Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Youngest Entrepreneurs

Ages: 25 (Liberman), 24 (Gershon) and 25 (Levich)
Location: Chatsworth, Calif.
2006 Revenue: $5 million
Employees: 16
Year founded: 2000
Just before graduating high school together in 2000, Gershon and Levich started selling hip-hop-style watches and jewelry on eBay.

As hip-hop lovers themselves, the two quickly found a following of other consumers hungry for accessories. With their success on eBay, Gershon and Levich started their own retail website, Icedoutgear.com, with offerings ranging from LED belt buckles to chains and faux-bejeweled pimp cups.

Liberman, another high school pal, joined up in 2003 and helped his friends launch the company's wholesale division -- Hip Hop Wholesale. Today, their merchandise has been used in promotions for Miller Genuine Draft and The World Series of Poke.
More at:http://icedoutgear.com/

JunkDepot specializes in creating a marketplace to recycle used treasures, connecting buyers and sellers on a unique platform.

JunkDepot specializes in creating a marketplace to recycle used treasures, connecting buyers and sellers on a unique platform. Junk depot needs you, your help and your junk to create a killer environment to bring the garage sale to YourBlock, USA. Set up an account on JunkDepot to either buy or sell an item. From there, you can create a listing of your home goods that will last for 90 days, completely free of charge. Buyers can contact you via email, and JunkDepot won’t charge either for the service. Users can blast out their listings to Google base and Edgeio to cover a wider area to get their junk sold in a snap. JunkYard is also now compatible with the social network Facebook.
More:http://www.junkdepot.com/

BigString is a new service that lets you have better control over the emails you send out to others.

BigString is a new service that lets you have better control over the emails you send out to others.

With this service, you can self-destruct or change an email that’s already been sent and/or read. Instead of worrying about the messages you send to others being available in their inbox, you can now destroy them as a way to protect your privacy. In addition, BigString offers a way to prevent your personal identification info from remaining in someone else’s inbox as well, restricting private images or messages from being spread further online. You can also reword a message that’s already been sent, revise a document you’ve sent along, or set an expiration date for emails. As added protection, recipients are unable to

You’ll need to send messages from BigString in order to use this free service. Most of these options can only be chosen one at a time, so if you want a self-destructing message, it won’t be able to be recalled at a later time. There aren’t really many ways to let your recipients know that a message is going to self-destruct, so you may end up making a few people upset or just downright confused, especially if they ever associate BigString with you having something to hide. For things like self-destructing emails, the mail will remain in the recipients inbox, but the actual message will be deleted. As added protection, recipients are unable to copy and paste the message text. Pretty nifty.
more at:http://www.bigstring.com/
Via-mash

Pr.odigio.us is a free and easy to use site to use if you are a web developer or designer looking to gain recognition and build a wider client base

Pr.odigio.us is a free and easy to use site to use if you are a web developer or designer looking to gain recognition and build a wider client base. When you sign up, you’ll give Pr.odigio.us some basic information about yourself and then be given a keycode. You can use this keycode as proof that you built the website, so that if someone likes your work, they’ll be able to contact you in order to keep you prodigious and productive.
It is also the best way for prospective clients to find out who built the sites they love. Prodigious is easy! And Free! How do I start taking credit for my work? It is simple, start by signing-up for a free account and enter some basic information about yourself. You will then be issued a keycode. That is your way of proving that you actually built a site.
more at:http://pr.odigio.us/

MindSmack specializes in web design, flash, animation, 3D, logo design, banner ads, advertising design etc

Are you looking for someone to design your website? Someone that has experience in creating flash animations and 3D design? MindSmack specializes in web design, flash, animation, 3D, logo design, banner ads, advertising design, programming, asp.net, php, asp, vb, video editing, sound design, html email, landing pages, microsites, demos and anything else imaginable for the Internet. The website also has product portfolio, for users to see the level of the designs that MindSmack.com has already done. Another great feature of this website is that it has a blog for users to interact with each other. It is a very good website if you are looking for someone that can do designs for your website.
more at:http://www.mindsmack.com/

DayTradingOnlineStocks.com the idea is to trade information and advice about day trading and penny stocks

At DayTradingOnlineStocks.com the idea is to trade information and advice about day trading and penny stocks; there is some very helpful information about this, but the site is too young to have a lot of info about anything at this point there are only 151 posts in 54 topics by 144 members. Most of the posts are helpful and informative but a lot of the posts are totally unrelated to the subject matter at all, for instance, today's most read post is about the hypocrisy of John Edwards. A large percentage of the posts are very related to the subject but suppose occassionally the contributors like to go on rants about other things as well, if you wish to get the most out of your hedge fund researching experience, be sure to stay focused on the site.
The site is a great resource for those looking into getting into day trading and/or hedge funds. As of now there is a bindle of information that should continue to grow.
more at:http://daytradingonlinestocks.com/

Redruby Is The One Place Where You Can links Get To All Of the latest Financial

Redruby is the one place where you can links get to all of the latest financial news and speculation without any editorial bias because the links and content on Redruby are submitted by you. The unique Redruby voting system ensures that you are presented with the most important financial articles in terms of their impact on the Australian share market. How does Redruby Work? On Redruby you will find links to the articles that are having the biggest impact on the companies that interest you. Click on a title to read an article. Once you have read an article you can vote on how you think it will effect a companies share price. If you think it will push the companies share price up then click on the green up arrow to the left of the article description. If you think the article is going to push the share price down, click on the red down arrow.
More at: www.redruby.com.au/

Monday, July 30, 2007

He wanted to be his own boss and run a business, though he had little experience or cash

Clay McGee was soon to graduate from Arizona State University with a degree in marketing when he realized that the corporate world wasn’t for him. He wanted to be his own boss and run a business, though he had little experience or cash.

Then it hit him: franchising.

“I pretty much knew I didn’t want to go and apply for jobs and fight against the rest of the working class and try to stand out above it,” Mr. McGee, 24, said. “So I started shopping for a franchise because I figured it would be a good opportunity for someone to hold my hand through the whole thing.”

Today he owns a 1-800-gotjunk? franchise in Springfield, Mo., that brought in about $120,000 last year and has four employees. And he plans to buy a second one in Branson.

It is hard to say if Mr. McGee signifies a growing group of graduates bypassing regular employment to become franchisees. The numbers are still a small piece of the overall franchising pie — only about half a percent, according to Eric Stites, founder and president of Franchise Business Review, a franchise market research firm in Kittery, Me.

Many college graduates who enter the franchising world do it with their parents’ money, specialists say, or at least use their parents as backups to secure bank loans.

But many franchise companies see these recent diploma recipients as a new frontier for their businesses and are aggressively marketing to this population, especially those companies with products and services that cater to a younger demographic, and employ young people, said Robert Justis, director of the International Franchise Forum and chairman of the Rucks Department of Management of the Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

Driving interest among the college set, Mr. Justis added, is a growing disenchantment with corporate America. In addition, an increasing number of entrepreneurship courses at colleges is igniting interest among students to start their own businesses. He estimated franchising is now being taught on about 200 campuses in the United States.

Brian C. Scudamore, chief executive of the Vancouver-based 1-800-gotjunk?, says recent college graduates are “more malleable” than people in their 40s and 50s.

Franchisors want franchisees they can mold because the system has a structure of rules and concepts in place that franchisees usually must follow without deviation.

For Wing Zone, a chain of 100 Buffalo wing delivery stores, the college educated are franchisee candidates because they are typical wing customers, said Matt Friedman, who co-founded the company when he was at the University of Florida, Gainesville, in the early 1990s. He cooked wings with homemade sauces in his fraternity house kitchen with his partner, Adam Scott. “College markets have been our bread and butter,” Mr. Friedman said.

To pull in more franchisees, Wing Zone started a college tour this year.

Many late-night wing deliveries from Wing Zone were made to the dorm room of Adam Wyatt, a former student from the University of Kentucky who became a franchisee.

Mr. Wyatt said he loved the wings store concept so much he decided to leave 30 hours short of earning a degree in business management and bought a franchise in January 2006.

“I was watching my older friends come out of school and get an entry-level job — the job market is competitive,” he said. “I thought to myself, ‘I don’t want to start out in an entry-level sales job. I wanted to have more control.’ ”

He looked at a variety of options, including hair-cutting and liquor store chains, but decided on Wing Zone because he was familiar with the brand as a devoted customer.

The idea of entrepreneurship was captivating to Mr. Wyatt, whose mother (a teacher) and father (a vice president for a manufacturing company) had never owned a business. “It was a big step for all of us,” said Mr. Wyatt, seeing the venture as one he has embarked on for the whole family. Indeed, his parents helped him finance part of the $300,000 venture using savings and also vouching for a loan.

He now has 20 employees and $600,000 in annual revenue, and this year he turned a profit.

An allure for college graduates with little everyday business experience is that franchise companies offer a lot of hand-holding. As soon as Mr. Wyatt signed the franchise agreement, he went to the company’s headquarters in Atlanta and spent 14 days there working in a corporate store and taking classes. When he opened his store, Wing Zone sent two representatives to help him.

“I also have a guy up there I can call if I need to run anything by him,” he added.

While franchising may look like the perfect plan for young graduates who want to bypass the rough and tumble job market, it’s not for everyone. Steven A. Rosen, the chief executive of FranNet, a franchise consulting firm in Louisville, Ky., for one, believes college graduates should first get meaningful work experience before investing thousands in a franchise.

The profile of a successful franchisee, Mr. Rosen said, “is someone that can manage of crew of kids making $8 an hour.” While college graduates have good classroom experience, “that doesn’t prepare them to run a business.”

The biggest hurdle for younger franchisees is money, said Adam J. Siegelheim, a franchise lawyer based in Lawrenceville, N.J. “They need money to sustain losses during the first few months, or even years,” he said, adding that the most common group of new franchisees remains middle-aged workers who have been laid off and have severance packages to finance the effort.

