I’ve found that StumbleUpon has some interesting folks that expand quite a bit on their negative opinions. Take my recent post about the 16 personality types of StumbleUpon users. It was generally very well liked (23 reviews, 20 of which were positive), but if you take a look at the thumbs down reviews, you’ll find things like this one from TravisKab:

It’s nice to be able to sit back and laugh about this. Just so you all know, I really don’t feel compelled to pigeonhole myself as a personality type and frolic (spelling?) in traffic. But, I do like to take notice of interesting patterns in social media and spread the word about them. And strong opinions one way or the other make life far more interesting than zombies saying “nice post,” “lame,” or “I don’t like it”. By all means, keep the discussion going.

And hey, people that post positive reviews are also pretty verbose. Take this one from TheNanny612 for instance:

I do see the point of the couple of thumbs down reviews on the 16 personalities post. People were expecting a more thorough analysis of StumbleUpon users and felt that the Myers Briggs test was not substantial / accurate enough to be based upon. To this, I respond that this is a social media blog, not a psychology lab

Hey, if you want to do some grant writing, we put some stumblers in a sensory deprivation chamber for a while and see how they do. It’s still pretty good that StumbleUpon even has a spot for personality type unlike most social media stuff that is out there.

By popular demand, I have disabled snap previews on my site (not over the whole world, like breaking the Internet).

For those of you that like the Snap preview, I haven’t heard from you. Comment here if you really want it back.

By the way, there is a way to disable Snap previews for all sites. Lifehacker mentioned it earlier this year.

How to Disable Snap Preview in WordPress

So how do you do it? Simple:

1. Log in to your WordPress account.

2. Click the Presentation tab

3. On the Extras subnav, uncheck the “Enable Snap Preview Anywhere on this blog”

Enjoy!

Let’s step back a bit…way before Wikis, and even before the Internet caught on. Britannica was a huge multi-volume set that guys would come to your door to sell you a set for a lot of money. If you’ve ever read Blown to Bits, you’ll see that Britannica was decimated by a simple, yet new invention: the CD. Microsoft Encarta, equipped with some good old public domain material and the CD brought down an empire.

This is a common phenomenon in the tech world: someone comes up with a concept, someone else does it better. Amazon wasn’t the first place to sell books online. Google certainly wasn’t the first search engine.

Hats off to Wikipedia. They showed the world, but what’s in store for them next? Wikipedia almost grays into the realm of Social News. Sure, Wikipedia is more official and in depth, but how different is it really from the Diggs and Netscapes out there?

This great video from the Onion made me think of my old network admin days when I used to tell people that they broke the Internet (would sometimes get a concerned look

I love the bit about the deletion of blogs and that people are going to the streets to hand out emergency diet tips and gossip!

(Source: Wikipedia)

Remember playing Monopoly – the capitalistic real estate game continuously popular for over three generations around the world? Who was the designated banker when you played? Who hid a stash of money under the board for the big reveal when bankruptcy loomed? Did house rules allow inside trading? Every deal was a cash deal, sealed with a handshake. Nina Smith of blogher (the community for women who blog) says: …the good ‘ole fashioned board games (think Monopoly) that taught us as a kids that cash is king. How’s that for personification?

A great article from Chaya Brian Carvalho earlier this year featured her company bcwebwise and enumerated the strategyto give the internet the power of the human touch – and from the looks of it, it is turning into more than just Monopoly money for her and her team. Here’s more from the article but you will want to read the whole piece yourself:

Community building generates more interest than just normal promotional campaigns. A community appeals to users and, hence, makes sense to marketers for two main reasons:

1. It entertains and emotes. When done properly, the space is an interesting experience for the user and generates some kind of reaction.

2. It allows users some level of control. Community allows users to control the experience. They can view only what they want and also get to know more about the product in an unobtrusive manner, in fact they are there out of their own choice.

