Archive for April 2008
Unlikely Places For Eureka Moments: Netflix
Wired: Reed Hastings Founder and CEO of Netflix Canyon Video La Honda, California “I had a big late fee for Apollo 13. It was six weeks late, and I owed the video store $40. I had misplaced the cassette. It was all my fault. I didn’t want to tell my wife about it. And I [...]
More People Pushed Into Part-Time Work
The Wall Street Journal: As the softening economy begins to push more people into part-time jobs in place of full-time work, the part-time world is getting tougher. Take Linda Barry of Pittsburgh, a 57-year-old gas-station cashier who typically works 40 hours a week. Her employer classifies her as part-time and gives her no health benefits [...]
Amazon Launches Text-Message Shopping
Associated Press: Amazon.com Inc.’s brick-and-mortar competitors have yet another reason to fear the Web: a new service that lets shoppers compare prices and buy things with a few quick taps on their cell phones. Amazon TextBuyIt lets people text the name of a product, its description or its UPC or ISBN to 262966 (that’s “Amazon” [...]
eBay Bans Vista Hacked Laptop From Auction Site
eBay Delists Compromised Vista Laptop | WebProNews There are a few things that we all know are banned from eBay: alcohol, guns, dead bodies. And it seems we can add “hacked computers” to the list, as the auction site recently cracked down on a mildly famous example.Shane Macaulay tried to sale laptop Shane Macaulay Last [...]
Carbon Services Venture Set Up
The Age: Pacific Hydro and the Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation have formed a carbon services joint venture called Perenia seeking to capture the market before Australia’s emissions trading scheme starts. The business will on-sell credits created through the Clean Development Mechanism, an instrument under the Kyoto Protocol. The credits will be available to trade in [...]
Organic Baby Food Mom's Will Say "YES!" To
The world of food that Heather Stouffer had been introduced to at a young age was the first step in creating her love for a variety of good foods. When Heather had her son, she couldn’t wait for him to reach the age where she’d be able to start feeling him great homemade purees of [...]
InsideBayArea.com: Alexandra Eisler can still remember the day it occurred to her that she really could have it all — a family, a business and a life filled with the kind of work that she calls fun. “I remember I was on assignment for my government job in the Cotswolds, visiting a family that made [...]
With two “children” in her life, her daughter Marissa and her business, it’s pretty easy to say that Shea Kelly is a busy woman. Like many inventions, DaBib was an invention of necessity. Traditional bibs just didn’t do their job right when she used them while feeding her daughter. Frustrated, Shea created a bib that [...]
Parents like to shop for their children and Suzi Heaton makes it easier to do with her new online store, Maddy Rose Boutique. Started on September 11th of last year, Suzi created a fun online boutique where parents can find unique, high quality items for their children. By being online, she’s able to help parents [...]
Will Google Buy Skype From eBay?
Google may acquire eBay’s Skype, voice ads to follow? – TECH.BLORGE.com Speculation is flying about Google potentially acquiring Skype, which has struggled to turn a profit for its current parent company, eBay. Google almost certainly thinks it can change the situation by dropping fees and adding advertising to portions of the Skype service.So far Google [...]
Ways to Make Use of Your Downtime
CreativeBriefing.com: Clear out your feed reader If you’re like me, while you’re in your busy mode, you’ll fall behind in your RSS feed reading. And when your Google Reader (or whichever reader you use) looks worse than your inbox, it’s time to do some clearing out. Clean your office It could be time to do [...]
eBay Hires New Corporate Communications VP
Alan Marks to Join eBay as Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications eBay Inc. (Nasdaq:EBAY) (www.ebay.com) today announced that Alan Marks has been named senior vice president of corporate communications. Reporting to President and CEO John Donahoe, Marks will be responsible for leading the communications strategies for all areas of the company, including business and [...]