Mr. McGee said he needed about $150,000 upfront to pay for the 1-800-gotjunk? franchise start-up fees and the trucks to run the hauling business. But at his age he had little credit history; he approached 11 banks before he was able to secure the loan he needed.

Even with the loan, he ended up having to sell his car the first year because he was not bringing in enough money. “I pictured myself having employees and playing golf, but I basically hauled junk for two years,” he said, adding, “if you don’t put in 90-hour weeks, you’re not going to succeed.”
Via-NYTimes

Selling Peanut Butter Sandwitchs He Become Rich

Joe Moffatt's favorite sandwich is The Hotshot: sun-dried tomato peanut butter, jalapeƱos, potato chips, cheddar, bacon and mayonnaise. The Hotshot, of course, is his own invention. And the place where he eats it is his own, too: a P.B. Loco cafe.

In February, Moffatt, 29, and his wife, Hollie, 30, opened their P.B. Loco franchise in Tupelo, Mississippi. "People think you're crazy for opening a store for just peanut butter," says Moffatt. But he was sold on the unique concept and thought others would be, too. He was right--he projects first-year sales of about $275,000.

Still, he admits that sometimes it's hard to overcome people's preconceptions about peanut butter. While plain, old peanut butter and jelly is available, P.B. Loco is all about creative concoctions made with gourmet peanut butter flavors, including Asian Curry Spice, European Cafe Mocha and Jungle Banana.
Part of Moffatt's challenge is that P.B. Loco started franchising in 2004, so it's hardly a household name. But being with a newer franchisor has its upside as well. "We're all still learning together," Moffatt says of the corporate office and its franchisees. The excitement for Moffatt is getting to experiment and help shape the franchise's future. While most other cafes are in malls, his is a stand-alone location. He has created a coffeehouse feel with leather couches and flat-screen TVs, and he offers gourmet coffees--an addition that other franchisees have adopted as well. His latest contribution? P.B. Loco is adding The Hotshot to its menu.
More at:http://www.pbloco.com/
Via-Entr

How To Guide Your Business

Directed to assisting small businesses with answers they need.It is guide for small business where they can get lot of information and guidance how to run small business.
more at:http://www.work.com/

Gazhoo is a new marketplace for the buying and selling of documents of all sorts

Gazhoo is a new marketplace for the buying and selling of documents of all sorts. The content on the site is namely to offer alternatives to companies that provide documents for download with high premium costs, such as legal document sites.

The main purpose of gazhoo is to provide a place for content creators to sell their documents. You’ll find a number business-oriented documents, such as time-reporting sheets and legal documents, as well as reports and essays. Users can upload their documents and name their price for documents to be sold via Paypal. Users can offer their content for free as well. Those that would like to purchase a document can view 50% of the content without downloading it in its entirety. Gazhoo uses Flash Paper to display uploaded documents.

The site doens’t act as a community, so you won’t be able to search by user or view their profile in order to see all of the documents they’ve provided to gazhoo. Although most would liken gazhoo to a site like Scribd, it lacks many of the social interaction features that Scribd has, such as comments. There’s also no option to download a free document directly–you must first register as a gazhoo member and place the item in your cart.
more at:http://www.gazhoo.com/

Referral Key helps you generate and track sales leads with professionals you know and trust and allows you to expand your business network

ReferralKey.com, a site that helps you exchange referrals with professionals you know and trust. Sign up is free. Use Referral Key to generate sales leads and to strengthen and expand your business network. The site provides you with detailed reporting tools to track and analyze your referral partnerships and customize your program for maximum effectiveness. If you are a professional looking for new clients, you can list your business on Referral Key.
Referral Key helps you generate and track sales leads with professionals you know and trust and allows you to expand your business network to establish new referral relationships. Sign up is free and it takes just a few minutes to set up your referral network and begin exchanging referrals. When you join, you’ll send invitations to business associates you know asking them if they would like to exchange referrals with you. The people you choose are not subject to any fees, so they have nothing to loose by accepting your invitations. The referrals you receive are qualified, which means your trusted associates have identified clients who need the services you provide. Referrals are immediately emailed to you so you can follow up on the leads promptly to address the needs of the person being referred and hopefully turn the referral into a sale. Referral Key also tracks the effectiveness of your referral partnerships to ensure leads are reciprocal and your relationships are mutually beneficial.
More at:http://www.referralkey.com/

for Creating Free Presentaions And Demos

Webinaria can help bring your content to life. Businesses that are able to capture and record live interactions with web-based content are able to more effectively train and educate employees and customers. Webinaria aims to provide a more animated and theatrical presentation of business communications
Webinaria.con record your desktop screen movements, you can also add some voice narration and Webcam videos, and upload all of them to the web in Flash format for free. For instance, you want to do a presentation of how a certain software works, but your clients are abroad. So maybe your best option will be a video presentation. Thought they were hard to do? Forget about that: using your microphone and your webcam, quickly start recording your desktop presentation, demo or screencast. Modify the capture area from your active window to a customized area, adjust your hardware or recording quality, and edit the audio and webcam properties frame by frame. Convert from a video file (AVI, for example) to a Flash Video (FLV) using the latest compression technology, and upload everything to their Flash player. With Webinaria, you can also host your stuff there (for free0.
more at:http://www.webinaria.com/

Earn While You Travel

BackPackersJobSearch allows backpackers to find a job in the place they are wishing to travel to. This is very useful both for backpackers and for employers. While backpackers gain money to continue their trip, employers have access to a person that can assist them in business. Unluckily this service is only working in New Zealand and Australia. Another great feature of this website is that it is free for travelers to register. So backpackers, what are you waiting for? Check out this website, you might find it very useful.
Backpacking industry is booming beyond belief, figures released on footprintsdownunder.com show a gain BACKPACKER INDUSTRY BOOMS VISAS are up 15% an increase of 102,966 over last year They all need work and BJS is a first for Oz then the world .
More at:http://www.backpackersjobsearch.com/

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Good Business Opportunities For Venture Capitalist To Invest In Zipit

Zipit provides a wireless IM device that works with most IM clients.The idea of taking Instant Messaging (IM) with you where ever you go and being disconnected from a laptop or desktop is catching on. Due to SMS growth and services such as AIM and Skype, it is becoming common place to communicate via IM more often.

According to their press release "Zipit Wireless Inc. is the developer and distributor of the Zipit® Wireless Messenger, the only Wi-Fi instant messaging device on the market that supports all major IM services.
They Raised:Zipit Wireless received $4.7 Million from Windspeed Ventures, SunBridge Partners, Meritus Ventures, L.P. and SC Launch.
more at:http://www.zipitwireless.com/

Knowble.net is a site that attempts to facilitate communication between academics in the online world

Knowble.net is a site that attempts to facilitate communication between academics in the online world. Only schools and organizations with approved email addresses are able to register, and right now the site has about 100 approved organizations. If you want to add your university or organization, just submit it for approval for affiliation. The site aims to be a forum for discussion about postgrad research, theses, and events. On the site you can share files easily, message other members, chat in forums, and more.
Knowble is the knowledge community for researchers to connect, communicate and collaborate. Our goal is to connect researchers by their passions for efficient collaboration and open, multidisciplinary research. We help you do what you do best, great research! Knowble was created with the support of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s TraCS Institute.
The site makes communication within and between academic disciplines and institutions much easier. Their useful site tools allow for the efficient transfer of pre-published information and files for research groups.
more at:http://www.knowble.net/

Download Free Software

In Software-Dungeon.co.uk you can download software, flash animations, pictures, mp3, games, etc. A top feature of this web page is that users can post comments on the software they have downloaded, so you can have the opinions of users that have downloaded the software you are looking for. And the best of it all is that it is all for free.
The Software Dungeon is the latest and greatest of the Software Download Portals. If you have ever tried finding software then you will be very happy with the Software Dungeon download website which allows ease of access to Business software, Games, Screen Savers and much more.
More at:http://www.software-dungeon.co.uk/

How To Create Free Website

Spruz.com allows the users to create websites with very powerful content and it is for free. A very important feature that Spruz.com has is that while creating websites, the users have in their power very easy to use tools, so Spruz.com is a very user friendly website. The latter helps rookies to create their own web page without any problem and for free.
Spruz is a powerful website content management system. We allow users from all over the world to create robust websites with easy to use tools. With Spruz you get more then just a website, you become part of a large community of people and groups.
More at:http://spruz.com/

Saturday, July 28, 2007

Become Millionaire With Answering Questions

Guess Now was created simply for healthy, pure, unabashed FUN! Our goal is to provide an enjoyable, challenging arena for trivia lovers and future events predictors. We want you to test your skill of guessing and win money in return! The company was started in 2007 by a team of superlative young amusement-seekers with an array of experience in advertising, web development, finance, and shameless entertainment
Will Hulk Hogan's house go for the asking price of a cool $189 million? 50 points. Opinion: When will the American public's fascination with reality shows end? Well I have a problem with that question, since the 3 possible answers are: 1. It will never end. Reality shows are here to stay. 2. In three years there will be no reality shows on TV. 3. It will end in 3 years, but reappear in 7 years. Now in order to prove answers 1 and three wrong you will have to wait at least 7 years, and that still doesn't make 2 right, because reality shows could fall off in the 8th year. So I'm not sure how they are going to award anyone the 10 points for that in the near future. After accumulating a certain amount of points you can actually cash out. They will send you a check form paypal.
More at:http://guessnow.com/

V-coin.com offers the user to send and receive money through their email address

V-coin.com offers the user to send and receive money through their email address. Yes, that is right, now all that v-coin users have to do to send and receive money is to have an email address and have an account in v-coin.com. But things keep getting better, the account is free, and there are no fees for sending money, only for receiving. So a v-coin user can send money to another user just by using his own mail withouy having to pay for the service. So v-coin.com is definetively a great opportunity for people with access to the internet.
A completely Virtual Payment System that provides instant payment services including micropayments, with the security EVERYONE demands in todays WEB 2.0 world. V-Coin® provides the world's simplest secure online virtual payment service. With V-Coin®, anyone with an email address can send and receive payments through the Internet. This cutting-edge service provides a faster, easier, and ULTRA-low-cost way to move funds in today's ever growing "cyber universe".
More at:http://v-coin.com/

