Archive for September 2006
Online community billboard Craigslist receives 5 billion page views and 13 million unique visitors a month. In the eyes of many in the Internet business, those figures would represent very big dollar signs. Though Craigslist achieves those enviable numbers, it remains simply “a small community service” to its founder. “We could sell Craigslist for an [...]
Choosing the Right Business Name
PowerHomeBiz Small & Home Business: Guy Kawasaki in his book “The Art of the Start” has a very interesting way of highlighting the importance of choosing the right name for your business. According to him, “A remarkable name for your organization, product or service is like pornography: It’s hard to define, but you know it [...]
Modern Marvels Invent Now Challenge
GearLog: Can you believe the second Modern Marvels Invent Now Challenge from the History Channel and Invent Now is already upon us? Believe it, inventive people, because this year’s competition is already heating up. The National Inventors Hall of Fame has opened its call for submissions to any and all inventors who hope to capture [...]
Police Department’s Web Site On MySpace
BostonChannel.com: The Haverhill Police Department hopes to enlist the younger generation to help catch criminals by posting the department’s Web site on the popular MySpace. MySpace is one of the most popular networking Web sites among teens. The Haverhill Police Department site allows visitors to call in anonymous tips about crimes. Police Chief Al DeNaro [...]
Clever eBayers Selling Junk Mail For $20 Bucks!
Some eBay entreprenuers are making $20 to $30 selling a coupon they (and probably you) got in the mail for FREE. ValPak sends out a blue envelope every month full of coupons for house siding, haircuts, oil changes, etc. In the current mailing in some regions of the USA they are including a Northwest Airlines/KLM [...]
Internet Marketing Quiz – Test Your Knowledge
WebProNews: Question – If I need to target a specific region, is it helpful to have a domain from that country? Yes. Both hosting location and domain extension matter and can influence search engine ranking in regional search engines. Question – What is the difference between Google’s aging delay and the so called sandbox? The [...]
How to Spot a Fraudulent eBay Seller
Everything in E-bay seemed perfect: nice shopping portal, almost complete buyer’s list, and a convenient place to do shopping online. In fact, it’s too good to be true. If this is the case, then it’s time for the buyer’s warning signal to go red alert because if things on E-bay seemed to good to be [...]
Indeed, what happened today? Another day of significant gains as eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) shares were up by 4.76% or $1.29 to close at $28.41. If you go look at the intra-day chart, you’d notice that the rally started around noon. So what did we have? Actually, around that time we had the press-release regarding [...]
Premissions Feature Added to PayPal Merchant Accounts
PayPal has added a feature to its Multi-User Access functionality. Multi-User Access is a permissions-based feature that allows business owners to give unique access levels to different employees within the same PayPal account. PayPal has now added an additional multi-user access permission that will give account holders the ability to allow certain employees to speak [...]
PayPal Settles Suit and Simplifies Fine Print
In a settlement with Ohio and 27 other states, the online-payment service PayPal has agreed to simplify its fine print. Along with making its user agreement clearer, PayPal also will keep users better informed about fraud protection. During the payment process, the company will now explain how the company protects customers against fraud, for example [...]
Skype Mobile Hits Technical Obstables
Skype has announced it has no timetable for the roll out of Mobile Skype, due to unforeseen technical difficulties and a lack of suitable handsets. The internet telephony company is developing the service for the Symbian operating system, used by Nokia amongst others, Niklas Zennström, Skype CEO and co-founder told Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat. However, [...]
Top Resons for Companies to Sell on eBay
Companies can no longer afford to ignore the sales potential presented by its 187 million users worldwide and could be an important sale channel for your company. The problem: Increasing sales, finding new markets Every company wants to reach new customers, find new products for their products and promote their brand. However they also need [...]
Attracting Angels To Your Business
Rhonda Abrams in USA Today: Pop quiz: If you try to raise money from investors, what’s your chance of success? Well, if you’re approaching those individuals known as “angel” investors, the answer is a surprisingly high 12%. That’s the result of a study just released by the Center for Venture Research at the University of [...]
Skype Free to Roam San Jose Campus
Skype Journal’s Phil Wolff posts that after lots of brouhaha, San Jose State University’s Computing and Telecommunications department (SJSU UCAT) have said they will not ban Skype. Apparently, a Monday meeting between SJSU officials and Skype-owner eBay’s governmental relations team did the trick. Although Phil was not in on that meeting, he recommends that any [...]
FREE: 30 Minutes of Small Business Consulting
Whether you’re just starting up, or have been in business for years, sometimes you just need someone to bounce a few ideas off. My name is Dane Carlson, and I’m the founder and editor of the Business Opportunities Weblog Network. I have have been helping small businesses start up and grow for over five years. [...]
FREE: 30 Minutes of Small Business Consulting
Whether you’re just starting up, or have been in business for years, sometimes you just need someone to bounce a few ideas off. My name is Dane Carlson, and I’m the founder and editor of the Business Opportunities Weblog Network. I have have been helping small businesses start up and grow for over five years. [...]
