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Webby Awards: Excellence on the internet.

The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences have honored their selections for the best internet sites with Webby Awards for 2008. We have taken the liberty of paring down the list of 140 sites to bring you some notable winners:

PostSecret (Blog; Cultural/Personal) - A weekly conglomeration of postcards sent in by anonymous readers with something to confess. A must-view for your inner vouyer.

HowStuffWorks.com (Best Copy/Writing) - What makes a superdelegate “super?” Why is that little black box so important? What is a sword swallower actually swallowing? Find answers to the nagging questions that prevent you from dedicating your full attention to whatever it is you’re actually supposed to be doing. Good for simple instructions, not great for deep philosophical matters.

BestWeekEver.tv (People’s Voice Winner, Celebrity/Fan site) - Online version of VH1’s hit pop culture meta-show. Chock full of juicy links.

TheOnion.com (Humor) - Snarkasm at its best.

PassiveAggressiveNotes.com (Weird) - A cross between PostSecret and PostcardsFromYoMamma.

HuffingtonPost.com (Blog; Political) - Arianna’s wikizine, and source of some of our favorite political analysis. May not be appropriate for red state readers.

BBC (People’s Voice Winner, News) - Global news without Rupert Murdoch’s approval.

Artocracy.com (People’s Voice Winner, Art) - Dedicated to improving the sustainability of affordable, original artwork by using the internet to connect patrons and artists.

National Geographic (Best Use of Photography) - Reader submission photographs from around the world.

Yelp.com (Guide/Reviews) - The web’s Zagat.

LoveIsRespect.org (Activism) - With the National Center for Disease Control (CDC) declaring intimate partner violence a national health epidemic, the National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline has employed direct advertising dollars to created a user-friendly website suitable as a first resource for teens and adults alike.

Katrina; An Unnatural Disaster (Charitable) - The Open Society Institutes’s longitudinal look at the social implications and after-effects of hurricane Katrina.

Design for the Other 90% (Cultural Institution) - The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum’s exhibition on sustainable, humanitarian design projects.

Kiva.org (People’s Voice Award; Charitable) - The web’s leader in global improvement by microlending.

Blurb.com (Services) - Make your own books.

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Welcome to the recession, fellow Basement dwellers. For the last seven years, our nation has been more or less distracted from a dismal domestic policy by a downright heinous foreign policy. Now suddenly we can’t afford our own homes. So while you’re writing checks to credit card companies, floating multiple mortgages, and avoiding creditor phone calls, you might want to take a look at what all those frivolous business majors were learning in college while you were weaving baskets.

From the DebtMasters blog, Road to Prosperity:

… I want to share one of the most closely guarded secrets with you, that really isn’t a secret at all. It is just hidden in plain sight.

I will tell you on one condition, and you have to cross your heart, hope to die, stick a needle in your eye… Alright, maybe that sounded a bit better when we were kids, but you have to promise that you will tell everyone you know AND tell them where you heard it.

Here it is. The secret is that you were born to be a millionaire.

Let that soak in for a minute, because it is absolutely true. By merely being born in the U.S., you are pretty much destined to be a millionaire.

Before you think I should be committed, let me clarify. You will earn more than a million dollars in your lifetime. More than ONE MILLION DOLLARS will pass through your fingers.

So, why aren’t we all wealthy? Why don’t we all retire and live terrific lifestyles?

The main reason is that we are not taught very much about about money, and what to actually do with it when we get it. Another reason is because you aren’t actually supposed to keep very much of it.

But, wouldn’t it be cool if you got it all in one lump sum? It would be more than cool, it would change everything we think about money.

The problem is that we get it incrementally, or in periodic installments. Maybe you get yours weekly, or bi-weekly, bi-monthly? It doesn’t really matter how it arrives, what matters is who actually gets to keep it. Is it you or a bank? A credit card company? Loan Company?

