Drip, drip, drip.

Nope, didn’t forget this was the start of a new investing week. Did think about how it was a beautiful blue sky day and that I am getting tired of these weekly updates already (only took 9 weeks). Sort of reminded me of how I felt about the Da Vinci code game stuff. It was cool for the first couple weeks but by the end I was ready to move onto something else. I can only imagine as a reader who isn’t interested in our virtual stock exchange that sooner or later these updates will start to feel like Chinese water torture.

[a ha! the drip, drip reference]

We picked up two new players this past week in the 2006 Hmm Virtual Stock Exchange (VSE). You can click here to join and play for free. Every player starts with $100,000 virtual dollars.

Gatsby continues to lead the pack ($132,576.73, +32.58% with 36 transactions), followed by stockzilla ($124,172.78, +24.17% with 11 transactions) and Lestat who looks like he’ll be the first to have 100 transactions ($121,576.17, +21.58% with 92).

New prizes if/when we get to 100 players
If/when the game gets to 100 players (66 as of this writing)), we will be adding at least three more prizes. I’m thinking about a prize for the worst performance with the least number of transactions as well as prizes for second and third place.

Here are a couple possible prizes under consideration:

- Nintendo Gameboy Advance game: Tringo ($14.99 value, brand new)
- Wired magazine with CD
- Idea Lightbulb, the one you’ve seen me pictured with here a couple times before

From weekly to monthly VSE updates
As a solution to the issues I mentioned at the top of this, instead of doing weekly blog updates on the VSE the new plan is to switch to monthly updates and/or when something major changes (like if we add new prizes) until December when we’ll start documenting the final few weeks (and there is more suspense). Honestly, I’m running out of new/worthwhile things to say about the game each week and from a writer perspective that’s the best time to shut up. A month will give at least four weeks worth of results to recap and discuss, plus some new things in the finance world to tie into, plus I do have a few other ideas. I wish MarketWatch had an API that I could tie into to provide some onsite updates. Maybe I’ll drop them an email and ask about that.

If as a reader you really, really liked these weekly VSE updates, then now is your chance to say: “no, no, no.” Also, if you have some ideas about how I might liven up these posts, I’m all eyes and ears. And of course if you hate them, then now is the time to uncork the champagne because you won’t hear about this again until, oh, August 1st or so (unless there is some major change).

I’m also thinking about some other contest ideas for non-finance related things, something fun and interactive and non-time consuming (those are my favorite games). I think some sort of regular Hmm game with contest would be cool to work into and help increase community participation. I like contests. Do you?

Did this post make you go hmm?

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