What Company is Offering:
What we are offering you is the opportunity to claim a word for a one time fee of €75 (or $100) and own a page with us for life or until you decide to sell it for a profit. On your page you can setup your online business and benefit from the collective traffic that's generated by the other page-owners and our marketing campaigns for this site. Thousands of paid directories online will give you just one link. We give you an entire page to edit as you see fit without any recurring charges.
How It Works:
When you own your page you can set up any type of business you like and with Million Euro Wiki you are part of a network that helps your page receive more traffic and therefore more revenue. You can set up Google ads on your page or set up links that go to your page to get more traffic. Setting up your page is simple. An automated editor helps you design your page, such as putting text in bold and adding images. If you want to be on the front page of Million Euro Wiki you can pay $10 per day and get more exposure. Join the micro- economy at MillionEuroWiki.com.
More at:http://millioneurowiki.com/
Thursday, October 4, 2007
CareerTours through online profiles, video and audio clips that tell each company's story
What Company is Offering:
CareerTours, an online recruiting site that brings all of the above to the task of matching employers with job candidates.
CareerTours goes well beyond the traditional text-based job database to allow job candidates to experience potential employers through online profiles, video and audio clips that tell each company's story and show why it's a great place to work.
How It Works:
The service is free for job seekers; employers pay a monthly fee starting at USD 199. In exchange, companies gain a way to give potential employees an online "tour" of the job, workplace and culture, thereby increasing the odds of a good match.
A built-in assessment tool provides candidates with instant feedback on whether their application will be considered, while giving employers a way to prioritize them. A word-of-mouth tool, meanwhile, allows employers to take advantage of the connections in their social networks with tailored e-mails and invitations. All postings made on CareerTours are also cross-posted to Google Base, Indeed, Simply Hired, MySpace, Oodle, WorkBlast, the National Association of Sales Professionals and JobTarget, among others, reaching an audience of more than 20 million visitors a month, CareerTours says.
CareerTours not only gains an edge in matching jobs with today's web-minded candidates, it also begins to serve as a career guide for the undecided. The Arizona-based company surpassed 375,000 candidates in July, and is planning to launch a sister business called ResumeTours soon.
More at: www.careertours.com
CareerTours, an online recruiting site that brings all of the above to the task of matching employers with job candidates.
CareerTours goes well beyond the traditional text-based job database to allow job candidates to experience potential employers through online profiles, video and audio clips that tell each company's story and show why it's a great place to work.
How It Works:
The service is free for job seekers; employers pay a monthly fee starting at USD 199. In exchange, companies gain a way to give potential employees an online "tour" of the job, workplace and culture, thereby increasing the odds of a good match.
A built-in assessment tool provides candidates with instant feedback on whether their application will be considered, while giving employers a way to prioritize them. A word-of-mouth tool, meanwhile, allows employers to take advantage of the connections in their social networks with tailored e-mails and invitations. All postings made on CareerTours are also cross-posted to Google Base, Indeed, Simply Hired, MySpace, Oodle, WorkBlast, the National Association of Sales Professionals and JobTarget, among others, reaching an audience of more than 20 million visitors a month, CareerTours says.
CareerTours not only gains an edge in matching jobs with today's web-minded candidates, it also begins to serve as a career guide for the undecided. The Arizona-based company surpassed 375,000 candidates in July, and is planning to launch a sister business called ResumeTours soon.
More at: www.careertours.com
Ponoko is offering consumers a new way to turn their creative ideas into real-world objects
What Company is Offering:
Ponoko is offering consumers a new way to turn their turn creative ideas into real-world objects.
How It Works:
After uploading their design to the website , users can choose from a variety of materials. Ponoko then runs the design through a laser cutter. Besides offering access to professional tools to manufacture products, Ponoko also helps users bring their products to market. Once they’re ready to sell, members add photos of their product to their profile page, together with a description, pricing information and descriptive tags. If a product needs to be assembled before being shipped to customers, Ponoko delivers the bits and pieces to the designer. If the product is self-assembly, Ponoko can ship directly to the end-customer.Users who aren’t interested in selling physical products can opt to sell or give away their design, for other manufacturers to produce and sell, which makes Ponoko stand out from creative consumer marketplaces like Etsy.
More at: www.ponoko.com
Ponoko is offering consumers a new way to turn their turn creative ideas into real-world objects.
How It Works:
After uploading their design to the website , users can choose from a variety of materials. Ponoko then runs the design through a laser cutter. Besides offering access to professional tools to manufacture products, Ponoko also helps users bring their products to market. Once they’re ready to sell, members add photos of their product to their profile page, together with a description, pricing information and descriptive tags. If a product needs to be assembled before being shipped to customers, Ponoko delivers the bits and pieces to the designer. If the product is self-assembly, Ponoko can ship directly to the end-customer.Users who aren’t interested in selling physical products can opt to sell or give away their design, for other manufacturers to produce and sell, which makes Ponoko stand out from creative consumer marketplaces like Etsy.
More at: www.ponoko.com
Women from all over rural Britain are being encouraged to gather in Cambridgeshire in October to share their experiences of business
Women from all over rural Britain are being encouraged to gather in Cambridgeshire in October to share their experiences of business, take advice from the experts and maybe even find new clients.
Women in Rural Enterprise (WiRE), the national business support, membership and networking organisation will host the event on Wednesday 31 October at Chilford Hall, Linton with support from Business Link Eastern Region, The Enterprising Women Project and HSBC.
WiRE membership is growing, particularly in the East of England. According to research carried out by Dr Rebecca Harding, executive director of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) significant numbers of rural-based women are exploiting new business opportunities partly helped by access to new technologies.
Female entrepreneurial activity is nearly twice as high for rural women as it is for urban women at nearly 60% of rural male entrepreneurial activity. However WiRE recognises that women still face significant barriers when starting out and is using its Conferences as learning opportunities for women who might otherwise find themselves both physically and socially isolated.
The conference, expected to draw over 100 delegates, will take women through all the stages of business, from the first seeds of an idea to business in the fast lane. Business seminars on Networking and Are you an Entrepreneur? will tackle practical everyday issues whilst The Rural Marketplace provides the perfect forum for networking and buying the best of WiRE member products.
Izzy Warren-Smith, Executive Director of WiRE, and recent winner of the Prowess Outstanding Contribution to Women’s Enterprise Award says: “this event celebrates the enormous impact women are making in the rural economy. We want women to go home inspired, better informed and with a notebook fully of new contacts”.
Speakers confirmed for Linton include:
Paula Lain of www.plainspeakingpr.co.uk
Jill Roberson of www.the-living-rooms.co.uk
Rebecca Rayner of www.glebe-flour.co.uk
Vivienne Wiggins of www.revivalcoaching.co.uk
Mary Munley of www.theflyingmarketer.co.uk
Full details of the conference can be found at www.wireuk.org
Women in Rural Enterprise (WiRE), the national business support, membership and networking organisation will host the event on Wednesday 31 October at Chilford Hall, Linton with support from Business Link Eastern Region, The Enterprising Women Project and HSBC.
WiRE membership is growing, particularly in the East of England. According to research carried out by Dr Rebecca Harding, executive director of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) significant numbers of rural-based women are exploiting new business opportunities partly helped by access to new technologies.
Female entrepreneurial activity is nearly twice as high for rural women as it is for urban women at nearly 60% of rural male entrepreneurial activity. However WiRE recognises that women still face significant barriers when starting out and is using its Conferences as learning opportunities for women who might otherwise find themselves both physically and socially isolated.
The conference, expected to draw over 100 delegates, will take women through all the stages of business, from the first seeds of an idea to business in the fast lane. Business seminars on Networking and Are you an Entrepreneur? will tackle practical everyday issues whilst The Rural Marketplace provides the perfect forum for networking and buying the best of WiRE member products.
Izzy Warren-Smith, Executive Director of WiRE, and recent winner of the Prowess Outstanding Contribution to Women’s Enterprise Award says: “this event celebrates the enormous impact women are making in the rural economy. We want women to go home inspired, better informed and with a notebook fully of new contacts”.
Speakers confirmed for Linton include:
Paula Lain of www.plainspeakingpr.co.uk
Jill Roberson of www.the-living-rooms.co.uk
Rebecca Rayner of www.glebe-flour.co.uk
Vivienne Wiggins of www.revivalcoaching.co.uk
Mary Munley of www.theflyingmarketer.co.uk
Full details of the conference can be found at www.wireuk.org
23andMe Is look Good For Funding VCs
What Company Is All About:
23andMe is a privately held company developing new ways to help you make sense of your own genetic information.
Even though your body contains trillions of copies of your genome, you've likely never read any of it. Our goal is to connect you to the 23 paired volumes of your own genetic blueprint (plus your mitochondrial DNA), bringing you personal insight into ancestry, genealogy, and inherited traits. By connecting you to others, we can also help put your genome into the larger context of human commonality and diversity.
23andMe a company that makes tools for learning about your genetic information. The company is best known as being founded by the wife of Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder. Google drew some scrutiny earlier this year when they used $3.6 million of company funds to invest in 23andMe.
How Much They Got From VCs:
They raised an additional $9 million in funding.
Aside from Google, other investors include Mohr Davidow Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, and mega biotech company Genentech.
More at:http://www.23andme.com/
23andMe is a privately held company developing new ways to help you make sense of your own genetic information.
Even though your body contains trillions of copies of your genome, you've likely never read any of it. Our goal is to connect you to the 23 paired volumes of your own genetic blueprint (plus your mitochondrial DNA), bringing you personal insight into ancestry, genealogy, and inherited traits. By connecting you to others, we can also help put your genome into the larger context of human commonality and diversity.
23andMe a company that makes tools for learning about your genetic information. The company is best known as being founded by the wife of Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder. Google drew some scrutiny earlier this year when they used $3.6 million of company funds to invest in 23andMe.
How Much They Got From VCs:
They raised an additional $9 million in funding.
Aside from Google, other investors include Mohr Davidow Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, and mega biotech company Genentech.
More at:http://www.23andme.com/
NationalGeographic widget
NationalGeographic has just launched a widget that can be placed on your blog or personal website. It brings you the incoming top news stories from National Geographic, including video footage and images.
This widget was developed by Clearspring, and offers one-click submission to your various social networks, like MySpace, Facebook, Friendster and Xanga. There are also email options and the provision of embed code directly from the widget.
More at:http://news.nationalgeographic.com/
This widget was developed by Clearspring, and offers one-click submission to your various social networks, like MySpace, Facebook, Friendster and Xanga. There are also email options and the provision of embed code directly from the widget.
More at:http://news.nationalgeographic.com/
BidBeaverR.com For Only Branded Things At Auctions
What Company Is Offering:
Contrary to other auctions the prices fall on BidBeaverR.com. Bidbeaver is a young startup-company from Germany. We offer you a mixture of social commerce and thrills. We sell branded stuff at auctions to hot deal prices. Thereby we turn normal auctions upside down. Users buy credits and set these on articles. With each bid the item price lowers by 10 cent. Every bid costs 50 cents. Because nearly at the same time many users make a bid, the price falls rapidly. So you have the chance to snap some great deals.
How It Works:
At BIDBEAVER there are two different possibilities on finishing an auction: The hidden end price: somewhere between the start price and 0, 00€ there is a hidden end price. If users place a bid and reduce the actual price to the hidden end price, he is automatically the winner of this auction.
The hidden end time: somewhere between the start time and the latest end of an auction is the hidden end time. When the hidden end time is reached, the last user who placed a bid on this auction is automatically the winner of this auction.
More at:http://www.bidbeaver.com/
Contrary to other auctions the prices fall on BidBeaverR.com. Bidbeaver is a young startup-company from Germany. We offer you a mixture of social commerce and thrills. We sell branded stuff at auctions to hot deal prices. Thereby we turn normal auctions upside down. Users buy credits and set these on articles. With each bid the item price lowers by 10 cent. Every bid costs 50 cents. Because nearly at the same time many users make a bid, the price falls rapidly. So you have the chance to snap some great deals.
How It Works:
At BIDBEAVER there are two different possibilities on finishing an auction: The hidden end price: somewhere between the start price and 0, 00€ there is a hidden end price. If users place a bid and reduce the actual price to the hidden end price, he is automatically the winner of this auction.
The hidden end time: somewhere between the start time and the latest end of an auction is the hidden end time. When the hidden end time is reached, the last user who placed a bid on this auction is automatically the winner of this auction.
More at:http://www.bidbeaver.com/
MashupChallenge Contest
What Company Says:
MashupChallenge, where challengers from around the world are competing to raise the bar in mashup creation.
Along with the professional recognition that comes with winning a MashupChallenge, prizes range from 50%-off hosting for life to a Nintendo Wii and are given out to the top 10 winners every quarter year.
How It Works:
Mashable, Pipes, MashupAwards, Mobile Web Design and Media Temple are sponsoring a contest for challengers all around the world to create the best mashups. The site gives away prizes for the top 10 winners each quarter that range from 50% off hosting for life to Nintendo Wii systems, but even more importantly it is a platform to help get your mashup seen by the world.
More at:http://mashupchallenge.com/
MashupChallenge, where challengers from around the world are competing to raise the bar in mashup creation.
Along with the professional recognition that comes with winning a MashupChallenge, prizes range from 50%-off hosting for life to a Nintendo Wii and are given out to the top 10 winners every quarter year.
How It Works:
Mashable, Pipes, MashupAwards, Mobile Web Design and Media Temple are sponsoring a contest for challengers all around the world to create the best mashups. The site gives away prizes for the top 10 winners each quarter that range from 50% off hosting for life to Nintendo Wii systems, but even more importantly it is a platform to help get your mashup seen by the world.
More at:http://mashupchallenge.com/
GCodes For Money Saving
What Company is Offering:
This site could save you a bit of cash before you hit the high street to do your shopping. It highlights all the special offers and discounts available online. Links take you straight to all the stores featured.
