They're going to build a Disneyworld for investors and entrepreneurs.

Several months ago Silvia Cuevas took stock of her life, and it was a profoundly unsettling experience. At 40 she had a solid job with a modest salary at the public library in Santa Ana, Calif. She'd carefully squirreled away some savings and bought herself a little house.

She was financially secure - and utterly dissatisfied. All around her, Santa Ana throbbed with the feverish energy of recent immigrants eager to cash in on the promises of America. A short drive from Disneyland, Santa Ana boasts one of the highest concentrations of Latinos of any city in the U.S., and these days it is a hotbed of entrepreneurial activity. Cuevas, though, felt as conservative, meek, and, well, dull as a church mouse in Vegas. "I was going nowhere," she recalls. "How was I going to find my fortune?" Then a girlfriend introduced her to Nouveau Riche University.

Not exactly a university, Nouveau Riche offers real estate investment classes -and a host of related products and services - to would-be tycoons. In April, Cuevas plunked down tuition of $16,000 and attended a weeklong program in Phoenix. Two weeks later, emboldened by her instructors and an advisor assigned by the university, she refinanced her home, taking out $200,000 - a large share of her equity.

She used the money for down payments to buy - sight unseen in one case - three investment properties through a real estate agency controlled by Nouveau Riche. By midsummer Cuevas' portfolio of investments had grown to include a condo in Colorado, three acres of undeveloped land in the Smoky Mountains, and a three-bedroom house in San Antonio. Her debt load has grown too, thanks to the hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans she took out on the properties, but she doesn't worry.

"I learned how to be bold at Nouveau Riche," Cuevas says. "They're the market experts, so I trust them to help me buy. I can't wait to make my next purchase!"

That's the kind of rah-rah spirit visitors encounter at Nouveau Riche (nruniversity.com), where the lectures are more like pep rallies, the tests are sometimes self-graded, and the homework is optional. Nouveau Riche has reason to cheer too. Co-founder and CEO Jim Piccolo claims that revenues will top $80 million in 2007, up tenfold since 2005, when the company was founded and the real estate market peaked. Piccolo makes money not only from tuitions but also from commissions on the properties his students buy and from the fees he charges for accounting, finance, and property-management services.

Remarkably, Nouveau Riche is able to attract huge crowds (a recent class in Phoenix lured 2,479 students) in a market that is declining rapidly. The Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller home price index (homeprice.standard-andpoors.com) shows that nationally prices fell 2.7% in the first quarter, more than in any quarter since 1990. In a late July conference call with analysts, Countrywide CEO Angelo R. Mozilo, who runs the nation's largest mortgage firm, said home prices were falling "almost like never before, with the exception of the Great Depression." That's not all. PMI Mortgage Insurance (pmigroup.com), a financial firm that tracks the market, predicts two more years of decline across much of the U.S.

Given those grim stats, why would anyone want to invest in real estate? Nouveau Riche borrows heavily from the investment philosophy popularized over the past several years by real estate guru Robert Kiyosaki, who wrote the bestselling advice book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Like Kiyosaki, Nouveau Riche teaches that working for a salary is a fool's game; the road to riches requires leveraging debt to amass a portfolio of income-generating properties. Yet investing in rental properties, like all entrepreneurial endeavors, is hard work. A successful landlord has to know the market, maintain his properties, and retain paying tenants.

That doesn't seem to bother Nouveau Riche students, many of whom have seen their neighbors get rich flipping houses or renting them out during the boom. Judging from the callused hands and well-worn work boots spotted at a recent Nouveau Riche event, it attracts a blue-collar crowd for whom the promise of riches from real estate rings true at a gut level that stocks and bonds don't reach. "I know I'm not going to get wealthy working for the fire department," says Hector Magallanes, a firefighter from Los Angeles. "I'm working up the courage to take the risks I need to take to be financially independent."

Nouveau Riche makes it easy for would-be tycoons to get started. "We learned through our research that most students of real estate seminars never actually buy any property because they don't have the tools to take that first step," Piccolo says, "so we are offering them all the tools they need to build their portfolios."

At a recent seminar at a Hilton in Phoenix, Fix 'n Flip - a daylong course in the art of the fixer-upper - was standing room only. So was Creative Financing, in which students learned how to tap their retirement savings and their home equity for money to invest. Between classes, throngs of students flocked to the lobby to booths featuring affiliates of Nouveau Riche. Save Our Scores (or SOS, as it is called) helps high-risk borrowers boost low credit scores so that they can borrow more money at lower rates. (Fees range from $600 to $1,200.) Investor Concierge, the real estate brokerage firm owned by Piccolo and his associates, helps students buy houses and condos, arranges financing, then provides management services for their far-flung properties. (The firm's slogan: "Click a mouse, buy a house.") Meanwhile, the Nouveau Riche University Store did a brisk business in polo shirts, plus jackets with the college logo, a stylized eagle.

