I'm sure wherever you may be living in the world you've heard about the global financial crisis, the sub-prime crisis, etc... And every day, when the news is on all you see is that markets around the world have loss billions and billions of dollars.

Even down under in Australia, it's hard not to notice these events or stories, particularly when our TV stations and newspapers are constantly talking about the grim state of the global economy. On Friday, our own Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) lost 8% tinkering at 3,920 points. Mind you, I recalled about 3 months ago when our market was over the 6,000 point mark. Business news reports I've been listening to have said that our market compared to the same time last year has lost nearly 40% of it's value. Billions of billions of dollars wiped out! It's pretty grim news. In particular when our own government, the US government (780 billion bail out), the UK and European governments working together to protect people's savings account, etc...all these international actions to try and restore confidence and yet the world wide markets are still in a major panic! I feel so sorry for the people of Iceland, that country has literally gone bankrupt and heading for a recession.

If you're a psychologist, I'm sure you fully understand people's responses and behaviour to this economic crisis. Unfortunately, a lot of us are not and this global panic is certainly impacting all the world's economies. Growth will slow down, unemployment will rise, consumer spending will decrease...which in turn will lead to a recession. All the expert economists I've heard interviewed are also at a loss and don't even know when this panic selling will end and when the bottom of the market is going to be reached so people will come back and start buying shares again.

In Australia we are told that we are in a better position compared to a lot of countries in the world as our banking industries are well regulated. The government recently announced today to protect ALL of our savings that are held in bank accounts (by major institutions) for up to 3 years. I know that they are just trying to ease our fears and to encourage people to remain calm. It's really hard not to notice, especially when our Australian dollar to the US currency is now only worth around $0.66c - when in July of this year it hit $0.98c (what a major drop!).

So how did we get to this stage? Was it greed by banks and corporations to get the best return for their shareholders and themselves? I revisited and read about "The Great Depression". This event in our history started in the US in October 29th, 1929 and it took the markets around the world another 10 years to recover. There were many factors that caused the great depression, but one of the main triggers was apparently DEBT - American consumers and businesses relied on cheap credit. In Australia, our debt levels are higher per household now than they were years ago. One economist even had a grim prophecy that this worldwide economic downturn could be worst than the great depression. I really hope that he is wrong and that we do not repeat that sad and difficult period that people faced in the 1930's. I guess we do need to try and keep calm in the midst of this global turmoil.

How has the global financial crisis affecting your day to day life?

With everything on the web going social nowadays, you can expect to see all sorts of web applications to have a social networking feature. The main goal of the social feature is mainly for users to interact with each other while using a web service or application.


Browzmi is a unique and interesting social networking service. It is a mix of social networking and browsing. It is a combination of a lot of online tools: a social sharing/bookmarking site, Instant messenger and a browser. Browzmi is a browser within your browser which can be quite confusing if you describe it like that but it’s exactly what it is. It’s a web app that acts as a browser which is equipped with instant messaging. This allows members to share with each other what they are browsing in Browzmi.

The browser within the web app is a unique way of sharing URL’s to your friends. You can either use Browzmi to surf the web or use their Firefox plugin to easily transfer a URL from your original browser to Browzmi. This will allow you to quickly share a page in just a click. The plugin, “Browzmi Homebase,” allows the web service to connect to your browser and allow web traffic to bypass their servers. When I tested it without the plugin, some sites are missing some widgets and some CSS failed to load. After installing the plugin, the sites that I visited worked perfectly.

The service functions more of an instant messenger than a screen sharing site. Browzmi’s goal is for friends to discover websites and share them with each other in real time. This is made possible by the “rating” and “add to favorites” tool which serves as a bookmarking feature for the service. Once you gave a URL a thumb up or marked it as favorite, your friends will be notified by a sound and can immediately see it live on their collapsible and unobtrusive sidebar. Of course, you can always do that by copying a URL and pasting it on your friend’s IM. The only difference is that with Browzmi, your friends can instantly see the pages that you have bookmarked and they can always go back to the pages that you have visited even if you are offline and easily access that URL when they visit your Browzmi profile which is very common to social bookmarking sites.

Browzmi is also a great place to share your other social networking profiles to your friends. You can easily add your blog URL, Twitter address, Facebook profile page, Friendfeed feeds and a lot more to your Browzmi profile. By doing this, your friends can easily browse your social pages in just one tab. They can rate you pages and make comments about your blogs or social pages.

As I see it, Browzmi is more useful when connected users are online. Otherwise, it’s just like most social bookmarking sites where you can share your favorite pages of the web with your online buddies. I guess the combination of both live and offline features is what makes it different from the others. The real-time sharing is its selling point.

Thanks to Travis Parsons, founder of Browzmi, who was kind enough to guide me through the web app and answer a few questions through their chat service.

When I read the article below, it did make me laugh. However, when looking at it deeper, it also make me think about a few things.

I remembered seeing a painting once (unfortunately, I can't remember who the painter was), but basically they captured the image of workers going to work each day like robots. Sometimes I feel like this too. It becomes a monotonous experience and I feel like I'm on auto pilot!

Lately, I've also read news commentators proclaiming how recent studies have shown that in the western world we are working even harder each day to support our lifestyle. A lifestyle you cannot even enjoy (ie: the big house, the nice car, etc...) because people are spending more time at work and by the time they get home, it's already dark! To add to this, those that have families, spend a partial chunk of their incomes on childcare and they too suffer from not being able to spend quality time with their child/children. This in turn makes parents feel very guilty and they end up spoiling their child/children out of guilt for working so much. A vicious cycle then occurs as these children will grow up to be so spoilt, materialistic and consumers themselves. Worse still they do not learn to appreciate the things they receive as we push through becoming such a disposable society.

I know I seem to sound bleak in my views, but I hope after reading this post, you too will take the time to breathe and reflect on your own lives.

Recently, my husband and I went off on a little holiday break and it was great for the soul. To be away from the office and to do what we really wanted and to just enjoy the day was very relaxing. Having time out from the hustle and bustle of life is definitely a must and I highly recommend it.