How It Works:
This site helps you track down the special vouchers and promotional codes offered by online stores. Everything is divided into categories going from electronic devices, music & video, computer and mobiles to clothes & accessories, health and beauty, home & garden and food & drinks. There’s a section where you can compare the different prices of the different brands. A very interesting feature offered by the site is the free newsletter, the only thing you have to do is submit your e-mail.
More at:http://www.gcodes.co.uk/
This site could save you a bit of cash before you hit the high street to do your shopping. It highlights all the special offers and discounts available online. Links take you straight to all the stores featured.
How It Works:
This site helps you track down the special vouchers and promotional codes offered by online stores. Everything is divided into categories going from electronic devices, music & video, computer and mobiles to clothes & accessories, health and beauty, home & garden and food & drinks. There’s a section where you can compare the different prices of the different brands. A very interesting feature offered by the site is the free newsletter, the only thing you have to do is submit your e-mail.
More at:http://www.gcodes.co.uk/
Earn Money With Easy Share
What Company Is Offering:
Easy-Share.com is an easy to use, free file hosting solution. It's composed of many servers to provide the fastest download speeds possible.
How It Works:
Easy-share.com also gives you a chance to earn money without extra effort, How? You get paid for uploading and sharing useful files, and when someone clicks a link on your site and downloads a file from Easy-Share.com you get revenue. Easy-Share.com can be used to share any types of files with friends, as well as post links to these files on message boards and blogs. It’s really easy to use, and provides really fast download speeds.
More at:http://www.easy-share.com/
Easy-Share.com is an easy to use, free file hosting solution. It's composed of many servers to provide the fastest download speeds possible.
How It Works:
Easy-share.com also gives you a chance to earn money without extra effort, How? You get paid for uploading and sharing useful files, and when someone clicks a link on your site and downloads a file from Easy-Share.com you get revenue. Easy-Share.com can be used to share any types of files with friends, as well as post links to these files on message boards and blogs. It’s really easy to use, and provides really fast download speeds.
More at:http://www.easy-share.com/
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Wikinvest Seems Good Investment For VCs
What Company Is offering:
Wikinvest is an online stock wiki.
Wikinvest is an investing resource that aims to provide investors with information about companies, trends, and concepts affecting the business world. Using a Wiki approach, Wikinvest uses crowdsourcing to help create an investment research tool that actively encourages community participation.
How It Works:
Wikinvest divides company coverage into "Neutral," "Bull," and "Bear" perspectives so that investors can understand the range of arguments for and against investing in a particular stock. In addition, the site offers insights into movements in stock prices, an ongoing frustration for individual investors who have limited research tools available to them.
One of the interesting features is the unique WikiCharts that allow users to annotate stock charts, explaining the price movements of hundreds of companies.
How Much They Got From VCs:
Wikinvest received $2.5 Million from DCM venture capital.
More at:http://www.wikinvest.com/
Sponsers: Alabama payday loans
Wikinvest is an online stock wiki.
Wikinvest is an investing resource that aims to provide investors with information about companies, trends, and concepts affecting the business world. Using a Wiki approach, Wikinvest uses crowdsourcing to help create an investment research tool that actively encourages community participation.
How It Works:
Wikinvest divides company coverage into "Neutral," "Bull," and "Bear" perspectives so that investors can understand the range of arguments for and against investing in a particular stock. In addition, the site offers insights into movements in stock prices, an ongoing frustration for individual investors who have limited research tools available to them.
One of the interesting features is the unique WikiCharts that allow users to annotate stock charts, explaining the price movements of hundreds of companies.
How Much They Got From VCs:
Wikinvest received $2.5 Million from DCM venture capital.
More at:http://www.wikinvest.com/
Sponsers: Alabama payday loans
Virtual Assistants Forum
North American Virtual Assistants and particularly Canadian VA’s have never before had the opportunity to meet and exchange views in this kind of forum and on Canadian soil. Barb Lang, a Toronto based Virtual Assistant specializing in Event Planning, saw a need for new and seasoned VA’s to meet in person in order to exchange ideas and business expertise in a mastermind / workshop type event. Other successful VA conferences, generally held in the U.S., have followed the traditional conference format where participants listen and learn from guest speakers but very little interaction is expected.
“There is an incredible amount of talent and expertise already among the VA community. We should tap into that ‘real life experience’. The entrepreneurial freedom of Virtual Assistance is becoming a very desirable alternative to the corporately employed admin or executive assistant. I get people calling me weekly to find out more about the profession and how they might start out.” At the same time, experienced VAs who have successfully been in practice for more than 3 - 5 years, are looking for ways to move their businesses forward.
Barb decided that it was time to bring VA’s together in a stimulating and safe environment where judicious and relevant business issues and information could be exchanged and debated. “I want delegates to leave the forum with a solid plan in hand to take back to their businesses and implement immediately” says the organizer. “Personally, I’m not interested in hearing about ‘Laughter Therapy’ or having my ‘Colours done’. I work in my home office wearing my slippers and what I most need to know about is what a ‘wiki’ is and how my clients can promote their businesses using the latest Webinar technology or what the best way is for me to earn some residual income. I want to know why my ACT! database doesn’t play nice with my Adobe software and what are others do when they run into problems. Based on the positive responses from the VA community, it appears that I’m not the only one who needs to know these things.” Forum delegates, new or experienced, will take home practical and actionable step-by-step plans to start or grow their VA businesses immediately. The forum will be based on a dual track system so that delegates, no matter what level they are at, can get the information they came for.
“I also hope to get some big players to help sponsor the event. Office supply chains, courier companies, printers, banks, marketing companies, software, hardware, service oriented businesses… you name it, we buy it and so do our clients. The more Sponsors brought on board to support this event, the bigger the event which in turn means more businesses shopping in their stores or using their services. It’s a win win!” Says Barb.
The Forum on Virtual Assistance or FoVA will be held in early May of 2008 and is expected to become an annual tradition.
http://www.forumonvirtualassistance.com
“There is an incredible amount of talent and expertise already among the VA community. We should tap into that ‘real life experience’. The entrepreneurial freedom of Virtual Assistance is becoming a very desirable alternative to the corporately employed admin or executive assistant. I get people calling me weekly to find out more about the profession and how they might start out.” At the same time, experienced VAs who have successfully been in practice for more than 3 - 5 years, are looking for ways to move their businesses forward.
Barb decided that it was time to bring VA’s together in a stimulating and safe environment where judicious and relevant business issues and information could be exchanged and debated. “I want delegates to leave the forum with a solid plan in hand to take back to their businesses and implement immediately” says the organizer. “Personally, I’m not interested in hearing about ‘Laughter Therapy’ or having my ‘Colours done’. I work in my home office wearing my slippers and what I most need to know about is what a ‘wiki’ is and how my clients can promote their businesses using the latest Webinar technology or what the best way is for me to earn some residual income. I want to know why my ACT! database doesn’t play nice with my Adobe software and what are others do when they run into problems. Based on the positive responses from the VA community, it appears that I’m not the only one who needs to know these things.” Forum delegates, new or experienced, will take home practical and actionable step-by-step plans to start or grow their VA businesses immediately. The forum will be based on a dual track system so that delegates, no matter what level they are at, can get the information they came for.
“I also hope to get some big players to help sponsor the event. Office supply chains, courier companies, printers, banks, marketing companies, software, hardware, service oriented businesses… you name it, we buy it and so do our clients. The more Sponsors brought on board to support this event, the bigger the event which in turn means more businesses shopping in their stores or using their services. It’s a win win!” Says Barb.
The Forum on Virtual Assistance or FoVA will be held in early May of 2008 and is expected to become an annual tradition.
http://www.forumonvirtualassistance.com
Are all things equal in the pursuit of entrepreneurship?
Are all things equal in the pursuit of entrepreneurship?
An entrepreneur's gender does not correlate with a new venture's performance, according to a new report by the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy. Factors
While gender may not have an effect on overall success rates, however, the report shows that there are still several areas where men and women differ on the subject of starting a business. The report looked at data from the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics, which yielded a representative sample of 685 entrepreneurs who started their business in 1998 or 1999. Factors such as the entrepreneur's preferences, motivation, and expectations were controlled for, in the case of the report.
Researchers found that one of the main differences between male and female entrepreneurs is in the kind of businesses they start. Female entrepreneurs are more likely to start businesses in personal services and retail trade, while males tend to get involved in the technology and manufacturing sectors.
One possible explanation for this, according to the report, is that women often face barriers to entry in starting a business. As a result, women may be more likely to start businesses that do not have high demands for human or financial capital often because they lack access to it early on. Along the same lines, women-owned businesses tend to be smaller in scale than those started by men, the report found.
The study also highlighted the fact that female entrepreneurs work fewer hours, on average, than their male counterparts. Researchers found that because women generally have more domestic demands competing for their time, they also spend fewer hours on developing their new ventures.
Additionally, the report also examined risk preferences among male and female entrepreneurs. Previous studies have determined that women in general have a greater aversion to financial risk than men. As entrepreneurs, women are more likely to start ventures that have a lower risk factor, and consequently focus more on minimizing risk during the start-up process than males do.
Finally, the report compared men and women on the basis of their business savvy and found that the genders differ in the way they identify and seek out new business opportunities. Women pursue information through their social networks, and therefore have a greater variety of sources than men, while male entrepreneurs tend to identify business opportunities through conversations with investors and bankers, the report found.
Via-INC
An entrepreneur's gender does not correlate with a new venture's performance, according to a new report by the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy. Factors
While gender may not have an effect on overall success rates, however, the report shows that there are still several areas where men and women differ on the subject of starting a business. The report looked at data from the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics, which yielded a representative sample of 685 entrepreneurs who started their business in 1998 or 1999. Factors such as the entrepreneur's preferences, motivation, and expectations were controlled for, in the case of the report.
Researchers found that one of the main differences between male and female entrepreneurs is in the kind of businesses they start. Female entrepreneurs are more likely to start businesses in personal services and retail trade, while males tend to get involved in the technology and manufacturing sectors.
One possible explanation for this, according to the report, is that women often face barriers to entry in starting a business. As a result, women may be more likely to start businesses that do not have high demands for human or financial capital often because they lack access to it early on. Along the same lines, women-owned businesses tend to be smaller in scale than those started by men, the report found.
The study also highlighted the fact that female entrepreneurs work fewer hours, on average, than their male counterparts. Researchers found that because women generally have more domestic demands competing for their time, they also spend fewer hours on developing their new ventures.
Additionally, the report also examined risk preferences among male and female entrepreneurs. Previous studies have determined that women in general have a greater aversion to financial risk than men. As entrepreneurs, women are more likely to start ventures that have a lower risk factor, and consequently focus more on minimizing risk during the start-up process than males do.
Finally, the report compared men and women on the basis of their business savvy and found that the genders differ in the way they identify and seek out new business opportunities. Women pursue information through their social networks, and therefore have a greater variety of sources than men, while male entrepreneurs tend to identify business opportunities through conversations with investors and bankers, the report found.
Via-INC
Ernst and Young’s National Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award
Matthew Riley, chief executive officer of Daisy Communications, was awarded the accolade of Ernst and Young’s National Young Entrepreneur of the Year during a ceremony held at the Grosvenor House Hotel on 1 October.
Having been named the young entrepreneur for the North Region in June he was pitted against winners from other regions of the country who had shown enterprise at a young age.
Daisy is the 33-year-old’s fourth company, and last night’s award is recognition of a level of expansion that has seen the business become one of the fastest growing technology companies and Riley one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the North West, and now the UK. The company recently recorded a turnover of more than £23 million for the year ending March 2007.
He received the award in front of 800 entrepreneurs and their guests, and was one of 36 finalists to battle out the awards in nine different categories.
“To win the regional award in June was amazing, but to win the national award gives me an overwhelming sense of pride,” said Riley.
“The competition was very fierce in the ‘young’ category and I really do feel honoured to have won this accolade. I look forward to heading back up to Nelson and celebrating with my colleagues - without them this wouldn’t have been possible.”
Having left school at 16 to take up a YTS place as a trainee fax machine engineer, Riley has now spent a career spanning 17 years in the communications industry.
Daisy was established in his home town of Nelson in 2001 with just three employees. The company now operates from a 20,000sq ft state of the art office complex and employees more than 130 people and selling business communications solutions to businesses it is one of the UK’s leading independent companies for telephone, mobile, data and broadband.
Ernst & Young’s Manchester senior partner, Jan Gregory said: “The judges described Matthew as a great salesman, who has built a niche business, has good ideas and is continuously improving his business's offering and service. He has a thoughtful leadership style and invests in his people.
“The Entrepreneur of the Year programme recognises the determination, hard work and passion of entrepreneurs in over 40 countries on six continents. Our North West winners are shining examples of how entrepreneurial spirit can create world class businesses that make an enormous contribution to the local and UK economy.”
Via-http://www.cbmagazine.co.uk/News_Article_JS.cfm?X=0&Y=0&YearViewed=&Newsmonth=&EndDay=&NoNews=0&NewsID=3856
Having been named the young entrepreneur for the North Region in June he was pitted against winners from other regions of the country who had shown enterprise at a young age.
Daisy is the 33-year-old’s fourth company, and last night’s award is recognition of a level of expansion that has seen the business become one of the fastest growing technology companies and Riley one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the North West, and now the UK. The company recently recorded a turnover of more than £23 million for the year ending March 2007.
He received the award in front of 800 entrepreneurs and their guests, and was one of 36 finalists to battle out the awards in nine different categories.
“To win the regional award in June was amazing, but to win the national award gives me an overwhelming sense of pride,” said Riley.
“The competition was very fierce in the ‘young’ category and I really do feel honoured to have won this accolade. I look forward to heading back up to Nelson and celebrating with my colleagues - without them this wouldn’t have been possible.”
