Memo to Start-ups: You’re Supposed to Be Changing the World, Remember? too many people building safe businesses, too many companies just trying to make existing things slightly better ....... The people who extol the virtues of “sensibility” are never the people at the core of the next great companies. .... Whether press or VCs, they’ll be late to the next wave, just like they were too late to this one.
Or maybe the next big startup is not trying to sqeeze into the dot com space.
GMC Review: A whole bunch of robust looking vehicles fall in this category. Look around and take your pick. For example, the 2009 GMC Yukon Denali. It is the go to SUV for VIP
motorcades and for good reason. It looks sturdy. This is a secure looking vehicle.
2010 Volkswagen Jetta TDI: This sportswagen is an improvement from its previous edition for how much cargo space it has in the back. Its aerodynamic styling catches your eye.
2010 Ford Transit Connect: This van has been designed for tight, urban environments. This was launched in Europe first, but will hit the market in the US as well.
2010 Mazda CX-7: This baby has an aggressive look. It has a SUV feel. But it drives like a passenger car. That is the combo that seems to have been attempted. Autoblog: “Mazda has refined the CX-7 inside-and-out, including a redesigned front end with a larger five-point grille and different front and rear fascias.”
TutorVista is the top online tutoring company in the world. It is the beauty of the online medium that the tutoring can be 24*7. For about a hundred dollars a month, a student can get as much tutoring as she wants and needs on all subjects. That is a deal. K-12 students are welcome. Those starting college are welcome.
Advantage Media Services (AMS) takes care of it for you. It stands out by offering OnGuard Inventory Protection™. AMS takes care of your inventory, and you track it all from your desktop. That easy. AMS does B2B as well as B2C.
You can depend on its reputation. Let AMS take care of your inventory so you can focus on your core business processes.
OpenACircle.com is an online collaboration space. You can't meet in person, but you absolutely have to work together. Some of the exchanges possible at OpenACircle.com beats meeting in person. It is a multi-media experience.
Online collaboration is a business must. OpenACircle.com gives you great options. It allows you to reach out to members of your team, to your customers, and potential customers. Inviting is a piece of cake.
Files, documents, pictures: share them all. OpenACircle.com allows for video talk: upto 50 people can participate.
Noone really has a clue. Newspapers are imploding left and right. News is more important than ever before. But newspapers are not? Journalists are not? Many people don't know how to square that circle.
Companies need focus. That is why Cisco outsources its manufacturing. And big companies don't necessarily do well in every little venture they paddle into. But Google is Google, and Google Checkout has been a minor hit, although, it has to be noted, in the aftermath of Google Checkout PayPal has only grown.
But micropayments, I believe, are a tougher nut to crack. PayPal did not show up in
Comedy is not going anywhere. And Jay is funny as hell. What is being challenged is the business of television, the business of comedy on television. Jay could adapt to the business.
I say go on YouTube, produce one, and two and five minute clips. Embed ads in them. And produce a ton of the embeddable material: a Jay Leno joke on every conceivable topic that you can embed into your blog or website.
There would be a basic fee for the ads, and then a recurring fee based on how many times that particular clip got viewed.
I bet he would make more this way than doing his hourly thing on NBC.
I am suggesting ultimate fragmentation to a guy who many consider a holdover from the era of mass media. He might not like it.
CheckAppointments.com is an online software that takes care of the scheduling needs of professionals and small businesses, all for free: no more playing phone tag with your customers.
CheckAppointments.com helps you focus more on your business. It takes care of the scheduling needs of a large team, and gives you the option to publicize the availability of your team to your clients.
CheckAppointments.com gives each account a small website that you can share with your clients.
And now I read this gushing mention of him by Tim O'Reilly in TechCrunch: Gov 2.0: It’s All About The Platform. Makes me feel good. Scott started what I call a 5.0 company, one about face time. (Netizen: Web 5.0: Face Time) And he has executed well. And he has a sound business model. He charges organizers, organizers charge those who show up: everyone is happy. Wishing the guy all the best.
It’s important for the idea of “government as platform” to reach well beyond the world of IT. It was Scott Heiferman, the founder of meetup.com who hammered this point home to me. Meetup is a platform for people to do whatever they want with. A lot of them are using it for citizen engagement: cleaning up parks, beaches, and roads; identifying and fixing local problems.
In this regard, there’s a CNN story from last April that I like to tell: a
road into a state park in Kauai was washed out, and the state government said it didn’t have the money to fix it. The park would be closed. Understanding the impact on the local economy, a group of businesses chipped in, organized a group of volunteers, and fixed the road themselves. I called this DIY on a civic scale. Scott Heiferman corrected me: “It’s DIO: Not ‘Do it Yourself’ but ‘Do it Ourselves.’”
Imagine if the state government were to reimagine itself not as a vending machine but an organizing engine for civic action. Might DIO help us tackle other problems that bedevil us? Can we imagine a new compact between government and the public, in which government puts in place mechanisms for services that are delivered not by government, but by private citizens? In other words, can government become a platform?
The promise of blogging is that anyone, but anyone can get published. The promise of PayCheckr is that any blogger, but any blogger can hope to make part or full time income blogging.
PayCheckr's beauty is that it economizes space. It is a button. It is small in size. It can be placed anywhere at your blog. I'd prefer to have it show at the bottom of all my blog posts, just like the Share This button.
It is so easy to create your particular PayCheckr button. Right now you don't even have to register. You pick and choose your channels, and, voila, your button is ready for you. Copy and paste your code.
I recommend the Amazon Affiliate program to all bloggers out there. I think your Amazon store has to go with the theme of your blog. If your blog is about digital cameras, your Amazon storefront will do brisk business if it displays digital cameras.
There is one bottleneck with using the PayCheckr button. You can't blame the button if yours is not a high traffic, great content blog. PayCheckr has not made me rich yet, but I think it is because my blog is not yet the high traffic, much linked to blog that I am working to make it. The onus is on me.
But you don't want to wait until you are a large traffic blogger before you put a PayCheckr button on your blog. Do it now. Do it right away. Get people into the Amazon store through your blog.
The PayCheckr button is beautiful for how little space it takes. It is so not intrusive.
I am obviously leading by example here. My blog Netizen was the very first blog to get a PayCheckr button. I want 10 million bloggers to follow my lead. That will allow you to experiment with various business models for your blog.
Every blog is a storefront. PayCheckr can turn every blog into a storefront. Take the plunge.
In a few months you should be able to have tens of revenue channels for your blog, and the button does not get fat in the process at all. Same small space, many different revenue models. You tweak to your heart's fill.
Go to PayCheckr and get your button now. In about 10 seconds, you will be in business.