Dreaming About Work Can Be Nightmare
The Wall Street Journal: A recent survey commissioned by Staples, the office-supply giant, indicates that 51% of small-business professionals dream about work. Of those, 70% say that when they wake up, they turn their work dreams into action. Dreams can come true. But if they stumble onto the subject of work, you can only hope [...]
FCC Says No To Skype’s Mobile Open Access
FCC to Turn Down Skype’s Mobile Open Access Plea – washingtonpost.com The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has set enough rules requiring that mobile networks are open so it won’t approve a petition from Skype that would have required mobile operators to allow any application to run on their networks, said the commission’s head.The move is [...]
Parents like to shop for their children and Suzi Heaton makes it easier to do with her new online store, Maddy Rose Boutique. Started on September 11th of last year, Suzi created a fun online boutique where parents can find unique, high quality items for their children. By being online, she’s able to help parents [...]
eBay Wants You To Pay For International Exposure
eBay Adds Fee-Based Option for Increased International Exposure eBay is introducing a paid option for US and Canadian sellers to gain exposure on eBay.co.uk default search results. eBay UK and eBay Ireland sellers will also have an upgrade option to list on the North American sites. Currently sellers have the option of choosing World Wide [...]
eBayer Raffles House For $100 An Entry
wcbstv.com – N.J. Woman Raffling Home Off On eBay For $100 Does the subprime mortgage crisis have you out of the real estate market? Try this one on for size. There’s a house you can own for less than the price of dinner for two in Manhattan. Looking for a house in New Jersey? How [...]
Google Employee Perk We Can All Get
Wisebread: I recently found an amazing (and I don’t use that word lightly) resource from Google that I think is completely under-used and seriously under-marketed. This resource is called Google Talks and it contains over 170 fascinating lectures, given to the very lucky and privileged Google staff, most around 1 hour long. Google TechTalks are [...]
Record Your Skype Calls With Call Graph
Record Skype Calls as MP3s with Call Graph | Lifehacker Australia Windows only: Freeware plug-in Call Graph integrates with the popular VoIP application Skype to record your Skype as MP3s and organize those recordings with a simple interface. Once installed, you can set Call Graph to automatically record all of your Skype calls, or you [...]
Unlikely Places For Eureka Moments: Harry Potter
Wired: J. K. Rowling Author Train car between Manchester and London, UK “It was extraordinary, because I had never planned to write for children. Harry came to me immediately, as did the school and a few of the other characters such as Nearly Headless Nick, the ghost whose head is not quite cut off. The [...]
eBay Moves Digital Download Listings to Classifieds Section – AppScout Making some cash auctioning off digital downloads on eBay? Not anymore.In an effort to squash feedback manipulation, the online auction site announced recently that it will no longer allow use of its standard auction format to sell digital downloads. As of April 1, sellers must [...]
WPTV: Have you ever seen a new product and said, “Boy, I should have thought of that!” Today meet four South Florida moms who had a good idea…and acted on it. Feeding her 4-month-old son Dillon, helped inspire Lisa Alfieri to create one of the new must-have baby products. Lisa Alfieri-mom inventor says, “I always [...]
10 Tips For Balancing Business And Home
Debbie Travis at National Post: 10. Steal the housekeeping. Every woman, married or not, should have some money set aside. My mom used to call that “stealing the housekeeping.” Set aside $50 every month, so you can always close a door and walk out. 9. Stop being so shy. It’s just a waste of time. [...]
Teen’s Dog Business Wins Prince’s Trust Support
Horncastle News: Belinda Truepenny (19) from Raithby has launched her own dog walking and animal care business – Patter Paws – with backing from The Prince’s Trust, which has provided her with a £750 loan, and £750 grant. Animal lover Belinda, who holds a National Diploma in animal management, wants to concentrate her business in [...]
Mom Offers An Extra Hour, For A Price
ArgusLeader.com: A CPA, she works full time, has two pre-school children, a husband and a house. Her to-do list is long: Job, kids, housework, shopping, chauffeuring and spending time with her spouse, parents, siblings and friends. Then there’s exercise and hobbies. Relaxation doesn’t make the cut. She’s not alone. “There are really a lot of [...]