Having left school at 16 to take up a YTS place as a trainee fax machine engineer, Riley has now spent a career spanning 17 years in the communications industry.
Daisy was established in his home town of Nelson in 2001 with just three employees. The company now operates from a 20,000sq ft state of the art office complex and employees more than 130 people and selling business communications solutions to businesses it is one of the UK’s leading independent companies for telephone, mobile, data and broadband.
Ernst & Young’s Manchester senior partner, Jan Gregory said: “The judges described Matthew as a great salesman, who has built a niche business, has good ideas and is continuously improving his business's offering and service. He has a thoughtful leadership style and invests in his people.
“The Entrepreneur of the Year programme recognises the determination, hard work and passion of entrepreneurs in over 40 countries on six continents. Our North West winners are shining examples of how entrepreneurial spirit can create world class businesses that make an enormous contribution to the local and UK economy.”
Via-http://www.cbmagazine.co.uk/News_Article_JS.cfm?X=0&Y=0&YearViewed=&Newsmonth=&EndDay=&NoNews=0&NewsID=3856
Unusual Business Idea
A couple of years ago, Jonathan Hall and his wife, Kate, decided that there must be a way to capitalize on the popularity of iPod add-ons. Cases and “skins,” had become big business by then — but those items decorated only the main device, which was usually stuffed in a pocket, out of sight.
Today, the Halls have sold tens of thousands of pairs of flexible rubber charms called Emotibuds, which clip onto earbuds, almost like earrings. Each pair features a blocky little face that incorporates an emoticon into a cute cartoon visage. There are a variety of faces, each set against a bright color and corresponding with a mood, like “starry-eyed” or “frisky.”
When they first dreamed up their idea, they knew nothing about making a product. They contacted a manufacturer of injection-molded plastics, but they didn’t know how to make the detailed computer-aided drawings such manufacturers require.
Hall bought the appropriate “For Dummies” book, and after some false starts they sent out the drawings and received price quotes only to realize they needed an investor.
Not surprisingly, potential investors wanted to know if the Halls had any market research suggesting consumer interest. So the couple put the drawings of their design on a Web site and sent e-mail messages to about 10 online cool-hunter types, in the hope of gauging interest.
Then, eight months later, Hall received a sudden flood of e-mail from people demanding to know where they could buy Emotibuds.
It turned out that an online trend-hunter — thecoolhunter.net — had belatedly posted a link to their site. The Halls, of course, had no actual product. They decided that with the help of an uncle, they would bankroll a first run themselves.
By the start of this year, Emotibuds were popping up all over the cool-little-design-product ecosystem, which includes retailers like the online shop Shana Logic as well as the Daily Candy e-mail newsletter.
More at:http://www.emotibles.com/
Via-Uncommon Business Blog
Today, the Halls have sold tens of thousands of pairs of flexible rubber charms called Emotibuds, which clip onto earbuds, almost like earrings. Each pair features a blocky little face that incorporates an emoticon into a cute cartoon visage. There are a variety of faces, each set against a bright color and corresponding with a mood, like “starry-eyed” or “frisky.”
When they first dreamed up their idea, they knew nothing about making a product. They contacted a manufacturer of injection-molded plastics, but they didn’t know how to make the detailed computer-aided drawings such manufacturers require.
Hall bought the appropriate “For Dummies” book, and after some false starts they sent out the drawings and received price quotes only to realize they needed an investor.
Not surprisingly, potential investors wanted to know if the Halls had any market research suggesting consumer interest. So the couple put the drawings of their design on a Web site and sent e-mail messages to about 10 online cool-hunter types, in the hope of gauging interest.
Then, eight months later, Hall received a sudden flood of e-mail from people demanding to know where they could buy Emotibuds.
It turned out that an online trend-hunter — thecoolhunter.net — had belatedly posted a link to their site. The Halls, of course, had no actual product. They decided that with the help of an uncle, they would bankroll a first run themselves.
By the start of this year, Emotibuds were popping up all over the cool-little-design-product ecosystem, which includes retailers like the online shop Shana Logic as well as the Daily Candy e-mail newsletter.
More at:http://www.emotibles.com/
Via-Uncommon Business Blog
eWORDofMOUTH gives online companies a cost-effective alternative for advertrising
What Company is Offering:
eWORDofMOUTH gives online companies a cost-effective alternative for driving a steady stream of qualified traffic to their Website. Not only does eWORDofMOUTH create an ongoing flow of potential customers for users, but it goes a step further. It attracts motivated prospects who are pre-sold on the user’s brand by a referral from a friend or family member, which provides important advantages for users. According to research, referred customers spend more money on each purchase, buy more often, are more loyal and refer others more frequently. They also have greater trust for the referred company and its recommendations, and negotiate on price less. eWORDofMOUTH is ideal for e-tailers, membership Websites, offline retailers and direct marketing companies, and nonprofit organizations.
How It Works:
eWORDofMOUTH capitalizes on this trend by enabling Web users to recommend products and services that they value to their associates. The eWORDofMOUTH system combines the power of word-of-mouth marketing with the Internet to drive continuous traffic to users’ Websites. eWORDofMOUTH gives online companies an easy, cost-effective method for acquiring and retaining customers, as well as increasing sales.
More at:http://www.ewordofmouth.com/
eWORDofMOUTH gives online companies a cost-effective alternative for driving a steady stream of qualified traffic to their Website. Not only does eWORDofMOUTH create an ongoing flow of potential customers for users, but it goes a step further. It attracts motivated prospects who are pre-sold on the user’s brand by a referral from a friend or family member, which provides important advantages for users. According to research, referred customers spend more money on each purchase, buy more often, are more loyal and refer others more frequently. They also have greater trust for the referred company and its recommendations, and negotiate on price less. eWORDofMOUTH is ideal for e-tailers, membership Websites, offline retailers and direct marketing companies, and nonprofit organizations.
How It Works:
eWORDofMOUTH capitalizes on this trend by enabling Web users to recommend products and services that they value to their associates. The eWORDofMOUTH system combines the power of word-of-mouth marketing with the Internet to drive continuous traffic to users’ Websites. eWORDofMOUTH gives online companies an easy, cost-effective method for acquiring and retaining customers, as well as increasing sales.
More at:http://www.ewordofmouth.com/
Actionize For Finishing Your Business Well
What Company Is Offering:
Actionize is a web-based, highly integrated team, task, and contact manager and is ideal for both recurring business processes as well as time-constrained projects. Actionize automates and tracks all team interaction while simultaneously keeping you completely up-to-date on if, when, and why you’re meeting your goals on time, to specification, and on budget. Use the Actionize task list templates to immediately begin to collaborate online. Then invite your team to join the mission, assign responsibilities and milestones, and get to work.
How It Works:
The site allows there to be a central location where everyone can see the task lists, time-lines, responsibility charts, goal sheets, sales revenue... whatever tracking device the team needs to stay together and on target. As important, all the data is safe and secure under this site. The site is well designed and easy to use, and was obviously made by people who know the difficulty of maintaining communication and accountability within a group setting.
More at:http://www.actionize.com/
Actionize is a web-based, highly integrated team, task, and contact manager and is ideal for both recurring business processes as well as time-constrained projects. Actionize automates and tracks all team interaction while simultaneously keeping you completely up-to-date on if, when, and why you’re meeting your goals on time, to specification, and on budget. Use the Actionize task list templates to immediately begin to collaborate online. Then invite your team to join the mission, assign responsibilities and milestones, and get to work.
How It Works:
The site allows there to be a central location where everyone can see the task lists, time-lines, responsibility charts, goal sheets, sales revenue... whatever tracking device the team needs to stay together and on target. As important, all the data is safe and secure under this site. The site is well designed and easy to use, and was obviously made by people who know the difficulty of maintaining communication and accountability within a group setting.
More at:http://www.actionize.com/
Get Paid To Make Accurate Predictions
What Company Is Saying:
Predictify.com which pays you for the accuracy of your predictions. They use an interesting system by which to pay people for the correctness of their guesses. With predictify there are many answers that you are able to answer for free, and the percentage that you get correctly boost up your score and you are able to make more money for the answers that you answer correctly that are pay answers. Some of the questions you need to pay to answer, and the ones that you pay to answer, and do answer correctly give you monetary rewards for answering correctly dependent upon the percentage of correct answers you have accrued with the free questions.
More at:http://predictify.com/
Predictify.com which pays you for the accuracy of your predictions. They use an interesting system by which to pay people for the correctness of their guesses. With predictify there are many answers that you are able to answer for free, and the percentage that you get correctly boost up your score and you are able to make more money for the answers that you answer correctly that are pay answers. Some of the questions you need to pay to answer, and the ones that you pay to answer, and do answer correctly give you monetary rewards for answering correctly dependent upon the percentage of correct answers you have accrued with the free questions.
More at:http://predictify.com/
Win Money
What Company is Saying:
ZeroRiskPoker.com – a new site for Texas Hold’em fans who like the idea of holding onto their money and winning large. Pull up a chair at our sponsor-based online poker tables and play for prizes like your very own home gym, energy drinks, magazine subscriptions, and more. Thanks to our sponsors, we have over $25,000 worth of free stuff to give away every month and more is being added every day.
They are totally free which makes them legal in the US. They do not charge players to play poker ever. In addition their product crosses numerous verticals. They are an entertainment software package, they help companies market their products and services, offer turn key solutions for companies and at the end of the day, and they might lose money.
How It Works:
Players are attracted to the site because they love poker and they love the prospect of winning something for nothing. While other free poker sites are simply offshoots of real-money poker sites designed to convert you to a real-money player, this website is dedicated to keeping poker 100% free while making it more lucrative, more enticing, and more exciting than ever before. The site offers an opportunity for advertisers to meet those who like to play the game and will cater a marketing proposal for them in which we guarantee results or the sponsor does not have to pay.
More at:http://www.zeroriskpoker.com/
ZeroRiskPoker.com – a new site for Texas Hold’em fans who like the idea of holding onto their money and winning large. Pull up a chair at our sponsor-based online poker tables and play for prizes like your very own home gym, energy drinks, magazine subscriptions, and more. Thanks to our sponsors, we have over $25,000 worth of free stuff to give away every month and more is being added every day.
They are totally free which makes them legal in the US. They do not charge players to play poker ever. In addition their product crosses numerous verticals. They are an entertainment software package, they help companies market their products and services, offer turn key solutions for companies and at the end of the day, and they might lose money.
How It Works:
Players are attracted to the site because they love poker and they love the prospect of winning something for nothing. While other free poker sites are simply offshoots of real-money poker sites designed to convert you to a real-money player, this website is dedicated to keeping poker 100% free while making it more lucrative, more enticing, and more exciting than ever before. The site offers an opportunity for advertisers to meet those who like to play the game and will cater a marketing proposal for them in which we guarantee results or the sponsor does not have to pay.
More at:http://www.zeroriskpoker.com/
Business Plan Competition
The annual BYU Business Plan Competition gives students the opportunity to create a business plan or start a business over the course of the school year.
The event kick-off will be Oct. 10. The competition will consist of several events and workshops throughout the year, with final deadlines in February.
Students are encouraged to get involved and get started early, said John Rasmussen, the leader of the student team organizing the event.
The theme for this year's contest is Begin Your Adventure.
The competition is open for all students.
"Many teams come from outside the business school and do well," Rasmussen said. Some recent winners were from history and engineering majors, among many others.
The competition of several events will include smaller competitions and workshops to help students develop their business plans, and ventures for the final competition in March, he said.
There are many categories that students can get involved in, depending on their interests and ideas. There are separate competitions for plans, ventures, stay-at-home businesses, social entrepreneurship and global categories.
The Business Plan competition at BYU is a great opportunity for students, said Nile Hatch, a professor at BYU. More than 60 new ventures were created on campus last year.
"We get attention from all over the country," he said.
Students who participated in last year's competition went on to compete at the University of Texas-Austin, "the super bowl of Business Plan competitions," Hatch said. Winners at BYU get an automatic invitation.
The competition is a great way to help students who have an idea get started, said John Richards, a professor at BYU.
"It provides a central focal point for good ideas and good teams to put their time and attention into a packaged business plan that will help further the interests of all involved," he said in an e-mail.
The competition offers many advantages, said Gary Williams, a business professor at BYU. Workshops help students create teams and improve plans.
"The average investor is going to see 1,000 plans. There is a lot of finesse that goes into creating [written] plans," Williams said. Some investors will decide if they are interested in a business in as little as three pages
The business workshops will help students create plans, start businesses and learn to pitch their ideas to investors.
"We're helping share vision and providing opportunity," Williams said. The professors put structure in place and the students do the rest.
Full Deatil:http://nn.byu.edu/story.cfm/65543
The event kick-off will be Oct. 10. The competition will consist of several events and workshops throughout the year, with final deadlines in February.
Students are encouraged to get involved and get started early, said John Rasmussen, the leader of the student team organizing the event.
The theme for this year's contest is Begin Your Adventure.
The competition is open for all students.
"Many teams come from outside the business school and do well," Rasmussen said. Some recent winners were from history and engineering majors, among many others.
The competition of several events will include smaller competitions and workshops to help students develop their business plans, and ventures for the final competition in March, he said.
There are many categories that students can get involved in, depending on their interests and ideas. There are separate competitions for plans, ventures, stay-at-home businesses, social entrepreneurship and global categories.
The Business Plan competition at BYU is a great opportunity for students, said Nile Hatch, a professor at BYU. More than 60 new ventures were created on campus last year.
"We get attention from all over the country," he said.
Students who participated in last year's competition went on to compete at the University of Texas-Austin, "the super bowl of Business Plan competitions," Hatch said. Winners at BYU get an automatic invitation.
The competition is a great way to help students who have an idea get started, said John Richards, a professor at BYU.
"It provides a central focal point for good ideas and good teams to put their time and attention into a packaged business plan that will help further the interests of all involved," he said in an e-mail.