Second Avatar has organised the biggest Miss World pageant for the Virtual World of SecondLife

Second Avatar has organised the biggest Miss World pageant for the Virtual World of SecondLife. Contestants have placed their photographs in order to register for the Pageant. Their photographs gives you an insight into their Second Life. With over 100 photo albums, these virtual beauties are a treat for sore eyes. Rating/voting is open for public. There is a new feature in which users can create their second world character as a male in order for him to be able to participate in the Mr.World Pageant. Users can also pay $10 a month and post ads on the web site. The winner of the Miss World Pageant will win a prize.
Register & Add your SecondLife Album. Use RSS feeds to show your Albums to Friends,Designers,Businesses or post it on your WebSite! Your SecondLife Album is rated, based on a number of parameters - looks, moods, designer wear,pose and style.
More at:http://www.secondavatar.com/

1000Keyboards is a website created for writers to submit, share, critique and communicate in an environment tuned to promote growth and exposure

1000Keyboards is a website created for writers to submit, share, critique and communicate in an environment tuned to promote growth and exposure.
With 1000Keys, Struggling writers and precocious authors can submit their work to be reviewed and critiqued by fellow authors and avid readers. Not into penning your own stuff? You can browse through 1000Keys rather extensive collection and find something to suit your needs. Rate and discuss the stories you love or give a critical eye to those stories that needs some work. 1000Keyboards is completely free for both authors and readers alike.
More at:http://1000keyboards.com/

Friday, July 27, 2007

Goozex

Goozex-If you live and breathe gaming, then Goozex may just work for you. The peer-to-peer service solely deals in games and is generating quite a buzz in the gaming community. Recently they added a special Mac section, which not only offers Mac games (yes, they exist) but also has a neat Dashboard widget. Via the widget, Mac users can keep track of their requests for games and library lists. On signing up, users can trade their games and in turn receive points to get other games for $1 per trade.
More at:http://www.goozex.com/
Via-Mash

Peerflix is a DVD trading service

Peerflix -Potentially the most popular of the lot, Peerflix is a DVD trading service which is open to Canadian and US users. The idea behind the service is simple; a one-stop solution for all your DVD needs without burning a hole in your pocket. The first step is to sign up for your free account and then proceed further by listing “the titles you can provide” and “the titles you want”. Once part of the community, you can mail movies directly to your trading partner and in turn get Peerbux: credit tokens that can be exchanged for items on the site. Peerflix also deducts 99 cents from your account each time you receive a movie and gives guarantees against loss, theft, or damage in transit.
More at:http://www.peerflix.com/

Don't Dream It ,Do It

“My wife, two kids and I landed here with a suitcase each,” recalls Bruce Nethersole (38), a serial entrepreneur who emigrated from Zimbabwe because of the turbulent political and economic situation.

“We used to have a 10-bedroom house in Victoria Falls and a five-bedroom one in Bulawayo. Now we had to start all over again.”

Bruce had to make some uncomfortable adjustments to his work life as well as his lifestyle. Before buying a convenience store in Stoke on Trent, he worked for a Derby company helping to develop an international market for diamond blades. Working for someone else was anathema.

“It wasn’t easy because I have always been in control of my own life,” he says.

Having less than full control was quite a sea change for someone who has run businesses for almost two decades, setting up his first business - a company organising safari tours – aged only 19. He also ran pubs, restaurants, a butchers, a shop selling African artefacts and various other ventures.

Regulatory burden

After all that, running a convenience store might have seemed eminently manageable. Nevertheless, it was the first UK business he bought and that posed its own challenges.

“Zimbabwean law is based on English law, admits Bruce. “But you have to be more organised here. The process is more rigid and there’s more information.”

‘More organised’ is ambiguous, denoting greater efficiency but also more red tape. It was because of the extra regulatory burden that Bruce and his wife opted against buying a post office, something they had initially considered.

“Post offices were too formal for us really, having to stay within the post office regulations as such.”

Nevertheless, he “would like to have a post office in this place at some stage.”

Along with red tape, high cost is the other great gripe of British entrepreneurs, but Bruce and his wife, who is English and from Doncaster, would have found any west European country expensive coming from Africa.

“We had a lot of employees before, which didn’t cost a lot out in Zimbabwe. So now it’s a little bit harder.”

Word of mouth is less important to the popularity of a convenience store than it is to other businesses. People use them principally for, well – convenience.

Convenience stores rely on passing trade and the regular custom of local residents. Bruce understood that location is everything and made a thorough assessment of the area.

“See the potential”

“The location is residential.

“In terms of through traffic it’s good, as we are next to a busy shortcut which cuts from the A50 to the city centre. If the A50 is blocked up people use this way to get through to the city.

“I sat outside monitoring traffic so I could get an idea of whether there was decent potential in this. I sat out watching the traffic from 5am to 10 pm – one to see how much traffic goes past, and two, to see what trade goes through the door. But mainly to see the potential, you know.”

Bruce was satisfied enough with the potential even though he knew there was a large Tesco store opposite. After all, convenience stores thrive in the shadows of supermarkets up and down the country. Indeed, if you want a convenience store in a busy location you’re unlikely to be far from one.

Bruce accepts it is difficult to compete on price, “but people do use us for more convenience if they forget one item in their main shop.”

A sizeable part of the shop’s revenues come from newspaper and magazines, and the delivery of newspapers, a service which Tesco’s – touch wood – doesn’t yet provide.

“We deliver a lot of newspapers, with 19 delivery rounds, so it’s got quite a good customer base.

“The store has got a reputation for having a huge range of magazines.”

Confident he has a good base to build from Bruce can see plenty of ways to boost custom.

“I see a potential in doing food to get passing traffic. You get roughly about 300 cars an hour going past during the day. The trick is to try and stop some of that traffic and one way to do so is to do food on a larger scale.

“There’s talk of a new development coming up around here, which would also mean a lot of tradesmen stopping here for drinks and food or what have you.”

Changing the stock

Bruce and his wife are already overhauling the store.

“We are revamping part of the shop as we get time.

“There used to be a lot of model trains and model cars. We’re replacing them with groceries.

“There was already an off licence here, but we are going to pay more attention to in the future and try and grow that side of the business.”

“Because of the Tesco’s across the way it doesn’t get extra busy,” Bruce concedes, “but it can increase our turnover.”

There is a second part to Bruce’s strategy: it’s not just about what you sell, but how the shop is laid out.

“When we took it over it was quite cluttered. We had comments from people saying they didn’t know how big it was.

“We had one guy yesterday, he had been coming in for 15 years and didn’t even realise we sold greeting cards.

“As you come through the front door the newspapers were just on the left, and a lot of the traffic would go to the newspapers and then straight to the till. So we put the papers further into the shop to get people looking round the shop more. It’s increased sales of other items.”

Now Bruce is turning his attention to the shop exterior.

“The shop’s looking better. We need to fix the outside because the inside is almost where we want it now.

“We want to get some new signwriting and advertising boards to let people know it’s changed.”

Dead space

Bruce says he “was happy with the price” he paid for a store whose untapped potential could be realised with an inexpensive stock change and reorganisation, and maximising the available space in the property.

“It was about 1,100sq ft of shop space. It’s quite big, so I think we had a fair deal.”

“The shop itself used to be two houses and two shops, which is now broken into a downstairs shop and an upstairs house.

“Because it was originally two houses there’s obviously a kitchen and bathroom set-up either side of the shop, although we now use them as storerooms. At some point we’d like to use those areas to open up the shop more and giving us more space.

“I have already put an extension on the front so it is a little bit bigger than the original two shops.”

Happy with the price he paid for the capacious store – which he found through BusinessesForSale.com – Bruce was less enamoured with the settlement for its contents.

“The one problem was the stock value we were given by the previous owner: it was roughly half of what we ended up having to pay when we got the auditors in. So instead of £15k to £17k as expected, we had to pay £32k.

“That’s what threw us out the most, putting us under extra pressure. Now we can’t really grow as we expected to.”

Asked what he would do differently if he went through the buying process again, Bruce doesn’t hesitate.

“I would definitely tie something down on that stock value beforehand, or get the seller to agree to a ceiling.”

Eye on the future

For the moment, Bruce and his wife are working flat out to make a success of the current store. Does he intend to hire get extra help?

“Definitely. We battle with the hours – we are keeping up 5am till 10pm, seven days a week, so we can’t keep that up.”

Despite working flat out, this serial entrepreneur takes care to avoid being bogged down entirely by day-to-day tasks. As well as thinking about what he can do to boost revenues in the here and now, he also keeps one eye on the future.

“Next step for me is to go for more businesses. I wouldn’t mind four or five of these.

“I’m interested in venturing into a lot of things. I want to get involved in property as well.”

Now settled in the UK with the shop developing well and plans to buy more businesses down the line, does Bruce still miss Zimbabwe?

“Very much so. We were born there, spent our whole lives out there.

“It’s a lot different to here, with big, open spaces. We could do what we wanted out there – we had a really good life.”

But with inflation now at around 3,000%, Bruce knows he made the right decision.

Fags, mags, and groceries: selling them in a busy area, some might think, is the definitive and only target for would-be convenience store owners. But only a few months into ownership, Bruce Nethersole is showing how an overhaul of stock and attending to the science of shop layout can make a real difference to revenues.
Via-Businessale.com

PuzzR is a new web aggregating, search engine site that aims to bring you the latest breaking news

PuzzR is a new web aggregating, search engine site that aims to bring you the latest breaking news.

In many senses, this is a blog news aggretagor, somewhat similar to something like Original Signal. There are several categories that you can search for news, including Health, Canada, US, World, Sports, Technology and Business, to name a few. Click on any of these categories, which are brightly color coordinated, and you’ll get a short list of the latest breaking news. There’s also a search toolbar for you to delve deeper into the particular category, in order to ind the most recent news for your query. Click on any of these search results and the original source will open in a separate window.

