I try to keep my posts lighter toward the end of the week. No brainpower left, and who wants more stuff to think about when the weekend’s coming?

Personal finance article of the week goes to Anatomy of a Personal Finance Article over at MyMoneyBlog. Who knew things were so cookie-cutter?

Frugality: Save time and film (for those still using traditional cameras), or get better wedding pictures. Find out the five steps to looking more photogenic. It really works!

Trick your brain: Check out this nifty optical illusion. Be sure to follow the instructions to get the full effect. Want a different sort? Try this one.

The things kids do: What do kids pray about?

Eye-catching advertising: finally, take a look at some creative shopping bag ads. I haven’t seen these before, but they’d definitely make me do a double-take.

Happy weekend everyone!

Zecco has gotten a lot of press lately, both good and bad. If you haven’t yet heard of it, it’s a site that was launched in July and currently in beta whose business model aims to “revolutionize” the financial services arena by offering free trades and offering previously unavailable investing information and opinion all in one place, a la social networking.

Much has been written about Zecco already. Most of the positive news has been related to its PR and marketing department, while the online community has mostly voiced its doubts (see Techcrunch’s thoughts here or another blogger’s experience with them). But no harm, no foul. Every new business idea is fraught with naysayers and critics, and who knows? Maybe Zecco will succeed.

“Free” business models with expenses paid for by advertising revenue is no new concept, even in bricks-and-mortar businesses. Ryan Air is considering offering free flights to over half its passengers using this model by the end of the decade. There’s even a “restaurant” in Atlanta offering free food and drink (well, bread, butter, and sweet tea) called the Butter Trough.

What I haven’t seen discussed is how their business model will work. Assuming that they’ll be paying for the free trades purely through advertising revenue, I wanted to do some rough calculations and see what sorts of numbers came up. Obviously, I’m working with limited information, but here goes:

Zecco claims it will split revenues 50/50 with bloggers. Let’s assume they’ll be approved by and use Google Adsense, a staple advertising partner among bloggers. How much revenue will that bring in?

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Be sure to check out this week’s Festival of Frugality over at Punny Money. There’s a simple and nice one on getting free landscaping materials — a nice article about how to make your backyard bloom cheaply, and what’s more, it’s a great motivator to get to know your neighbor better and build up a sense of community.

Also, in the more-lists-than-you-ever-wanted-to-see category, check out the link to the left on another group writing project from Darren Rowse. This time, he’s giving away five prizes at random, so submissions have gone through the roof. Lists range from the weird, wonky, and humorous to the introspective on almost any subject you can imagine.

I’ve gotten a lot of comments on my recent post about what I’d do differently if I had to start this site all over again. Many people wrote for the project (with varied and sincere advice), so if you’re new to blogging or thinking of starting, I highly encourage you to take a look at all the recommendations being given.

That being said, I wanted to take the time to make a few points:

1. From browsing around, I realize now that part of the reason I have no regrets on my own (quite new) site is due to the experience of people like Darren, Katy, Peter and others who’ve been at it longer and made jumping into blogging much smoother a process for the rest of us than it would have been. So a very sincere thank you must go out everyone for sharing their generosity and wisdom with those of us lucky enough to benefit from them.
2. The ‘net is really a great equalizer. Where else could you be where you’d feel just as comfortable giving advice after being at something for only 6 months as someone who’s been at it for 5 years? There were respondents who were also just getting into blogging after several years of web experience elsewhere, like Jersey Girl.
3. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: these group writing projects allow you to connect with people all over both the blogosphere and world. Last time, I found out about SouthAsiaBiz, and this time The Big Chorizo (Spain), Leon (Jamaica) among others. You never know if you’ll find another blog that helps you in your niche or some other aspect that interests you. How great is it to be able to connect to the rest of the world so easily, and how did we ever manage before with just traditional media?
4. Blogging can definitely be a successful part of your own small business. Just take a look at Paul, Katy, and Lil’ Duck Duck.
5. So what are the key lessons? A quick perusal shows that the following advice (in no particular order) is often repeated: get your own domain, use WordPress, learn about keywords and linking, decide on a focused topic, decide on a design. Always keep in mind though, that just because everyone else says something’s better doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right for you.

And probably the most important thing to note is that most people are very happy with their site and the way things have turned out. Now I join the ranks of those who will try things on my own for the benefit of future bloggers.

There’s a group writing project over at Problogger asking what people would do if they had to start their blog all over again. And recently, there’s been a lot of activity and the usual frustration in trying to figure out how to work with a new blogging platform in the personal finance blogging world, thanks to a very generous offer from an established author to move blogs over from Blogspot to WordPress.

I’m here to give a little perspective. Like my previous post about not having goals per se on this site, I wouldn’t change anything I’ve done with my blog. Here’s why:

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