Tuesday, April 10, 2007

SitePal

What can you use SitePal for?
Business websites and blogs can use SitePal to:

Welcome visitors with a friendly message
Explain FAQs
Give a tour of your website and point out special features
Explain how to sign up for your RSS feed or your newsletter
Increase sales on landing pages, by providing a virtual sales clerk to orient visitors who arrive after clicking through an advertisement
It’s pretty easy to get started.

For small business websites and blog sites, I recommend the custom avatar. It is more personalized. However, you also could start out with one of the standard characters that Oddcast provides. Pick one that fits your style and personality — have fun with it.
For more:http://www.smallbiztrends.com/sitepal/

Analysis Of Online Venture Or Baby Boomers

Looking for a growth market for your next online venture? Look no further than the 50+ market.

The number of U.S. adults over age 50 will soar over the next ten years. In fact, U.S. Census Bureau data shows that 50+ adults will be the only growth demographic — measured by age — between now and 2015 as the massive Baby Boomer generation enters its 50s and 60s.




Plenty of companies hesitate when it comes to marketing new products to Boomers — especially products with a technology focus. Many marketers adhere to traditional — and wrong-headed — thinking about older consumers: They’ve already made their brand choices and can’t be interested in anything new. They’re resistant to change. They don’t adapt well to new technology.

Marketers will tell you the big opportunity lies in young consumers, because that’s where you can convert a “customer for life.” But with today’s ultra-dynamic product marketplace, the notion of acquiring lifetime customers is obsolete, perhaps with the exception of mundane consumer products such as toothpaste and soap. The pace of product change is just too great for any company to hold on to consumers that long.

What’s more, Baby Boomers are just as open to new products as younger consumers. This is a generation that has broken the mold during every stage of life — and middle age is no different. As Boomers hit midlife, they’re open to a wide range of new products and experiences — just as they have at every other stage of life.

In fact, Boomers always have been at the forefront when it comes to embracing new products and technologies. During the course of their adult lives, Boomers have embraced personal computers, cell phones, PDAs, e-mail, and voicemail, and a wide range of other products.

“Boomers are leading the companies that are bringing new technologies to the world,” says Anne Wall, senior vice president of C&R Research, a Chicago-based market research company that specializes in Boomer consumers. “They’re using it at work, and at home and their kids are using it, too. Their entire lives have been about change.”

When it comes to the Internet, the story is no different. Boomers are using the web at nearly the same rates as other age groups, and in just about the same way. Contrary to the stereotypes, 70 percent of adults age 50 to 64 are online, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, about 12 percentage points less than younger age groups.

And while fewer 50+ Internet users have access to a broadband Internet connection than the general online population, their overall usage patterns mirror other age segments, according to Pew research. They’re more likely than GenX’ers to use the web to gather information, nearly as likely to shop online, and they’re avid consumers of digital health information.
For More:http://smallbiztrends.com/

Business Pundit

Tom Davenport explains why Enterprise Web 2.0 won't take off, but I think he misunderstands what it would be used for. No one thinks that all employees have equally good ideas about how to run the company. The point is to use processes that do allow good ideas to filter to the top, regardless of where they came from.

Fortune wonders if Siberia will be the next Silicon Valley.

Sarah Tavel writes about the venture capital process when you are outside the valley.

Selling products by word of mouth has benefits and pitfalls.

The venom of crowds - what to do when you are attacked online.
For More:http://www.businesspundit.com/

71 Miles

71 Miles is a new travel site with a blog twist (or is it a blog with a travel site twist?), designed to met the needs of urban-dwellers looking for a weekend getaway. Launched in Beta in Northern California, they plan to go national within the coming months covering destinations within driving distances of major metropolitan cities. Supplemented with interactive maps, slideshows and videos, 71Miles content includes info on activities, sights, hotels and restaurants, written by local authorities with editorial cred to back them up. The site to be well-written and pretty accurate down to the "acid-addled, aged hippie."

Driven by real-time pricing from Kayak's discount hotel booking service and sponsored links from hotels, the "Travel 2.0" site combines word-of-mouth-style info with internet-enabled features to make planning a quick trip way easier than calling a travel agent or hounding friends.
For more:http://71miles.com/

The Art Of Googling

The art of 'Googling' (checking people's backgrounds on the internet via search engine Google) -- which started out as a useful tool for weeding out psychopaths from the online dating game and performing a quick double-check on an applicant's claim about his or her astonishing career -- will soon be an integral part of corporate 1:1 marketing strategies.


With consumers disclosing their most intimate secrets online (voluntarily!), Google has essentially created a 'domestic database', i.e. a world-wide database loaded with your customers' details and profiles, with a depth of information your company's database can only dream of.

So instead of consumers Googling you before they buy your services, you should Google THEM, and instantly get more personal information than you'd ever be able to capture with traditional 1:1 in an entire life-time. TRENDWATCHING.COM has dubbed this emerging trend COUNTER-GOOGLING, and the opportunities are tasty!

A real-life COUNTER-GOOGLING example? The Bel Air Hotel in LA already Googles first-time guests upon arrival, based on their reservation details (name and address), leading to personalized services like assigning guests a room with morning sun if Googling shows the guest enjoys jogging early in the day (source: http://blog.outer-court.com).

Where to start? All you need is a name and some address details, to make sure you're COUNTER-GOOGLING the right customer. Best chance of hitting the data-jackpot? Three million or so bloggers: consumers who keep an Internet diary, revealing to all the world their commercial preferences, daily doings, recent holiday photos, habits and customs, family matters and what have you. And what about millions and millions of online resumes, showing detailed career paths, marital status and 'life and work objectives'? ;-)

OPPORTUNITIES
Sure, putting COUNTER-GOOGLING to work could be seen as a form of spam. It may even feel creepy to some consumers. But as always, honesty will do the trick: if consumers put their entire life stories online, and you as a company candidly refer to this public information AND make them an offer they can't refuse, more sales may be on the way. And bloggers, savvy consumers by nature, will no doubt introduce a 'no unsollicited sales' seal, the moment they grow tired of COUNTER-GOOGLING, making it clear what's off limits and what's fair game. Smart bloggers could even, in a dedicated section of their page or site, list the goods and services they don't mind getting personalized offers for!
For more:www.trendswatching.com