B$ Strategery

An interesting downturn

2008-07-07T06:06:21Z

Here's an interesting tidbit: For blogs with few incoming and many outgoing links, apparently 5 incoming links or less will put out a nice outgoing value, but 6 or more will drop this back down to 'lesser' levels. 5 links here put out about 12x the blog's actual value, but 6 - 10 links put out only about 4x the blog's total value.

	Inc. Links	Out. Links	Value	Out. Link Value	Market Share
20:55 06 Jul 2008	10	116	B$10,039,966.89	B$371,103.15	0.000136539 %
06:17 05 Jul 2008	6	116	B$6,255,320.07	B$223,541.50	0.000082900 %
23:44 03 Jul 2008	5	116	B$4,209,856.18	B$442,978.13	0.000083503 %
20:53 02 Jul 2008	5	116	B$4,042,608.79	B$428,558.13	0.000062285 %
20:37 01 Jul 2008	5	109	B$3,590,355.28	B$407,601.27	0.000071000 %
20:21 30 Jun 2008	4	85	B$2,470,504.71	B$107,338.08	0.000077287 %
16:30 29 Jun 2008	1	79	B$560,683.14	B$88,562.14	0.000016722 %

Rises and falls

2008-06-29T05:31:07Z

We were finally seeing some rising values again recently, but have again hit a decline cycle. Some badly timed reindexing and issues with the spiders being down has caused a downward spiral, as the declining values caused blogs that would have received gains to lose value. A change in the reindex order may have resulted in gains all around... This is one important reason why it is important to use the Stock Broker feature for blogs you own shares in, or do some quick calculations for blogs you don't own shares in. One quick way that I do this to see if a blog will gain or lose is to just add up the millions and hundred-thousands with a calculator and see if this comes out as higher than the current blog value. To get a bit more accuracy for small increases, I may round down to the thousands place (ex, an incoming blog with a value of B$ 1,218,168.92 I'd enter into the calculator as 1218). A small gain would be enough to warrant a reindex. Blogs that feed into each other should have the blog with the highest increase indexed first for maximum benefit, buy if you aren't using the Stock Broker, that's hard to determine, but any positive trend is a good thing. Don't reindex blogs that are to be losers, let them keep the higher value until other incoming blogs catch up.

Falling values again

2008-05-18T02:52:12Z

A popular blog that was putting out some nice values to others that link to me recently died, and was promptly removed from the game. As this was one that was pumping out extra value because of the number of outgoing links, the trickle down effect resulted in crashing values all around. There still aren't enough blogs hitting the target spot to keep values up, losing just that one was a major blow, but if any others can hit the right spot, we'll see a nice increase again. If we can get two more, I think we'll have stable growth, three or more would see a major long term upward movement in values.

Project Bootstrap

2008-05-01T05:58:11Z

Project Bootstrap is well under way. This is the code name I've given to my effort to get the values of my blogs back up to where they had been a few weeks back, before the market slid into the toilet. I had made some early headway, but was foiled when some other blogs that link here changed their links, and crashed their incoming values to me, and it's been a slow slide ever since, despite my best efforts. At long last, things have stabilized, and we're now on the upswing again. A few other blogs that link here have taken my advise on linking, and increased their outgoing links to about 3x the incoming, and have further linked to those that link to blogs that link to them, seeding things further, and this is now paying off by a nice upward swing. At this point, just having one more blog increasing their links this way would result in an even greater boost, I'm sure...

Sweet spot, part 2

2008-04-07T20:24:40Z

Regarding my last entry, having more than 3x outgoing as incoming is OK, you still get the boost, but obviously the outgoing value is split among all of your outgoing links. One blog I know has over 8x as many outgoing as incoming, and is still seeing the boost. A rough formula: Outgoing Value * # of Outgoing Links / Blog Value. If you're not hitting the sweet spot, this value will be close to 1. If you're hitting it, it will be something around 5-8, depending on the exact ratio of links.