Just as much as we get our income on the installment plan, we spend it on the installment plan. Some of us, even spend more than we get.

So, the secret to wealth really isn’t a secret at all. It doesn’t involve picking a penny stock, and hoping someday you will be the next Warren Buffet. It doesn’t require you to win the Lotto, you already did. You are already wealthy. Incrementally wealthy.

The real secret of being a millionaire is that you have to actually HAVE the money. As shocking as this might sound, in order to REMAIN wealthy, you have to actually keep your money or at least most of it. A millionaire without his million is just someone who busts his hump every day.

Let me give you a great example; I am sure you have heard stories about people who win the lottery, and then they have people come out of the proverbial woodwork asking for their money.

People like your long lost Uncle Willy, who has a terrific idea to design a car that runs on gravity. It sounds a lot like a soap box derby car, but hey, who knows? It could turn out to be a winner if you never need to go uphill.

Or your environmentally minded third cousin, twice removed, who wants you to pay for a study of the yellow freckled, double chinned toad that looks a lot like a frog you might see around your own pond.

Before you know it, the Lotto winner is flat broke. The result of a series of bad decisions with a large sum of money looks identical to bad decisions made with small incremental amounts of money.

The irony is that there are an equal number of people trying to get their hands on your MILLION as it comes in, as there are with a Lottery winner.

Which is why most people in this country will retire and live on an income close to or below the poverty level. Since we get our million on the installment plan, we know there is always something more coming right around the corner. There is comfort in “tomorrow”. A buy now, pay later mentality that must be stopped.

The primary reason you probably haven’t ever had someone share this secret with you, is that it requires you to buy in to the idea of keeping your money and not just “buying”. It requires a shift in your thinking which is uncomfortable for most of us.

Banks and credit companies don’t want you to know this secret. If you did, you wouldn’t be so inclined to let them get their hands on your money. So, rather than tell you the truth about already being a millionaire, and teaching how to be successful with what you do have, you are bombarded by other ways to get rich.

“How to make a fortune in real estate.” “Make a fortune with Penny stocks”, Learn internet marketing”, “Selling on E-bay the easy way”, the list goes on and on.

It just doesn’t make too much sense to chase the million you don’t have, rather than keep the one you are almost guaranteed to get.

That’s why it is still a secret. If you thought this way, you wouldn’t be the “spender” they need you to be.

So, now the secret is out. Go tell someone.

Ok, so maybe it’s not a revolutionary idea, but it is a different way of looking at the same old problem. We live in a highly capitalist, consumerist, disposable income society, and just like our environmental tunnel vision is finally catching up with us, so is our materialistic economic single-mindedness. Now, since the rest of the world is invested (literally) in making you a spender, it’s up to you to re-program yourself to consider the true value of your money… not what new widget it can buy you, but what freedom your income - however large or small it may be - can afford you.

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Welcome to the gossip rag of the uber-rich and ruthless!

DEALBREAKER.COM

A Wall Street Tabloid

• Gotta’ know what your favorite soulless moneymonger is up to in the wee hours of the morning?
• Interested in learning how the man behind the curtain really operates?
• Curious who’s making deals with the devil to “beef” up a roaring cashflow?
• Wonder if the people who bathe in vats of legal tender are really any classier than the rest of us?

Well wonder no more my cherished Basement dwellers. Dealbreaker is here to answer the call. If the call is from a socially unconscious super elitist high-profit banker with gold ingots stuffed in his socks and a desperate need for a serious reality check.

(It’s the “check” that gets his attention.)

Is it a bull market? A bear market? A holy-cow-how-did-the-American-dollar-sink-lower-than-Canadian-wallpaper market? Let Gordon Gekko point the way, and all shall be revealed. At least, all that is smarmy, pretentious, pompous, overbearing, elitist, and at least seven times too highly pleased with itself.

Go check it out.

We’ll catch you on the flipside.

Or should we say the backside?

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