finance

Wallstrip founder and blogger Howard Lindzon confirmed late Monday night in a blog post that the finance-themed Web video show had been purchased by CBS. Rumors had begun to circulate about this buy earlier this month.

Specific financial terms haven't been disclosed (though Lindzon notes that $600,000 has been invested in Wallstrip to date), but it appears that host Lindsay Campbell and producers Adam Elend and Jeff Marks will become full employees of CBS.

It was originally reported that CBS News would be the CBS division to acquire Wallstrip, but Lindzon's blog post makes no mention of … Read more

In the midst of a federal investigation into its accounting practices, Dell has appointed a new chief accounting officer, Thomas Sweet.

Sweet, formerly Dell's vice president of finance for the public sector, succeeds Joan Hooper in the role. Hooper's new title is vice president of finance for the Americas region.

A Dell representative called Hooper's new assignment part of the company's rotation of executives and a "restructuring of its global finance leadership team," and would not comment on whether the move is related to the current Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into the company'… Read more

It's not exactly news that interest group lobbying affects lawmaking, but MapLight.org is showing us how by doing the math down to dollar figures. The non-profit MapLight.org had one of the least ostentatious booths in the Web 2.0 Expo hall, but brought an incredibly informative, practical service regarding the influence of money on California politics.

It's a mashup of voting records pulled from the Official California Legislative Information Web site (up to the 2003-2004 session right now, with 2005-2006 on the way), and campaign contributions kept by the Institute on Money in State Politics.

The … Read more

Wealth Base Camp, a recently-launched social networking site that I originally heard about at the New York Web 2.0 Meetup, encourages its user base to "live up to your dreams." The site is geared toward folks who have caught the entrepreneurial bug and are looking to figure out how to get themselves off the ground--and then make some bank.

Basically, it's like a "niche" version of LinkedIn--instead of a social networking site for business users in general, it's specifically for those with a particular set of needs and objectives ("creating wealth&… Read more

ActiveAllowance is a complex site that helps families with children manage the kids' allowances and chores. After experimenting with it for a few minutes, it made me hope that my 8-month-old son never, ever grows up. Am I really going to have to manage a list of chores, pay for them piecemeal, and then teach my kid to motivate himself, budget his income, and learn about saving, investing, and so on?

I suppose that's part of being a dad. And a site like this could help me and my wife keep our messages consistent. ActiveAllowance tracks lists of chores and goals, and helps a child budget his efforts to finish the tasks that earn him money. It also helps kids allocate their income based on family guidelines (so much for savings, for charity, and so on). Parents can set it up so allowance money is awarded when certain chores are done, or you can decouple allowance from chores if that's the way you parent.

Kids get their own simplified interface when they log in. From there, they can check how they are doing against their goals, and print "checks" to draw from their allowance funds, which they present to the Bank of Their Parents, presumably in exchange for cash or goods.

The site allows for very detailed management of chore lists, payments for them, and budgeting, and I found it frighteningly complex. User feedback on the site's forums tells the story: it takes time for users to get past the learning curve. There are many who seem to be stuck in the support forums. But once the program is grasped, the transparency and communication fostered--and the degree of consideration required before you can fill out the details--helps families communicate more effectively about money, and ActiveAllowance can motivate and teach children in all the right ways.

My take, though, is this: if your sons or daughters can follow all the ins and outs of their detailed chore list and exactly what income they're going to earn from each task--and if they begin to effectively organize their lives around getting what they want--then you might do well to give them your Quicken password and let them run all the household's finances. And maybe if you get to work each day on time, they'll grant you your own allowance.

Vaguely related: Wired's new Geek Dad blog.

Two more pictures after the jump.

… Read more

While you look back at your personal financial damages and delights from 2006, the time is ripe to consider how to manage money differently in 2007. A handful of new services allow you to track spending and monitor payments and investments online.

There still aren't many independent, Web-based services for handling personal finances. Big vendors tend to take care of that business, as is the case with the leading personal finance applications, Intuit Quicken and Microsoft Money. However, while Intuit offers online backup, there's no way to remotely reach your transactions while away from your main computer (unless … Read more

Don't expect to get an online version of Microsoft Excel when you join Buxfer, a site to track shared bills and expenses. In fact, don't expect much beyond basic features when managing a shared bill, a personal expense, or an incoming or outgoing money transfer. Competing with other finance-sharing sites such as BillMonk and iOweyou, Buxfer is best suited for roommates and groups of friends who share expenses and want to sort out the bills later.

Buxfer's math genius automatically splits the cost of your rent and groceries among participants into either equal or weighted shares. A … Read more