I don’t know if I’m out of the loop or something, but today I was browsing the web and stumbled upon Wikimapia. At first glance it looks just like Google Earth. But if you look closely you will see little squares over the major cities. If you clikc a square it will zoom you in to that city and display the area map with a lot more squares.

Each square represents a popular location. It could be an airport, museum, school or neighborhood. Once you click on a square it will zoom you in to that location and give you the location’s name and description. You can even vote on if the information is useful or not. There is a way to edit entries as well by clicking on the menu icon for each location.

I’m not sure if there is a way to make money or gain anything from Wikimapia. You can add links to location descriptions, but unless its an authority site and highly relative I doubt the editors will keep it up. This is just a fun site to play around with. Hope you enjoy.

Although not many blogs entered this year’s Blogger NCAA Tournament Pick’em Contest, we do have a winner after last night’s championship game.

I want to congratulate Cage Today for winning the contest. He beat me by 24 points!

Also because you won the contest, you are eligible for free advertising on my blog for a month. So please contact me and I’ll get your banner up ASAP.

I’ve never used my blog as a means to preach about political issues, and I don’t intend to turn this into a political blog. But the United States is facing one of the most important Presidental Elections this year it has ever seen. We are at War and we are in an economic and housing crisis. A lot of young people are preaching Barrack Obama on Youtube and in their blogs. They think it’s cool to vote for a man who’s campaign is about “Change”. They seem to ignore the fact that Obama attended the Church of Reverend Wright who preached a damn America and that we are to blame for 9/11. Obama may be a good speaker and promise all these things like National Health Care … but when it comes down to it, he is not the person I want as my President. He’s not Patriotic enough and I don’t trust him. I am not a right wing conservative Republican, I am more of a moderate Republican, and that’s why I’ll be voting for John McCain.

Democrats are all about abandoning the war in Iraq, raising my taxes, and doing nothing about our national security. They don’t believe in being on the offensive when at war. Instead they’d rather put their heads in the sand and wait for some terrorist to attack us again. And it’s not even the war that gets me going… it’s the damn taxes. Americans pay way too much tax as it is, the last thing I want is Obama in the White House trying to pass all these new government programs that will cost an arm and a leg. You want National Health Care? Be prepared to pay taxes out your ass for it.

What pisses me off is so many Americans expect the Government to do everything for them. They just want hand outs. What ever happened to America being the land of opportunity and the land of the brave. We’re supposed to have fears. The Government can’t take your fears away from you no matter what they say.

Anyways, back to the title of this post. “Make money online? Vote for John McCain” Why you ask? There are several reason, and I’m taking the issues straight off JohnMcCain.com. If you are a business owner or make any kind of money online, there’s no reason to ignore these issues.

Keep Tax Rates Low: Entrepreneurs are at the heart of American innovation, growth and prosperity. Entrepreneurs create the ultimate job security — a new, better opportunity if your current job goes away. Entrepreneurs should not be taxed into submission. John McCain will fight the Democrats’ crippling plans for a tax increase in 2011. Left to their devices, Democrats will impose a massive $100 billion tax hike, almost $700 per taxpayer every year.

Ban Internet Taxes: John McCain believes we must make a farsighted, robust, and fervent commitment to innovation and new technologies to sustain our global competitiveness, meet our national security challenges, achieve less costly and more effective health care, reduce dangerous dependence on foreign sources of oil, and raise the quality of education in the United States. John McCain has been a leader in keeping the Internet free of taxes. As President, he will seek a permanent ban on taxes that threaten this engine of economic growth and prosperity.

Allow First-Year Deduction, Or “Expensing”, Of Equipment And Technology Investments. Expensing of equipment and technology will provide an immediate boost to capital expenditures and reward investments in cutting-edge technologies.

Cut The Corporate Tax Rate From 35 To 25 Percent. A lower corporate tax rate is essential to U.S. competitiveness. America was once a low-tax business environment, but as our trade partners lowered their rates, America failed to keep pace, leaving us with the second-highest rate among the world’s advanced economies.

If you want to read more about McCain’s stance on all the important issues, please visit www.JohnMcCain.com.

Starting a website from scratch sucks. The more I get involved in making money online the more I’m beginning to realize it’s all about acquiring websites in a marketplace rather than starting one from scratch. Unless you have other websites that can fuel a brand new one, then there is no advantage to starting from the beginning other than cost.

Almost every website I have owned that is worth a damn has been one that I’ve purchased. And I’m not just talking about buying a website for keeps, I’m also talking about flipping. Buying a website that needs a little work for a cheap price, and then flipping it a few months later for big time profits after you fixed it up.

Starting a site from scratch is so much harder then just buying one that already has traffic coming to it. Let someone else do the dirty work for you. Keep your eye out for good deals in the marketplace and don’t be afraid to just email website owners and offer them something for the site even if it’s not listed for sale.

I was a big fan of eBay like 5 years ago. I have sold over 100 things on eBay, mostly just random junk and old video games I don’t play anymore. However, over the past year or two I have been relying on Craigslist more and more to sell unwanted household items. I’m not saying this will ever happen, but it wouldn’t shock me if one day Craigslist had a larger marketshare than eBay. If I’m not mistaken, eBay also owns a stake in Craigslist… so that could factor into things as well.

What makes Craigslist so much better than eBay in my opinion is that there are no shipping fees to pay! You can buy and sell everything to local people who will meet you somewhere to exchange items. In just the last year I have sold two couches, end tables, a coffee table and a 48″ projection TV. And I did all that with out ever leaving my house. People just come with their trucks and pick the items up. It’s great!

And not only is Craigslist a place to buy and sell merchandise, but you can also look for jobs/services or join in the discussion forums. Another big thing on there is finding houses for sale and condos/apartments for rent. I think I found my first place to rent after college by browsing Craigslist. It is easily one of the best websites created in the last decade.

One thing that surprises me about Craigslist is that they haven’t found a big way to monetize the site yet. Their whole mission is the provide free classifieds for everyone, but at some point you have to think that they’ll want to cash in on everything people are buying/selling. When was the last time a website didn’t cash out?

If you’re not using Craigslist, and you’re still hawking items on eBay, then you’re seriously missing out. Not only do you not have to worry about shipping items or paying listing fees, you also have a pretty good chance to make more profit for items sold. eBay is so saturated that you won’t get fair value for your items.

Ok Bloggers… I’m a bit disappointed that as of right now we only have 4 people in the 2008 Bloggers NCAA Tournament Pick’Em Contest. We had 10 people last year, and only 4 this year? Shame on you!

What do you have to lose by signing up? Nothing. What do you have to gain by signing up? Free links and bragging rights!

You don’t need to even be a college basketball fan to sign up. All you need is a Yahoo account. You have only two days left before brackets have to be turned in, so step on it!

Click here for more details on how to sign up.