These days alumni groups are springing up in Atlanta, Boise, Tacoma, and other cities. What's on the agenda at their meetings? "We boast about our portfolios," Heather Echevarria, 29, of Boise, says. "We shop deals too." Echevarria and her husband, Ben, specialize in pre-foreclosure properties - that is, buying houses from cash-strapped owners who can no longer afford to pay their mortgages. Typically, she says, they buy houses for half their appraised value. Last year, the pair claim, they bought-and quickly resold for a profit - 75 homes in Idaho and Nevada.

But will other graduates of Nouveau Riche do as well? What happens if interest rates rise and the monthly payments on a variable-rate loan soar, or a tenant leaves? Will the investor be able to sell at a profit in a market where home prices are falling? Casey Serin, a 24-year-old programmer from Sacramento, had already invested in property (although not through Nouveau Riche) before he enrolled in one of its classes last year. "What they teach there is dangerous," he says. "They're selling you on getting rich fast-and that's a risky game to play."

Piccolo retorts, "There is no better time to buy, because real estate is on sale. You can never go wrong with real estate in the U.S. of A." He admits, though, that he has not bought any property lately.

Raised in Nebraska, Piccolo says he was a poor student, interested more in sports and cars than his classes. After graduating from the University of Nebraska in 1984, he moved to Phoenix and worked in the car detailing and design business. In 1990, Piccolo says, medical bills forced him to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and list debts of $650,539. Piccolo ran into more trouble a year later when he pleaded guilty to the theft of his girlfriend's new Mercedes-Benz. Although he denies responsibility now, Piccolo admitted to the court that he had dumped the car in the desert so that his girlfriend could collect an insurance claim of about $24,000; Piccolo said she'd complained that the car was a lemon. "I couldn't bear to see her hurt," he told the court. After three years probation, his felony conviction was reduced to a misdemeanor.

Not long afterward Piccolo discovered real estate. By the mid-1990s he had stumbled on the idea of consolidating investment seminars, offering students the opportunity to hear several gurus speak on various techniques. Out of that grew Nouveau Riche, which he and a co-founder, Bob Snyder, launched in 2005.

At 45, Snyder is a veteran of the multilevel-marketing business. "I'm good at building teams," he says, and indeed, he has been teaching salespeople for more than two decades, after being trained by Amway (amway.com), the global leader in multilevel marketing, in which sales reps are paid not only for selling products but also for recruiting more reps. To date, he has signed up 1,300 sales reps for Nouveau Riche. Working out of their homes, they sell two products: a 15-volume encyclopedia on real estate investing for $3,500 and tuition to the "college" for $16,000. The first five tuition sales don't yield a commission, but on subsequent ones the sellers get a 50% cut, or $8,000.

How does the company attract customers? It offers free one- or two-day intro classes. According to Andrew Yurasek, an independent regional advisor for Nouveau Riche, at a recent event in Shaumburg, Ill., the company rented Lamborghinis and Ferraris for six of its sales reps for the night so they could roar up to the hotel just as prospective students were filing into the Hyatt. "We want to generate some excitement," says Yurasek. Among the reps, he adds, were an architect, a housepainter, and an office worker, none of whom have a real estate portfolio. About 10% of those who come to the free classes buy the home-study materials or spring for the tuition.

As chancellor of Nouveau Riche, Piccolo doesn't teach any classes, but he is a regular on stage on the university's awards night, working the crowd of star-struck students eager to pose for a quick photo with him. At 50, he has the tanned good looks and boyish charm of actor Dennis Quaid, whom he resembles.

These days Piccolo is living large - and proud of it. "Only in America," he says, "can a guy who barely made it through college end up owning a college." He and his wife, Mary, own three homes, including a ten-acre ranch with a 22,000-square-foot house and a pool in North Scottsdale. Still a car buff, he boasts a collection that includes a Ferrari 360 Spider, a Lamborghini Diablo, and a Bentley GT convertible. He also travels in a Falcon 200 company jet. For their seventh wedding anniversary he surprised his wife with a cherry-red grand piano signed by Elton John. Cost: $100,000. Piccolo says he and his wife also own investment properties in Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, and Utah; Mary Piccolo manages the portfolio. Piccolo estimates its total value at $20 million.

Investor Concierge, Nouveau Riche's brokerage arm, typically sells students about 100 properties a month, most ranging in price from $100,000 to $200,000, says the firm's president, Craig Cottrell, 39. To date, Investor Concierge has racked up property sales on 1,100 units, most of them in Georgia, Michigan, and Texas. Over two recent weekends the firm moved 60 condo units in a complex in Fenton, Mich., a blue-collar town 15 miles south of Flint, at prices ranging from $60,000 to $67,500.