Sweet spot

2008-04-03T05:42:53Z

I don't have an exact formula, and probably never will, but the sweet spot for maximizing outgoing link value seems to be to have about 3x as many outgoing links as incoming ones, give or take a few percentage points either way. If you have 10 incoming links, having 30 outgoing will gain you a boost. 20 incoming means 60 outgoing, etc. Obviously, linking to those linking to you should help. An idea I've been playing with is to also link to blogs that link to blogs linking to me. As long as I have extra links to spread around, seems like a sound strategy. Problem is many blogs linking to me are in a freefall at the moment, and many have the wrong number of outgoing links to stabilize things at the moment. Might have to ride the fall before the upswing can begin.

To reindex, or not to reindex...

2008-03-28T03:16:41Z

That is the question... The game has a great tool called 'Ask your stock broker', which will let you see at a glance what blogs you hold shares in will benefit from reindexing. Unfortunately, if you're looking to reindex, say, a blog that links to you, there is no easy way to tell if it will go up or down in value. Do not assume that if your blog is on the rise, that reindexing anything coming in or going out is a good idea. I've found it handy to whip out the old calculator and punch in the numbers manually to see if it's worth it. I usually just enter up to the hundred thousand place (B$25,485,434.10 becomes 254, etc, no rounding), and total up everything over 100k in value. If this is greater than the blog's current value, reindex. If it's very close, then I'll redo the numbers going down to the thousands place (B$25,485,434.10 becomes 25485), and see what happens there. If you're reindexing something that links to you, never reindex if the value is going to drop.

Corporation interest

2008-03-27T04:19:44Z

I hadn't been paying attention, obviously, because this whole topic passed me by. Apparently, players investing in corporations who have more than B$ 1Q invested lose out on interest payments. Whoopsie! Obviously, the quick fix is to withdraw funds so that your invested balance is below 1Q, but what to do with the rest? A solution suggested to me by another player was to create your own new corp, basically a sole proprietorship, with only you as the member. Corporation interest rates depend on the value of your shares holdings, but with the new math, it isn't hard to amass sufficient holdings (I have no idea what the cutoff here really is...) to earn the max rate of 0.5%. So, invest some sum less than 1Q in your corp, then donate any additional funds to the corp that you wish, and make sure that this is set as your primary corp. You will then earn interest on the invested amount, and the corp will earn interest on the donated funds, which are entirely under your control. Also, be sure not to reinvest your earnings, or your invested amount will increase to over 1Q, and you're screwed again.

A new twist...

2008-03-25T04:31:27Z

I was starting to make sense of things, generally, but this one seems to be a new twist. On the 25th, the outgoing value dropped greatly, with the addition of one incoming link. But earlier, the same incoming and outgoing numbers kept a high outgoing value. I suspect that the code is being tightened on what ranges or ratios between these values causes a boost.

	Inc. Links	Out. Links	Value	Out. Link Value	Market Share
16:05 26 Mar 2008	44	117	B$580,049,341.64	B$4,957,687.54	0.000583753 %
05:58 25 Mar 2008	44	117	B$568,162,725.97	B$4,856,092.53	0.000668977 %
17:56 23 Mar 2008	43	117	B$535,036,840.72	B$26,105,754.53	0.000723254 %
17:02 22 Mar 2008	44	117	B$532,409,243.97	B$22,616,540.93	0.000700457 %
20:18 20 Mar 2008	45	117	B$497,397,552.74	B$24,011,132.88	0.000625127 %
19:23 19 Mar 2008	45	117	B$549,205,881.51	B$18,657,926.28	0.000676486 %
16:57 18 Mar 2008	45	117	B$581,484,233.49	B$24,849,757.84	0.000583006 %
17:36 16 Mar 2008	45	118	B$618,297,066.17	B$26,199,032.46	0.000647581 %
15:19 15 Mar 2008	44	119	B$653,288,785.67	B$27,449,112.84	0.000669885 %
14:55 13 Mar 2008	46	119	B$712,079,285.80	B$29,919,301.92	0.000840431 %

More of the same...