Community networks will be measured by the pass-along rate or “ripples”. Impressions versus ripples? The choice for the savvy and ROI-focused brand manager will be easy. It’s not about how many rocks you throw in the pond, but how many ripples you create, how many people you involve, how much of human interaction there is.

 

Carvalho calls the Internet high-speed access to another soul. In my previous post, I compared two very popular communities – Netscape and Digg. Social Media is changing the way we look at things.

Simplicity. Social Media and Web 2.0 have a common thread to revolutionize the internet beyond technology. Certainly they look to simplify through the use of more intuitive, clean technology, and minimalist design. Together they change customer service as well- for the customer and for the provider. Web2.0 is all about simplicity. Flattening layers within these companies show the world that very popular sites can be run by a handful of people. Next we see a new social customer service climate. You can think of your customer service as a chat session with the owner of the company or the manufacturer of your purchase.

NowSourcing is one such company. The original concept of NowSourcing was to outsource IT deliverables with efficiency, simplicity – without borders and crossing time zones as needed. The emphasis is on loyalty – not brand loyalty when we recommend a suite of services to a client. The concept has been branded NowSourcing. We now see that this new form of social media includes community involvement – the human touch. The work we do is what the client would do for herself if she could. With our help, she can.

By the Stats

Digging further into the details – yes – Alexa, Compete, and anyone else that covers stats clearly shows Digg as the winner. As of 7/19/07, Alexa ranks Digg as 95 versus Netscape’s 569 ranking.

But wait…what about Page Rank?

vs.

Of course, Netscape has an unfair advantage as they have been around longer than most people have been on the Internet. Still, PageRank is PageRank – and Netscape wins.

How about Stickiness?

Over to Compete for some analysis, we see the a Netscape user has 7.1 pages per visit versus Digg’s 3.9. For the average visit length – Netscape is more than twice as good, scoring 3:04 vs. 1:22 on Digg.

Beyond the Stats

Digg is a larger community, and has been in full view of the public for a longer time as social media with a year head start over Netscape.

Netscape on the other hand is still associated with being a browser or some sort of search engine. If you asked the average user, most do not know about the relaunch of Netscape.

You’ve already heard the clichés that Digg is for young, immature people whereas Netscape users are older, and news headline / politically minded. You have probably also heard that Netscape is just a Digg clone.

Still, Netscape just seems like a nicer community to me. It’s mainly news and politics based, but I’ve seen many good articles there about tech, humor, and religion. Digg still seems to be very tech and gag focused. Look at the top stories side by side:

There’s just something about Netscape for me. It just seems more like a community. Maybe it’s the little images next to the top stories. Something about it seems more friendly to me. What do you think? Would love to hear your opinions.

37signals has just announced that Basecamp and Highrise accounts can now be accessed via single sign-on. I don’t know about you, but I find this to be one of their best improvements yet. Why? It is just a waste of time flipping through accounts on different windows / tabs. Why bother eating up all your system RAM with a bunch of inactive Firefox tabs?

Open Bar

Open Bar has only been out for a few weeks now, but has dramatically improved the way users can use the 37signals products. If you’re like me, you’ve got a Basecamp account for your business projects. Maybe another one for hobby home based projects. Then, you’ve got another set of accounts for Highrise – different businesses, charity lists, and so forth. Evne if you use the same username and password for all of them (note: don’t do this!), it is still a pain to switch between tabs and have all those different bookmarks cluttering your bookmarks toolbar.

OpenID

What’s the big deal with OpenID? Simple. You can use it as a single login for multiple applications. Sort of like the way Microsoft Passport (now Windows Live ID) should have been. Since it is an Open Source community, there is extensive support, and a lot of opinions

The 37signals Open Bar relies on you to have an OpenID, so this is a must.

Xoocle, an interesting Stumbleupon mashup (currently in Alpha mode) has been created by Thanassis.  Simply enter your Stumbleupon username, and you are then given a listing of all your SU tags.  The first tag will automatically do a mashup on that tag against other popular social networking sites – technorati, del.icio.us, and flickr.