When it comes down to it, PuzzR is a basic search engine. There are several directions in which the site could go, by allowing user recommendations (a simple thumbs up or down would do). Some simple additions would make the site more useful in general, such as the inclusion of RSS feed options. One of its more useful tools, though, is the ability to type in a search term and simply click on the other categories to find relevant results for your particular term. Recent search engine news includes the launching of iRazoo and the inclusion of televisions for Krillion’s search service.
More at;http://www.puzzr.com/
via-Mash

Your Financial Guide Where You Can Get Everything About Financial Info

You can plug in the ticker symbols of the stocks you wish to track and InfoNGen.com will supply you with an array of articles related to that stock and other articles related to those articles. It only takes a few momets to sign up with the pages and customize it so every time you log in you see the news you want. The articles come in the categories of: In The News, Key Results, Economics News, Deals News, IPO News, Commodities News and Product News.
On personal InfoNGEN home page. On this customizable page, you can arrange the sections you see here any way you want by simply dragging and dropping them anywhere. And you can always add new blocks by clicking the "Add Content" button on the upper left side. This allows you to add sections for news, your personal saved searches, favorite news feeds, and many others. InfoNGEN offers an innovative approach to connecting financial professionals to the ideas, information, analytics, and individuals they depend on to do their jobs effectively and efficiently.
More at: http://infongen.com/

Best Deals For You

WishNPick.com, a web site designed to provide you with information on competitive deals on varieties of merchandise over the Internet/Online Storefronts and various Retail Stores.
Wishnpick.com offers an enourmous quantity of electronic devices such as: mp3 players, digital cameras, camcorders, GPS, TV's and cell phones. It also offers jewelry, furniture, kitchen gadgets, travel insurances, a very diverse branch of wines, eyewear and clothes, so the page you were imagining could be www.wishnpick.com. Wishnpick does not only offer all the previous products but also has them at extremely low prices. So if you are looking for an electronic product, looking to refurnish your house, or for some clothes, wishnpick is the web page to visit. There is one additional feature in this web site that consist on a variety of links that will guide the user to web sites were there are items that wishnpick does not possess and the user wants.
More at:http://www.wishnpick.com/

How To Take Financial Decision Through Mortgagesum.com

Mortgagesum.com is a very useful web site for people that don't know much about how interest rates work, or how mortgages work. The web sites gives the users the chance to introduce all the data that they have in order to make a decision, and the web site gives the user the correct decision to take after doing some calculations. It can calculate mortgages, refinance, loan, debt, etc. So people that can't make the decision on their own wether to buy or rent a house, or decisions of that type will be very happy with mortgagesum.com. A very important feature of this web page is that it is completely free!
Their mission is to help educate people about all aspects of mortgages, loans and financing calculations and provide tools and resources to simplify the process. We take pride in offering all of our tools & resources FREE to our users, and strive to bring our users new and exciting services that are often a pay service elsewhere.
More at:http://www.mortgagesum.com/

Thursday, July 26, 2007

ComScore is refining its website audience measurement system for the purpose of helping advertisers better direct their marketing campaigns

ComScore is refining its website audience measurement system for the purpose of helping advertisers better direct their marketing campaigns.

With ad budgets increasing for the online market, it’s even more important to target the right audience and appeal in the most effective way. The new system will separate online audiences into heavy, medium and light users, categorized respectively as 20%, 30% and 50% of the audiences. This expounds on the traditional metrics that consider time spent online as applied to the entire audience.

Having improving measurement systems is additionally important with the rise of niche social networks and new advertising mediums, including widgets, online videos, and the mobile market. Nielsen has been making some changes in its NetRatings and video measurement systems, where several new features were added as well. ComScore’s recent WidgetMetrix report was also expected to have an effect on web analytics.
More at:http://www.comscore.com/

Via-Mashable

Vator.tv is one for entrepreneurs and investors

If you want to put great idea to prospective business partners, investors, service providers and fellow entrepreneurs just got easier with Vator.tv—a new venture that combines online video and networking. Based on the proverbial elevator pitch—the notion that you should be able to sum up a new business venture in the few minutes it takes to ride an elevator—Vator.tv is an online marketplace for new ideas. “Anyone, across all industries, at any stage, can share ideas, products, services and businesses with the rest of the world, mainly through video.”

Users sign up for a free account. They then create pitches for their ideas, projects or businesses in a rich media environment by uploading video, images, PPT or PDF files. They can choose to share their pitches with a personal network or with the entire Vator.tv community. Users build their networks by inviting friends to join or browsing through other ideas and connecting with like-minded people on the site. The website includes tips on creating compelling pitches, such as how to pack the most punch into a three-minute video clip.

Vator.tv has some big names behind it, including angel investors Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, Richard Rosenblatt, former Chairman of MySpace, and Georges Harik, a former Google executive who helped build Google's AdSense technology. What's more, the company is already putting its money where it's mouth is by hiring a Pakistani group of web developers who won the business through their very own video pitch. Another promising application of video technology in a Web 2.0 environment, Vator.tv is one for entrepreneurs and investors to keep their eyes on.

More at: www.vator.tv

How To Get Most Popular Post On Net

There are over 86 million blogs, and each one has an RSS feed. All it takes is a few subscriptions to the sites that interest you, and your feed reader is overwhelmed with a never-ending stream of hundreds of headlines. Like an aide or a personal assistant, AideRSS helps to filter and rank these feeds based on a number of criteria to help you read what matters, ensure that you find the good stuff, and to help keep things organized and manageable.
This could save a lot of time for people who don't want to search through to find out what the most popular posts are or to people who are subscribed to many posts that may not be interesting or popular enough for them to waste their time reading.
More at: http://www.aiderss.com/

CampusExplorer Is For Finding Your DreamUniversity

CampusExplorer.com is dedicated to helping students, parents and counselors find the information and support needed while researching and applying to post secondary schools. Choosing the right school is an important life decision and CampusExplorer.com is here to offer guidance throughout this decision making process by providing free, easy-to-use tools, expert advice and objective information. Consider us your personal college and career counselors available 24/7, to help match you with the right program at the right school, organize and track your applications and determine your ideal tuition options.
CampusExplorer has a clean, easy to navigate user interface. There are plenty of search options and refinements. The autosuggest function for narrowing down fields of study is useful especially if you don’t know what you really want to study. CampusExplorer is filled with information that’s readily accessible (unlike most university web pages). It’s a great resource for the college bound.
More at:http://www.campusexplorer.com/

CollegeMailer Is Student Club Mangement Site

CollegeMailer offers student clubs all the tools they need from one platform: club sign-up, event calendar, membership management, targeted emails, event creation with invitation and RSVP, survey administration, web site design, online fee collection and sharing of information across clubs. In addition, CollegeMailer offers a custom Student Life Portal Edition for universities and colleges allowing school-wide administration, monitoring, communication and event creation.
Club officers currently go to several different sites to accomplish all of their tasks. With CollegeMailer, they have all they need from one place. The creation of a network of club officers nationwide offers a wealth of connections and information that will prove useful to incoming officers of a club. On top of the benefits for club officers and students, CollegeMailer as a Student Life portal solution allows schools to implement a fully integrated web application which allows them to have greater level of customization and monitoring capabilities.
More at: http://www.collegemailer.com/

Zotero is an easy-to-use yet powerful research tool

Zotero is an easy-to-use yet powerful research tool that helps you gather, organize, and analyze sources (citations, full texts, web pages, images, and other objects), and lets you share the results of your research in a variety of ways. An extension to the popular open-source web browser Firefox, Zotero includes the best parts of older reference manager software (like EndNote)—the ability to store author, title, and publication fields and to export that information as formatted references—and the best parts of modern software and web applications (like iTunes and del.icio.us), such as the ability to interact, tag, and search in advanced ways.
Zotero has all the capabilities of reference software like Endnote, and it’s free. It’s relatively easy to use, and it has both offline and online functionality. For researchers it’s a must have. It’s even got Google Doc integration.
More at:http://www.zotero.org/

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Venture Capitalist Watch

Respectance allows you to quickly and easily create a page for an individual that passed away.
Respectance has launched with a site to allow a page to quickly and easily be created as a memorial for those that passed away.

From the Respectance website "If a picture says a thousand words, movies and sound say even more. Respectance allows visitors to upload photos evoking special memories. Visitors select their favorite photos, background music and theme which are all automatically mixed into a special video clip, suitable for downloading or delivery on DVD.

Respectance lets individuals create, show, experience and share their emotions. We enable memories and emotions to become a rich, personalized, multimedia tribute that contributes to the healing process."
They Raised:Respectance received $1.5 Million from Solid Ventures and Big Bang Ventures.
More at:http://www.respectance.com/

Grockit, the online test preparatory school

Grockit, the online test preparatory school, has secured $2.3 million of a $2.7 million Series A round. The round was led by Benchmark Capital, and Mitch Lasky has been appointed to Grockit’s board.

Launched by Fabrood Nivi, an award-winning exam preparatory instructor, Grockit offers a more cost efficient alternative for test takers, and is taught via WebEx. You can get 16 90-minute sessions with GMAT review text books for about $400. You even get public office hours with the deal. As more information is disseminated online, people are finding more web-based tools for educational purposes. While there is no social networking involved, Grockit demonstrates the continuing shift of using the Internet for the sharing of information.

Similar sites for education include xLingo, Tutorom and WizIQ. Similar sites for instructional video include LessonBites and 5min.
More at:http://gmat.grockit.com/

How To Become Entrepreneur

You can become a toy retailer by purchasing products from wholesalers, then reselling them through your own website, through websites like eBay or through a brick-and-mortar store.

