This is a short tutorial to help new players (n00bs) get started in those first confusing days.
This is not a long term help guide but directed toward new players who usually haven't a clue.
1. If you haven't already done so, claim your blog. It will then be indexed and become owned by you and available for trade. Be patient, sometimes the indexing can be slow. This is caused by several different things: Occasional crashes in the system, administrators out of town, etc. If you feel like it's taking way too long, write a little note in the forums and maybe someone can speed up the process. Once you are all set, you will be the owner of 1000 shares of 5000 in your blog. You will also have B$500. This will not get you very far so you have a little work to do.
2. Go to the forums, usually in General Discussions and introduce yourself. Make sure that you say that you are new and most importantly post your BS ID#. This is the way people find you. This is very important in that first week because of the generosity of our players. You will receive gifts of chips, shares in blogs and much advice. Many people put their ID# in their signature line which eliminates having to write it each time you post. Post often, ask questions! There are no stupid questions. We have all been where you are and most players are very willing to help.
3. Even if you are a stock broker in real life, try to forget that for a little while and read the rules, help guides and the posts in the forums. BlogShares is like the stock market but not completely and there are different rules and remember - it is a GAME, not real life. You will get along better with other players if you read, listen and don't try to act like you know how it all works. Being a know it all will turn some players off esp. if you come bounding in like Tigger with complaints and telling the Administrators that this should be like this and that would work better like that. There is a time for you to offer your advice, but not the 1st week or even the 2nd.
4. When you earn some chips by voting for the industries that blogs should be in (and you can vote for your own), or by entering missions or by generous gifts, go to the Chip Auction House. Check out what the chips are selling for, usually about half a million each, but sometimes lower or higher. Watch for special deals, sometimes there will be higher prices offered to n00bs. When you decide to sell some chips (don't accidentally sell more than you have) you will be required to do your first hard task, making a sell order, so proceed to step 5.
5. To make a sell order is relatively simple after you have done it a couple of times but the first time is nervewracking. First reply to the post where you are going to sell your chips and make sure they still will buy them. Agree on an amount and go back to your home page in BlogShares. Click on your profile and find where it says "Home Page". Click there and it will pull up all your statistics. On the right side down where it says options click on "Place Sell Order". This will bring up the page you need to create your sell order. It will show your blog, but you could change that to any blog you own shares in, and then there is a box for Number of Shares". Put the number 1 in that box (not the # of chips). Then in the next two boxes put the total agreed upon price, no commas, dollar signs, that kind of thing - same exact amount in each box and watch your zeroes. Ex: 100 chips at $500,000 each would look like 50000000 ($50m). Then click on "Place sell order". If you've done everything right it will tell you that you have successfully completed the order. Copy the link, I usually go to my Market Orders and copy the link there. Not sure why, just seems easier. Go back to the forum and the thread you were on and tell the player that you have created the sell order and copy the link on to the post. As soon as the sell order is bought, you must transfer the chips. First copy the ID# of the player you are going to transfer the chips to. Then go back to your home page. At the top you'll see things like missions, chips, rss, etc. Go to chips and copy in the player's ID# and the amount of chips that you agreed to sell. Click "Transfer Chips". You will be asked to confirm that you want to transfer that amount of chips to that particular player, there is even room for a short note. If it's the right player, click "Confirm". Go back to the forums and write a short note telling the player that the chips are transferred. If something doesn't work, they'll let you know and will usually help you figure out what went wrong. Then you're finished and have some money to play with. Now the fun starts! But where to start?
6. There are several options. One is to vote new blogs into industries. You must read the rules on this and understand the industries. Particularly things like "One post on nuclear weapons does not mean that it would be voted into nuclear weapons. Several posts would be a better bet". Watch places, it's easy to get confused about where someone lives. Usually you can find it in their profile but not always. Try to go deep, that means something like this: Places - Americas, USA, Texas, Houston. Not every industry goes as deep as others but it helps get the blog in the right industry if you vote correctly. Watch things like gender, which is under society. It will list female and then male. Many people accidently click the wrong thing. No big deal. Go back to the forums to Support - Technical Support and tell them you made a mistake. An Index Manager will fix it for you, no problem. The big thing is to try very hard to get the blog in the right industries. This makes the game work better. Where do you find the blogs to vote on? Again go to the top of your home page to where it says tips. It will usually bring up Hot Stock. These are newly indexed blogs, many which haven't been voted on. After you vote (and please spend some time reading the blog, not just a quick glance) a moderator will be assigned your votes and when they are accepted you will receive chips and karma.
7. Another option is to go back to tips and look for cheap blogs to invest in. Most start around B$.20 and have a low p/e ratio (read about this in the help section). Every 20 minutes you can buy up to 1250 shares of stock in a blog. Once you have all you want or all that are available, you must wait 6 hours before you can sell them (the same goes for selling - once you've started selling, you must wait 6 hours before you can start buying again). When you sell them, start with about 250, wait 20 minutes and then another 250. Watch the p/e, the share board will tell you that the price is rising but so is the p/e and it will say something like the public market will only tolerate 254 p/e. When you get close to that, sell everything you have left. With many blogs that start at B$.20, you'll end up selling most of the shares at least in the B$20 range per share. That's a good start.
8. Last beginning idea: The Idea Market. One warning, the price listed is per idea so if it says $1,000,000.00 that's a million dollars an idea and you probably won't have enough to buy it. When I first started I bought some cheap ideas like female, male, journal, USA, etc. You might have enough money to buy 10,000 ideas which allows you to build an artefact (read about these in the help section). These cheaper ones will give you the option to do some fancier things in Share Trading as you go along. To get the more expensive ideas is going to take a little while, but patience is a good thing to have. You will get there, just keep playing, reading and talking to other players.
BlogShares is a lot of fun! It's addictive but in a good way. You meet great people and learn alot of new things as you go along your way. There are fun contests and interesting missions. But overall, I'd say the people I've met are the BEST!!! Good Luck and have fun!