This is a wonderful resource to see what’s going on in several communities at the same time.  Keep in mind that if you have a general tag such as computers, you’re going to have a very wide variety of different hits across the different sites, but that just speaks to your tagging.  Nicely done!

Chipin.com is becoming more and more popular lately. This neat web 2.0 site is tearing up the donations track.

What’s that you say? Donations don’t sound exciting? The only news that you want to hear about has something to do with the Bush Administration or the iPhone? Guess again.

Yes, Chipin is making it easy for the world to donate money to your cause right from your website. And they make you look good:

Very simple interface. NowSourcing was impressed by the ease of use. Simply register, enter your campaign, how much you want to raise, when you need it by, and your PayPal email account. After that, you have a very slick flash widget that you can put right on your site. They also just released widgets for your Facebook profile (note: Facebook account required to view), allowing you to raise money for the groups you’re a part of on Facebook.

With me so far? Instead of having a boring, old little donate button, you get a sweet looking Chipin badge for your cause. What’s more is that these guys are hard at work on making a non-profit fundraising badge that includes the non-profit logo, integrated video, custom design, and messaging. The best part is that you can make your non-profit badge available to other bloggers that support your cause as well.

Currently, Chipin plans to release these special non-profit badges in August 2007. Read more about it here.

Thank you for reading my review – if you’re in the giving mood, do get a chance to check out my cause that I’m trying to raise money for. It is a children’s playground fund (look under the left nav). Thanks for stopping by!

Swaptree is a great service that I came across recently. It lets you trade books, music, movies, and games with others for free. You tell the system what you have, and it figures out what you can get in exchange. Note that it supports one-for-one item trades only.

How it works

Swaptree does a good job laying out the ground rules simply and clearly. There is also a wonderful walkthrough here. Ebay users will find a similar buyer/seller rating system that they are accustomed to.

The site has been out of public beta since July 4th (so it’s no longer invite only) and seems to be gaining steam. Way to go, guys!

Free Stuff

Freecycle would be a good alternative if you were looking for an item outside of books, music, movies, and games – such as apparel, computers, and furniture. The concept is that someone wants to get rid of something, while another person want s the same item. Rather than throwing the item away or trying to sell for a minimal amount, the item is given away, provided that a local person comes to pick it up.

Here is a short animation showing what it’s all about.

At the time of this posting, there are a total of 4,041 Freecycle communities throughout the world. Chances are, you are either in or near one of them.

SaaS / Software-as-a-Service

When I buy a plane ticket, I buy a ride, not the whole airplane. This is an economic axiom, and, at business school, I learned this concept as a First Cause. We are thankful that, yes, the analogy breaks down: Software-as-a-Service is most certainly not beset by the problem of unrecoverable revenue like seats on an airplane after it takes off. Quite the contrary.

And to my pleasure I learn I can still use software without ever having to pirate buy it.

Allow me to indulge my need to fill in some knowledge gaps that have opened since my ’02 B-school graduation date. (That’s equivalent to 25 years ago in tech-years.)

Introduction

Succinctly, customers pay – not for owning the software itself – but for using it. Source
This is where commodification takes place. The intrinsic value of the software (regardless of its function) becomes its use, rather than in its ownership. An esoteric concept no longer, because in our post-post-modern society we finally understand that using (not storing), sharing (not hording), mentoring (not training), supporting (not rewarding) is the real business of business.

The idea of Software-as-a-Service ostensibly lies in its perception by the PTB that SaaS is cheap and easy. Not to say it isn’t cheap and easy. It is for the buyer. This attitude sticks Management firmly back in the 20th Century – the Age of Modernity where dollars were different from information and work was different from the workers.
I’m adding to this idea by suggesting that software as a service is becoming an equation that is greater than the sum of its parts. Proof of this is that SaaS applications usually deliver a one-to-many model with recurring billing. The 21st Century is proving to be more tribal and traditional, where connectivity and time contain value, and virtural innovations are actual folklife.