That's the route Pat Cuartero, 26, and Weber Hsu, 27, of YoYoNation.com, an online yo-yo seller, took to become toy tycoons, with projected 2007 sales of $1.1 million. Just two years ago, when the guys were assistant vice presidents on Wall Street, it occurred to Cuartero, who is a world yo-yo champion, that there wasn't a good source for the high-tech yo-yos he uses to impress judges and audiences. Starting their online business part time, the pair soon found themselves getting just one hour of sleep a night to keep up with orders. Within a year, they both quit their six-figure jobs to devote all their time to the New York City business.

Cuartero found product vendors by tapping into industry contacts he made while on the yo-yo competition circuit, but most new toy sellers have to find their products the old-fashioned way: through research and sales calls. Fortunately, toy fairs and the internet have made locating products easier.

What's more, you don't even necessarily have to stash your stock in a warehouse or your home or garage, as Cuartero and Hsu currently do. Depending on the type of toy you are selling, you may be able to enter into a drop-shipping agreement, where you take orders for the product and turn them over to the manufacturer, who in turn ships toys directly to the customers. As a drop-shipper, you will earn a percentage on each toy you sell--and all you need to do is write the order, process the payment and forward it to the manufacturer.

Internet sales portals such as YoYoNation.com are rapidly becoming the sales channels of choice for new toy sellers, especially since it can be very difficult to catch the eye of big-box retailers. With a minimal investment, it's possible to get a website up and running quickly, and such sales channels are no longer seen as the stepchildren of the retail industry.
More at:http://www.yoyonation.com/
Via-Entrep

Genius Platform designed to provide business end users with instant access to critical customer response and behavior data on corporate web sites

Genius Platform The Genius platform is an on demand, real time, 1-1 marketing and analytics system designed to provide business end users with instant access to critical customer response and behavior data on corporate web sites. The Genius platform integrates key elements of web analytics, marketing automation and CRM to present real-time web behavior data as individual customers click through corporate web sites in response to emails and other online media channels.
With genius.com's technology business people can zero in with sniper-like focus and get right to the needle in the haystack without messing around with the not lucrative clients and barking up the wrong tree. With an entry level technology program starting at $29 a month and the highest at $79, Genius.com should have no problem signing up a ton of salesmen.
more at:http://genius.com/

Second Rotation is the safest and easiest destination on the Web for selling your consumer electronics

Second Rotation is the safest and easiest destination on the Web for selling your consumer electronics. Our dynamic pricing calculator helps you determine the value of your gadgets and sell them through one easy online service. We’re working diligently to deliver smart and flexible options for you to sell your gadgets such as digital cameras, laptop computers and MP3 Players, for on-the-spot value! No hassle, no hidden catches, just cash in your pocket! Always THINK Value! At Second Rotation our core ideology runs central to all that we do. Our team is working around the clock to build and sustain a massive repository of data to support our online selling programs. As we continue to enhance our solutions and expand the arsenal of data, we will increase our ability to present you with new and exciting solutions. Second Rotation was founded in 2006 and is currently led by experienced Internet and technology veterans Rousseau Aurelien, Israel Ganot and James McElhiney. Mindful of the pros and cons of online reselling, they teamed up to leverage their experience, know-how and leadership to launch Second Rotation, Inc.
More at:http://www.secondrotation.com/

Earn While Searching

iRazoo is a user recommended, points driven, search engine. Your benefits for using iRazoo: You get excellent search results (we aggregate all the data from the best search engines on the planet!) You get to help further refine our excellent search results for others as well as benefit from other's refined search results You get points for each search you peform, each website you recommend/not recommend, and each referral you make Best of all, you get to exchange your points for fantastic prizes.
For each site a member searches and rates, they receive points. Those points can then be traded in for music, cameras, MP3 players, etc. Not a bad deal. The question is whether the site is a better deal for the member earning points or the browser just looking for the right information.
More at:http://www.irazoo.com/

CarGuru

CarGurus is an online automotive community. Are you looking for a new or used car? Trying to get rid of your old beater and can't figure out what it's worth? We can help! We help people share information about their cars, as well as related services, parts, and accessories. Whether it's an article about a 2000 Corvette, user review of a classic 1965 Ford Mustang, someone's photo of their customized Toyota Camry, or a simple question about a 1996 Civic, CarGurus strives to connect people with the information they need. CarGurus is the place where automotive knowledge is shared.
You may also list a car for free with CarGurus.com, which is quite amazing when you think about it, if you were to list a car on eBay.com it could easily cost up to 5% of the total price of the car, which needless to say can be quite a bit if you are selling an expensive car.
More at:http://www.cargurus.com/

How To Find Business Partners

For those people who has had some grand business project coming up and you need some partners, OA will find them for you. All you’ve got to do is enter in some information about your biz, upload work samples, add the company profile, and then write down what kind of partner you need. OA will then introduce you to potential new partners. You’ll save money while your new partnership will bring in new revenue streams. You can try it for free for a full year. Only companies with proven track records are allowed to join.
What They Will Do For You:OA allows your company to forge vital new partnerships at a low cost. Companies can expand globally which would otherwise prove much more difficult. Only reliable companies are included, so you don’t have to worry. It’s a good way to expand your business, plain and simple.
More at:http://www.opportunityalert.com/

Monday, July 23, 2007

Million-Dollor Wife

For Lindsay Holt, starting a business two years ago with her new husband already has paid off in an end run around maternal guilt.

For years, as a single mom working for a catalog company in the San Francisco Bay area, she used to leave for work before her daughter Danni, then in middle school, was awake. Holt helped Danni get moving in the morning by phone from the ferry as she commuted.

"That was just gut-wrenching," Holt recalled.

It was on the sidelines of one of Danni's soccer games that Holt was inspired to start the business that now allows her to make breakfast for her daughter and drive her to school. At the matches, Lindsay and her husband Tate noticed mothers complaining about having to run back home to fetch jerseys, shin guards and other items the kids forgot to pack.

After six months of research and patent searches, they launched Nagtags, electronic checklists that kids can attach to sports bags and backpacks. They put in $50,000 of their own money, excluding salary sacrifices, and raised about $575,000 from investors since incorporating in mid-2005.

The Holts are doing what many parents long to pursue. Being your own boss with the ability to work from home is the holy grail for many families, though the financial risks can be great.

Parents often have to sacrifice the regular income, employer-sponsored health insurance and other tax-favored benefits that make covering bills, planning for contingencies and saving for retirement easier and automatic. But the upside can be lucrative for people who find a market for their product or service, small-business experts say.

Nagtags Inc.'s two employees diverge in their tolerance for risk. "I've been a steady paycheck kind of person for a long time, so it takes some getting used to," said Lindsay Holt.

Tate Holt said he's more comfortable with uncertainty. "Having been through peaks and valleys of consulting for 15 years, I'm used to periods where there's comfort and then periods where there's panic."

Their family is in good company. About half of all U.S. businesses are home-based. Two-thirds of new businesses with at least one employee survive at least two years, and 44% survive at least four years, according to the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy.

Strategies for success

Entrepreneur Tamara Monosoff interviewed 17 successful businesswomen for her new book, "Secrets of Millionaire Moms." Among them was Julie Clark, creator of Baby Einstein, the video series for infants now owned by Disney.

"She said she couldn't do it all," Monosoff said of Clark, who found it increasingly difficult to do housework and grocery shopping on top of running her business. "As her revenue started building up she did take some money out to get that type of support."

Another "millionaire mom," Lane Nemeth, founded and led Discovery Toys for 20 years. The business nearly ran out of money three times but eventually rang up $100 million in annual sales. Nemeth sold that company to Avon a decade ago and is now chief executive of Petlane, a home-based party-plan business that sells pet products, based in Concord, Calif.

Nemeth advises parent entrepreneurs not to expect a home-based enterprise to free up their schedules.

"If you're serious about building a business, you're going to marry that darned thing," she said. "You do have more flexibility, but you don't more have free time."
More at:http://www.startupjournal.com/howto/soundadvice/20070702-gerencher.html?refresh=on

PriceFad is a new site that lets you see the historical price trends of a particular product, to help you see if today’s price is really the bestprice

PriceFad is a new site that lets you see the historical price trends of a particular product, to help you see if today’s price is really the best price.

The service pulls data from all over the web to accumulate the price history of particular items. You just type in the name of a product that you’re looking for, and PriceFad will give you the historical price points for that item on a graph. View by month, week or day, and see the data for a range of 1 day to a year. Toggle between average and detailed reports. You can chart the price history of two additional products for comparison purposes, which are provided in drop down boxes that list items available for you to choose from. There is also the option of having email alerts sent to you when a price changes, or you can subscribe to a product via RSS.

This site has a large amount of data for electronic items, such as GPS trackers, monitors, memory cards and television screens. This is probably due to the exacting nature of the product names. It would be additionally helpful to be able to enter the URL or other identifying mark, such as the ISBN number, to help track more products in more ways. A service like PriceFad could be a great ingredient for all sorts of mashhttp.
More at://www.pricefad.com/

Frogpond Is Meeting Place For Consumers And Online Networks

BzzAgent, the word-of-mouth media network, will launch a new social network within its service on Monday, entitled the Frogpond.

This new section will create a meeting place for consumers and online networks, where users can discover, experience and review online properties in the same manner as they do with other products. Being able to test a new site, track activity and gain user feedback is increasingly important with online communities, and the Frogpond is looking to allow businesses to reach out to an existing database of consumer reviewers (agents) that are willing to test and share information about the services they’ve tried out. The Frogpond will provide tracking tools for the businesses as well as additional sharing tools for the users, as an effort to encourage the “buzz” to start spreading. These tools will include links and badges, and the ability to share via email and instant messengers.

