Debit Cards and Gasoline

The price of a gallon of gasoline is getting way out of hand. Even the filling stations and convenience stores think so. If you pay by debit card, beware. A store could, legally, put a hold on your checking account until such time as the charge you made against it for gasoline goes through. And, sometimes, that could take several days.

In the meantime, you may not be able to get cash from an ATM and checks you write could bounce. And it's all legal. Banks, credit card companies and gas stations say they need the protection to make sure everyone pays for their fuel. But guess who's liable when checks bounce their way back to your bank? That's right - you.

Stores typically put a hold on amounts ranging from $50 - $150 for gasoline purchases, so if you have that or less in your checking account you could experience some problems. Some stations automatically stop their pumps at a certain dollar level and control the issue that way.

Since nothing has to be posted to warn consumers, just be cautious when using your debit card for gasoline purchases.

Website Update

Well, our stats continue to climb in terms of the number of visitors and the number of page views. The "viral marketing" components - email articles, print stories, tell-a-friend - all are picking up steam, so that should result in ever higher numbers of visitors and page views.

The MySpace page also seems to be sending traffic to freshare, although it's difficult to measure exactly how much.

We are at a point where it is possible to approach potential advertisers in the area.

Spike in Visitors

The publicity package actually did hit on June 5. Since then, we have been seeing about a thousand page views per day as word gets out about the site. Pleased to note, too, that people are going deeper into the site than just viewing the front page. They are also reading articles, emailing them and printing them off.

We completed work on our MySpace this past week as well. Already boasting nine friends. Kristen Dudley put the site together for us and did a great job. Check it out right here: freshare's MySpace. I have to admit, I was very skeptical about having a MySpace spot. Sydnee Crain, our editor, finally convinced me that we needed that presence to help draw attention to freshare. I think she's right. We are also exploring a Facebook site and Squidoo lenses to round out our networking presence.

Traffic Trends

We are beginning to see a bump upward in traffic to the freshare site. Google ad revenue is showing upward trends, too. The publicity package has yet to be completed, so we may be seeing traffic from new links we requested from a variety of other websites.

We also launched a unique search engine powered by Google technology that only searches the top quality blogs in the Ozarks. It's a great way to get word out to the world that good writing and good photography blogs exist in Missouri and Arkansas. We have a search bar right there at the top of our home page.

This week, we hope to have the publicity plan executed and would like to see measurable results in terms of additional page views.