2008-03-25T04:30:48Z

Same as the last one, blog value rose, but the outgoing value dropped greatly. What changed was that the number of incoming links increased, and outgoing decreased.

	Inc. Links	Out. Links	Value	Out. Link Value	Market Share
18:35 24 Mar 2008	169	430	B$240,193,425.24	B$558,589.59	0.002302039 %
22:15 22 Mar 2008	168	430	B$225,171,509.30	B$523,654.91	0.002623686 %
20:20 20 Mar 2008	167	432	B$215,866,633.71	B$2,822,258.27	0.002319916 %
21:21 18 Mar 2008	165	432	B$230,679,289.24	B$2,122,457.59	0.002393613 %
20:14 17 Mar 2008	164	432	B$203,863,089.22	B$2,359,527.65	0.002343670 %
18:39 14 Mar 2008	161	433	B$124,483,359.91	B$1,437,453.35	0.002107312 %
19:42 12 Mar 2008	162	433	B$118,944,327.63	B$1,373,492.24	0.002246822 %
01:39 11 Mar 2008	163	433	B$131,457,634.49	B$1,214,390.16	0.002836590 %
15:10 09 Mar 2008	165	431	B$200,718,483.84	B$1,862,817.48	0.002775711 %
22:13 05 Mar 2008	164	432	B$303,869,051.64	B$3,517,004.07	0.002334993 %

Outgoing drops when value increases

2008-03-22T21:27:41Z

Here's an interesting one, the blog's value has gone up, but the outgoing value has dropped on the most recent reindex. Incoming links dropped, and outgoing links increased.

	Inc. Links	Out. Links	Value	Out. Link Value	Market Share
16:30 15 Mar 2008	45	73	B$612,589,518.29	B$8,391,638.61	0.000762129 %
19:42 12 Mar 2008	47	72	B$768,558,687.84	B$10,674,427.61	0.000651856 %
08:42 11 Mar 2008	45	72	B$932,672,310.11	B$12,953,783.47	0.000948474 %
17:17 07 Mar 2008	44	72	B$1,378,411,609.05	B$19,144,607.07	0.000566954 %

Bouncing

2008-03-22T21:19:29Z

Here's one that looks like the blogroll isn't catching every time, possibly those frequent times when blogrolling.com goes down. Note the change in outgoing link value in relation to the number of outgoing links.

	Inc. Links	Out. Links	Value	Out. Link Value	Market Share
12:27 13 Mar 2008	36	47	B$701,962,988.85	B$14,935,384.87	0.000535347 %
03:14 12 Mar 2008	34	4	B$949,399,561.34	B$23,734,991.53	0.000523554 %
09:33 07 Mar 2008	33	49	B$1,482,723,172.61	B$30,259,658.62	0.000515518 %
05:22 06 Mar 2008	29	4	B$2,001,767,836.92	B$50,044,198.42	0.000398807 %

Link values

2008-03-20T04:57:19Z

Blog valuation is the combined total of the incoming links. The incoming link values are the outgoing link values of those blogs. Generally, the higher the value of a blog, the greater it's outgoing link value. At least, that's how it used to be... Under the new math, this is still generally true, but some blogs put out more value than other, higher valued blogs. This is one of the interesting twists in the new math. I'm investigating some examples of this.

The new math

2008-03-15T22:49:07Z

Several 'new maths' have come and gone, the latest being to change how blogs are valued in the game, and this has led to a lot of renewed interest in shares play, and new strategies to increase profit for those players with blogs in the game. I'm working on understanding the math, and use it to my advantage. Player Eaglehawk has created a blogroll (a list of blogs that can be included on a player's site to provide links to other blogs in the roll) in the hopes of adding value to players blogs. This sort of thing has great potential, I believe.