The Innovator Microsoft

BusinessWeek, in their annual list of the world's 25 Most Innovative Companies for 2006, ranks Microsoft at number 5. Microsoft ranked superior in Product and Business Model Innovations with Windows and Office, and Windows Live Services.

Microsoft today released the much awaited Windows Vista, Office 2007 and Exchange 2007 for businesses. CEO Steve Ballmer claims this to be the "biggest launch we've ever done."

Importantly, Ballmer believes that Vista will spur a new 'Wave of Innovation". Ballmer claims that a "new set of applications are also being brought to market and enabled by the core innovations in Office 2007 and Vista. Some 30 new products will come to market over time on the back of this wave of innovation."

Selected references:
Leading eBook on Creativity and Innovation in Business
Creativity and Innovation Best Practices
Creativity and Innovation Case Studies
The Innovation Index
Top 50 innovative companies in the world

What are these new Innovations from Microsoft?

The new Windows Vista, Office 2007, Exchange 2007, SharePoint Server 2007, Exchange Server 2007, Enterprise versions of both Vista and Office 2007 with new capabilities such as enterprise services for Exchange and SharePoint, Unified Messaging Services for Exchange, Exchange Hosted Services, Forefront Security for Exchange, Forefront Security for SharePoint.

What's coming down the Innovation road?

Office Communicator 2007, Office Communications Server 2007, Voice Call Management for Office Communications Server 2007, Office Performance Point Sever 2007, data mining add-ins for Office 2007, the Windows Desktop Optimization Pack, Forefront Client Security, System Center Configuration Manager and client, and System Center Operations Manager and client.

Asked on what else Microsoft could put into the next version of Windows, Ballmer said there are a "lot of things we never got to with Vista that we will work on going forward. There are improvements to be made in networking infrastructure, we need to take advantage of the shift to multicore processors, and there is a lot more to do for IT administrators to make systems simpler and cheaper to deploy."

Microsoft is also planning on service enablement inside of Windows. "That is a big theme and you can expect to see a lot more services enablement going forward," Ballmer said

Four Core Pillars of the Business Market

Ballmer talks about the four core pillars that make Microsoft's People Ready business fulfill today's business needs:

The first pillar is helping simplify how people work together, with unified communications a dominant theme in that regard, and which encompasses VOIP (voice over IP)—technology that will ship next year—e-mail, IM and video.

The second pillar is finding information and improving business insight, which includes finding information, searching documents, e-mail and people; integrating systems through XML and Web services; analyzing information through visualizations; and reporting and empowering decisions through business intelligence, portals and search.

The third pillar is helping people protect and manage their content, including retention and rights management; drive encryption and backup; and electronic forms.

The fourth pillar is about reducing IT costs and improving security.

Ballmer also emphasizes that staying in sync with information is another core need, encompassing Wikis, blogs and RSS, with collaboration and workflow very important in allowing people to connect and share easily. Working remotely with mobile PCs is another big area.

At the launch event, Diane Prescott, a technical product manager for Microsoft, demonstrated how data can be accessed through Outlook. Outlook Voice Access allows users to dial in and manipulate their e-mail and calendar, and it can also dynamically detect when a foreign language has been used, she said. Outlook Web Access has also been changed and now allows users to wipe clean a device they may have lost or that has been stolen to protect company data, she said.

"Vista is the first product developed under the SDL (Security Development Lifecycle), making it more secure. Deployment also has to be simplified, and a single image helps in this regard. Security risks also have to be mitigated, support costs reduced and identity and access controlled...," Ballmer said.

Innovation and Creativity talks abound

In a Q & A between Ballmer and eWeek Senior Editor Peter Galli, Ballmer made many references to Innovation and Creativity as strategic to Microsoft:

In answer to Galli's question on how you make the Windows development process more agile, especially when it took five years in the making, Ballmer talks about:
"It's that first period where we had the greatest learning. We are going to incubate, or incubate and innovate, instead of trying to do all this integrated innovation."

In response to the incubation of new technologies, rather than just having integrated innovation, going forward, Ballmer says:
"Let me give you an example: WPF, Windows Presentation Foundation, we have it in the marketplace, but the Windows shell doesn't use it yet. And that's OK.

If we tried to hold Windows until the shell could rewrite, then we're back on very long cycle times.

It's a good example of incubate or incubate and innovate than opposed to innovating and integrating all in one big bang."

Ballmer also talks about innovation in the context of when Microsoft will cross the line and what new technology goes on which track:
"I mean, it is not like we are not going to do any integrated innovation, it's just that we are thoughtful and we have to learn from experience where we are crossing the line beyond the state-of-the-art innovations coming together."

While talking about Windows-enabling service and how Microsoft will be one of the biggest service providers through Windows Live, Ballmer suggests:
"So that platform, the end-user platform, the developer platform, for rich-client code, be it on PCs or phones—which are getting smarter, not dumber, that's important innovation that needs to be supported by service and enable service and we're working hard on all aspects of that issue."

