Mint.com released an interesting charting tool since my initial write-up on their online money management services. It’s titled “SpendSpace” and helps you stay “below the average”.

• Now you can track spending online and compare your spending on all the categories you spend on, such as Coffee Shops, Movies, Clothes, Groceries, to the average spending of people in over 30 US cities, all 50 states, or the entire US national average.

Here’s an example:

Pretty cool stuff… and it’s still a work in progress…

Below is a story extracted from a rather creative email marketing campaign which I actually read all the way through this morning (yes, 2 minutes of my life I’ll never get back again). It highlights a taxi driver’s perspective on the imminent recession…

Very cool how the company uses a real life experience to illustrate and validate the ominous state of the economy… telling the story in first person and then positioning their service as a solution to the problem.

Great job of seeking out opportunity in a somewhat dismal forecast…

A foreboding Monday morning Dan!

It was about 5 o’clock in midtown Manhattan and I was desperately looking for a taxi to get to a meeting in Greenwich Village when signs of the impending recession landed on my head the way the coming of the robins announces the spring.

Four–thirty p.m. is changeover time in Manhattan. All the taxis light their “off duty” signals and head for the home garage, which makes it difficult to get anywhere in a hurry at the end of the day.

So I was relieved when the driver of one black Town Car – so prevalent in New York streets and “Sex in the City” re–runs – pulled up and rolled down his window.

I’m used to negotiating with these guys. This was probably a $15 ride in a yellow cab, but the black cars will usually ask for $35.

I figured I’d offer $20 and haggle my way to $25.

So I was shocked when he offered “Bank and West Fourth? Twenty bucks.”

“That’s pretty odd,” I thought. But then I got in.

Drivers like to chat. It’s a staple of conventional wisdom and Hollywood movies that the musings of the wizened, world–weary driver are worth more than all the high–priced consultants and fancy lawyers you can hire.

“Tough year, man, so far…” he said over his shoulder.

“Oh yeah?” I asked.

“Yeah, none of them big firms are hiring us. It’s dead. That’s why I’m doing street hails.”

And that’s when it hit me, folks: the recession is really coming. When the financial services and law firms are announcing write–downs and lay–offs and, horror of horrors, they start to economize on expenses, that’s when the crimp has really hit the fan belt.

Cheapo town cars on the streets of Gotham mean one thing for you, Readers: the economy is really slowing up, and it’s time for you to take action.

We’ve got over 70,000 jobs right now on TheLadders.com, and it’s time for you to upgrade to Premium, start applying to jobs and contacting recruiters, and get your job insurance against the coming recession. It’s time to make sure there’s something else out there in case your division, your company, your industry suddenly finds itself doing the “Layoff Polka.”

And it’s time to get serious, folks. I’m asking all 200 employees here at TheLadders.com’s Manhattan headquarters to get even more serious on your behalf… we’re going to dig for every job, polish every resume, and call every recruiter we can in order to make your $100k+ job hunt shorter, more effective, and less painful.

Happy hunting, this week, folks, but also an admonition… get hunting now!

Warmest Regards,

Marc Cenedella
Founder & CEO
TheLadders.com, Inc.

A pretty good laugh…

YouTube  Tech Bubble Video

Google Trends allows you to compare the world’s interest in your favorite topics. You can type in up to five topics and determine how often they’ve been searched on Google. Although this tool has been out for a while I’ve never really given it the attention it deserves…

1. Presidential Candidates
If Google searches are effective at projecting the next president it looks like we are headed towards another texan Commander in Chief… although this one was actually born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

2. Newspapers, Blogs, Magazines
Blogs are taking over the world. It looks as though searches for blogs have surpassed newspaper searches (in volume) for the first time in history. Good bye traditional media.

3. Food and Exercise
Wow. We love food.

4. Fishing and Hunting
Apparently the Ice Fishermen aren’t pulling their weight. And people are less likely to shoot animals in the summer time (which can be attributed to regulated hunting seasons).

5. Turkey and Diet
Lots of Turkey for Thanksgiving, a little less for Christmas, and a whole bunch of New Year’s Resolutions to lose those extra holiday pounds (that typically last about 1.5 months)

6. Girl Scout Cookies
Girl Scouts of America must have some severe cash flow issues during Q2, Q3 and Q4. Maybe they need to start distributing to grocery stores to supplement their door to door sales?

7. Rain and Depression
Rain rain go away come again another day… seriously… you are driving people crazy!

Last week Andrew Tobias (current Treasurer of the Democratic National Committee and Author of “The Only Investment Guide You Will Ever Need”) shared some of his readers‘ experiences with Mint.com.

Mr. Tobias: a big thanks for the link to my write up on Mint/Covestor. Apparently, AT is friends w/ one of the Mint.com founder’s which allowed him to share:

• The monetization strategy of this relatively new online finance management service:
  • AT: Their game plan is ad revenue and “sponsored links.” My friend who’s one of the founders says: “Some of the offers we present are sponsored, meaning we earn a referral fee if you sign up for them. However, Mint will always show you an un-sponsored offer ahead of a sponsored one if it will save you more money. We sort offers in order of their value to users, regardless of sponsorship.”
• A response to the concerns about how your login credentials are used/stored:
  • AT: My friend responds: “Mint does not store your credentials, we use them once to create a linkage with your account(s). Consider the benefits of being able to see all your account activity in one place – makes it easy to spot any suspicious activity (remember 90% of fraud occurs off line). Mint offers alerts (via email, or text message) to bring unusual spending to your attention.”
• Click here for the full article…

The more employees your company has, the less productive each of these employees are. It is a generalization, of course, but a useful one and one that is confirmed by most people who have worked for growing organizations. As the company grows, so does the internal processes and the layers of bureaucracy, and the time spent on communications grows rapidly… more

The Big Picture | Whats a penny worth?

“The Quarter remains the government’s most profitible coin: Less than a nickel’s  worth of metal, selling for 5X that amount!”