News

1 – SAN MATEO, Calif. – April 18, 2007 – SuccessFactors, the global leader in on-demand performance and talent management solutions, today announced that Wachovia Bank has over 85,000 employees actively utilizing the SuccessFactors Performance and Talent Management Suite, making it one of if not the largest enterprise Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) deployments ever.

“Our mission is to significantly improve the way companies measure and motivate people across the globe, giving them instant gratification in people management,” said SuccessFactors’ CEO Lars Dalgaard. Article

However, in reference to the news shown above, the question is begged, “Can the Fortune 500 Achieve Efficiency through Intra-enterprise SaaS?” So asks SaaSBlogs. The opinion is yes, citing it is also well understood that the provider generates certain efficiencies via the centralization of the technical burden associated with the application.

2 – Chicopee, MA (PRWEB) June 28, 2007 - Apatar to Officially Launch World’s First Open Source Software as a Service (SaaS) Data Integration Company

Apatar, Inc., today announced Apatar Enterprise Data Mashups™, the world’s first open source on-demand data integration software tools and services at the Red Herring East Conference, being held June 26-28, 2007, in Boston, MA.

Apatar is the leading provider of open source software tools for the data integration market.

I note that this innovation toward open source confirms my belief in the traditions of the tribe. As long as one user is without access (a condition corrected by open source software), the connections are left incomplete, a status virtually intolerable (pun intended!)

3 – Wednesday, 04 July 2007 – OpSource™, SaaS delivery experts, today announced a partnership with MarketShare, a specialist in SaaS software pricing, to better serve the needs of new and existing software vendors transitioning to the software as a service (SaaS) business model.

Jim Geisman, principal and founder, MarketShare said, “In addition to facing the challenges of pricing a SaaS solution, some of our prospects and customers underestimate what it takes to deliver a SaaS application. OpSource’s complete, end-to-end SaaS delivery environment and value-added services, such as billing, coupled with its success-based business model, provides tremendous value to SaaS vendors and their customers.”

I hear, when I read what Mr. Geisman said, is that value is derived when the software is used/evolves/becomes a useable, helpful service for the end user.

Conclusion

We know that the world is changing. Outsourcing has become an overused buzzword, coupled with the backlash that may come along with it. Our team of experts here at NowSourcing come from a variety of backgrounds, experience, and left-brain / right-brain specialties. We are different, as we analyze your company’s needs from top to bottom. We aren’t just a coding house – we look to find any systemic issues with the way you do business today.

This site is a parody of the dot com boom of the late 90′s / early 00′s, as it pretends to be featuring a product and all the amazing things that it can do – only if just loops through an intro read by some Caribbean sounding guy. Josh Levine, the author of the site, never intended the site to be anything more than absurd comedy.

Some of the more memorable quotes:

“The unattainable is unknown at Zombocom.”

“You can do anything at Zombocom. Anything at all. The only limit is yourself.”

(source: Wikipedia)

A month ago, Jenny Thomas checked into her local hospital to deliver her first child. Unanticipated complications necessitated an emergency surgery. Fortunately both she and the baby were fine. But if it hadn’t been for her family’s health savings account (HSA), she could have ended up owing the hospital tens of thousands of dollars. (full article)

I know that most of my readers come here to either see the latest that NowSourcing is up to, or the latest in tech news, but now it’s time to think about health insurance. I remember the w-2 days: a big piece of your check was your (after tax) insurance premium. The big decisions were made for you. When you own your own business (as I do), it’s a whole other ball of wax. Since a small business (and by the way, if you’re bringing in less than $10 million a year, yeah – you’re one of us) does not have the collective buying clout as a major world corporation, premiums “feel” generally higher. Notice that Alan Feigenbaum, CFP -as seen on Forbes.com- has something to say about that:

Such high-deductible (often $5,000 or $10,000) policies have much lower premiums, because the typical enrollees never have covered claims.