The competition offers many advantages, said Gary Williams, a business professor at BYU. Workshops help students create teams and improve plans.
"The average investor is going to see 1,000 plans. There is a lot of finesse that goes into creating [written] plans," Williams said. Some investors will decide if they are interested in a business in as little as three pages
The business workshops will help students create plans, start businesses and learn to pitch their ideas to investors.
"We're helping share vision and providing opportunity," Williams said. The professors put structure in place and the students do the rest.
Full Deatil:http://nn.byu.edu/story.cfm/65543
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
WidgetBucks Gives You $25 For Signing Up And Earn Money Every Time Someone Clicks On It
What Company Is Offering:
WidgetBucks is a shopping widget that you can place on your website or blog. You earn money every time someone clicks on it.
Launched through mpire’s affiliate widget program, the widgets’ content is contextually based according to your site’s content. From there, readers and site visitors can see various information regarding certain products, such as the lowest price available, and from which online retailer.
How It Works:
There are about 5 or so different widget sizes to choose from, and they are all fairly customizable in terms of color, to be better matched with your existing website. As with Proximic, a “grab it” option will soon be made available for its widgets, enabling visitors to take the widgets to be placed on their own site.
In order to encourage you to sign up or the WidgetBucks program, it’s offering you a $25 credit, meaning you’ll only need to earn another $25 to get your first check. The shopping widgets are a bit flashy and very much resemble an ad. I imagine that some web users could easily overlook these shopping widgets if they’re placed too far out of context on a given website.
More at:http://www.widgetbucks.com/
WidgetBucks is a shopping widget that you can place on your website or blog. You earn money every time someone clicks on it.
Launched through mpire’s affiliate widget program, the widgets’ content is contextually based according to your site’s content. From there, readers and site visitors can see various information regarding certain products, such as the lowest price available, and from which online retailer.
How It Works:
There are about 5 or so different widget sizes to choose from, and they are all fairly customizable in terms of color, to be better matched with your existing website. As with Proximic, a “grab it” option will soon be made available for its widgets, enabling visitors to take the widgets to be placed on their own site.
In order to encourage you to sign up or the WidgetBucks program, it’s offering you a $25 credit, meaning you’ll only need to earn another $25 to get your first check. The shopping widgets are a bit flashy and very much resemble an ad. I imagine that some web users could easily overlook these shopping widgets if they’re placed too far out of context on a given website.
More at:http://www.widgetbucks.com/
Evergreen Team Concepts is committed to leadership through its integrity, innovation and client satisfaction
What Company is Offering:
Evergreen Team Concepts is committed to leadership through its integrity, innovation and client satisfaction. Its strength is generated from commitment to clients, employees and industry. Through its strategic alliance with industry leader National Seminars, Evergreen Team Concepts helps clients easily and successfully complete all business training needs.
How It Works:
They have created a unique and comprehensive service (Team Development Group) that allows businesses to ask unlimited online consulting questions ranging from safety, human resources, six sigma, Lean 5S, operations, labor management, training, federal and state regulations and requirements and more. Responses are generated within one business day from professional consultants specializing in particular areas of need. By having a membership in the Team Development Group companies may participate in dynamic web forums, regular distribution of spotlighted resource materials, team growth planning services such as the Team Growth Matrix (patent pending) and professional training services at a discounted rate. This is much more than a co-op buy-in for training services. They develop unique programs designed to facilitate success for their partners and clients. They empower people through interactive community programs ranging from parenting skills to personal energy development. They foster continuous learning for professional organizations to meet the needs they have for CEUs or classroom contact hours.
More at:http://www.etcwa.com/
Evergreen Team Concepts is committed to leadership through its integrity, innovation and client satisfaction. Its strength is generated from commitment to clients, employees and industry. Through its strategic alliance with industry leader National Seminars, Evergreen Team Concepts helps clients easily and successfully complete all business training needs.
How It Works:
They have created a unique and comprehensive service (Team Development Group) that allows businesses to ask unlimited online consulting questions ranging from safety, human resources, six sigma, Lean 5S, operations, labor management, training, federal and state regulations and requirements and more. Responses are generated within one business day from professional consultants specializing in particular areas of need. By having a membership in the Team Development Group companies may participate in dynamic web forums, regular distribution of spotlighted resource materials, team growth planning services such as the Team Growth Matrix (patent pending) and professional training services at a discounted rate. This is much more than a co-op buy-in for training services. They develop unique programs designed to facilitate success for their partners and clients. They empower people through interactive community programs ranging from parenting skills to personal energy development. They foster continuous learning for professional organizations to meet the needs they have for CEUs or classroom contact hours.
More at:http://www.etcwa.com/
Cherry For Global Micropayment
What Company Is Offering:
Founded and spearheaded by Mr. Addison Kang, an industry veteran in virtual payment systems and Online Gaming in Asia, Cherry Credits provides the world’s first Unified Global Virtual Credit (UGVC) to facilitate commerce and connects international content to the global consumer.
How It Works:
Cherry Credits assists Online Content Developers, Aggregators and Publishers to penetrate into untapped consumer markets. Empowering Merchants and Consumers with a global transaction alternative to the dominant use of Credit Cards, Cherry Credits provides a global Physical Scratch Card which is available at major retail stores worldwide. Consumers will be able to shop online for great content using a Unified Virtual Global Credit (UGVC) known as CC.
More at:http://www.cherrycredits.com/
Founded and spearheaded by Mr. Addison Kang, an industry veteran in virtual payment systems and Online Gaming in Asia, Cherry Credits provides the world’s first Unified Global Virtual Credit (UGVC) to facilitate commerce and connects international content to the global consumer.
How It Works:
Cherry Credits assists Online Content Developers, Aggregators and Publishers to penetrate into untapped consumer markets. Empowering Merchants and Consumers with a global transaction alternative to the dominant use of Credit Cards, Cherry Credits provides a global Physical Scratch Card which is available at major retail stores worldwide. Consumers will be able to shop online for great content using a Unified Virtual Global Credit (UGVC) known as CC.
More at:http://www.cherrycredits.com/
Projectstars is an online business community for enterprise professionals to share expertise, build relationships, and find projects
What Company Is About:
Projectstars is an online business community for enterprise professionals to share expertise, build relationships, and find projects. The Projectstars network consists of over 300 communities covering enterprise departments, topics and issues. We are dedicated to improving the careers of corporate professionals.
How It Works:
The Projectstars network consists of over 300 communities covering enterprise departments, topics and issues. They are dedicated to improving the careers of corporate professionals. Professionals on Projectstars have the opportunity to get their expertise discovered and propel their career forward. By participating in the community, their knowledge and experience is noticed by recruiters, executives, and business partners. With over 300 communities, Projectstars is the most comprehensive network of business topics. If you are looking for advice on enterprise products and services, you have an entire community willing to help you. Those who participate in the community own it. Every quarter we reward the top contributors with shares in the company.
More at:http://www.projectstars.com/
Projectstars is an online business community for enterprise professionals to share expertise, build relationships, and find projects. The Projectstars network consists of over 300 communities covering enterprise departments, topics and issues. We are dedicated to improving the careers of corporate professionals.
How It Works:
The Projectstars network consists of over 300 communities covering enterprise departments, topics and issues. They are dedicated to improving the careers of corporate professionals. Professionals on Projectstars have the opportunity to get their expertise discovered and propel their career forward. By participating in the community, their knowledge and experience is noticed by recruiters, executives, and business partners. With over 300 communities, Projectstars is the most comprehensive network of business topics. If you are looking for advice on enterprise products and services, you have an entire community willing to help you. Those who participate in the community own it. Every quarter we reward the top contributors with shares in the company.
More at:http://www.projectstars.com/
Connecting Local Merchants With Locogopher
What Company Says:
Our mission is founded on a fairly simple premise: to connect local communities and local businesses in ways that are simple and engaging. We want to provide a place where together, we can bridge the gap to provide a local and relevant connection to your local community.
How It Works:
Merchants submit their information along with customer coupons, menus, sale dates, and other relevant information. In turn, users can review these local businesses as well as search for them. To perform a search, enter in a few search terms, say, “Book store”, followed by a city, state and/or zip code. The list of results will include not only the names of any local businesses that have provided their information, but also a map of where they are located and their addresses, and any reviews that users have submitted about them. The site is completely ad-free, so your results will always be unbiased and uncluttered.
More at:http://www.locogopher.com/
Our mission is founded on a fairly simple premise: to connect local communities and local businesses in ways that are simple and engaging. We want to provide a place where together, we can bridge the gap to provide a local and relevant connection to your local community.
How It Works:
Merchants submit their information along with customer coupons, menus, sale dates, and other relevant information. In turn, users can review these local businesses as well as search for them. To perform a search, enter in a few search terms, say, “Book store”, followed by a city, state and/or zip code. The list of results will include not only the names of any local businesses that have provided their information, but also a map of where they are located and their addresses, and any reviews that users have submitted about them. The site is completely ad-free, so your results will always be unbiased and uncluttered.
More at:http://www.locogopher.com/
BargainJack is a shopping site focusing on deals and bargain prices from major online retailers such as Amazon and Buy.com.
What Company Is Offering:
BargainJack.com is a bargain shopping website through which Jack posts his favorite deals during the day from major merchant sites like Buy.com, Amazon, etc. Jack waxes poetic about one specific deal in his daily commentary and aims to make shopping easy and enjoyable. Products tend to be gadgety in nature, but clothing and housewares also make their presence known.
Another aspect of BargainJack is the One Day Deals page which is a masterlist of over 100 one-day-deals from sites like Woot. This enables impulse-buying on a dangerously convenient level.
How It Works:You’ll find Jack’s own daily picks which are accompanied by interesting commentary, perhaps a quick story or review about how the product turns out. Under the tab labeled One Day Deals you’ll find the day’s best deals picked out from other bargains sites like Woot and Yugster; there’s an accompanying RSS feed and users can share their experience and discuss deals in the Daily Deal Forum. Most of the products tend to be gadgets however there are whole sections dedicated to home and garden, sports, and apparel. Refine your search by popularity, price, free shipping, post date, store, or by discount.
More at:http://www.bargainjack.com/
BargainJack.com is a bargain shopping website through which Jack posts his favorite deals during the day from major merchant sites like Buy.com, Amazon, etc. Jack waxes poetic about one specific deal in his daily commentary and aims to make shopping easy and enjoyable. Products tend to be gadgety in nature, but clothing and housewares also make their presence known.
Another aspect of BargainJack is the One Day Deals page which is a masterlist of over 100 one-day-deals from sites like Woot. This enables impulse-buying on a dangerously convenient level.
How It Works:You’ll find Jack’s own daily picks which are accompanied by interesting commentary, perhaps a quick story or review about how the product turns out. Under the tab labeled One Day Deals you’ll find the day’s best deals picked out from other bargains sites like Woot and Yugster; there’s an accompanying RSS feed and users can share their experience and discuss deals in the Daily Deal Forum. Most of the products tend to be gadgets however there are whole sections dedicated to home and garden, sports, and apparel. Refine your search by popularity, price, free shipping, post date, store, or by discount.
More at:http://www.bargainjack.com/
Monday, October 1, 2007
Error Makes Every Lotto Ticket A $1000 Winner
An advertising promotion for a Roswell car dealership has backfired.
A direct mailing of 50,000 scratch-off games touted a grand prize of $1,000. The small type said the odds of winning were 1 in 50,000.
But it turns out all 50,000 scratch-off ads were $1,000 winners.
The dealership's general manager, Jeff Kohn, blamed Atlanta-based Force Events Direct Marketing for printing the ads with a typographical error.
The dealership is offering $5 Wal-Mart gift cards to all participants.
The marketing company, Force Events, sent representatives to Roswell Thursday. Force Events said they would give anyone who came to collect that day a chance to win $5,000 in a drawing. The company would also hold another series of drawings where 20 people will win $1,000 a piece.
A direct mailing of 50,000 scratch-off games touted a grand prize of $1,000. The small type said the odds of winning were 1 in 50,000.
But it turns out all 50,000 scratch-off ads were $1,000 winners.
The dealership's general manager, Jeff Kohn, blamed Atlanta-based Force Events Direct Marketing for printing the ads with a typographical error.
The dealership is offering $5 Wal-Mart gift cards to all participants.
The marketing company, Force Events, sent representatives to Roswell Thursday. Force Events said they would give anyone who came to collect that day a chance to win $5,000 in a drawing. The company would also hold another series of drawings where 20 people will win $1,000 a piece.
Start Up's king Working On New Idea
Some people can't stop thinking about food. Bill Gross can't stop thinking about new businesses. One of the world's great serial entrepreneurs, he's launched more than 50 startups through Idealab, his incubator in Pasadena, Calif. His track record includes both winners (CitySearch, Cooking.com, NetZero/United Online) and losers (eToys, Eve.com, Free-PC). But he's best known for inventing the pay-per-click advertising model behind Overture Services (formerly GoTo.com), the pioneering search engine he sold to Yahoo! in 2003 for $1.6 billion.
Now, after more than a decade of launching dotcoms, Gross has rediscovered the pleasures - and profitability - of the physical world. Idealab's current lineup is crowded with companies that make actual products: robots, 3-D printers, electric cars, rooftop solar collectors. As Gross puts it, he's much more interested today in "atoms businesses" than "bits businesses." He recently sat down with Business 2.0 Editor-at-large Erick Schonfeld to talk about why.
Q. What do you look for when you start a company?
We like to challenge the status quo, to take on something that other people wouldn't do to solve a big problem. So when we look for a disruptive opportunity, we're really looking for a big problem and a way to solve it that no one else was willing to try.
Q. Do you go after industry incumbents, or are you looking for white space where customers aren't being served?
I would say we're going much more after white space. There are opportunities in both areas, and looking for a big industry gives you a lot of confidence that there will be customers there. But we prefer to look for a big itch that isn't being scratched.