This is another way in which aspects of the offline world are being moved even further into an online world, and having a hub with access to a large, potential user base is something every start-up is looking for. The model has worked so far for TripAdvisor, and about 20 companies will be anxiously awaiting reviewers upon launch, including iVillage, Sportsvite, OurStage, Kayak, Joopz, and more. Similar services include Spigit and TryBeta.
More at:http://www.bzzagent.com/frog/FrogPond.do
via-Mas

AdGridWork is a free advertising network and text link exchange

AdGridWork is a free advertising network and text link exchange. It's 100% free. Thats right folks: Free Advertising. No payments. Ever. Increase your traffic. We have thousands of sites on our network all ready and waiting to freely advertise your website or product. Improve your search engine rankings. Our network of advertisers provides links to your sites which are vital to increasing your rankings. We have attractive advertisement blocks AND text links. Most people are blind to the traditional AdSense ads. Our free ads are fresh, simple and appealing to the eye. Promote to a targeted audience. You can define exactly what types of sites you want your free advertisement to appear on. Registration and setup is a snap. Our service is completely user-friendly. Free metrics and tracking tools for webmasters. We provide your with detailed information on the users viewing your advertiseme.
More at:http://www.adgridwork.com/

Tracking All Blogging Trends

A service designed for marketing and communications practitioners BuzzLogic's on-demand service is designed with the needs of marketing and communications practitioners foremost in mind. Getting going is as easy as entering a search query. All you need to use BuzzLogic is an active subscription, access to a browser and the Internet. And training is a snap. The BuzzLogic service is built around an intuitive, easy-to-use dashboard that quickly guides users to the conversations, influencers and content they need. Easy-to-set up alerts notify practitioners when the volume around a conversation suddenly increases or other variances are exceeded, or even when a specific blogger joins a conversation. Board and management-ready, customizable reports can be exported into popular formats including PDF.
The company shows when certain bloggers blog and when there is a buzz bigger than usual about a certain subject. BuzzLogic can zero in on the subjects that a relevant to you company and alert of of the frequency of certain keywords. The company will make in depth charts and graphs for you to research and can send them to you in PDF format. The service isn't cheap by any means, at $500 bucks a month it will set you back a bit, but the information you can gain from the service can prove to be invaluable.
More at:http://buzzlogic.com/

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Loopt lets you find your friends on a map on your mobile phone

Loopt lets you find your friends on a map on your mobile phone.
Loopt works on mobile phones and using location-based technologies, allows you to know where your friends are by automatically updating maps on your mobile handset.

You may then send messages to nearby friends or receive automatic alerts when they are nearby so that you never miss an opportunity to meet. You can essentially put yourself on a map for your friends to locate you.

You can create a profile, shares photos, and tag places.
They Raised:Loopt received $2.25 Million of a total $12 Million available in their Series B round from New Enterprise Associates and Sequoia Capital.
More at:www.loopt.com

On Making Money With Acrylic Globe

After traveling internationally as a Marine and later as a product developer for a plastics company, in 1981 John Szal combined his love of travel and design in Spherical Concepts (sphericalconcepts.com), a maker of acrylic globes.

The firm's Earth and sky globes, which range in diameter from three inches to five feet, are handcrafted in Frazer, Pa., using a process based on glass blowing. Continents or constellations are silk-screened onto a sheet of acrylic, which is then heated and inflated.

The 12,000 globes sold in 2006 pulled in more than $3 million. Spherical has an exclusive deal with National Geographic Maps and sells globes at upscale retailers, such as Hammacher Schlemmer. In May a four-foot granite globe designed by the company's cartographers was unveiled at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

More at:http://sphericalconcepts.com/main.php
Via-Cnn

Get A Freelancer From Anywhere

What They Claim:
We can help you find freelance programmers, Web Designers and Copywriters. Outsource projects to India, Romania, Ukraine or any other country.Find out why we have thousands of successfully outsourced projects. Post your project today! We can offer freelance programmers, interpreters and graphic designers the ability to work independently. As a freelancer you can choose among hundreds of outsourced projects. Join free and pay only a small commission.
More at:http://getafreelancer.com/

The New Way To Job Search

Amiko is the new resumƩ. The Internet has changed the way people are hired, more and more companies are using online job postings to find employees. Printing and mailing resumƩs can cost and arm and a leg. If you post your resumƩ on a job site, it only works for that site. Amiko allows you to span the job sites, from Monster to Craigslist, just post a link to your Amiko resumƩ and that's it.
Now with My Amiko.com you can create an online resume for yourself free of charge, you can even include a picture of yourself on the resume. Amiko makes it easy to add and or delete things from your resume with the click of a button. With Amiko you can scan job sites such as Monster and Craigslist, and post a link to your resume.
More at:http://myamiko.com/

With ACB2B.com you can find goods to import from China

With ACB2B.com you can find goods to import from China. You can join the site for free and start searching for importers or exporters, heck you can even look for people to hire overseas. Its sort of like an international Craigslist especially for businesses. One of the great things about the site is, it allows you to make your posts in English and the workers at the site will translate your messages into Chinese so you arent pigeonholed into only dealing with Chinese that speak English, you are advertising to the whole lot of them. They also have a full detailed page about how to do business in China, showing some of the different laws you will need to abide by and some cultural differences to be advised of.
There is so much business happening between the US and China between large companies, it is about time for the average entrepreneur to be able to take advantage of the global market that our top companies have been for years. Finally there is a company to help facilitate that.

More at:http://acb2b.com/

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Shelfari, the virtual bookshelf community, is holding a Harry Potter contest: The Seven Days of Harry Potter Seven.

Shelfari, the virtual bookshelf community, is holding a Harry Potter contest: The Seven Days of Harry Potter Seven.

The grand prize is a J.K. Rowling signed, first first-edition copy of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”, the book that started it all. In order to participate, simply add the latest Harry Potter book, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” to your Shelfari bookshelf within seven days of its release, and write a review. Shelfari is taking advantage of the popularity of this book to emphasize the social utility of its site. Groups can be formed around particular books, genres or motifs, and individuals can discover and share information, reviews and opinions about books, encouraging others to read and share themselves.

In other Shelfari news, the company has recently launched its Facebook application, letting users share their bookshelves on their Facebook profiles.
more at:http://www.shelfari.com/

Resolio For Making Your Resume

Resolio can make your life a little bit easier.

Resolio’s resume creation process is full of AJAX goodness. The resume is divided into categories just like it would be on paper, and the resume builder walks you through the step-by-step process of creating all of the necessary sections. After filling out all of the required personal information, hobbies, job information, etc., you can choose from a wide variety of very well designed templates. No longer do employers have to suffer looking through a stack of bland white and black templates, Resolio includes many colorful and bold resume templates.

After you have put the finishing touches on your resume work of art, you have a few choices for publishing. First, you can publish to Resolio’s servers (e.g. http://resolio.com/list/rev2.html). Second, you can embed your resume into your own page using javascript. Third, you can copy the html or XML and paste it into your own page. This is a well designed, feature rich resume builder. I would definitely recommend it.

More at:http://resolio.com/

Goalmigo is a website that helps you achieve your goals

Goalmigo will help you keep track of all your goals. Once you’ve registered simply jot down your goals (quick description, title) and the date by which you’d like to accomplish them. Goalmigo will send out an email to supporters who’ll help you achieve those goals. Along the way you’ll get progress reports which are also sent out to your supporters. If you’ve accomplished your goals you can support others or add others’ goals to your list adjusting them to fit your purposes. Goals can be made public or private. Other useful features include badges, profiles, videos and links.
Goalmigo is a website that helps you achieve your goals. The name Goalmigo is a combination of "goal" and "migo", "migo" taken from the Spanish word amigo meaning friend. Goalmigo encourages users to share their goals and progress with their friends.
more at:http://www.goalmigo.com/

Optimize Ads Placements

If you have ads on your site you want them to be completely visible to your visitors. Depending on the user’s browser, OS and screen resolution, many ads get cut-off and remain below the ‘fold’ (the visible portion of the screen without scrolling). Obviously, no one is going to scroll down just to see an ad, which is why FoldSpy analyzes your site as your visitors see it. Data is collected live and displayed over an interactive overlay. This allows website owners to better place ads so that they are always above the fold. FoldSpy can be installed freely on any site using the FoldSpy hash keyword. Once in place you’ll be able to view your site at various screen sizes and manipulate it as you see fit. The free version using stats collected from all FoldSpy users. For $6 a month FoldSpy will collect data only from your site.
More at:http://www.foldspy.com/

Buy And Sell Time

Monetime is a free online directory for services with integrated e-commerce features available on demand for very low fees. Our aim is to make life easy for individuals that sell services of any sort by providing a) an online presence for sellers with detailed information about their services in a directory that is spiderable by search engines, b) advanced e-commerce features that allow buyers to book their services direct from the seller's profile page and pay online, and c) integrated mutual feedback/review mechanisms that allow users to build trust with other buyers and sellers in the community.
More at:http://www.monetime.com/

Convoq is an innovative provider of SaaS integrated online meeting and live chat systems for sales, marketing, training, service

Convoq is an innovative provider of SaaS integrated online meeting and live chat systems for sales, marketing, training, service and support departments. Its ASAP family is a Flash-based suite featuring live chat and web conferencing capabilities including desktop sharing, PowerPoint presentations, remote desktop control, VoIP audio, video, and Record & Playback. The management team has deep software and collaboration experience and has a core competency in integrating real-time communications into the context of hosted web services such as Salesforce.com. Convoq delivers its software solutions as a subscription-based hosted service, with a flexible, flat-fee pricing model.
More at:http://www.convoq.com/

Friday, July 20, 2007

Share Your Knowledge And Earn

Launchtags lets you create mini-pages about your expertise, interests, know how, hobbies, ideas or just about anything bright and shiny. Use text, pictures, videos, links and RSS feeds to build your page. Share 50% of the advertising revenue brought in by the traffic to your great page. Launchtags.com is simple, free and fun.
Members create mini-pages on which they can post videos, photos and links about their chosen subject. They’ll earn fifty percent of all advertising revenue generated from their pages. Subjects range from books and grandfatherly advice to London Hotels and France. Each contributor is given a profile which also links to each mini-page they’ve created. The Launchpad section plays host to ideas, it’s where you go for inspiration to create your own mini-page. Launchtags is free for everyone.
More at:http://www.launchtags.com/

How To Make Millions With Just Cat Pictures!

