts were hacked into, they say. Plus, the security apparatuses of thirty-four companies in Silicon Valley were breached, and corporate data tampered with.

No one is quite sure where these attacks originated. And of course the Chinese government is casting itself as a victim, too! As if the attacks were perpetrated by a group of Chinese Internet trolls. That, of course, is highly unlikely, considering China has the biggest Internet filtration system in the world, and its government has previously blocked searches for things like, say, “The Dalai Lama” or “Tiananmen Square Massacre.” Twitter and Facebook have already been blocked in China. (How do people keep in touch!?) Chances are, these breaches of security were performed by “hackers” employed directly by the Chinese government. But of course, we can’t be sure. Nobody knows. Google has since asked the N.S.A. for help investigating the issue.

This is all taking place over the web, remember, in a kind of virtual reality. I don’t even like to think about the amount of time these Google hackers in China are spending on the Internet every day in order to gain access to human right’s activist’s accounts.

Another important question-something that’s been brought up over the last few weeks-is whether Google’s decision to back out of China constitutes a kind of neo-imperialism. In other words, is Google, by setting up shop in China and then requesting that the Chinese government abide by the United States’ freedom of speech laws, making a backhanded attempt at cultural dominance?

That’s a tough one. And I suppose it’s the crucial issue. Google, being the omnipotent superpower of online search engines, is also testing the waters of globalization. They seem to be overstepping their boundaries. Then again, international human rights organizations have shown their support for Google. Liberal Chinese see it as an outrage that their government might be hacking into their Gmail accounts sometime soon. The more educated Chinese are on Google’s side. They see web censorship as an infringement on their rights.

But even so, do Google’s complaints put any real pressure on the Chinese government to revise its ongoing commitment to censorship? Does China need Google that much?

It doesn’t seem like it. So they miss out on the new Google Android. No big loss.

That China doesn’t really need Google was made fairly clear by China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman, Ma Zhaoxu. He said, “Foreign enterprises in China need to adhere to China’s hypocritical involvement with laws and regulations, respect the interests of the general public and cultural traditions, and shoulder corresponding responsibilities.” In other words, Google knew what they were getting into. And if they want to intrude on the Chinese market, they’re going to have to play by the Chinese market’s rules. This makes it seem pretty cut and dry. A company like Google, however almighty it may seem, doesn’t have the right to alter China’s rule of law. Or so the Chinese adamantly believe.

So far, everyone involved in this dilemma has been behaving with appropriate political correctness. When Hilary Clinton addressed the issue of Internet censorship on January 21st, she didn’t even name names (China, Iran). “Those who disrupt the free flow of information in our society or any other pose a threat to our economy, our government and our civil society,” she said, linking Internet freedom with the virtues of the United States. She didn’t call out China, partly because, as you may remember, the US is in serious debt to the Chinese right now. (Hmmm. In fact China owns more US dollars than any other country or entity in the world. A different topic for a different day though…) We have to be careful how we play this one. Google may only be an Internet search engine, but with its millions of worldwide users, it is hard to imagine life in 2010 without it. Does Google have the potential to become the most dangerous political weapon the US has ever had?

Jay Kubassek is the co-founder of CarbonCopyPro

Many people don’t attempt to get free publicity because they believe the myths about publicity. Here are seven that you need to know the real truth about:

Myth 1. Publicity and advertising are the same. You pay for advertising, but you don’t pay for publicity. Even if you hire a publicist, the cost is much less than advertising. Yet it has more value, because publicity is treated as news.

Myth 2. You have to know someone to get free publicity. Like anything else in life, it helps if you have contacts on the inside. But they are not necessary. Every day, thousands of people without contacts get free publicity in the media.

Myth 3. Only the big guys can get free publicity. Wrong. Refer to Myth 2.

Myth 4. You should send your press release everywhere. Doing this is counterproductive. You should target your release to the right outlets and the right journalists. For example, say your company has just released new customer relations software. Don’t buy a giant media list and send it to everyone on it. Select the business publications and talk shows and the editors of the business sections of newspapers and magazines, as well as business websites, and send your release to them only. Warning: only send the release to one person at a media outlet at a time. If that person turns you down, then it is okay to contact another one.

Myth 5. You can get a lost of free publicity if you send out lots of releases. Wrong. Don’t waste the time of journalists with trivia. Send them too many trivial releases and they won’t bother to read them when you have something really important to announce.

Myth 6. Bigger is better. Don’t write long press releases. Journalists have too many to read. The ideal length is 400 – 600 words. If you have more to say, you can provide additional items such as a bio (biography), company history or fact sheet. If the release interests journalists, they will then read your supporting material for more information.

Myth 7. You can get publicity if you buy an ad. Except with smaller media outlets and some trade publications, buying an ad will not influence the decision to do a story on you. With most journalists, telling them that you will buy an ad if they do a story is a turn off and it may make them decide not to do anything at all.

Danek S. Kaus is a veteran journalist and publicist. He is the author of “You Can Be Famous! Insider Secrets to Getting Free Publicity.” Check out his site for More free publicity tips and seehis Publicity and Writing Services and a free phone consultation.

If you want to get free publicity, you need to send a press release to the media. But a press release is basically your calling card to the media. It is a sales pitch that contains the hook of the story and some basic facts. It covers the broad strokes, not the details. So if you really want to increase the probability that your press release will be read, you may want to add in a fact sheet as a separate item.

This is why many people who want publicity create a press kit, which may include a list of suggested questions, a photo and a fact sheet, among other items.

A great way to make your pitch to the media stronger is to augment is to include a separate fact sheet with the press release. Fact sheets are easy to create. Simply list of series of facts that relate to your story.

Let’s say you’re in real estate (perhaps a bad choice at this time). You might list begin your list with some general facts such as:

The median price of the average home in your area.

What the median price in your area was six months ago.

A statement about how long as house in your community was on sale this time last year vs this year.

If you are beating the competition, you may want to list some facts about your company, which might include:

How many homes you’ve sold so far this year, or the monthly average

The average number of homes sold by all the realtors in your area

Number of years in business

How many agents your company has

One of the many good things about fact sheets is that you can create as many different ones as you like, each of which can support a specific press release. Use them well and you will be able to get free publicity on a consistent basis. Just remember what the used to say in the old “Dragnet” movie and the TV show before that, “Just the facts, ma’am.

Danek S. Kaus is a professional journalist and publicist, and the author of You Can Be Famous! Insider Secrets to Getting Free Publicity. Check out his Blog Find out about his Services You can get a unique content version of this article from the Uber Article Directory.