Q. What are the drawbacks to going straight after a big industry incumbent?
The main drawback is that they are actually quite powerful. I think people underestimate big companies when they think of them as dinosaurs, as if they didn't have the power to fight back. For me, personally, if a customer is already being served, but just a little bit less efficiently, that's not as exciting as a customer with a problem that no one is trying to solve.
Q. Of all the companies you've started, which one was the most disruptive?
Probably GoTo. That company was designed to scratch an itch that wasn't being met. We had a whole bunch of small companies in the building that were all trying to buy advertising, but small advertisers were not being well served online. We thought the small advertiser needed some voice, some way to do business on a more cost-effective basis than cutting big deals with AOL. We had no idea that cost-per-click would have such a big impact - that it would change the economics of the Web. It was a disruptive thing that went beyond what we were hoping for.
Q. Didn't it become the basis for paid search, the economic driver for Google and Yahoo?
Yes, paid search has had an impact for Google (Charts, Fortune 500) and Yahoo (Charts, Fortune 500). But it's had an impact as well on many small publishers. Just as eBay (Charts, Fortune 500) empowers people to make a business online, so many publishers use AdSense and the price-per-click model to earn money online.
Q. How are you bringing search into the next phase?
Cost-per-click judges how many visitors you get, but it doesn't measure how effective those visitors are. Do they actually complete a transaction at the end? Do they become a customer of your Web site? We started Snap with the explicit purpose of introducing cost-per-action into search. An action could be anything the Web site cares about: a visitor signing up for a subscription or buying a book or deciding to become one of your customers. Since we introduced Snap, other search engines are starting to blend measurable actions into their final results.
Q. Is it frustrating that everyone copies you?
Well, we start these new companies for multiple reasons. Of course we're looking for economic gain; we have shareholders. But we are also looking to have an impact - and that's what makes us most proud.
Q. Was there a company you thought would be disruptive that turned out not to be?
Well, we felt sure Free-PC would be very disruptive - and it was, in fact. We were giving away free computers solely based on advertising. We started this in 1999. With today's economic model of online advertising, we might have been able to sustain it. We were just too far ahead of our time.
Q. What were some of Idealab's early successes?
We had a very big success with our first company, called CitySearch. It was doing local search way before it was popular. That was 1995 to 1996, and that company eventually grew up, merged with Ticketmaster Online, went public, and is now part of the IAC/InterActiveCorp family. We wanted to show that you could find local merchants much more powerfully and efficiently online, and I think we did. Of course, today everybody accepts that.
Read Full Text:http://money.cnn.com/2007/09/25/news/companies/Startupking.biz2/index.htm
Now, after more than a decade of launching dotcoms, Gross has rediscovered the pleasures - and profitability - of the physical world. Idealab's current lineup is crowded with companies that make actual products: robots, 3-D printers, electric cars, rooftop solar collectors. As Gross puts it, he's much more interested today in "atoms businesses" than "bits businesses." He recently sat down with Business 2.0 Editor-at-large Erick Schonfeld to talk about why.
Q. What do you look for when you start a company?
We like to challenge the status quo, to take on something that other people wouldn't do to solve a big problem. So when we look for a disruptive opportunity, we're really looking for a big problem and a way to solve it that no one else was willing to try.
Q. Do you go after industry incumbents, or are you looking for white space where customers aren't being served?
I would say we're going much more after white space. There are opportunities in both areas, and looking for a big industry gives you a lot of confidence that there will be customers there. But we prefer to look for a big itch that isn't being scratched.
Q. What are the drawbacks to going straight after a big industry incumbent?
The main drawback is that they are actually quite powerful. I think people underestimate big companies when they think of them as dinosaurs, as if they didn't have the power to fight back. For me, personally, if a customer is already being served, but just a little bit less efficiently, that's not as exciting as a customer with a problem that no one is trying to solve.
Q. Of all the companies you've started, which one was the most disruptive?
Probably GoTo. That company was designed to scratch an itch that wasn't being met. We had a whole bunch of small companies in the building that were all trying to buy advertising, but small advertisers were not being well served online. We thought the small advertiser needed some voice, some way to do business on a more cost-effective basis than cutting big deals with AOL. We had no idea that cost-per-click would have such a big impact - that it would change the economics of the Web. It was a disruptive thing that went beyond what we were hoping for.
Q. Didn't it become the basis for paid search, the economic driver for Google and Yahoo?
Yes, paid search has had an impact for Google (Charts, Fortune 500) and Yahoo (Charts, Fortune 500). But it's had an impact as well on many small publishers. Just as eBay (Charts, Fortune 500) empowers people to make a business online, so many publishers use AdSense and the price-per-click model to earn money online.
Q. How are you bringing search into the next phase?
Cost-per-click judges how many visitors you get, but it doesn't measure how effective those visitors are. Do they actually complete a transaction at the end? Do they become a customer of your Web site? We started Snap with the explicit purpose of introducing cost-per-action into search. An action could be anything the Web site cares about: a visitor signing up for a subscription or buying a book or deciding to become one of your customers. Since we introduced Snap, other search engines are starting to blend measurable actions into their final results.
Q. Is it frustrating that everyone copies you?
Well, we start these new companies for multiple reasons. Of course we're looking for economic gain; we have shareholders. But we are also looking to have an impact - and that's what makes us most proud.
Q. Was there a company you thought would be disruptive that turned out not to be?
Well, we felt sure Free-PC would be very disruptive - and it was, in fact. We were giving away free computers solely based on advertising. We started this in 1999. With today's economic model of online advertising, we might have been able to sustain it. We were just too far ahead of our time.
Q. What were some of Idealab's early successes?
We had a very big success with our first company, called CitySearch. It was doing local search way before it was popular. That was 1995 to 1996, and that company eventually grew up, merged with Ticketmaster Online, went public, and is now part of the IAC/InterActiveCorp family. We wanted to show that you could find local merchants much more powerfully and efficiently online, and I think we did. Of course, today everybody accepts that.
Read Full Text:http://money.cnn.com/2007/09/25/news/companies/Startupking.biz2/index.htm
Who Is behind ThFunded.com?
As a successful venture capitalist, Howard Hartenbaum had grown accustomed to some measure of deference from the entrepreneurs who pitched him. So when one particularly brash CEO called him a "nut case" and then said that a meeting with him "made me want to vomit," Hartenbaum was livid.
Hartenbaum, a partner at Draper Richards in San Francisco and an early backer of the online phone service Skype, stumbled upon those comments, posted by an anonymous entrepreneur, on a website called TheFunded.com. Incensed, Hartenbaum fired off a series of e-mails, threatening litigation and demanding to know who ran the site. He also expressed interest in investing.
If this reaction seems a tad schizophrenic, it reflects the mix of indignation and curiosity that The Funded has sparked in the world of venture-backed companies. The site, which was launched in March, is at once a Zagat guide to VCs and a place for disgruntled entrepreneurs to gather. More than 350 funds have been ranked and reviewed, with the juiciest postings sending BlackBerrys buzzing throughout Silicon Valley. Although the site is ostensibly off-limits to all but the founders of fast-growing companies, they're not its only readers. "We all have friends who have passwords," says David Stern, a partner with Clearstone, a venture firm in Santa Monica, California.
Complaining about VCs is a practice nearly as old as venture capital investing itself, of course. But the VC world is small and entrepreneurs have had to keep their complaints under wraps if they hoped to attract future rounds of funding. Now the 1,500 company founders who have signed up for The Funded feel liberated enough to share opinions (most often anonymously) that range from balanced to harsh.
Adding to The Funded's mystique is the fact that no one knows who runs it. The site's founder is known only as Ted, and guessing his identity has become something of a Silicon Valley parlor game. Prime suspects include Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg (a company Ted is fond of referencing), Blogger co-founder Evan Williams, and Gawker founder Nick Denton, who until recently edited the site Valley Wag. Then there's Jason Calacanis, a former entrepreneur in residence at Sequoia Capital and the founder of Weblogs, a company that he sold in late 2005. Calacanis, who is now running Mahalo.com, a Sequoia-backed search start-up, was one of the first CEOs to tout The Funded on his blog. He says he "knows" Ted but denies that he's running the site. (Rose did not respond to Inc.; Williams and Denton declined to comment.)
Of course, it's entirely possible that Ted is an obscure, rejected entrepreneur with an ax to grind (Hartenbaum's favored theory) or a tech-savvy student. After exchanging a few e-mails, Ted agreed to call Inc. for a phone interview. He claims to be a well-known serial entrepreneur who is currently the CEO of a venture-backed company. He says he started The Funded following a run-in with a firm. A VC wooed Ted initially, treating him to sports tickets and fancy dinners. But after the deal was signed, the relationship soured. "It was straight-up bad behavior," says Ted, who has a youthful voice and a distinctive, slightly devious laugh. "The person was cursing in meetings and insulting other board members." Ted's revenge: a site that is, he asserts, "changing the venture capital world."
Some VCs dismiss The Funded as idle chatter. Money, after all, is money, and a start-up that intends to burn some cash can rarely afford to dismiss an investor no matter how rude he or she is. But The Funded's supporters hope to upset that balance of power. The growth of the venture capital industry--VCs raised $28.5 billion last year, up from $3.8 billion in 2002--coupled with a tepid market for initial public offerings has made the competition among VCs for good deals more intense than ever. Simultaneously, the very social networking technology that produced home-run returns for investors--and disrupted industries from publishing to air travel--is now being used against them, as entrepreneurs organize themselves into online communities and share information.
Indeed, The Funded is just one of dozens of insider blogs on venture capital that have sprung up recently, most prominently Pmarca, a site written by Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen, whose "The Truth About Venture Capitalists," a 4,400-word essay posted on the site, has become a must-read for any CEO raising capital. (One section, "How to make a VC's head explode in one easy step," suggests needling investors about preferential tax treatment.)
More at:www.TheFunded.com
Via-INC
Hartenbaum, a partner at Draper Richards in San Francisco and an early backer of the online phone service Skype, stumbled upon those comments, posted by an anonymous entrepreneur, on a website called TheFunded.com. Incensed, Hartenbaum fired off a series of e-mails, threatening litigation and demanding to know who ran the site. He also expressed interest in investing.
If this reaction seems a tad schizophrenic, it reflects the mix of indignation and curiosity that The Funded has sparked in the world of venture-backed companies. The site, which was launched in March, is at once a Zagat guide to VCs and a place for disgruntled entrepreneurs to gather. More than 350 funds have been ranked and reviewed, with the juiciest postings sending BlackBerrys buzzing throughout Silicon Valley. Although the site is ostensibly off-limits to all but the founders of fast-growing companies, they're not its only readers. "We all have friends who have passwords," says David Stern, a partner with Clearstone, a venture firm in Santa Monica, California.
Complaining about VCs is a practice nearly as old as venture capital investing itself, of course. But the VC world is small and entrepreneurs have had to keep their complaints under wraps if they hoped to attract future rounds of funding. Now the 1,500 company founders who have signed up for The Funded feel liberated enough to share opinions (most often anonymously) that range from balanced to harsh.
Adding to The Funded's mystique is the fact that no one knows who runs it. The site's founder is known only as Ted, and guessing his identity has become something of a Silicon Valley parlor game. Prime suspects include Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg (a company Ted is fond of referencing), Blogger co-founder Evan Williams, and Gawker founder Nick Denton, who until recently edited the site Valley Wag. Then there's Jason Calacanis, a former entrepreneur in residence at Sequoia Capital and the founder of Weblogs, a company that he sold in late 2005. Calacanis, who is now running Mahalo.com, a Sequoia-backed search start-up, was one of the first CEOs to tout The Funded on his blog. He says he "knows" Ted but denies that he's running the site. (Rose did not respond to Inc.; Williams and Denton declined to comment.)
Of course, it's entirely possible that Ted is an obscure, rejected entrepreneur with an ax to grind (Hartenbaum's favored theory) or a tech-savvy student. After exchanging a few e-mails, Ted agreed to call Inc. for a phone interview. He claims to be a well-known serial entrepreneur who is currently the CEO of a venture-backed company. He says he started The Funded following a run-in with a firm. A VC wooed Ted initially, treating him to sports tickets and fancy dinners. But after the deal was signed, the relationship soured. "It was straight-up bad behavior," says Ted, who has a youthful voice and a distinctive, slightly devious laugh. "The person was cursing in meetings and insulting other board members." Ted's revenge: a site that is, he asserts, "changing the venture capital world."
Some VCs dismiss The Funded as idle chatter. Money, after all, is money, and a start-up that intends to burn some cash can rarely afford to dismiss an investor no matter how rude he or she is. But The Funded's supporters hope to upset that balance of power. The growth of the venture capital industry--VCs raised $28.5 billion last year, up from $3.8 billion in 2002--coupled with a tepid market for initial public offerings has made the competition among VCs for good deals more intense than ever. Simultaneously, the very social networking technology that produced home-run returns for investors--and disrupted industries from publishing to air travel--is now being used against them, as entrepreneurs organize themselves into online communities and share information.
Indeed, The Funded is just one of dozens of insider blogs on venture capital that have sprung up recently, most prominently Pmarca, a site written by Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen, whose "The Truth About Venture Capitalists," a 4,400-word essay posted on the site, has become a must-read for any CEO raising capital. (One section, "How to make a VC's head explode in one easy step," suggests needling investors about preferential tax treatment.)
More at:www.TheFunded.com
Via-INC
Krillion For" Finding National Brands Near You"
Krillion, the local search service for purchase-ready buyers, is adding a new feature called StockCheck. This will display the in-store availability for items you’re searching. The data for inventory is real-time, so this should make it much easier for users to find the best store with the best prices and product availability.
The addition of StockCheck goes along with the other search result data you’ll get with Krillion, like price points for individual store locations, contact information, directions, reviews, and more. What’s also good about this tool is its ability to help retailers get additional data on consumer activity online, when it comes to search. Other recent developments in local search include the official launch of viewpoints, FastCall411 and.