Eric Nakagawa, a software developer in Hawaii, posted a single photo of a fat, smiling cat he found on the Internet, with the caption, "I can has cheezburger?" in January, 2007, at a Web site he created. It was supposed to be a joke. Soon after he posted a few more images in the same vein: cute cats with funny captions written in a silly, invented hybrid of Internet shorthand and baby-talk. Then he turned the site into a blog, so that visitors could comment on the postings. What happened after that would have been hard for anyone to predict.

"We just thought, O.K., they're funny,"Nakagawa says. "Suddenly we started getting hits. I was like, where are these coming from?"

He saw traffic on the blog, I Can Has Cheezburger, which he runs with his partner, "Tofuburger" (she refuses to disclose her real name) double each month: 375,000 hits in March, 750,000 in April, 1.5 million in May. Cheezburger now gets 500,000 page views a day from between 100,000 and 200,000 unique visitors, according to Nakagawa. The cheapest ad costs $500 for a week. The most expensive goes for nearly $4,000. Nakagawa, an accidental entrepreneur who saw his successful business materialize out of the ether, quit his programming job at the end of May: "It made more sense to do this and see how big it could get."

Cheezburger's story is unusual in the upper reaches of the blogosphere in that the time between launching and reaching a critical mass of readers who sustain the site is so compressed. But many of the most popular bloggers have similar tales of starting out with a niche idea—an inside joke, a particular obsession—and watching it explode. Of course, most blogs linger in obscurity and are read by only a handful of people, and few ever reach the level Cheezburger has. What about a blog like Cheezburger lets it break away from the pack?

The initial appeal of the blog may have been a fluke, but its growth since then has been part of a tightly controlled experiment to help answer that question. Nakagawa and his partner constantly tweak the site to see what draws readers and what leaves them cold.

"We basically have a playground where people keep coming to play, so we're trying to create new games all the time,"Nakagawa says.

To drive traffic, they try to time their new posts with when people are most likely to be reading: in the mornings, on their lunch breaks, or in the evenings. Early on, when Nakagawa saw the site getting 1,000 page views a day, he added a widget that allows visitors to rate each post on a scale of one to five cheeseburgers. That helped boost traffic to 2,000.

Readers don't just rate or comment on the posts. They create them. Cheezburger depends on its fans to submit pictures, write funny captions, and send them in. Nakagawa has built a tool to let readers select a ready-made photo or upload their own, add and position captions, choose font styles, and submit a finished product. Any visitor can vote on the submissions, and the most popular ones make it to the main page. The function saves Nakagawa from having to find funny captions for photos, and it creates a lasting bond with readers.

That kind of interaction helps make I Can Has Cheezburger as much a community as a blog. A post by one user will inspire another to play off the theme, forming a narrative. "It's like you're creating a story supplied by people in the community, and then the people in the community supply the next part of the story,"Nakagawa says.
The idea of building a community around content supplied by users sustains several top blogs, and most put the idea of community ahead of making money.
More at:http://icanhascheezburger.com/

File123 is a secure online storage vault that allows businesses and households to store, search and retrieve paper and digital files

File123 is a secure online storage vault that allows businesses and households to store, search and retrieve paper and digital files. Users can fax or scan paper documents and email or upload computer files. Each account features: • 1 GB of storage for free and only $4.95 per month for 10 GB. • Create unlimited number of folders • Share large files with anyone via email • PDF file conversion allow the user to download either their original file or a PDF document. • OCR: Each file is read by our optical character recognition engine and every keyword is indexed for easy searching. • Site secured by Hacker-safe and Verisign SSL • Data secured by Amazon S3’s redundant data warehousing services • The site was built using all the latest Web 2.0 standards.
More at:http://www.file123.com/

Price Protectr "It will monitor the prices of products you buy online and see if they go down "

Price Protectr is site for the consumer. It will monitor the prices of products you buy online and see if they go down (which apparently they often do). They will then notify you and you can collect your refund. Normally, you buy a product online knowing they have a price protection policy, but it is up to you to monitor the prices and ask for a refund. Who would do that? The site monitors 33 major stores including Amazon, Best Buy, Circuit City, Costco, Future Shop, Sears and Staples. All you have to do to get the service started is enter the URL of the product you bought and wait for the good news. Of course, it is up to you at that point to go back to the online store and start the refund process; but Price Protectr does offer detailed instructions on how to handle that process at most of its stores.
This site demonstrates the beauty of the internet. This site will help you reap money, for free. All you have to do is join, record you purchases at those stores with price protected policies, and wait.
More at:http://www.priceprotectr.com/

Get Your eCommerce Site With BlinkCart

BlinkCart will change your eCommerce experience .Get your eCommerce site rolling on some serious wheels with BlinkCart, a service that allows you to add a shopping cart to any page that supports HTML or Javascript codes. That means this shopping cart already works with your current website with nothing to download or install, given that it’s a fully web-based system. Sign up for a free trial account on the website and then choose your payment method, including PayPal, Check, or Bank Deposit. Then, add the products you wish to market, and copy and paste the button code on to your webpage. Your shopping cart will be up on your website in five minutes or less, making it the most convienient and affordable way to boost sales on your site.
How It Works:Works with your existing web pages •Accept multiple payment methods (Paypal, Cheque, Bank Deposit, etc.) •Shipping calculation (fixed or by weight) •Sales tax, VAT calculation •Product specific discount code support •Product thumbnail & stock level support •Online orders & inventory management system •Fully web based system. Nothing to download or install.
More at:http://www.blinkcart.com/

Locate Your Nearest Golf Course Via BunkerShot

BunkerShot has an information rich website showing where the nearest and best courses are to wherever you happen to be located. There are even instructional videos on the site to show you how to cure that slicing problem you have or how to grip the club like Tiger Woods, you can even book your tee time online through BunkerShot. The site has an RSS feed that you can subscribe to to make sure that you are always in the know about what is going on in the golf world, and my personal favorite, a golf dictionary to figure out all of that crazy golf jargon.
More at:http://bunkershot.com/

Honeypitch fuses a proposal automation solution with CRM and business productivity tools.

Honeypitch fuses a proposal automation solution with CRM and business productivity tools. Quickly combine a presentation, proposal, estimate and contract into an invite-only website that can be negotiated online. The goal is to enable teams to create the perfect pitch of ideas, services, and products that generates immediate feedback and results. Each highly-personalized "Honeypitch" has version-controlled sections and topic-based message boards that allows both parties to agree to terms with confidence.
HoneyPitch will assign you anywhere from 1 to 50 employees depending on the package that you choose just to help you make your pitch the best and most effective that it could be. They can help you acquire sponsors, raise venture capital, or just about whatever you need HoneyPitch.com will find a way to help you get it. With affordable rates that start off at free (it doesn't get much more affordable than that, does it) up to $200 a month, you can get the help you need now.
More at:http://honeypitch.com/

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Make Millions With Unusual Trade Associations

Pop quiz: What do birthing classes, spice sellers and crematoriums have in common -- besides bracketing the cycle of life?

Give up? They all have trade associations run by the quietest and fastest-growing company on K Street, SmithBucklin.

The Chicago-based firm (with a major Washington office) is the world's largest trade association management company. Its more than 200 trade associations and professional societies include Lamaze International, the American Spice Trade Association and the Cremation Association of North America.

These are not what you'd call high-profile entities, but that's the way SmithBucklin likes it. The company has stayed in the background, helping obscure but useful organizations, since 1949.

"People say, 'My God, there's really an industry for this?' " said Henry S. Givray, SmithBucklin's chief executive. "They don't fully grasp what we do."

What it does is operate full-time trade associations on what amounts to part-time budgets. It hires professional managers -- or develops them from within -- and assigns them to run one or two trade groups. Then it backs them up with teams of experts in accounting, training, marketing, event planning, human resources and, here in Washington, government affairs.

Voila, instant trade association! And the associations' members are none the wiser. Independent associations, however, are not always pleased with the competition. "Stand-alone association execs can sometimes get a little nervous about what we do," Givray said.

But clearly it's working well. SmithBucklin has grown at a compounded annual rate of 11 percent over the past five years and has 750 employees. Its industry (yes, it is an industry) comprises 676 companies, up more than 40 percent from 10 years ago.

Washington is, of course, a major hub for associations. Of the nation's 86,000 trade associations and professional societies, 3,500 are located in the D.C. area, more than in any other locale.

So SmithBucklin has a large and growing office here. In May, it hired Russell Snyder, 45, as senior vice president for its 160-person Washington office. Snyder, who last worked at SmithBucklin's largest competitor, Kellen Co., is a third-generation association executive.

Snyder's grandfather Calvin Snyder worked for the predecessor of the National Association of Realtors. His father, Dick Snyder, was the top executive of the National Lumber and Building Material Dealers Association. Dick Snyder was also responsible for roping his son into supervising associations for a living.

Russ Snyder has had responsibility over a weird and eclectic collection of groups: the National Candle Association, the Asphalt Roofing Manufacturers Association and the Greeting Card Association, among others. He now helps oversee three floors of a building on M Street NW that house 25 associations and a six-person lobbying shop. The associations include a few that you might have even heard of: the Pet Food Institute and the Regional Airline Association, for example.

Snyder's office also conducts back-office functions for the Managed Funds Association, which represents one of the country's most controversial businesses -- hedge funds.

Snyder said he enjoys his new job and would recommend it to the next generation of Snyders. In the meantime, he has had to spend a lot of time just keeping his clients' acronyms straight.