So, it’s on to reading up on the subject and deep diving into the healthcare bag of tricks. Let’s talk about a few of them here:

1 – Health Savings Accounts (HSA’s). This has been a fantastic advent of the IRS. Starting in 2004, HSA’s gave individuals a greater freedom than the ability to not just put in pre-tax dollars to help fund their healthcare expenses. Rather, they now were able to rollover money from year to year. HSA’s have also been increasing in the total amount that individuals can contribute – up to $2,850 individual and $5,650 family in 2007, an increase over IRS guidelines of $2,700 for individual plans and $5,450 for family plans in 2006.

2 – High Deductible Health Plans (HDHP’s). HDHP’s are actually a requirement for having an HSA (in most states). There are minimum and maximum deductible levels set in order to qualify for HSA’s.

In order to open an HSA account, an individual must first have an HDHP.

Part of the beauty of the HDHP / HSA system is that you have tremendous opportunity to make over the counter purchases, have a debit card directly in to your account, and even to earn interest by investing your HSA in mutual funds. Some have even called the HSA a “medical IRA”.

Investopedia fills in our knowledge gaps with alacrity:

What is a High-Deductible Health Plan – HDHP? A health insurance plan that has a high minimum deductible, which does not cover the initial costs or all of the costs of medical expenses. The deductible forces the insurance holder to pay the first portion of a medical expense before the insurance coverage kicks in. The minimum deductible for a plan to fall into the category of an HDHP varies each year. These high-deductible health plans are thought to lower overall healthcare costs by forcing individuals to be more conscious of medical expenses. The higher deductible also lowers insurance premiums, making health coverage more affordable.

• No permission or authorization from the IRS is necessary to establish an HSA. When you set up an HSA, you will need to work with a trustee. A qualified HSA trustee can be a bank, an insurance company, or anyone already approved by the IRS to be a trustee of individual retirement arrangements (IRAs).
• An HSA is “portable” so it stays with you if you change employers or leave the work force.
• An HSA is generally exempt from tax. You are permitted to take a distribution from your HSA at any time; however, amounts that remain at the end of the year are generally carried over to the next year.
• Earnings on amounts in an HSA are not included in your income while held in the HSA.

(source: DoshDosh)

DoshDosh has posted a great listing of paid blogging websites. She speaks of the more commonly known sites such as PayPerPost.  I wonder how many people are really trying to blog as their sole existence.  Most are probably juggling between full time and part time jobs and are looking for a little supplemental income.  Maybe others are ghostwriters and getting paid better.

What about using paid blogging websites as more of an interviewing tool? Meaning you sample some bloggers’ work and then hire the best ones on staff? It could work….

I’m a huge fan of 37signals. For those of you that are not familiar with them – in their own words:

“We’re a privately-held Chicago-based company committed to building the best web-based software products possible with the least number of features necessary. Our products do less than the competition — intentionally. We’ve been in business since 1999 and love what we do.”

They make incredible web based software and have a fresh approach to application design. Instead of making bloated software that has every bell and whistle a user will never even bother with, they attempt to have as few features as possible. It’s a great methodology that works well with rapid application development. Jason Fried, the company’s founder, expands on this topic in their book, Getting Real (you can read it free here).

Highrise, their newest product, is touted as Simple CRM. While I wouldn’t call it a full fledged CRM replacement to some of the larger competition, this product is top notch. The only real criticisms that I have on this product:

1 – method of organization. You have the ability to use tags and also can set up cases, but I would love to see better categorization (maybe through hierarchical tags?)

2 -task system. The ability to assign tasks to yourself and others is great, but there is a current limitation in that you cannot see other people’s task lists. This could be an issue if you assign a task to yourself and 2 other people. Let’s say that the task is to follow up on a prospective client, and 2 people complete the task! Now you’ve got to do a bit of damage control. I’d love to see a revamp on this section – tasks emailed to you needs a bit of help too.

