(e)YORDIE @ Empire Avenue

Advice to New Players of Empire Avenue

At the risk of sounding like a know-it-all, I’ve been playing Empire Avenue (“EAv”) long enough to give some sound advice to new players. I think you’ll see the value in this advice as you confront the early days when EAv is a mystery.

First: Empire Avenue does have a learning curve, so one step at a time!

Immediate Action:

1. Fill out your “Profile” because investors want to know about you.
2. Add a “Portrait” picture because investors want to see you.
3. Add all your “Connections” as quickly as possible. This is especially important because investors want to evaluate the depth of your social network.
4. Keep as many of your social network “Connections” active as possible, especially during the first week because investors want to estimate your earnings power for the future.
5. Don’t feel compelled to make any purchases (investments) your first couple days. Take some time to get to know your investors (more on this later).

Quick Course in EAv “Network Activity”

1. Become familiar with all of the sections of your “Profile” page, each section is important for measuring your success.
2. Your “Network Activity” is measured daily by EAv and used to calculate “Earnings” and generate “Dividends.” Tip: Only your top five network connections are used for calculations!
3. Your “Network Activity” is used by EAv to calculate “Connection Scores” on your profile page, and your scores are a measure of your “Earnings” power.
4. In the first weeks, players watch for good “Dividends” and the daily ratio of “Dividends/Share” to “Share Price.”
5. The Dividend to Share Price ratio is calculated by dividing your Dividends by your Share Price. (For example: a 0.20e “Dividend” divided by a 25.00e “Share Price” * 100 yields = 0.8 ratio (anything above 0.5 is good, 1.0 is great).

Quick Course in EAv Investing

1. Purchasing shares in others (building your “Portfolio”) has no direct connection with the value of your shares; however, people who purchase shares in you (”Shareholders”) generally expect some “reciprocation.”
2. In the first weeks, in any reciprocal investments, you should not feel an obligation to “match” the purchases made in you. The math of matching is not in your favor. You won’t offend an experience player if you purchase a small lot of shares (eg: 5 or 10); they should understand your situation.
3. In the first weeks, you may choose many different strategies but as a general rule, buying shares with good Dividend/Share Price Ratio is a sound practice. Daily dividends provide you Eaves needed for purchasing. However, many of the best long-term investments have a track records of rising price but relatively low Dividend Ratio.
4. In the first weeks and generally, it’s rarely a good idea to buy then sell shares because buy & sell commissions reduce your return by 10% or more.
5. Building EAv wealth is similar to playing a game; however, the real wealth in EAv is comes from the usefulness of it’s Social Networking.

Quick Course in EAv “Social Networking”

1. Many people who join EAv do not have a clear idea about what “Social Networking” is, so you can learn a great deal from EAv about social networking.
2. Simply stated, your interactions on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Flickr, LinkedIn, Wordpress and other “Connections” is the measure of social networking. You’ll need to focus on how you use these connections; for example, I found that my best social networking activity is created through WordPress blogging and interactions.
3. The value of Social Networking comes from getting to know the people or groups you associate with.
4. EAv itself has it’s own social networking tools which include “Communities” and the messaging we do while interacting with shareholders.
5. EAv can enable you to extend the power of your social networking through the use of “Missions.” You also extend the power of others by performing Missions for others; reciprocation in EAv is very powerful.

Next Steps: There is more to Empire Avenue than can be explained quickly, so it is essential that you read the Empire Avenue Help. In addition, there are many good blogs that will help you. And as you advance, you’ll find several tools to help you manage.

Finally: Don’t let the seemingly intense activity of EAv to upset you. Good players leave because they take it too seriously. Steady as you go!

Day 116: My Difficult Decision

I see people seem to leave of Empire Avenue far too often. They seem to leave in three ways: Terminate, drop out, take a break. With the exception of people who officially Terminate, it’s not always clear when players have dropped out or taken a break.

Termination: I think this is a mistake unless you see that this game/business will be of no value in your work.

Dropping Out: I suspect that players who drop out are just fed up and need a break, and they just walk away never to return. This may be ok for them, but there shareholders may go through an agonizing decision process as they watch share prices continually slide.

Taking A Break: There are a lot of ways to take a break, sometimes the change in status is barely a ripple, sometimes it’s as bad as players who just drop out. I’ve seen many examples that can only be explained as people becoming occupied with other activities then returning and their shares eventually returnto their former levels.

A Problem With Empire Avenue

I’ve seen far too many friends and acquaintences just disappear from EA. I believe I know enough about Empire Avenue to understand what happens in most of those cases. And I’m sorry to say that I believe EA is flawed as a game and a business because it doesn’t provide people with remedies for managing the demands of the “game”. Your stock begins to fail as soon as you need time for your real life.

In the recent survey circulated by Paul Steinbrueck (e)PDSTEIN, this problem was addressed. And in follow-up articles and comments I’ve read, it’s clear that this is a major problem that not only limits the growth of EA but also threatens it’s future.

My Problem With Empire Avenue

The truth is, I’m struggling with the daily pressure to drive Network Activity. This has gone on for several weeks and it’s taking a toll.

Regardless of all other considerations, I’m facing the harse reality that the amount of time and effort it takes to keep growing my earnings & dividends, plus keep managing my portfolio has reached a level I can’t justify at this time.

The even harser reality is, for Empire Avenue to be useful for me it would have to recognize the two blogs I write for because this is where I want to direct my daily activities. Facebook, Twitter and Flickr are important parts of my social network, but with only one of my blogs being recognized I have to seek other activities to generate the Network Activity needed to feed my daily Earnings & Dividends.

My Difficult Decision

I am going to have to push my Empire Avenue activities down to a level where they no longer interfere with my main goals related to writing for Being Yordie Sands, and iRez Magazine.I believe EA can be helpful to me in building my audience and brand, but for now I feel many activities are taking away more than giving.

EA has helped me create a social network and I’ll focus on strenghtening that network. My top connections are through Facebook but I’ll continue to work on my Twitter & Flickr connecitons. Those contacts are valued and I’ll continue to devote time each day to strengthening those bonds.

The thing I can’t predict is how the changes in my activities will impact my Earnings & Dividends; however, I won’t allow myself to worry about these daily fluctuations. Many experienced players have told me to be patient, and I believe this is the only way I can move forward. Pushing just takes too great a toll.

Day 57: Share Price Breakdown

Today my dividend income was over 33,000e, puny by the standard of many, but very useful to me at this stage. My plan is to expand my investment base every day now. I’m not sure it was wise to focus so much attention on my getting dividends but this income is very useful now.

I believe my “Share Price Breakdown” indicates that I’ve not bought enough shares in others and I think my strategy to put my income to work will balance out my chart. We shall see. Here’s my current chart:

The pie is currently broken down 59% “Outstanding Shares” and 41% “Social Media” but I can’t relate that breakdown to any metric I can wrap my head around.

Day 44: A New Goal

Having met my 100e price goal, I’m still .01e short of my 1.00e per share Average Dividend (although I’ve returned over 1.00e for the past two nights). So I expect to achieve that goal soon.

Looking forward, the only meaningful price per share goal I see is 200e per share. Yikes! That is a very long way away and I just don’t understand what drives share price up (I’m still studying this).

So, I’m going to just focus on something more understandable, increasing my Average Dividend. And my new goal is to increase my dividend to 1.20e (up 20%). For me, driving my earnings up enough to create a 20% increase in my dividend seems like a formidable task.