More at:http://www.krillion.com/
Via-mashable
The addition of StockCheck goes along with the other search result data you’ll get with Krillion, like price points for individual store locations, contact information, directions, reviews, and more. What’s also good about this tool is its ability to help retailers get additional data on consumer activity online, when it comes to search. Other recent developments in local search include the official launch of viewpoints, FastCall411 and.
More at:http://www.krillion.com/
Via-mashable
FT.com For Free Content
FT.com, the Internet version of the Financial Times, is instituting a new model for free and paid content on its website. Starting tomorrow, users will be able to access content on FT.com for free up to a total of 30 views per month. After 30 days, they will need to purchase a subscription in order to access more content.
This gives users plenty of opportunities to get the content they want, for free. Only the serious users will need to purchase a subscription beyond this, and that aligns nicely with the monetary goals of FT, as well as the concept that more content should be free online. This new model is also being promoted as useful for bloggers, as any reference links will be available to readers for free as well.
After The New York Times made more of its premium content available for free, and Murdoch announced plans to do the same for the Wall Street Journal, it’s clear that the pressure is on for more publications to give up content for free. What’s not detailed regarding FT.com’s new model is where advertising fits in, and if there are any plans to completely free up content and supplement costs with advertising revenue.
Read at:http://www.ft.com/home/us
Via-Mash
This gives users plenty of opportunities to get the content they want, for free. Only the serious users will need to purchase a subscription beyond this, and that aligns nicely with the monetary goals of FT, as well as the concept that more content should be free online. This new model is also being promoted as useful for bloggers, as any reference links will be available to readers for free as well.
After The New York Times made more of its premium content available for free, and Murdoch announced plans to do the same for the Wall Street Journal, it’s clear that the pressure is on for more publications to give up content for free. What’s not detailed regarding FT.com’s new model is where advertising fits in, and if there are any plans to completely free up content and supplement costs with advertising revenue.
Read at:http://www.ft.com/home/us
Via-Mash
Queplix increases your company's profitability by promoting Customer Loyalty"Customer Care"
What Company is Offering:
Queplix increases your company's profitability by promoting Customer Loyalty, Brand Name recognition and Customer Retention.
Traditional CRM vendors focus primarily on the acquisition portion of the Customer's life cycle. It is a known fact that it takes a much bigger budget to acquire a new customer than to keep existing customers loyal.
QueWeb focuses specifically on the Customer Care portion of the life cycle, after the Customer has been acquired. That portion of the life cycle has been largely underserved both in the Enterprise segment as well as the Mid-market.
In order to stay competitive in today's global economy, more and more companies realize that their Customer Care must be treated as a Profit Center, as opposed to traditional thinking of it as a Cost Center. By enabling the superior Customer Experience, companies realize the full potential in Customer's Loyalty, Brand Name Recognition and Customer Retention, all leading to increase in profits.
How It Works:
Queplix solutions help these businesses create a customer care service that nurtures existing relationships with customers therefore providing continual future business with the customer. If your current customer service system is providing poor support it is time you visit Queplix.com and take a look at what they have to offer. Queplix provides solutions that work with your existing system and interface but allows you to easily update customer information .
More at:http://www.queplix.com/
Queplix increases your company's profitability by promoting Customer Loyalty, Brand Name recognition and Customer Retention.
Traditional CRM vendors focus primarily on the acquisition portion of the Customer's life cycle. It is a known fact that it takes a much bigger budget to acquire a new customer than to keep existing customers loyal.
QueWeb focuses specifically on the Customer Care portion of the life cycle, after the Customer has been acquired. That portion of the life cycle has been largely underserved both in the Enterprise segment as well as the Mid-market.
In order to stay competitive in today's global economy, more and more companies realize that their Customer Care must be treated as a Profit Center, as opposed to traditional thinking of it as a Cost Center. By enabling the superior Customer Experience, companies realize the full potential in Customer's Loyalty, Brand Name Recognition and Customer Retention, all leading to increase in profits.
How It Works:
Queplix solutions help these businesses create a customer care service that nurtures existing relationships with customers therefore providing continual future business with the customer. If your current customer service system is providing poor support it is time you visit Queplix.com and take a look at what they have to offer. Queplix provides solutions that work with your existing system and interface but allows you to easily update customer information .
More at:http://www.queplix.com/
They Become Millionaire With MyYearbook.com
Who: Catherine and Dave Cook
What: MyYearbook.com, a social networking site
Where: New Hope, Pennsylvania
When: Started in 2005
Move over, MySpace and Facebook--these young entrepreneurs have found a new way to capitalize on the social networking rage. Amazingly, Catherine Cook, 17, and her 18-year-old brother, Dave, were able to create MyYearbook.com while they were still in high school.
The 2 million-member, seven-figure-earning site, with 20 employees and ad revenue from corporations such as Disney and Procter & Gamble, got its start from an observation about yearbooks. Catherine says she and Dave were sitting around, flipping through their school yearbook and commenting on its poor quality. Their idea to turn a yearbook into a social website quickly became a reality when their oldest brother, Geoff, decided to come onboard as an investor. A Harvard graduate and a successful internet entrepreneur in his own right, Geoff gave Catherine and Dave $250,000 to start the company in 2005. With that, Catherine and Dave were on their way, working with outsourced developers in India to design a networking site that would meld the success of MySpace with the premise of a yearbook.
Pulling constant all-nighters and juggling schoolwork along with the business was "really daunting," says Catherine. Hoping to attract as many students as possible, the pair timed the launch to coincide with their return to school after spring break in April 2005. They turned heads by wearing promotional T-shirts to school, resulting in 200 people signing up in the first week. Word spread, and less than a year after opening up to all schools, the site had a million members. "At the start, [the success] was a joke," Catherine says. "We made fake press articles about us taking over the world and getting a million members. But then we actually got a million members, and we knew it was going to be big."
Catherine says the site owes its rapid growth to several factors: her appearance in CosmoGirl magazine, her and Dave's ability to gather feedback directly from the students at their school, and giveaways of free T-shirts and sandals to members who recommended at least five people to the site. "With high schoolers, something free is always good," Catherine says, adding that the site's optimal search and profile customization features have also fueled its success.
Catherine says she and Dave could not have done it without the help of Geoff, who runs the day-to-day operations of the company while she and Dave focus on schoolwork. "We're really close siblings," says Catherine. "We have the same sense of humor, and it [is] easy to work with Geoff."
So what's next for two kids who've already started their own company? College, of course. While she hasn't chosen a school yet, Catherine plans to attend a university starting this fall, and Dave is currently enrolled at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
More at:http://www.myyearbook.com/
Via-Entrepreneur Mag
What: MyYearbook.com, a social networking site
Where: New Hope, Pennsylvania
When: Started in 2005
Move over, MySpace and Facebook--these young entrepreneurs have found a new way to capitalize on the social networking rage. Amazingly, Catherine Cook, 17, and her 18-year-old brother, Dave, were able to create MyYearbook.com while they were still in high school.
The 2 million-member, seven-figure-earning site, with 20 employees and ad revenue from corporations such as Disney and Procter & Gamble, got its start from an observation about yearbooks. Catherine says she and Dave were sitting around, flipping through their school yearbook and commenting on its poor quality. Their idea to turn a yearbook into a social website quickly became a reality when their oldest brother, Geoff, decided to come onboard as an investor. A Harvard graduate and a successful internet entrepreneur in his own right, Geoff gave Catherine and Dave $250,000 to start the company in 2005. With that, Catherine and Dave were on their way, working with outsourced developers in India to design a networking site that would meld the success of MySpace with the premise of a yearbook.
Pulling constant all-nighters and juggling schoolwork along with the business was "really daunting," says Catherine. Hoping to attract as many students as possible, the pair timed the launch to coincide with their return to school after spring break in April 2005. They turned heads by wearing promotional T-shirts to school, resulting in 200 people signing up in the first week. Word spread, and less than a year after opening up to all schools, the site had a million members. "At the start, [the success] was a joke," Catherine says. "We made fake press articles about us taking over the world and getting a million members. But then we actually got a million members, and we knew it was going to be big."
Catherine says the site owes its rapid growth to several factors: her appearance in CosmoGirl magazine, her and Dave's ability to gather feedback directly from the students at their school, and giveaways of free T-shirts and sandals to members who recommended at least five people to the site. "With high schoolers, something free is always good," Catherine says, adding that the site's optimal search and profile customization features have also fueled its success.
Catherine says she and Dave could not have done it without the help of Geoff, who runs the day-to-day operations of the company while she and Dave focus on schoolwork. "We're really close siblings," says Catherine. "We have the same sense of humor, and it [is] easy to work with Geoff."
So what's next for two kids who've already started their own company? College, of course. While she hasn't chosen a school yet, Catherine plans to attend a university starting this fall, and Dave is currently enrolled at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
More at:http://www.myyearbook.com/
Via-Entrepreneur Mag
Google's now offering an ad creation tool
If you could use some help spreading the word about your small business, let Google lend a helping hand. Google's now offering an ad creation tool to help advertisers develop newspaper ads using pre-designed templates. The tool itself is free, though it's only available to AdWords advertisers. Marketers can also search through Google's inventory of 450 newspapers and chat directly with Print Ads account representatives.
More at:http://www.btobonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070921/FREE/70921005/1078/newsletter01
More at:http://www.btobonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070921/FREE/70921005/1078/newsletter01
Start Up Says Software As A Service Hit Among Them
Manish Agrawal heads Picsquare, a two-year-old Bangalore-based firm with a Web site that lets one order prints of digital photos. His company is made up of just 10 people, working on their laptops, designing and brainstorming. His servers sit in the US, rented at $140 per month. Storage, from Amazon.com’s S3 online storage service, is paid on a per GB per month basis.
“We are a small firm and just received funding of $75,000 from an angel investor. Our expenses need to be curtailed wherever possible. The idea of renting out servers and storage came about as we began the company. It made for an economical proposition. In India, you would have to spend around Rs 7 lakh for just the servers,” he explained.
Raman Fibre Sciences, another start-up, has opted for Microsoft’s ERP software as a service (SaaS) offering — Dynamics — for the same reason. “For a start-up, an upfront investment is an issue. The return on investment is also difficult to calculate. The subscription model offered by the software has made it easier for us to get to a running start,” said Mr Aroon Raman.
“Software as a service is still in a nascent stage of adoption in India, with few small and medium enterprises choosing it,” Mr Venkatesh Kumar Sivaraman, National Sales Manager — MS Dynamics, Wipro Infotech, told Business Line. “About 80 per cent of the companies we speak to still want to host the applications inside,” he continued. Subscribing to a three-user ERP pack (for basic material and financial accounting functionalities) costs Rs 25,000 per month, compared to the Rs 10-15 lakh upfront payment in the traditional model.
What makes SaaS and newer online models work for start-ups? “We do not have legacy software and hardware that is occupying space and needs to be used — the bane of a medium or large enterprise. We can start off with a flexible and light basic software and then add more modules to it as we scale up — perfect for a fast growing small firm,” he said.
Via-Businessline
“We are a small firm and just received funding of $75,000 from an angel investor. Our expenses need to be curtailed wherever possible. The idea of renting out servers and storage came about as we began the company. It made for an economical proposition. In India, you would have to spend around Rs 7 lakh for just the servers,” he explained.
Raman Fibre Sciences, another start-up, has opted for Microsoft’s ERP software as a service (SaaS) offering — Dynamics — for the same reason. “For a start-up, an upfront investment is an issue. The return on investment is also difficult to calculate. The subscription model offered by the software has made it easier for us to get to a running start,” said Mr Aroon Raman.
“Software as a service is still in a nascent stage of adoption in India, with few small and medium enterprises choosing it,” Mr Venkatesh Kumar Sivaraman, National Sales Manager — MS Dynamics, Wipro Infotech, told Business Line. “About 80 per cent of the companies we speak to still want to host the applications inside,” he continued. Subscribing to a three-user ERP pack (for basic material and financial accounting functionalities) costs Rs 25,000 per month, compared to the Rs 10-15 lakh upfront payment in the traditional model.
What makes SaaS and newer online models work for start-ups? “We do not have legacy software and hardware that is occupying space and needs to be used — the bane of a medium or large enterprise. We can start off with a flexible and light basic software and then add more modules to it as we scale up — perfect for a fast growing small firm,” he said.
Via-Businessline
FOREIGN VENTURE capital (VC) funds have realised that investing in Indian start-ups could be far more rewarding than the country's stock markets.
FOREIGN VENTURE capital (VC) funds have realised that investing in Indian start-ups could be far more rewarding than the country's stock markets.
They are now busy tying up with Indian boutique investment banks to extend their reach in the country. At least 11 such tie-ups have either been announced or were in the pipeline. Foreign funds such as US-based Kleiner Perkins, Mayfield, Quantum and Evergreen and Switzerland’s VGD have either tied up, or are in the process of tying up with Indian banks to leverage India’s blinding economic growth.
“We believe young people in India today are thinking about becoming entrepreneurs, and that is a great emerging opportunity we want to tap,” says Vinnie Vyas of Crossover Advisors, a boutique advisory firm he started with his partner in Mumbai earlier this year, having spent nine years at US-based investment banking major Morgan Stanley.
Boutique investment bankers say financial services, infotech services, pharmaceuticals and real estate are real hot sectors to be in. Not surprisingly then, foreign funds are actively eyeing these ventures to ensure that their high net worth portfolios get major returns.
Out of these, real estate and infrastructure has already very high valuations, making them unattractive for smaller VC funds. Other sectors like insurance, for example, has set a scorching growth rate of 50 to 55 per cent, says Vyas, who came back to try and tap the potential of India’s high growth sectors that have consistently outperformed annualised returns from the benchmark BSE Sensex that has given average returns of 33.5 per cent in the last five years.