Mom's Store Offers Hard-To-Find Children Things
The Sudbury Star: A Greater Sudbury new mom who had trouble finding a shoe to give proper support to her young son’s ankle last year, she had to go all the way to Barrie to find the high-top walking leather shoes her specialist called for. The shoes, which were needed to help prevent any future [...]
Four Moms Leave Big Dallas Firm To Start Female-Owned Firm
NBC5i.com: Jane Taber, Dawn Estes, Jessica Thorne and Lori Carr said together they have more than 70 years of large firm legal experience. “By the very nature that we’re all female we certainly have that sisterhood, and I think we feel the same way and it also lets us serve clients in a different way,” [...]
Finding Your Next Big Business Idea
JoshauSaunders: The best way to think of an idea is to consider things that upset you or cause problems in your daily life. Don’t think of products, think of problems. Come up with answers to the following: – What frustrates you? – What things slow you down or cause bottlenecks? – In your everyday life, [...]
Recipe For Creating New Products
Sloan Review: When it comes to brand extension, the conventional wisdom is simple: Don’t overextend. The idea is that companies should stay within established product lines to avoid dilution of the brand identity. After all, it makes intuitive sense not to diversify into categories that are remote to core products. To rejuvenate established product families, [...]
Everyday Edisons: After a successful Dallas casting call, Everyday Edisons is heading to Chicago to see what the Windy City has to offer. Date: Saturday, April 19, 2008 Where: McCormick Place, South Building; 2301 S. Lake Shore Drive; Chicago, IL 60616 When: Doors open at 7 a.m. As long as you make it to the [...]
Unlikely Places For Eureka Moments: Peer-To-Peer File Sharing
Wired: Shawn Fanning Founder of Napster Kennedy Hall, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts “My roommate had a bunch of friends from back home come visit. They asked him how he got this insane music collection — he was particularly into obscure rap–and there was no easy way to describe how to do it. It was pretty [...]
Start-Up Clears Up Auto Lights
Chattanooga Times Free Press: Unlike many entrepreneurs, Chris Watts’ biggest challenge is not financial. As he launches a business restoring car headlights, the biggest hurdle Watts faces is informing consumers about the service he offers. Headlight Renew Doctor promises to take cloudy, yellowed car headlights and, using a technique he developed, “renew” them for a [...]
Turning Your Small Biz Into a Corporation
U.S. News & World Report: Scott Shane, an economics professor at Case Western Reserve University, discusses in his recent book The Illusions of Entrepreneurship the most recent data show that only about half of self-employed people in the U.S. workforce run incorporated businesses. But Shane argues that entrepreneurs who fail to incorporate are making a [...]
Tots Sitting Comfortably And Tuning Into Invention
nebusiness.co.uk: Children across the world could soon be listening to stories on a North East invention after its founders secured the funding to embark on an ambitious expansion plan. County Durham-based Ameeca, which has designed MP3 headsets called StoryPhones, has secured £440,000 in funding from various sources including a venture capital fund managed by Entrust. [...]
Painting Up A CertaPro Franchise
As the largest painting company in North America, CertaPro has over 280 franchisee’s in the US and Canada. Since their start in 1992 the business has grown by millions of dollars in profits. So what makes a painting-based franchise worth considering? Well, homes need upkeep. As long as homes continue to need painted, generally every [...]
April Fools Jokes Appropriate in the Office?
Boston.com: Most pranks are better suited to fictional workplaces such as the one portrayed in “The Office,” the NBC sitcom starring Steve Carell in the demanding role of a pompous and deluded boss named Michael Scott. In the real world, April Fool’s Day pranks in the work place may be “no joking matter,” reports the [...]
