Ok, we have all heard of subscription based website template directories. You pay a subscription fee and are able to download web templates, well FeedForAll has launched an rss2html template directory. What is that you might be asking? Well they have a script, rss2html that converts RSS feeds to HTML webpages. You can customize the layout of the feeds, or even better you can choose from more than 400 templates in the rss2html template directory.

The Honolulu Advertiser:

For hundreds of thousands of people, the dream of making an Internet fortune works like this: Earn pennies at a time in exchange for allowing Google Inc. or Yahoo Inc. to place advertisements on a personal or small-business Web page.

Take Andrew Leyden, former House Commerce Committee counsel and founder of a dot-com venture that failed, who started PodcastDirectory.com, a search engine for podcasts. As the site’s popularity rose from a hundred hits a month in 2004 to nearly a million now, Leyden started making the equivalent of an entry-level government worker’s salary — $30,000 to $40,000 a year — simply because people clicked on ads. That allowed him to work at home in Chesapeake Beach, Md., trying to make more money by attracting still more traffic to his site.

“I went from literally 26 cents a week or something like that to several dollars an hour,” he said, by using Google’s AdSense software, which solicits bids from marketers who, in turn, pay to run ads on his site.

The U.S. Small Business Administration has announced the arrival of podcasting for small business owners on a range of topics to help entrepreneurs on the road to starting a new business.

The SBA podcasts provide an introduction to various small business topics, and will deliver business information and advice for new and established entrepreneurs on all aspects of starting, expanding and financing a small business, as well as business protection. The current list of podcasts includes the following subjects:

* Is Entrepreneurship for You?
* The SBA Small Business Training Network — Log On!
* Selecting a Business that Fits
* Disaster Preparedness for Business Owners
* Financing a Small Business

One of the most popular questions that I get asked is, “how do I close the sale?”

The truth is closing the sale should be, and often is, the easiest part of the sale. By spending too much time focusing on closing the sale, you are forgetting the most important aspects of the sale — everything else.

When you have done your job providing value, making a friend at all costs, making the prospect comfortable with the experience, establishing trust, and providing the help/answers/solutions the prospect needs, closing the sale simply becomes the next logical step.

My advice to those looking for new and improved ways to close the sale, is to take a step back and observe what is happening before you get to that point.

As a small businesses we have the advantage of being able to move quickly, we can also be very adaptable. Consider catering your message at a specific audience. These niche markets and verticals are often overlooked by large companies and small businesses can truly have an advantage when they understand a niche.

Just as we saw the emergence of topical and vertical web search engines and directories that cater to a specific audience we are now see vertical RSS and podcasting directories. These are some of the vertical engines that have launched in the course of the last few months:

Medical Feeds - an RSS directory dedicated to medical feeds.

Religious Podcasts - a podcast directory dedicated to podcasts that have a religious element.

Realty Feeds - an RSS directory to assist buyers in locating homes for sale.

Finance Investing - an RSS search engine and directory for finding financial related feeds.

Security Protection - a collection of security and alert feeds.

Videocasting Station - a more general directory, with the common theme that all content contains videos.

Bruce Clay’s thoughts about “Link Love” differ from Robert Scobles.  (I like you Bruce I’ll give you a link

You’d think if anyone would appreciate the value of a link it would superblogger Robert Scoble, but that’s not the case. If you’re cool enough to be well-ranked in Google or have no need for a last name, Scoble won’t link to you. Why? Because you’re already part of the “blogging elite” and he thinks you don’t need the link-love.

I’m not 100 percent on board there. Linking is the geek way of life and the geeks own the Web. If you need proof of that click your way over to Digg or Technorati and take a look at what’s going on. Geeks are running the show. They control your buzz, your traffic, your inbound links, and ultimately your search engine rankings. Telling a geek not to link is like asking them to cut their Internet use to just five hours a day. It’s blasphemous.

Think you’ve got what it takes to be our next Inc.’s next Entrepreneur of the Year?

Get started here by submitting your story. The entry process shouldn’t take you more than 10 minutes — if you’ve got a good story to tell.

Deadline: All entries must be received no later than September 15, 2006.

From rants about the rich and famous to accusations about a corporation’s shady practices, opinion is certainly well represented on the Web. Many people feel free to post comments anonymously, confident that the targets of their ire can’t trace them through Internet service providers (ISPs).

In most cases, they’re right. Laws governing the Internet generally protect ISPs more than they do companies or individuals that might be maligned. Comments that could be considered libel in newspapers or magazines often flow freely online.

The Internet A License for Libel

There was once a time when you only had to worry about children when they were outside or not at home. Those times have changed. Strangers can now enter your home, without a key or coming through a door. How you may ask? These strangers enter your home using a keyboard. These strangers can befriend your children online.

Tips for Keeping Children Safe Online