Still, what’s great about Highrise and 37signals overall is their customer service. They really listen to you. Seriously. They don’t just route you to some guy on the phone in India that’s thousands of miles away. Try emailing them – you’ll hear back directly from the development staff – what a concept!

Latest Highrise News

Highrise just underwent a wonderful improvement last night. The Highrise dashboard now has listview, a more concise way of looking at tasks, emails, notes, etc – the same great way that Basecamp already does.

Read on for more Highrise update information.

Basecamp is where 37signals all began back in 2004. It’s an amazingly well thought out Web Project Management program. You have the ability to track and manage projects in this slick web based tool. This it very useful when you have remote teams working on things. I’ve been a big fan of this product, and encourage my clients to use it as well. You can even add people at your client’s location to the individual project – so no more “what’s the status of the project” droning on contact calls! The client can just login and see up to the minute progress!

If you’re interested in signing up for Basecamp, try the walkthrough, and when you’re ready – try signing up through my affiliate link below:

Now there’s OldVersion.com. As they put it “because newer is not always better”, you can go all the way back on different programs.
For example, I really don’t like the newer versions of Winzip. Using OldVersion.com, I can go to one sufficiently more old school, like Winzip 6.0 (although all of these are obsolete if you’re using Windows XP and simply use the integrated Compressed (zipped) Folders.

Some of the more humorous ones are AOL 1.0, Internet Explorer 1.0, and Winamp 0.2.

What’s nice about this site is that they go to the trouble to tell you about the major version changes about different products.

Old school versions of apps mean something to you. Similar to where an old song might bring you back to a time and place in your head, seeing an older version of an app brings back memories to us computer folk.

I have fond memories of that good old Apple IIc. Anyone else think about BASIC from time to time? Old school favorites such as Lemonade Stand and Lode Runner? Tell me about it!

The folks at Trillian appear to be pretty busy as of late:

They won a CNET Webware 100 award. Also, they have released version 3.1.6.0 and have just released build 46.

Competition

All this is great news for Trillian. Only one problem. They aren’t the only big boy in the multi-protocol instant messaging client space anymore. Products such as Meebo, Imeem, and Pidgin, (formerly known as Gaim) are also very popular these days. Multi-protocol instant messaging is perfect for those that do not have the patience nor the time (not that anyone should bother) to load up MSN, AIM, Yahoo, Miranda and many others and then try to switch between programs and have their buddy lists all over the place. Rolling all your im account into a single platform is great, but doesn’t get rid of the recent invasion of the AIM new bots again as I previously posted.

Trillian is hard at work on their new product, Trillian Astra. It is currently in Alpha mode (you can try signing up for Alpha testing here. Astra boasts many new features such as a much needed client integration with Google Talk and MySpace IM (officially in beta), as well as a Trillian web client.

Web Widgets / Buttons

Trillian Mini, a sweet looking widget, enables you to show users your online status, what you’re listening to, etc.

Skype has already had this functionality down with their Skype buttons with status for quite a while now. I currently use this button on my website.

Meebo is also fantastic on this with MeeboMe widget. You can take your existing username, paste a line of code on to your site, and have a Flash embedded Meebo chat going with any users on your site, right within the site!

Shiurimtogo.com is a collection of shiurim (Hebrew for Jewish lectures on torah, or Jewish topics) available for download in mp3 format. This is perfect for the commuter that is looking to learn during these otherwise unproductive moments. Some of the shiurim are free, while others are on a pay per download basis with a PayPal back end. Samples are also available.

We did an entire administration build for this client, giving them the ability for adding new speakers, new shiurim, and to dynamically adjust information. Our custom design also makes it a pleasure to look through the different shiurim choices. Congratulations, Shiurimtogo!

The Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA – Earl Hartman was a little rattled by something he says he found in a can of green beans: a snake head.

The Philadelphia man said he found the inch-long head on his plate Wednesday night, right between a chicken breast and buttered noodles. He said it came out of the green bean can.