The New Maple Syrup, Birch Syrup
Canada.com: The white paper-birch tree, neglected since its bark was used to make canoes, is oozing out a new, darkly flavoured identity. Entrepreneur Heloise Dixon-Warren says birch syrup made from the tree’s sap is a small idea that could get a lot bigger. “The syrup has a very bold, unique kind of caramel taste,” the [...]
Herbs And Spice – Everything Nice For Your Baby
BusinessWire: Before pharmaceuticals were widely available, humans looked to nature for cures and restoratives. Jack’s Harvest, frozen organic baby food embraces nature’s pharmacy to enhance baby’s wellness from the very first bite of food. Jack’s Harvest has chosen to add organic herbs and spices to its baby food to tempt curious taste buds and provide [...]
Daughter Takes Role in Launching Mom's Dream Business
eMediaWire: A “Small house, small budget, small business” can bring any entrepreneur down – but not Stephanie Rach-Wilson, founder of IAGmedia, Inc. Rach-Wilson is the creator of “Into the Great Outdoors”, a brand new get-ready series for young children and families curious about exploring nature and the environment. “Into the Great Outdoors” is a 35-minute [...]
Work It, Mom Launches Online Marketplace For Mom Entrepreneurs And Women Business Owners
eMediaWire: WorkItMom.com, the leading online community for working mothers, announced today the launch of the Marketplace, a dedicated area on WorkItMom.com where mom entrepreneurs, business owners, freelancers, and bloggers can promote their products and services to thousands of working moms who visit WorkItMom.com daily. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics approximately 50 percent of U.S. [...]
Boomers Eye Own Business In Retirement
Houston Chronicle: Q: I’m an early baby boomer and am thinking about leaving my corporate job to open a business of my own. Do you have any advice? A: You are not alone. Many of America’s 77 million baby boomers contemplating retirement are finding that slowing down is the last thing they want to do. [...]
Unlikely Places For Eureka Moments: Post-It Notes
Wired: Arthur Fry Researcher at 3M Choir loft, North Presbyterian Church St. Paul, Minnesota “I was singing in the church choir, and I would often put little pieces of paper into the music on Wednesday night to mark where we were singing. Sometimes, before Sunday morning, that little paper would fall out. It was during [...]
Biz Resource: Track YouTube Video Stats
downloadsquad: Google, reigning king of exhaustive analytics, has just released a specialized analytics tool for YouTube, aptly named YouTube Insight. YouTube Insight is a free tool that enables anyone with a YouTube account to view detailed statistics about their uploaded videos. YouTube Insight tracks information such as the geographic region of your viewers, how popular [...]
eBay Changes Clocks Early, Confusing Sellers
Scopical – News Business & Finance, Sport, Politics, Tech/Media, and Entertainment Australian eBay users are now in the dark a week early as the auction site moved across to winter time on the east coast of Australia before the official switchover.Some areas of Australia this week extended their daylight savings time an extra week, leaving [...]
Professional Features On The Cheap
The Wall Street Journal: Justin Leavens manages a gourmet-marshmallow company out of his house in Sherman Oaks, Calif. But his high-end phone system makes customers think he is toiling in a big office with scores of employees. Callers to Leavens’s company, Plush Puffs, can dial “9″ for a company directory, hit “8″ to hear the [...]
Young Entrepreneurs Banking On Their Tech Savvy
Entrepreneur.com: Four years ago, Donny Ouyang cracked open one of his dad’s old computer science books and began learning HTML code and website techniques. This accidental discovery grew into a great entrepreneurial opportunity when he sold his first website less than a year later. Now 16, Ouyang is making more than $6,500 a month as [...]
Be Free With Battery Services International
Battery Services International is in the business of recycling, restoring, recovering and reselling all types of batteries. Batteries are being thrown away everyday. Those very same batteries could possibly be saved. Battery Services International owns the necessary technology and has developed the products needed to restore the batteries as well as provide the necessary maintenance [...]