The way Investor Concierge structured the deal in its prospectus, the buyers put 10% down, borrowing the rest using an interest-only loan. Trouble is, the rents on the condos won't cover the total cost of owning them. No problem. Investor Concierge explains that it has arranged for the seller of the condo complex to subsidize the rent for as long as two years at above-market rates. The seller will also pay all the management fees and real estate taxes for two years. As a result the investors should be $145-a-month cash-flow positive. But what happens when the subsidies expire, and the buyer discovers he is losing money every month? Will he be able to unload his property or command a higher rent?

The way the Michigan real estate market is headed, it might not be so easy. According to Judy Brant, a broker in Fenton for more than 20 years with Coldwell Banker, the inventory of homes in Genesee County, which includes Fenton, averaged 2,000 units in 2005. Today it is 8,000, up 300%. When Brant heard that Nouveau Riche students had bought 60 condo units in her town - sight unseen - she said, "I'm speechless. The housing market here is tied to the auto industry, and prices are falling faster than you can imagine: 10% last year and another 10% this year. Who knows when it will reach rock bottom? As far as rental properties, it's hard to rent anything here now. Houses and apartments sit empty all over town. People are leaving because there are no jobs here. We're really suffering."

Despite these risky deals, Nouveau Riche's enrollment keeps booming and Piccolo's pockets keep filling, which lets him plan big for the future. The company bought 24 acres on top of a black-lava mountain north of Phoenix. In 2008, Piccolo intends to break ground on a new campus with modern steel and glass classrooms and four luxury dorms, each with its own pool and barbecue pit. The pools will be linked by a man-made river; students will be able to float from dorm to dorm, riding the river on inner tubes. "It'll be very theme-y," he says. "We're going to build a Disneyworld for investors and entrepreneurs."
More at:http://nruniversity.com/

Via-CNNMoney

Zippi, which is introducing sophisticated tools aimed at helping eBay sellers make more money

Zippi, which is introducing sophisticated tools aimed at helping eBay sellers make more money.

Over the coming months, Zippi will launch a marketing campaign to promote its consumer-facing hotline. Anyone with clutter to unload can call 1-877-GO-ZIPPI to submit an item for sale. Using a database of trillions of past eBay transactions, Zippi automatically appraises the item and gives the owner an indication of its estimated value. The owner sets a minimum amount his or she is willing to sell for. Zippi then contacts an affiliate in the owner's area. Affiliates are eBay sellers who have signed up with Zippi. The affiliate visits the owner, picks up the item, lists it on eBay and takes care of shipping. Once an item is sold, the consumer is paid, the affiliate receives his commission and Zippi take their cut.

While basic enrolment starts at USD 49.95, for USD 1399.95 sellers can buy the Zippi Affiliate Pro Bundle, which includes a handheld device that enables sellers to go to a consumer's home, take a picture of the item they're offering for sale, scan barcodes, create a description through a template that's pre-populated by Zippi's call center, and create a listing on the fly. As described by Zippi, this "brings eBay to the doorstep of American households and businesses," while allowing affiliates to act as highly mobile franchisees. For added revenue, affiliates can become 'Zipsters', recruiting and training other sellers and receiving a percentage of every commission they earn. Which brings Zippi more affiliates and lets Zipsters build a scalable business.

Last but not least, Zippi formalizes the process for selling on behalf of friends and family. Since Zippi automatically doles out both the owner's and the affiliate's shares of a sale, selling on behalf of one's social network becomes much easier: sellers don't have to negotiate a cut or write a cheque to the owner once an item has been sold. By making it simpler to sell a bicycle for a neighbour or a lamp for a cousin, sellers are stimulated to tap into a new pool of products.

If it takes off, Zippi's integrated approach could create a large network of consignment shops on the go, generating leads for sellers and easy access to eBay for consumers who just want to offload stuff without figuring out how to use an online marketplace. Opportunities if you’re not an eBay seller? Zippi only operates in the US. Partner with them to bring the concept to other large eBay markets.

Website: www.zippi.com
Via -Springwise

Cake Financial is a new investment community that lets you follow others’ portfolios and real time trades to help you make your own investment

Cake Financial is a new investment community that lets you follow others’ portfolios and real time trades to help you make your own investment decisions. The site is currently in private alpha.

You can see what the top performers are doing, as well as the other members of Cake Financial. Create your own network of users to make friends and set up alerts to be notified when those in your network have made a trade. You can also set up your own account to track performance across your online brokerage accounts. Cake Financial will rank you along with the rest of the members of its community, so you can see how you compare against others.

There aren’t any fantasy trading plans going on in Cake Financial, so you’ll get more useful data when it comes to leveraging a community to aid in your own personal decisions. And unlike some other similar networks, there are no fees associated with accessing data from top performers. This could be in an effort to keep top performers from becoming more like brokerages that may have their own interests in mind when offering advice, or it may simply limit the legal liability for the whole of Cake Financial’s service.