Other bankers, however, said that foreign funds were tying up simply to acquire the networking capabilities of Indian banks and nothing more. Most of these funds were not really interested in seed funding, but in identifying more rewarding opportunities. That is where the tie-ups end, they said.
They are now busy tying up with Indian boutique investment banks to extend their reach in the country. At least 11 such tie-ups have either been announced or were in the pipeline. Foreign funds such as US-based Kleiner Perkins, Mayfield, Quantum and Evergreen and Switzerland’s VGD have either tied up, or are in the process of tying up with Indian banks to leverage India’s blinding economic growth.
“We believe young people in India today are thinking about becoming entrepreneurs, and that is a great emerging opportunity we want to tap,” says Vinnie Vyas of Crossover Advisors, a boutique advisory firm he started with his partner in Mumbai earlier this year, having spent nine years at US-based investment banking major Morgan Stanley.
Boutique investment bankers say financial services, infotech services, pharmaceuticals and real estate are real hot sectors to be in. Not surprisingly then, foreign funds are actively eyeing these ventures to ensure that their high net worth portfolios get major returns.
Out of these, real estate and infrastructure has already very high valuations, making them unattractive for smaller VC funds. Other sectors like insurance, for example, has set a scorching growth rate of 50 to 55 per cent, says Vyas, who came back to try and tap the potential of India’s high growth sectors that have consistently outperformed annualised returns from the benchmark BSE Sensex that has given average returns of 33.5 per cent in the last five years.
Other bankers, however, said that foreign funds were tying up simply to acquire the networking capabilities of Indian banks and nothing more. Most of these funds were not really interested in seed funding, but in identifying more rewarding opportunities. That is where the tie-ups end, they said.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Creating New Ventures in India: Experiences, Opportunities and Challenges
"Creating New Ventures in India: Experiences, Opportunities and Challenges," is part of a technology entrepreneurship lecture series sponsored by Princeton's Center for Innovation in Engineering Education (CIEE) and the Jumpstart New Jersey Angel Network, a venture capitalist group.
The panel will be moderated by entrepreneur Ed Zschau, a faculty member in electrical engineering and in operations research and financial engineering. Panelists will be:
Randolph Altschuler and Joseph Sigelman, members of Princeton's class of 1993 and co-presidents of Office Tiger, a company specializing in business process outsourcing services;
Sumir Chadha, also a 1993 Princeton graduate and senior managing director of Sequoia Capital India; and
Bharat Desai, co-founder of Syntel, a global information technology services company.
"We would like to get beyond the clichés about outsourcing and bring an understanding of what's really happening from entrepreneurs who are directly involved," said Bob Monsour, associate director for external affairs for CIEE. "The panel discussion will cover all facets of the entrepreneurial experience in India."
The next event in the lecture series will be an Innovation Forum in early 2007 featuring Princeton scientists and engineers discussing their early-stage entrepreneurial ventures.
CONTACT:http://engineering.princeton.edu/ciee/
The panel will be moderated by entrepreneur Ed Zschau, a faculty member in electrical engineering and in operations research and financial engineering. Panelists will be:
Randolph Altschuler and Joseph Sigelman, members of Princeton's class of 1993 and co-presidents of Office Tiger, a company specializing in business process outsourcing services;
Sumir Chadha, also a 1993 Princeton graduate and senior managing director of Sequoia Capital India; and
Bharat Desai, co-founder of Syntel, a global information technology services company.
"We would like to get beyond the clichés about outsourcing and bring an understanding of what's really happening from entrepreneurs who are directly involved," said Bob Monsour, associate director for external affairs for CIEE. "The panel discussion will cover all facets of the entrepreneurial experience in India."
The next event in the lecture series will be an Innovation Forum in early 2007 featuring Princeton scientists and engineers discussing their early-stage entrepreneurial ventures.
CONTACT:http://engineering.princeton.edu/ciee/
FoundREAD
What Company is Offering:
FoundREAD is where you can share resource, where anyone can contribute, either through their posts, or experiences or comments. You can choose to contribute freely or anonymously. Just like a GPS system helps us drive through a maze of freeways, the founders and entrepreneurs help their peers navigate the twisted, confusing roads of company building.
How It Works:
The site takes the blog approach, but readers may participate by commenting and posting, anonymously or not. The content is divided into seven sections: Aces in which successful entrepreneurs are discussed, Fables which features tales of Job-like trials and tribulations and lessons learned, Edge the place to get tips and advice, Learn where you can learn from others, Om, this is the section for getting bits of wisdom and trivia from Mr. Malik himself, and finally there are Questions and Answers. Check it all out to get informed and keep up with the collective smarts of the biz tribe.
More at:http://foundread.com/
FoundREAD is where you can share resource, where anyone can contribute, either through their posts, or experiences or comments. You can choose to contribute freely or anonymously. Just like a GPS system helps us drive through a maze of freeways, the founders and entrepreneurs help their peers navigate the twisted, confusing roads of company building.
How It Works:
The site takes the blog approach, but readers may participate by commenting and posting, anonymously or not. The content is divided into seven sections: Aces in which successful entrepreneurs are discussed, Fables which features tales of Job-like trials and tribulations and lessons learned, Edge the place to get tips and advice, Learn where you can learn from others, Om, this is the section for getting bits of wisdom and trivia from Mr. Malik himself, and finally there are Questions and Answers. Check it all out to get informed and keep up with the collective smarts of the biz tribe.
More at:http://foundread.com/
Justroutes.com allows users to find all the public transport routes to a specific destination
What Company is Offering:
Justroutes.com allows users to find all the public transport routes to a specific destination.
The site currently only covers Dublin routes, but the site’s founders, Vincent Glennon and David Rooney, are planning to expand the service in the coming weeks to include mapping of the nationwide public transportation network.
Hoe It Works:
The end result for the user is that with three simple mouse clicks on our map, you can find all the routes from your starting point to your destination for free. If there is no direct route between your locations, we will tell you how to get there using connections among all the different types of transport. At the moment, we have over 2,500 stops recorded, including all the Luas, Dart and suburban links for Dublin,” he said.
The site is currently offering a free service, but Glennon said a corporate version would be introduced in the coming weeks. He said that companies would be able to use an embedded map on their website for €100 per month.
They Invited:
The duo will attend the Future of Web Apps conference in London this week. Glennon said that 15,000 people were expected to attend the event, which runs from October 3 to 5.
More at:www.Justroutes.com
Justroutes.com allows users to find all the public transport routes to a specific destination.
The site currently only covers Dublin routes, but the site’s founders, Vincent Glennon and David Rooney, are planning to expand the service in the coming weeks to include mapping of the nationwide public transportation network.
Hoe It Works:
The end result for the user is that with three simple mouse clicks on our map, you can find all the routes from your starting point to your destination for free. If there is no direct route between your locations, we will tell you how to get there using connections among all the different types of transport. At the moment, we have over 2,500 stops recorded, including all the Luas, Dart and suburban links for Dublin,” he said.
The site is currently offering a free service, but Glennon said a corporate version would be introduced in the coming weeks. He said that companies would be able to use an embedded map on their website for €100 per month.
They Invited:
The duo will attend the Future of Web Apps conference in London this week. Glennon said that 15,000 people were expected to attend the event, which runs from October 3 to 5.
More at:www.Justroutes.com
Third Generation Entrepreneurs
Only three short years ago, Justin Kling and Michael Pottern were 25 years old, in between jobs and unsure of their future. Having worked for others, they decided it was time to work for themselves. In 2004, they opened an apartment locating service in the heart of Chicago in an already well-established marketplace. Today, Apartment Savvy is a multi-million dollar business and the fastest growing company in the rental industry. With a wealth of entrepreneurial lessons passed down from their grandfathers and fathers, Pottern and Kling are building the next generation of entrepreneurs in each of their respective families.
Apartment Savvy is a premier apartment locating service headquartered at 2835 North Clark, on the border of Chicago's Lincoln Park and Lakeview neighborhoods. At no cost to the tenant, Apartment Savvy is dedicated to providing consumers with the best rental housing options in the Chicago area. Apartment Savvy customizes each search to best fit the needs of the prospective resident in the most efficient and stress-free manner. Experienced agents personally accompany and guide each Apartment Savvy customer free of charge to every property being considered.
For more information, visit http://www.apartmentsavvy.com
Apartment Savvy is a premier apartment locating service headquartered at 2835 North Clark, on the border of Chicago's Lincoln Park and Lakeview neighborhoods. At no cost to the tenant, Apartment Savvy is dedicated to providing consumers with the best rental housing options in the Chicago area. Apartment Savvy customizes each search to best fit the needs of the prospective resident in the most efficient and stress-free manner. Experienced agents personally accompany and guide each Apartment Savvy customer free of charge to every property being considered.
For more information, visit http://www.apartmentsavvy.com
Google buys start-up Zingku
Google's quest for devotees in the booming world of mobile online services continues with its purchase of a startup company that streamlines sharing pictures, messages and more via smart phones.
The news comes as the leading Internet search firm vies with Yahoo, Microsoft and America Online to win the loyalty of people accessing the Internet on the move.
"Google has acquired certain assets and technology of Zingku," the California-based firm said Friday in reply to an AFP inquiry.
Google added that it expects the acquisition to help it "provide people worldwide with direct access to Google applications, and ultimately the information they want and need, right from their mobile devices."
Zingku's website says it launched in 2005 after its founders "noticed that teenage/twenty something's and their friends were engaging in rich media conversations drawing upon the full reach of mobile text messaging."
Zingku says its technology makes it easy to share messages, pictures, "mobile flyers," or other creations using mobile devices, according to the firm.
"Our service integrates your mobile phone with a personalized web site so that you can easily move (zing) things back and forth between the web and your mobile as well as...connect with friends," Zingku's website says.
Zingku will not register new members while the deal is pending and informed existing users that they can cancel their accounts or have them transferred to Google.
The news comes as the leading Internet search firm vies with Yahoo, Microsoft and America Online to win the loyalty of people accessing the Internet on the move.
"Google has acquired certain assets and technology of Zingku," the California-based firm said Friday in reply to an AFP inquiry.
Google added that it expects the acquisition to help it "provide people worldwide with direct access to Google applications, and ultimately the information they want and need, right from their mobile devices."
Zingku's website says it launched in 2005 after its founders "noticed that teenage/twenty something's and their friends were engaging in rich media conversations drawing upon the full reach of mobile text messaging."
Zingku says its technology makes it easy to share messages, pictures, "mobile flyers," or other creations using mobile devices, according to the firm.
"Our service integrates your mobile phone with a personalized web site so that you can easily move (zing) things back and forth between the web and your mobile as well as...connect with friends," Zingku's website says.
Zingku will not register new members while the deal is pending and informed existing users that they can cancel their accounts or have them transferred to Google.
"Xoom" The Smartest Way To Send Money Worldwide
What Company is Offering:
Xoom offers fast, reliable money transfers at a great price! Send money from the convenience of your computer to friends and family worldwide and in the US.
How It Works:
Enter your contact information, your recipient's information, and the amount you want to send.
We protect your personal information, and share it with our partners only for the purposes of completing your money transfer.
2. Select a delivery method.
Your recipient can pick up the money, have it delivered, or have it deposited directly into their bank account. Available delivery methods vary by country.
3. Select a payment method.
To fund your money transfer, enter your bank account, credit card, or PayPal information. We use state-of-the-art technology to keep your financial information secure.
4. Let your recipient know their money is on the way!
We will email you a receipt containing your unique Xoom Tracking Number. You can use this number to check the status of your money transfer at any time.
More at:https://www.xoom.com/
Xoom offers fast, reliable money transfers at a great price! Send money from the convenience of your computer to friends and family worldwide and in the US.
How It Works:
Enter your contact information, your recipient's information, and the amount you want to send.
We protect your personal information, and share it with our partners only for the purposes of completing your money transfer.
2. Select a delivery method.
Your recipient can pick up the money, have it delivered, or have it deposited directly into their bank account. Available delivery methods vary by country.
3. Select a payment method.
To fund your money transfer, enter your bank account, credit card, or PayPal information. We use state-of-the-art technology to keep your financial information secure.
4. Let your recipient know their money is on the way!
We will email you a receipt containing your unique Xoom Tracking Number. You can use this number to check the status of your money transfer at any time.
More at:https://www.xoom.com/
GameXa is releasing a gamer to gamer marketplace for trading virtual currency
What Company Is Saying:
"We are gamers, playing PCs, consoles and MMORPGs.
It was obvious to us that the trade of in-game currencies was not transparent and is dominated by a few large Gold traders. This doesn’t only have a negative effect on the pricing, but also the delivery time and the level of service. Anyway, the gamer always feels that someone is taking advantage of him/her."
What Its Purpose:
They aim to conquer all of these problems by providing a gamer to gamer platform, where you can trade your excess Gold, without the middle man. This ensures a fair price, a transparent structure and trustworthy trade as you can check the reliability of the trading partner with the revolutionary rating system.
Buying and selling WoW Gold at GameXa – the gamers’ marketplace!
How It Will Benifit:
GameXa is releasing a gamer to gamer marketplace for trading virtual currency. MMOG currencies are currently dominated by a small group of traders, creating an adverse effect on both pricing and customer service. GameXa hopes to remove this problem by allowing excess currency to be transferred without a middle man. Fair prices, a standardized platform, user rankings and other benefits of online marketplaces will hopefully migrate to the gaming economy.
More at:http://www.gamexa.com/
"We are gamers, playing PCs, consoles and MMORPGs.
It was obvious to us that the trade of in-game currencies was not transparent and is dominated by a few large Gold traders. This doesn’t only have a negative effect on the pricing, but also the delivery time and the level of service. Anyway, the gamer always feels that someone is taking advantage of him/her."