More at:http://www.smithbucklin.com/
Via-WashingtonPost

Splunk,a system that could accurately track a transaction

Splunk,a system that could accurately track a transaction as it traversed the entire enterprise stack. If the transaction broke somewhere along the way, their software could help IT discover the cause of that failure. While it was clearly a pain point for some businesses, there was no clear customer and the value proposition was a relatively hard one to articulate. But the technology they were building created a whole lot of intelligence built on the fumes of the data center (namely the log files).
They had figured out that if they could track, manage and correlate log files across the entire data center in near real time, that they could create the killer IT Search Engine that would allow an end user to see into their enterprise stack in a way never before possible. The Splunk works using Voip data and how one could track all systems that touched a particular extension by simply searching for that extension in the Splunk engine. It was clearly a better way to manage the massive amounts of IT data that exist in enterprises today.
Splunk team has built precisely what they promised -- a large-scale, high-speed search technology for your data center. But despite the fact that Splunk's software has been downloaded by over 100,000 users and despite the fact that there are now more than 350 paying enterprise customers (including 21st Century Insurance, BEA, British Telecom, Catholic Healthcare West, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Comcast, Dow Jones, FedEx, Fiserv, GE Consumer Finance, LinkedIn, Mantech, Mozilla.org, NASA, Shopzilla, Telstra, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Department of State, Vodafone and Yahoo!), I would still have a tough time answering the question posed by my Limited Partner.

Splunk has not built an application. Nor is Splunk merely selling software. Splunk has created a software enabled platform that continues to be extremely broadly applicable. Is Splunk mission critical when it comes to maintaining availability of large scale enterprise systems? Yes. Is Splunk invaluable in the fight to maintain the security of your data center? Yes. Does Splunk uniquely simplify the process of data compliance? Yes. Can Splunk help you dig into your data and analyze it like no other solution? Yes. But, frankly, that's just the tip of the iceberg -- once you are able to query individual pieces of data across your entire data center in real time, the applicability of the platform is limited only by the creativity of its end users. And those end users are driving value back into the platform, creating applications we hadn't thought of before.
More at:http://www.splunk.com/

ZoomInfo is a business related people search engine

ZoomInfo is the premier business information search engine, with profiles on more than 35 million people and 3.8 million companies. ZoomInfo delivers a single site for quick and easy access to in-depth information on industries, companies, people, products, services and jobs. Find out more about how ZoomInfo can work for you.
The site aims to cover a large field. Search by company, people or job. Refine your search by geography or revenue. ZoomInfo will list info about where a person has worked as well as career highlights. If you need something more extensive, ZoomInfo has something called PowerSearch. It gives you the ability to perform in-depth people and company searches.
More at:http://www.zoominfo.com/

TagTogga

TagTooga is going to change your experience of searching on internet. Dont go for Googles, the MSNs and the Yahoos, which all basically give you the same results, check out TagTooga.com, TagTooga will show you results that you might had never found if you went through the regular search routes. Anyone can submit their site to TagTooga as well, it is a simple 1 minute process. It is a totally free directory that anyone can edit. If there is a site that you like, and you think it should be more easily seen by the internet searching public, submit it in to the site and it will show up in search results, its that simple.
More at:http://tagtooga.com

Mirro For You"Its New Media Player"

Miro is a free, open-source software project led by a non-profit organization. It's a platform that benefits everyone by keeping online video open. Our organization isn't controlled by venture capitalists or stockholders, which means we always put our users first. Open video will only have a real impact if it can reach a mass audience. Your ideas and efforts work better than any paid marketing campaign, because it comes from somewhere real.
Miro is downloadable for absolutely free and also has an emphasis on the open source video market, hence the old name, Democracy TV. Miro boasts that it has more HD TV than any other media player, which is an excellent selling point since laptops and recent computers are HD compatible. With Miro you can watch over 1500 free channels, and now on to the really cool stuff... You can download and save videos from YouTube and program Miro to automatically download any videos that show up within your search criteria.
More at:http://getmiro.com/

Snooth is a wine review and recommendation service

Snooth is a wine review and recommendation service that launched early last month. The idea is simple--provide a few simple ratings of wines you like or dislike, and Snooth will serve up ones it thinks you'll enjoy. It runs on a similar system to the one you find on Netflix, with one to five star ratings, and a bevy of user reviews. The system currently has a listing of over 1.5 million wines, and if you can't find one you've had or liked in the past, you can simply add it.

In addition to showing user rants and raves, Snooth pulls professional reviews from online publications, which it pools into separate ratings. Each wine's page also features the option to buy it from one of the partnered wine dealers, which will jump you off Snooth's site, and onto their online store. In most cases, I found that the deals on the partner sites weren't that much better than the prices at my local wine dealer, but it's nice to have that option.

There's also a friends system, with user profiles that let you see what your Snooth buddies have been rating on the site, and an RSS feed in case you feel like keeping tabs in your favorite feed reader.


I like Snooth. I think it's simple to use, and does its job. After just five ratings you start getting recommendations, which is handy. As for actually purchasing wine online, I think I'll stick to my favorite.
More at:http://www.snooth.com/

Oh, don’t forget is a very simple tool used to send text message reminders

Oh, don’t forget is a very simple tool used to send text message reminders.

After entering your cell number, the date and time you want the message to be sent, and the message, Oh, don’t forget sends out the text message to your phone free of charge. This is a really handy tool for keeping track of those fleeting thoughts and random appointments that are thrown at you each day.

As explained in the F.A.Q. of the site, the service works without knowing the cell phone provider because “ohdontforget is actually one half web application, and one half magic voodoo potion. Even I’m not sure how the magic voodoo potion works :)” Makes sense to me.
More at:http://ohdontforget.com/

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Pat Pending

When we were alerted to online retailer Pat Pending, it sounded promising: customers can buy exclusive rights to a design, allowing them to resell copies of a garment, or resell their rights to the design. Interesting new business model, right?

What would make this concept worthwhile, is if a customer could buy the rights to a truly unique design. Think a Threadless-like graphic on a t-shirt, or a quirky dress designed by a talented fashion student. (In their defence, Pat Pending is currently asking designers to submit designs that slogans can be printed in/on.) Buy and sell those designs, produce and ship the goods, add easy to operate, no-inventory webshops like Zlio, and you've created an innovative service that adds value for all parties involved. A bit like Etsy, the marketplace for handmade products, but for people who are better at selling than creating. Consumers across the world are designing and creating products, while others increasingly use the web to become part-time shopkeepers. An online design brokerage could match part-time designers with part-time sellers, each focusing on what they do best. One to start? If you do, be sure to let us know .
More at: www.patpendingstore.com

Healthline provides a search engine for health and health related items.

Healthline raised : $21 Million from GE/NBC Universal's Peacock Equity Fund, Aetna Ventures, Kaiser Permanente Ventures, U.S. News and World Report, VantagePoint Venture Partners and Reed Elsevier Ventures.
Healthline was founded as YourDoctor.com in 1999 and stuck around until it was re-launched as Healthline Networks in 2005. According to Healthline, they have become a top 10 health information destination site with over 4.2 million monthly unique visitors generating over 17 million page views per month.

Their current search engine Healthline.com provides comprehensive health content, from information on diseases to symptoms and drugs. Their search engine was developed in conjunction with physicians. They have an astounding terminology database of over one million medical terms and consumer-friendly synonyms, as well as 70,000 medical concepts. Their taxonomy gives structure and organization to the information.

Interesting virtual world and market place.
More at:www.healthline.com

With Ebates You Can Make Money While Shopping Online

Ebates finds all the rebates online and collects them for you after you have purchased an online product. All you have to do is register, search for the item/product you want, buy the product and your cash back will return in your Ebates account.They have 800+ stores to buy from linked to their site, including all of the major brand stores. It's brilliant in its simplicity, actually. They even guarantee that you will receive your check from them every three months, that your earnings from the stores will be posted as soon as they receive them, and that your private information will be secure and confidential.
Ebates is all about saving money and getting Cash Back whenever you shop online. When you become a member and shop through Ebates, you can save literally thousands of dollars every year on the things you're already buying.
More at:http://www.ebates.com/

Connectbeam utilizes the technology that made other social networking sites prosperous and is transforming it to work in the context of business

Connectbeam utilizes the technology that made other social networking sites prosperous and is transforming it to work in the context of business. The site is testimonial rich from well know computer magazines and was listed in InformationWeek as one of 5 Enterprise 2.0 startups to watch. Connectbeam is privately held and venture backed.
The company has received attention from the Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch and many other blogs, and Gartner and other analyst firms. Connectbeam brings the 'Web 2.0' information-sharing, collaboration, and ease of use of sites like MySpace and del.icio.us to the daily work-flow of enterprise employees. It helps companies boost innovation, improve decisions, intensify collaboration, and build critical stakeholder relationships. Connectbeam was founded by experienced entrepreneurs with decades of experience in the enterprise software market. The company is venture backed and privately held.
More at:http://connectbeam.com/

Connecting Entrepreneurs

Cofoundr is a private community for entrepreneurs -- programmers, designers, investors, and other individuals deeply involved with starting new ventures. Members use this site to find co-founders, build teams, and get advice. The site is currently in public beta.
It’s a place to network with people who are interesting in starting up a new venture on the web. Ideas are everywhere, but you need a team to turn them into reality, well, a virtual reality, in a completely different sense of the word. Sign in and start building your profile, specify your abilities and the kinds of people you are looking to network with. Post your idea on the bulletin board or write on the forum. This is about increasing your chances to work with programmers if you’re more talented from the business end, finding promising ventures to invest in, and all of these things vice versa.
Building a proper network for this genre of business is going to be particularly successful, for a couple of reasons. First of all, because besides broader interest networks like LinkdIn or informal, decentralized discussion boards and networking are currently the only options for us. Secondly, because it’s more intelligent than simply uploading a profile and maybe some interests, it’s specifically designed so that you can network specifically to build a team and get your startup rolling. Kudos for this much overdue and well designed network.
More at:www.cofoundr.com

Download World Cinemas With"Jaman"

Jaman invites you to pop up the Jiffy and enjoy world cinema, without burning though your pockets at the Cineplex. Download and experience the magic of movies and then discuss them with other film aficionados. Jaman has created a portal that’s opening up a whole new world of social cinema, with high def films from all over the world with three full-length features. Watch, discuss, and watch it again if you want, best of all, you won’t have to worry about sneaking gummy bears past security to enjoy a spectacular cinematic adventure.
More at:http://www.jaman.com/
Via-Killerstartups