“When I sat down, I noticed something didn’t look right,” Hartman told WCAU-TV. “It didn’t look like a green bean.”

Hartman said he called the Pathmark store where he bought the beans, and got a call back from Seneca Foods in upstate New York, where the vegetables were canned.

Rich Savner, a spokesman for Carteret, N.J.-based Pathmark Stores Inc., confirmed that a customer reported finding a “foreign substance” in a can of green beans, but said officials had not determined what it was.

The store conducted spot checks of other cans, but nothing out of the ordinary turned up, Savner said. Similar cans were removed from the shelves as a precaution.

A woman who answered the telephone at Marion, N.Y.-based Seneca Foods Corp. on Friday said the company had no comment.

(Source: Philadelphia Inquirer)

If I’ve ever heard of a reason to have no comment, this would be the place!

PeterAnswers, the self-touted “Interactive Souls Engine” and “virtual tarot” is really no more than a fancy prank.

Spoiler warning…read on for more info

If you’re still reading this post, you want to know how the system works.
Simple: hit the period key to start writing the answer, and start writing out the answer. Your answer will be masked by “Peter, please answer” in the petition box.

When you are done writing the answer, type in a period again, and you can finish writing out the petition. Once you write a colon, you’ll be on the answer line. Write out your answer. Then, when you write a question mark, the answer will load.

If you do this correctly and nobody is watching you type, you can keep people guessing for a while!

For those of you that are visual learners, here is a tutorial:

Thanks, readers!

1 – I’m too small of a company to have a website.

Well, I’ve heard of many people that have a website for their one man band operation. Better still, others have sites for companies that they have started on the side.

2 – We are only based locally.

At first glance, this looks like a plausible reason not to have a website. However, it is not. Wonderful things like Geo-Targeting increase a local company’s visibility in the region. Bob Nicholson does a good job explaining how Google uses Geo-Targeting for AdSense marketing in this video:

3 – I have a small website already, and it works just fine.

Your current website might not fit your company’s needs as well as it used to. The site may be outdated and not display correctly in modern browsers. Also, if you choose to advertise, your site may not be search engine ready. There may also be broken to links that you have linked to in the past.

4 – I’d like to have a website, but I heard that it costs too much.

A new website or a good refresh of an old one starts in the hundreds of dollars for a basic site, depending on how much is involved. You could even get a canned template website for less than that (although not preferred, more about that later).

5 – It probably isn’t worth the investment.

Depending on the line of work you’re in, even if your new website generates one sale, you could make back the money you spent on getting your website up and running. Also, today’s competitive market dictates that a prospective client might see your company as behind the times or unable to compete if you do not already have a website by now.
6 – It’s too difficult to maintain.

A basic website only needs the maintenance of having new and exciting content. Modifying content on basic websites is easy enough if you know basic HTML.

7 – Well, I don’t know nor do I want to learn HTML. I want to make my own changes, and don’t want to spend money just to have a webmaster make changes for me.

Fair point (but I wish I had a nickel for every time I heard this one ). You should install a web content management system so that you’ll be able to modify your pages without the danger of breaking your code.

8 – We are low tech, so we don’t need one.

Regardless of industry, a website can enhance any company’s business. I’ve seen many manufacturing companies that greatly benefit once they are able to take quotations and orders online. They even extend some protected areas of their sites to their partners (called an extranet).

9 – We already advertise the way we always have (print, radio, tv, etc).

That’s fine, but your competition has full access to the web, why shouldn’t you?

10 – I wouldn’t know where to start.

As with anything new to you – just take the first step and speak to a reputable website design / development company. A good company should be able to bring you through the process and more importantly keep you involved without taking the project over 100%. If you as the customer do not stay in the loop, don’t blame the web development company when it turns out to not at all be what you were looking for.

In fact, going to the root of PRChecker.info (rather than the PageRank page – http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php, which just comes up as a 404) just brings you to a default Apache Page:

This really sucks, considering that many people that host PageRank checkers on their site actually route through PRChecker.info.