The potential downfall is of course, you may get just what you pay for. There’s already hesitance when it comes to business applications online, and a free investor’s network could very well have some people wondering how valuable the information could be coming out of this community. Cake Financial will have to ensure that its top performers are just that–on an industry-wide perspective, and not just relative to the other members of its network.

Similar services include Geezeo, Covestor, SteamStreet, SocialPicks and DigStock.
More at:https://www.cakefinancial.com

Fring, the mobile application that integrates your chat and mobile phone clients

Fring, the mobile application that integrates your chat and mobile phone clients, has added ICQ to its long list of supported communication tools.

That means you can now get Skype, Google Talk, MSN Messenger, Twitter and ICQ on fring, enabling you to chat with IM users and mobile phone users. The free, downloadable mobile phone application lets you make VoIP calls over mobile data networks or a wi-fi connection, roaming between GPRS, 3G and wi-fi. Meebo and eBuddy offer ICQ integration and Nimbuzz is also looking to add ICQ support for its VoIP service, and has recently received $10 million in funding.
more at:http://www.fring.com/

Wikinvest is an online community where users can add their two cents about the stock market

Wikinvest is an online community where users can add their two cents about the stock market. The community of course operates around wikis that are created and modified by all the users of Wikinvest.

This set up allows for users to submit their working knowledge of various aspects of investing. Write an entry regarding a particular company, or add your opinion on why you think it’s for a bull or bear market. You can do this for concepts or actual stocks. In addition, you don’t have to be logged in or even registered in order to contribute to Wikinvest. Anonymous contributions are tied to the ISP address. Information you’re looking through can be filtered by users or anonymous entries, company category, most popular, recently added, and more.

From your profile you can add bio information about yourself, include external links to your website, and add your blog feed so others can read your content. While you can’t add friends, you can send a public or private message to other users. In leiu of adding buddies to your profile, you can bookmark a user and stay updated with their activity in this manner. Wikinvest will suggest bookmarks for you along your profile sidebar, and you can choose to keep a bookmark permanantly here for easy access. The more active you are within the website, the higher your ranking will be, pushing you up to various “positions” like analyst or senior director.
More at:http://www.wikinvest.com/

OleOle is a new social network for soccer fans

OleOle is a new social network for soccer fans. The site is currently in public beta.

The site is based in New Zealand and focuses on soccer teams around the globe. There are three main components to the site: resources, social networking, and “experience,” which lets you participate in fantasy football leagues or buy tickets to games. The resources section focuses on stories submitted by users, which can be voted up, like Digg. There’s also a way to keep track of your favorite players and teams in this section as well, offering info on players and teams as each has its own profile with videos, stories, and more.

The social networking component of OleOle includes profiles, blogs, groups, forums and media-sharing. Users can connect based on interests, befriend them, etc. In addition, you can get quick access to live scores for worldwide games, check out the detailed information regarding different soccer leagues, and be informed about events going on in different countries.
More at:http://www.oleole.com/

With Jinity you can start your own internet portal where people can meet, communicate and share media in different ways

With Jinity you can start your own internet portal where people can meet, communicate and share media in different ways. Jinity is not an online community but a free service where you can start your own online community web site filled with functions like forums, blogs, chats, filesharing, videos etc. A technical description would be a hosted content management system, CMS.
Jinity makes it possible for you to make just the kind of web community you desire. You can choose to add a huge range of features, including live chat, a forum, user search, guestbooks, file sharing, statistics, polls, newsletters, and a whole bunch more. This is all free if you include advertising on the site. Otherwise, there are two other versions, one eliminating the ads and the other changing those ads to the business’s ads that you desire.
More at:http://www.jinity.com/

With Anywhere.FM you can upload your entire iTunes library with their handy uploading tool and save it for easy access from anywhere with internet

With Anywhere.FM you can upload your entire iTunes library with their handy uploading tool and save it for easy access from anywhere with internet. This is great if you have a song you want to play for someone or don’t have your iPod accessible, making it easy to reach the music you love from anywhere. You listen to songs via playlists, and you can listen to other members’ playlists as well. This is great for discovering new music if you like the music tastes of particular users. The site lets you know how similar your music tastes are based on your music libraries so that you have a better idea without even looking of whose playlists you might enjoy more.
More at:http://www.anywhere.fm/

TekTag is a technical knowledgebase created by users

TekTag is a technical knowledgebase created by users. They use social bookmarking - with a few bells and whistles - to let users save, share, and discover technical information that's useful to them.
The knowledgebase at TekTag has been created by the users, and they deal with quite a bit of social bookmarking to make it more convenient for its users to find the content they are seeking and to locate it later. At the site you can search the posts in the order that they were posted, you can search the most popular posts or you can also type in your search criteria.
More at:http://www.tektag.com/