Want Simple Shopping eBay Lauches DoorOne
eBay launched new shopping sites on Wednesday called DoorOne in four countries: the UK, France, Germany and Australia. According to eBay’s announcement on the Australian announcement board, “Doorone.com.au makes shopping simple by bringing together hundreds of thousands of products, hundreds of online retailers and millions of product reviews from the Epinions community. Doorone helps shoppers [...]
FREE: 30 Minutes of Small Business Consulting
Whether you’re just starting up, or have been in business for years, sometimes you just need someone to bounce a few ideas off. My name is Dane Carlson, and I’m the founder and editor of the Business Opportunities Weblog Network. I have have been helping small businesses start up and grow for over five years. [...]
Arizona Welcomes PayPal to Phoenix
-Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) President and CEO Meg Whitman, PayPal executives and Arizona area leaders met on Sept. 25 in Phoenix to celebrate PayPal’s increased presence in Arizona, commencing with the opening of the PayPal Technology Center in Scottsdale. The PayPal Technology Center, which opened earlier this year, plans to hire hundreds of [...]
U2 Fans Upset with Signed Book Sales on eBay
Thousands of U2 fans have been moved to boycott auction website eBay as books signed by the band go on sale. The Irish band held the signing at a London branch of Waterstones, allowing only 250 fans into the event. However, just hours later the books began to appear on the auctioning site, causing outrage [...]
China Branch Of eBay Getting Bought Out?
Internet auctioneer eBay Inc may sell its China operation because of strong competition from Chinese rivals. Tom Group, the media group controlled by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, may take over eBay Eachnet and its online payment service, PayPal’s China division, media reports said yesterday. Analysts said it was unlikely that eBay would withdraw from [...]
As a consumer, you will find many great deals on items that you want and need through eBay auctions. Many people visit eBay on a daily basis looking for auctions for items that they may be interested in – simply because eBay auctions are so much fun! However, before you start buying on eBay, there [...]
Author Signs Books Over Internet
Globe and Mail: Top Canadian author Margaret Atwood will perform a transatlantic signing of her new novel from Scotland, with the aid of an internet autographing device. The award-winning writer is in Dunfermline where she will read from her latest book Moral Disorder. The event will be transmitted to Toronto in her home country where [...]
Reuters: Jack Neal briefly became the proud owner of a pink convertible car after he managed to buy it for 9,000 pounds ($17,000) on the Internet despite being only three years old. Jack’s mother told the BBC she had left her password for the eBay auction site in her computer and her son used the [...]
13 year-old Kenny Hogrefe operates in an unusual niche in the pet food business. He sells live lobster roaches, the preferred meal of many reptiles. Hogrefe started his business after the lobster roaches he bought to feed his pet chameleons began breeding more than he needed. Lobster Feeder Cockroach is commonly kept in the U.S. [...]
Arizona To Cover Insurance Costs For Small Businesses
Inc.com: In an effort to make health insurance a more realistic proposition for small businesses, Arizona has launched a new program that will help entrepreneurs foot the bill. The Department of Revenue program, which began on Sept. 21, provides coupons worth as much as 50% of insurance premiums to uninsured small businesses with two to [...]
Rush Is On For ‘Dot-Mobi’ Domains
TechWeb Technology News: Registrations began Tuesday for .mobi top level domain names for mobile wireless devices and cell phones. The names are available on a first-come first serve basis, though many common domain names have already been awarded to wireless companies and trademarked names. They had first dibs on suffixes for web pages formatted for [...]
This week’s Carnival of Investing is up at Free Money Finance.
eBay Stocks Low But Keeping Upbeat Forcast
With eBay’s stock price down over 50 percent in the last 20 months, with fees and seller defections rising and sell-through rates and prices realized down, with a perceived company arrogance and indifference to user problems, an increasingly heard call from eBay sellers is, “Bring us the head of Meg Whitman” and the rest of [...]
Associated Press: A hallmark of “Mission: Impossible” was the message that would self-destruct after a spy played it. Now a startup communications company promises that same level of secrecy with a Web-based messaging system designed to leave no traces. Let’s say Alice wants to discuss something privately with Bob. Alice calls up a VaporStream Web [...]
BizInformer: This is from a great book by Maria Veloso. These steps are designed to make the task of writing web sales copy easy and each step takes the form of a question you need to answer. 1. What is the readers problem? Most products and services are designed to solve a problem, what is [...]
Niche Biz: Selling Office Noise
Two Minute Commute: A lot of times, our client’s perception of a business run from home is inferior compared to a business run in a usual office. An office setting provides them the credibility they are looking for in a business. One dead giveaway that people know its a home office is through the background [...]
Internet Advertising Revenue Keeps Rising
CNET News.com: Internet advertising revenue in the U.S. totaled $7.9 billion in the first half of the year, a new record and a 37 percent increase over the same period last year, according to figures released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Internet ad revenue was nearly $4.1 billion for the second quarter, up [...]