What Its Purpose:
They aim to conquer all of these problems by providing a gamer to gamer platform, where you can trade your excess Gold, without the middle man. This ensures a fair price, a transparent structure and trustworthy trade as you can check the reliability of the trading partner with the revolutionary rating system.
Buying and selling WoW Gold at GameXa – the gamers’ marketplace!
How It Will Benifit:
GameXa is releasing a gamer to gamer marketplace for trading virtual currency. MMOG currencies are currently dominated by a small group of traders, creating an adverse effect on both pricing and customer service. GameXa hopes to remove this problem by allowing excess currency to be transferred without a middle man. Fair prices, a standardized platform, user rankings and other benefits of online marketplaces will hopefully migrate to the gaming economy.
More at:http://www.gamexa.com/
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Site24x7 is a simple hosted web site monitoring service that works around the clock making sure that websites are performing flawlessly
What Company is Offering:
Site24x7 checks for the response time and availability of your website. For example, you can add a URL, say http://mycommerce.com, for monitoring. You can set a threshold for a web page such that - if the page load time of that page is more than 3 seconds, you should be notified through EMail, SMS and RSS. This helps you in taking quick action before it affects end users.
How It Works:
Site24x7 is a simple hosted web site monitoring service that works around the clock making sure that websites are performing flawlessly. There are six main functions that Site24x7 takes care of: website availability, tracking website performance, web application monitoring, web page defacement, instant alerts, and reports and trends. Each of these areas are consistently checked, reported, updated and fixed if need be. These reports help the site management see the flaws of their system and help to improve the site experience. One of the most important facets of Site24x7 is that it immediately alerts the manager when their site goes down. The manager is contacted by email, SMS and RSS so they are aware of outages and can react accordingly.
More at:http://site24x7.com/index.html
Site24x7 checks for the response time and availability of your website. For example, you can add a URL, say http://mycommerce.com, for monitoring. You can set a threshold for a web page such that - if the page load time of that page is more than 3 seconds, you should be notified through EMail, SMS and RSS. This helps you in taking quick action before it affects end users.
How It Works:
Site24x7 is a simple hosted web site monitoring service that works around the clock making sure that websites are performing flawlessly. There are six main functions that Site24x7 takes care of: website availability, tracking website performance, web application monitoring, web page defacement, instant alerts, and reports and trends. Each of these areas are consistently checked, reported, updated and fixed if need be. These reports help the site management see the flaws of their system and help to improve the site experience. One of the most important facets of Site24x7 is that it immediately alerts the manager when their site goes down. The manager is contacted by email, SMS and RSS so they are aware of outages and can react accordingly.
More at:http://site24x7.com/index.html
Mint For Money Management
What Company is Offering:
Mint connects nightly to the credit card providers, banks, and/or credit unions you choose to keep your transactions and account balances automatically up-to-date. Mint even auto-balances your checkbook and auto-categorizes your transactions. Set it up once and you’re done.
Mint is a modern, powerful, easy and secure web-based solution for managing your finances. And it’s free. You register anonymously using any valid email address, and then add the log-in information for the online bank, credit union and credit card accounts you want to consolidate in Mint.
Mint connects to over 3,500 US financial institutions. Your account information is updated each night. Mint automatically categorizes all your purchases, showing you how much you spend on gas, groceries, parking, rent, restaurants, DVD rentals and more, with amazing precision. An advanced alerting system highlights any unusual activity, low balances, unwanted fees and charges, and upcoming bills so you’re in constant contact with your money – effortlessly. “
How It Works:
Mint automatically brings together information from your bank, credit union and credit card data and organizes your financial life into a manageable view. Mint is already known for its cool and un-intimidating data displays and suggestions. The suggestions are a huge part of Mint that separates it from the pack. Mint immediately starts to offer money-saving and money-making tips for its users at an average of $1,000 in savings opportunities during the first season. The suggestions are sourced from a patent-pending search algorithm that searches for the best interest rates and lowest prices and best deals in all areas from banking to cable providers. Mint updates your account every night and is “always on” sending alerts on low balances, upcoming bills, or any unusual activity on your account. Finally, Mint can be accessed from anywhere at anytime on the web.
More at:http://www.mint.com/
Mint connects nightly to the credit card providers, banks, and/or credit unions you choose to keep your transactions and account balances automatically up-to-date. Mint even auto-balances your checkbook and auto-categorizes your transactions. Set it up once and you’re done.
Mint is a modern, powerful, easy and secure web-based solution for managing your finances. And it’s free. You register anonymously using any valid email address, and then add the log-in information for the online bank, credit union and credit card accounts you want to consolidate in Mint.
Mint connects to over 3,500 US financial institutions. Your account information is updated each night. Mint automatically categorizes all your purchases, showing you how much you spend on gas, groceries, parking, rent, restaurants, DVD rentals and more, with amazing precision. An advanced alerting system highlights any unusual activity, low balances, unwanted fees and charges, and upcoming bills so you’re in constant contact with your money – effortlessly. “
How It Works:
Mint automatically brings together information from your bank, credit union and credit card data and organizes your financial life into a manageable view. Mint is already known for its cool and un-intimidating data displays and suggestions. The suggestions are a huge part of Mint that separates it from the pack. Mint immediately starts to offer money-saving and money-making tips for its users at an average of $1,000 in savings opportunities during the first season. The suggestions are sourced from a patent-pending search algorithm that searches for the best interest rates and lowest prices and best deals in all areas from banking to cable providers. Mint updates your account every night and is “always on” sending alerts on low balances, upcoming bills, or any unusual activity on your account. Finally, Mint can be accessed from anywhere at anytime on the web.
More at:http://www.mint.com/
MarketWatch Community is a free service that lets you discover, organize and share MarketWatch stories with other readers
What Company Is Offering:
MarketWatch Community is a free service that lets you discover, organize and share MarketWatch stories with other readers. Its new social site from Dow Jones owned financial site MarketWatch.
How It Works:
The community site gives its members the chance to decide what news stories or stocks are particularly worth paying attention to. Its UI is similar to that of its parent site, but with a less rigid newspaper feel and plenty of 2.0 features to capture the attention of old and new users alike. The site offers readers an easy way to give feedback and comment on stories, as well as to share their fav stocks of the day. Other social staples include tags, ratings, friends, and the community controlled Hot Picks page. For recommendations and tips, members can solicit a friend request. They can also display their stock prowess by making picks, and measuring their accuracy.
More at:http://community.marketwatch.com/
MarketWatch Community is a free service that lets you discover, organize and share MarketWatch stories with other readers. Its new social site from Dow Jones owned financial site MarketWatch.
How It Works:
The community site gives its members the chance to decide what news stories or stocks are particularly worth paying attention to. Its UI is similar to that of its parent site, but with a less rigid newspaper feel and plenty of 2.0 features to capture the attention of old and new users alike. The site offers readers an easy way to give feedback and comment on stories, as well as to share their fav stocks of the day. Other social staples include tags, ratings, friends, and the community controlled Hot Picks page. For recommendations and tips, members can solicit a friend request. They can also display their stock prowess by making picks, and measuring their accuracy.
More at:http://community.marketwatch.com/
MicroPledge For free market-testing service to gauge the reception for new software products and features.
What company Says:
Have an idea? Just need funding?
Want to join with others to support to an idea?
This site is for you."microPledge" is sure its site will come to be viewed as a free market-testing service to gauge the reception for new software products and features.
How It Works:
Anyone with an idea for useful software can submit it on the site. Others who like it can then pledge money to help see the vision realized. Developers browsing the site can submit quotes for creating the software; the one with the best quote after two weeks is chosen for the job. Those who pledged, meanwhile, get to have a say in how the product takes form. The New Zealand-based site was launched in August by three business-minded brothers. They explain: "Being people with plenty of ideas, we kept wanting to start projects—the kind we knew people would find interesting. If we could only get people to pledge to support them ... Then one day it dawned on us that we had to run the service ourselves."
more at:http://micropledge.com/
Have an idea? Just need funding?
Want to join with others to support to an idea?
This site is for you."microPledge" is sure its site will come to be viewed as a free market-testing service to gauge the reception for new software products and features.
How It Works:
Anyone with an idea for useful software can submit it on the site. Others who like it can then pledge money to help see the vision realized. Developers browsing the site can submit quotes for creating the software; the one with the best quote after two weeks is chosen for the job. Those who pledged, meanwhile, get to have a say in how the product takes form. The New Zealand-based site was launched in August by three business-minded brothers. They explain: "Being people with plenty of ideas, we kept wanting to start projects—the kind we knew people would find interesting. If we could only get people to pledge to support them ... Then one day it dawned on us that we had to run the service ourselves."
more at:http://micropledge.com/
Brandfame is the premier marketplace connecting brands and producers sharing their videos on video-sharing websites like YouTube
What Company Is Offering:
Brandfame is the premier marketplace connecting brands and producers sharing their videos on video-sharing websites like YouTube, metacafe, AOL Video, Revver, etc ... for live product placement and sponsorship deals.
How It Works:
Advertisers can list products they'd like to have featured in videos, and search for upcoming videos by producers to find a match for their brand. Producers indicate which productions they're willing to integrate products into, and can search for brands or products they'd like to work with. Once a deal has been made, the advertiser pays the producer, and Brandfame takes a cut. The startup is also working on an auction system for advertisers to bid on product placement in new videos by hot producers.
More at: www.brandfame.com
Brandfame is the premier marketplace connecting brands and producers sharing their videos on video-sharing websites like YouTube, metacafe, AOL Video, Revver, etc ... for live product placement and sponsorship deals.
How It Works:
Advertisers can list products they'd like to have featured in videos, and search for upcoming videos by producers to find a match for their brand. Producers indicate which productions they're willing to integrate products into, and can search for brands or products they'd like to work with. Once a deal has been made, the advertiser pays the producer, and Brandfame takes a cut. The startup is also working on an auction system for advertisers to bid on product placement in new videos by hot producers.
More at: www.brandfame.com
Online Receipt Organizer
Shoeboxed.com, a startup based in Durham, North Carolina, promises a way to safely store them. Anyone can sign up for the free service. Once enrolled, users receive an email address which they can give to merchants when buying online. The receipts then go to their Shoeboxed mailbox, where they’re safely stored. Better yet, the service allows members to organize their receipts by creating virtual shoeboxes, for a recent vacation or a series of tax-deductible home-office purchases, for example. Result: no more hunting for receipts in shoeboxes of the cardboard variety, or in a regular email inbox. Shoeboxed recently added a feature that allows users to scan in paper receipts for storage on the site.
All students from Duke University, the Shoeboxed team launched the service from a Soviet-era East Berlin apartment, during a study-abroad stint in Germany. Shoeboxed’s founders hope to eventually sign on 11 million users or 10 percent of US online shoppers. Next step: going global. As the number of users grows, so will the value of their enterprise to potential advertisers and those who wish to offer scaled-up pay versions of the service. Shoeboxed isn’t currently monetizing their product, and is operating on money from their angel investor. In the future, Shoeboxed aims to have several revenue streams (none of which involve selling personal information). They’ll likely offer a premium service at some point, but the core functionality will always be free.
More at: www.shoeboxed.com
Via-Springwise
All students from Duke University, the Shoeboxed team launched the service from a Soviet-era East Berlin apartment, during a study-abroad stint in Germany. Shoeboxed’s founders hope to eventually sign on 11 million users or 10 percent of US online shoppers. Next step: going global. As the number of users grows, so will the value of their enterprise to potential advertisers and those who wish to offer scaled-up pay versions of the service. Shoeboxed isn’t currently monetizing their product, and is operating on money from their angel investor. In the future, Shoeboxed aims to have several revenue streams (none of which involve selling personal information). They’ll likely offer a premium service at some point, but the core functionality will always be free.
More at: www.shoeboxed.com
Via-Springwise
Friday, September 28, 2007
Revolution money Seems Big Business Opportunities For VCs
What Company Says:
We took a good, long look at the world of personal finance and thought to ourselves, "Is this as good as it gets?" The answer was a resounding "No."
At Revolution Money, we think there's a better way. So we decided to shake things up. No tricks. No gimmicks. No hidden fees. Just clear and simple products that make your life easier.
Every product we offer is designed to give you more choice, more control and more convenience. More choice because everyone has a different lifestyle and we believe you should be able to have the product that best suits you. More control means that as our product line expands, you'll have a card that can do as much or as little as you want it to in a more secure PIN-based system. Wow, this really is more than you're used to.
Why It Will Work:
Revolution money provides a money exchange and new alternative secure credit card.
RevolutionCard was designed for the way you live. Giving you more control and greater security.
RevolutionCard does it all.
* Safeguards against identity theft
* Competitive APRs
* No annual fee
How Much They Got From VCs:
Revolution Money received $50 Million from Citi, Morgan Stanley, and Deutsche Bank.
More at:http://www.revolutionmoney.com/
Sponsers: Alabama payday loans
We took a good, long look at the world of personal finance and thought to ourselves, "Is this as good as it gets?" The answer was a resounding "No."
At Revolution Money, we think there's a better way. So we decided to shake things up. No tricks. No gimmicks. No hidden fees. Just clear and simple products that make your life easier.
Every product we offer is designed to give you more choice, more control and more convenience. More choice because everyone has a different lifestyle and we believe you should be able to have the product that best suits you. More control means that as our product line expands, you'll have a card that can do as much or as little as you want it to in a more secure PIN-based system. Wow, this really is more than you're used to.
Why It Will Work:
Revolution money provides a money exchange and new alternative secure credit card.
RevolutionCard was designed for the way you live. Giving you more control and greater security.
RevolutionCard does it all.
* Safeguards against identity theft
* Competitive APRs
* No annual fee
How Much They Got From VCs:
Revolution Money received $50 Million from Citi, Morgan Stanley, and Deutsche Bank.
More at:http://www.revolutionmoney.com/
Sponsers: Alabama payday loans
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