A: 42 Countries and Counting

November 9th, 2006

Q: How to Take an Old Idea and Recylce it?

Time again for the casual Friday entry. Several weeks ago, for my casual Friday blog entry, I wrote about a photographer that started a project where he was attempting to photograph a child from all 194 countries in the world without leaving New York City. Just within the past two weeks, I’ve been checking the analytics for my blog and I was surprised to discover that people from 42 different countries have accessed my blog. So I’m starting a drive to gain readers on this blog from every country in the world as well. If you have friends that live in countries not on my list below, please help and spread the word!

Of course, by discussing international stocks such as Acergy of Norway, Soco International of London and HDFC and ICICI of India, my goal is to provide information about the best investment opportunities in the world without regard to boundaries or countries. I notice that whenever I blog about gold, that I receive hits from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait and the Middle East. This doesn’t surprise me given the importance of gold as a store of wealth in the Middle East. Furthermore when I blog about Africa, the hits go up in Africa, and when I blog about India, the hits go up in India. To some extent this surprises me.

Why?

A good opportunity is a good opportunity regardless of where it is located, so just because it is not located in YOUR country doesn’t make it less of a good opportunity. But I guess people still will always gravitate towards the familiar.

In any event, my goal is to eventually get one reader from all 194 countries. I know that’s probably not realistic, especially since in many emerging markets, daily survival is the number one goal. I’ll update you every Friday with the current list, so help me out, and spread the word. Let’s see if we can get to at least 100 countries. For now, my list stands at 42 nations.

That’s the power of the internet. Sometimes I’m still amazed at how the internet can connect you with literally anyone in the world so quickly. For instance, one day I blogged about Rodrigues, and that very day, someone from that island had visited my blog. But occasionally, I do wonder how somebody in Chile or Jamaica discovers my blog. Maybe it’s just one of my friends that is traveling and decides to do some research for their investments. Or maybe it’s someone that just stumbled across my blog. I’m not really sure. Anyway, the Zen of Investing has so far attracted readers from the following countries:

1. Jamaica

2. Dominican Republic

3. Nigeria

4. South Africa

5. Costa Rica

6. Panama

7. Brazil

8. Chile

9. Switzerland

10. Belgium

11. Norway

12. Israel

13. Saudi Arabia

14. India

15. Ireland

16. Malaysia

17. New Zealand

18. Mexico

19. Kuwait

20. Iran

21. Taiwan

22. Korea

23. Japan

24. United Arab Emirates

25. Vietnam

26. Singapore

27. Argentina

28. Finland

29. Italy

30. Spain

31. France

32. Germany

33. Greece

34. Uruguay

35. China

36. Australia

37. U.S.A.

38. Canada

39. United Kingdom

40. Philippines

41. Russia

42. Rodrigues (Rodrigues is part of the island nation the Republic of Mauritius)

Entry Filed under: General