Skype Banned On College Campuses
MarketWatch: A growing number of college campuses are in the throes of banning the use of Skype, the Internet phone feature owned by eBay Inc., saying the technology is capable of corrupting and crowding Internet networks. It’s unclear how many people on the schools networks are using Skype, which is based on freely-available software known [...]
Yesterday, Intuit announced the launch of QuickBooks 2007, bringing to market the latest enhancements to QuickBooks’ renowned simplicity. The new line of products and services focuses on what matters most to small businesses: making everyday tasks even easier to accomplish, while adding deeper functionality for specialized and growing businesses. With more than 25 products and [...]
Episode 6 of the Business Opportunities Weblog podcast is up. In this episode, Tim Grahl and Dan Portnoy interview Mike Cook, a professional business coach. He gives some great advice that you won’t want to miss. Download or subscribe with iTunes.
This week’s Carnival of the Capitalists is up at Crossroads Dispatches.
Make $2 Million A Year, Setting Up Christmas Lights
Unusual Businesses Ideas That Work: In the winter of 1996, Bob Martin got the creative spark for his company, BrightIdeasInc.com, when he realized most people dread the yearly task of hanging holiday lights. Confident that people would pay for the convenience, Martin launched the business from his garage. He spent just $2,500 at startup, purchasing [...]
Google Adsense: It’s All About the Fit
PowerHomeBiz Small & Home Business: Adsense is mostly pay per click — which means you earn when people click on the ads. Your earnings will depend on a large part to the responsiveness of audience to the ads. For example, a travel website that provides information on travel to Spain will attract visitors looking for [...]
ChaCha Offers Instant Payments to Web Workers
Michael Calore at Wired Magazine: If you’re a broke college student in need of some last-minute scratch for tonight’s hot dinner date, ChaCha can help you out. ChaCha.com, a site offering human-assisted guided search, is introducing an instant payment system that would offer its contracted guides the option to get compensated for their time immediately [...]
Internet Plays Pivotal Role In Movie-Going Decisions
InformationWeek: Moviegoers typically hear about films through TV, trailers and word of mouth, but many of them rely on the Internet in deciding which movie is worth their dollars, research showed. A July survey of 2,100 moviegoers between the ages of 13 and 49 found nearly half seek more information about a film after hearing [...]
Life on the road is about to get easier for business travelers who are not content to check their luggage for short trips, yet face a sweeping ban on liquid products in carry-on baggage. Still want to fly with just carry-on luggage, but don’t know what to do about taking your toiletries? Here’s an interesting [...]
San Jose State Ban Faces Big Objections
An effort by San Jose State to ban the Skype phone service has been put on hold in the face of fierce objections from students and staff members. Administrators said they would meet with eBay, the owner of Skype on Tuesday in order to give the San Jose-based company an opportunity to address the university’s [...]
All in One Wireless Wi-Fi Music Player + Skype Phone
Offering free international calls with Skype support, Wi-Fi technology, wireless music player functions and remote controller features, the AiGuru S1 is a must-have for any true digital home. With 802.11b+g support, the AiGuru S1 enables Skype calls without wire constraints, meaning users are free to roam around their homes while chatting. Unlike conventional wireless Skype [...]
Niche Biz: Selling Pickles Online
NicheGeek.com: On the surface, Rick Field, a Yale graduate and former TV producer, would not seem the most likely candidate to become a pickle peddler, much less spearhead a new pickling movement. But he has done just that. The entrepreneur behind Brooklyn-based Rick’s Picks is offering New-World twists on an Old-World condiment, inventing a whole [...]
Google’s Latest Could Be Aimed At Ebay Listings
MarketWatch: Google Inc. plans to introduce a new shopping feature in time for the holiday season, an analyst noted Friday, which sets the stage for an even bigger clash with eBay Inc. and other online-commerce companies. In a report for Bear Stearns clients, analyst Robert Peck described a new feature that’s based on Google Base, [...]
TechNewsWorld: Weina Scott answers about 100 tech support e-mails a day. The Web site must be perfect — one glitch, and 6,000 irate customers will bombard her inbox. First, though, she has to study her physics. At age 17, Weina is the chief executive of her own Web-based podcast hosting company and makes an annual [...]
Niche Biz: Selling Ads On Flags
Unusual Businesses Ideas That Work: While golfing with his brother one day, Andy Yocom saw prime advertising space on the flags on the course. He and his brother Timmy reasoned that any marketing messages would get prominent attention if they were placed on the flags, since golfers focus on them when they take their shots. [...]
It’s a tradition in the northeast. Colorful fall foliage season means it time for the Yankee Invention Expo. This year’s Expo and workshops will be held on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, October 19-21, in Waterbury, Conn. Inventors – take the opportunity to showcase your product to manufacturers, investors, venture capitalists, distributos, licensing firms, wholesalers, retailers [...]
Upgraded eBay Express Now Has Shopping Cart
eBay has upgraded its new eBay Express fixed-price marketplace. Unlike eBay, eBay Express uses a shopping cart that allows shoppers to buy multiple items from different sellers in one transaction and pay using either PayPal or a credit card. When the service launched in the Spring, there was a limit on how many different sellers [...]
