Somebody explain this to me

[lapsedmodernist]

An act of google onanism yielded this webpage
It's, like, a profile of my lj with, like, charts and shit on something called Fantasy Blog Shares Market. Apparently I am "available to trade." The fuck?

Comments

[exterra.livejournal.com]

http://www.blogshares.com/about.html :

"BlogShares is a simulated, fantasy stock market for weblogs where players invest fictional money to buy stocks and bonds in an artificial economy where attention is the commodity and weblogs are the companies. Weblogs, or blogs for short, are valued by their incoming links from other known blogs. In effect, links become the business deals in the simulation and players speculate on the fortunes of thousands of blogs by buying and selling shares. A whole host of options exist for advanced play including gifting shares, leveraged buy-outs, stock splits, additional share issues, market and player bonds. For full details see the Help Center.

Anyone can play BlogShares for free, and ownership of a blog is not a requirement to participate. You need simply to register to receive a virtual $500 to start investing. Blog owners also receive 1000 shares of stock in their blog. Each individual uses the simulation for different purposes: you can use BlogShares to find new blogs to read, to show your appreciation by buying or gifting shares and, of course, to accrue as much capital as possible. Advanced options such as bonds allow you to take the game in a number of different directions.

With over 5,000 active players at the end of the Beta phase and more than 40,000 known blogs, BlogShares provides a rich, complex environment for (virtual) profit and fun. BlogShares continues to expand as more members, more blogs and more features are added to this quickly growing online community."

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

But I never signed up for this! I didn't even know this (I am still a bit murky as to exactly what "this" is, though thank you for the elaboration above) is.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

would you believe that the phrase "google onanism" turns up no google hits?

Congratulations, that's a new web coinage.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

thank you. I am all about the neologisms.

[amadea.livejournal.com]

hooray! she strikes again.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

you are like a cheerleader of my neologisms!

[mycrust.livejournal.com]

An inspection of the valuation chart for your stock indicates that your blog's value dropped substantially in early October, and, indeed, I do remember everything you wrote basically sucked back then. Try to get back onboard with the quality blogging. You have a responsibility to your shareholders.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

maybe that was the October Surprise. Actually this discovery was my October Surprise. Let's hope that it's the only one.

[ert.livejournal.com]

Ooh, but you're on the way up now! The future looks bright, I can't wait to see your fourth quarter profits!

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

That website combines two things I know nothing about: stock stuff and web stuff.

[labrujah.livejournal.com]

That is crazy!

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

I know. Are you on it?

[stillwell.livejournal.com]

Hmm, interesting! So our lj's and blogs are up to some hijinks when we're not looking *