Update: 6/17/07, 12:54pm - PRChecker.info is back online, but Checkpagerank.com is still showing as offline.

GoDaddy

These deals come out periodically, but I thought that this was an especially good one for people that don’t have bulk registrar accounts (you’re basically getting the same deal here). GoDaddy is a great registrar, and has one of the best customer service operations I’ve ever seen. I also like that they don’t have an 800 number – few companies of this size go with this strategy – so that they aren’t even passing this expense back to the users!

Anyone that had major domain name issues in their RegisterFly account also greatly appreciates GoDaddy:

“On May 29, 2007 Go Daddy, a competing registrar, announced that through an agreement with ICANN, it was taking over the entire portfolio of more than 850,000 generic top-level domain (gTLD) names held by RegisterFly. The names would move to newly created accounts at GoDaddy and they would notify Registerfly customers by email. GoDaddy and ICANN will not release terms of the agreement but have said that GoDaddy is not buying Registerfly. Go Daddy Press release May 29, 2007^[16] ICANN plans to continue legal action agains Registerfly for it’s continued noncompliance of the court ordered injunction.^[17]“

(source: Wikipedia Article on Registerfly)

Check them out at www.psycall.com! Congrats, Nancy!

Maybe when you’re a big company, it is cool to spend money on this.  Seems a bit like a forced fad to me.  Consider that the 18 and under crowd can post to YTMND and make something hillarious.  Like this.  No budget.  You never know where the next good idea will be coming from these days…

What’s a bot, you ask? In the instant messaging sense, it is more specifically referred to as a chatterbot. Chatterbots have been around for some time now, with one of the more popular ones – SmarterChild dating itself back to 2001. They are systems employing a scripts that attempt to hold human conversations with users. The programmers usually put in some fun elements of these bots (i.e. if you said something off-color, smarterchild would tell you to behave, etc).

So people got used to smarterchild. Even users that had no buddies now had someone to talk to.

Then, AOL mysteriously loaded in MovieFone (self-explanatory) and ShoppingBuddy. These really started to smell like a sellout.

But now, hey – we’ve been blessed with 3 new bots dropped in on our lists:

Prof Gilzot – this guy has no sense of humor. At least on smarterchild you could test his limits and ask him odd questions. The Prof is a straight up fellow. Say something different, and he just gives you a list of items to choose from. In any case, he has quizzes and things like that to offer you. I think I liked smarterchild’s wit, charm, and a good game of hangman over this guy.

WSJ – ok this one makes sense. You like the Wall Street Journal online. You like instant messaging. But them together and you’ve got WSJ. This is acceptable, but again doesn’t appeal to the entire community. Still, sending an IM to WSJ, typing news, and finding the news I want is still pretty slow in comparison to going to Google News RSS or straight out website.

Sharethisdotcom – I’ve written to this guy a few times. No response. Looks like I’m not alone in testing this out – PC World had the same problem.

Spleak – this is by far the most odd. I guess it wasn’t enough to make bots have clever things to say. Now, they have to have this whole persona. From the spleak website:

“My name is Spleak and I’m a 21-year-old virtual girl currently living in the heart of San Francisco, California.”

Ok, this is getting a bit scary. What’s the point of this bot? Every guy has a date now? Come on. But to each their own.

The Louisville Executive Resource Network (otherwise known as LERN) provides

We’ve done a complete overhaul on the site – new design and back end. Also created CMS functionality with an integrated electronic payment system through Google Checkout for members to sign up (free resource for businesses).

Don’t believe me? here’s the old site

As they say it in their own words:

LERN is a not for profit volunteer organization to the retention and growth of executive talent in Greater Louisville. We help businesses, organizations and government locate available Louisville executive talent. We also help employed and displaced executives manage their careers without having to leave the area. We are a resource for employers to refer newly released executives.

Way to go, guys!