Posted October 24, 2006 
Comments(0) IBM has targeted Amazon.com with two patent infringement lawsuits filed Monday, claiming that the online retail giant is willfully exploiting a number of its patents.
The patents deal with intellectual property issues ranging from advertising to hyperlink technology to electronic catalogs. Financial information concerning the magnitude of the damages was not disclosed.
Posted October 20, 2006 Comments(0) More than one in eight adults in the US show signs of being addicted to the internet, a study has shown.
“Addicts” showed signs of compulsive internet use, habitually checking e-mail, websites and chat rooms.
Complete Article
Posted October 20, 2006 Comments(0) The Internet has become more than just a critical tool for small businesses — for some owners, it’s a way of life.
A reporter’s very informal survey of several small business owners found that some of the most useful sites include those that help them network with other entrepreneurs. They also favor sites that help their companies communicate, either internally or with other businesses, or that help get tasks like teleconferencing done, sometimes at low or no cost.
Complete Article
Posted October 12, 2006 Comments(0) Google has merged their online spread sheet and Writely, their online word processor into a single platform. The interface has been cleaned up. The printing functions a little better and all in all the changes are positive.
Posted October 12, 2006 Comments(0) After talking with lawyers and financial planners long enough, you grow numb to the concept of talking about death. You grow numb to the phrase, “Heaven forbid if anything were to happen…” This is a perfectly fine way of phrasing it, in fact I don’t know if I could think of a better way to phrase such a delicate subject.
Yesterday, I experienced an interesting way to broach such a delicate subject. While my wife and I met with our lawyer to speak about our wills, we had the conversation take an interesting turn.
Instead of saying, “Heaven forbid anything were to happen to you…” She said, “Imagine you and children were on a plane flying to Disneyland when all of a sudden the plane falls out of the sky and you’re all dead.”
My wife’s eyes grew with horror as she blurted out, “Holy Shit!” As the room grew quiet, I began laughing because that sure was a way to break the tension. Having the risky engagement technique actually work helped ease the weight of the room as my wife defensively responded, “Why do we have to be going to Disneyland? Couldn’t it be a fire or carbon monoxide poisioning? Couldn’t it be something a little less horrific?”
The lawyer responded, “Okay. I apologize. Tom is taking the family out to dinner and he makes a sudden decision to try and beat the train. He miscalculates and the train smashes your car to pieces and everybody is dead, who would you want to get your money?”
The ridiculousness of the examples had us laughing. As I read this blog, I realize this situation may have been one of those “you had to be there moments,” but I promise you we are not the Manson family.
What the lawyer did was take what is normally a boring, dry subject and get us to relax. We were able to make better decisions once we were relaxed, and therefore the quality of her product, the wills, will be improved. A better quality product because she wasn’t afraid to take a risk.
Now before you send me hate email, consider the fact she may have intuitively known we would not be offended by such a level of banter. Perhaps it was when I announced we were ready to talk about death, as we walked in the room. Give the lawyer a bit of credit for knowing when to use such risky tactics and when they would not be so appropriate.
The point is there are times you can follow your gut and lay things out there; the quality of your product may just depend on you doing so.
Posted October 11, 2006 Comments(0) 
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Posted October 10, 2006 Comments(0) 
I have seen the same exact design sold on ebay everyday of the week. You may get 30 or so of these sites (different topics) for about $99. The 30 sites total 6,000 pages.
Similar sites are also sold daily (in multiple quantities) on ebay like “Huge Adsense Empire - 100+ sites 16,500 Pages” Imagine 150 of these sold and posted w/out change. 2,475,000 duplicate pages on the web.
Just look at the site for sell then check the sellers feedback from “buyers” - most are private listings. You will see that they may sell 1 to 3 per day!
Many new buyers purchase these and are unfamiliar with editing or adding content to a php site and get frustrated.
Posted October 10, 2006 Comments(0) According to the Business Blog:
Nearly two thirds of adults intend to do their holiday shopping online this year. Take a tip from the major eTailers’ marketing playbook:-blogs, RSS feeds and viral marketing are what you need to drive all those eager online shoppers to your site.
Nearly half, 41.6 percent, of retailers will incorporate blogs or RSS feeds into their holiday marketing strategy, and 79.5 percent will use viral marketing at social networking sites, like MySpace and Friendster, says the 2006 eHoliday Mood Survey released Wednesday. The study was conducted by BizRate Research for Shopzilla and Shop.org.
Now is the time to prepare and setup a feed!
Posted October 5, 2006 Comments(0) In last week’s edition of Sales Muscle, we asked the following: “Is there a time when you must simply say ‘no’ to a customer?”
Here are two notable responses:
1.) I will definitely say no to a customer if my product is not going to benefit
them. Why would I want them to spend their money on something I know is not
going to work for them only to turn around and tell me that my product
doesn’t work. I will tell them where they should be spending their money to
help their business grow. They do appreciate this. They learn to trust you
and when you do have something for them that does fit, they do not hesitate
to buy from you. I love helping my customers even though it doesn’t always
fill my pocket. - Patty H.
2.) Yes! Some customers ask for too much and don’t spend enough to warrant it.
Like in radio, the client says “I’ll spend X amount with you, but I need two for one spots and weather sponsorships and be included in a station contest.” That doesn’t make sense for the radio station. - Jeff
Thanks for the feedback, and I look forward to your responses to this week’s question.
Posted October 3, 2006 Comments(0) Netflix offered a million dollars for a computer program that accurately predicts which films people will rent from its online service!
Netflix bills itself as the world’s largest Internet movie rental service and said it was intent on better knowing what films people would pick from its virtual shelves.Netflix challenged software developers to come up with a program that beats Cinematch predictions by at least 10 percent. The first person or team to do so would win.
Contestants would get to work with 100 million anonymous rental ratings from members. The winning approach would be made public so academics, businesses and researchers could use it as a tool to better match people’s tastes to products or services, Netflix said.