Finally, Ballmer provides this gem in response to "How does becoming far more of a services provider play out with your partners and those traditional service providers?”
"Every innovation is both an opportunity and a threat for anybody in our industry, be it a partner or competitor."

And Ballmer goes on to state: "Well, in the grand scheme of things, partners have done fine, and the move to software as a service should again be an enabler of new and different kinds of creativity."

Bottomline

Microsoft recently launched the media player Zune in response to iPod’s market leading innovation. It has received a tepid market response. I even argued that Zune has the potential of being a disruptor in the long term.

Is Microsoft launching a new wave of innovation with Windows Vista, Office 2007 and Exchange 2007 and some 30 new products? Or are these merely nice-to-have product enhancements that users were asking for, and were just delayed for the past few years? Who is going to benefit the most from this new wave? The Small Business or the Enterprise or the Developer? The productivity worker or IT? And how difficult will it be for IT to upgrade and for users to take advantage of these new innovations? The major new features, four core pillars, and all the talks about Innovation and Creativity can make your head spin as you try to sort out how this will fundamentally impact you, the person, in Microsoft's grand scheme of People Ready business. And one can argue that Microsoft has not yet service-enabled Windows, not taken advantage of multi-processor architecture, still has some work cut out in network infrastructure, and need to win over IT in general. And the biggest question is still left unanswered: What is Microsoft's innovation strategy vis-a-vis Google and the new Web?

Selected references:
Leading eBook on Creativity and Innovation in Business
Creativity and Innovation Best Practices
Creativity and Innovation Case Studies
The Innovation Index
Top 50 innovative companies in the world

References:

BusinessWeek

eWeek: Ballmer: Vista to Spur 'Wave of Innovation'

eWeek: Ballmer: Biggest Launch Ever

Answering your landing page quality questions (part 2)

Recently, we answered some of your landing page quality questions here in the blog. Now, we'd like to answer a few more, focusing on landing page quality and the content network.

What is the content Quality Score?
The content Quality Score is a measure of the quality of your contextually-targeted ads and keywords and is specific to your ads that are showing on the content network. Since we use all of the keywords in an Ad Group (taken together, and defining a 'theme' for that Ad Group) in order to target ads to relevant pages in the network, the content Quality Score is only used to rank eligible ads on these pages. The information that is used to calculate your content Quality Score is different from that used for the search Quality Score and includes the relevance of your ad and keywords to the site on which your ads will appear, your ad's performance history on that site and similar sites, as well as the quality of the landing page to which your ad is linked.

Does your content Quality Score impact your search Quality Score?
Since this is especially important, we want to make sure that everyone sees the answer to this question, and that answer is 'No.' Performance on the content network will not impact your search Quality Score, and vice versa.

Are you applying landing page quality to publisher sites in the content network?
No, this change is focused on improving the quality of ads (and their landing pages) that we serve across the content network. If an advertiser is not providing a high quality user experience on the page to which their ad links, then their ads may stop showing on sites in our content network.

Thanks for tuning in to the final post in our two part series on landing page quality. We hope we've answered most of your questions, but please let us know if there are others that you'd like us to address.

Posted by Sarah, Inside AdWords crew

How to Have Success with a MLM Home-Based Business

MLM Success - How Many Network Marketers Does It Take To Screw In a Light Bulb?
By Terry Montague

Assuming that you are in this industry in order to secure your financial future, then before choosing a Network Marketing business opportunity you should look closely at their Compensation Plan. This is, of course, what will ultimately determine how much your paycheck will be. Considering the amount of time and effort you put into building your organization, why not make sure that each addition to your downline constitutes a significant raise for you?

Are you looking at your Compensation Plan through rose-colored glasses?

Caution needs to be taken when trying to evaluate a Compensation Plan merely by looking at the way it is presented to potential distributors. Often a company may explain it in their literature and on their website in a way that is simply trying to paint a pretty picture for your financial success.

For instance, some companies would have you assume that everyone in your organization will be ordering their required auto ship and, in the case of the binary plan, that both legs are equally balanced. Yeah, right…in a perfect world! They don't illustrate the reality and consequences of breakage and spillover. These are funds that are retained by the company and never make their way into the pockets of the distributors who put their blood, sweat and tears into generating them.

As a result, the majority of Network Marketers do not understand the dynamics of compensation plans. This is primarily due to the lack of statistical information available in the MLM industry.

Compensation Plan Basics

The first step is to understand what type of Compensation Plan a company offers. Assuming you have a basic knowledge of MLM, here is a very brief overview of the five most common plans and how they work:

* Matrix: A fixed number of people in width and depth paying a percentage based on each spot.
* Unilevel: Unlimited width with a fixed number of levels that pays out a certain percentage for each level.
* Binary: Two people in width and unlimited depth. Pays on volume cycles when a fixed amount of volume moves through each of the sides.
* Stairstep Breakaway: Unlimited width with a volume based percentage payout that breaks away once someone in your downline hits a particular level of sales.
* Aussie 2-Up: The commission on the first two people you sponsor goes to someone up-line from you.

Often these are designed to work in combination with each other, so it is important that you analyze your individual plan thoroughly. Ultimately, however, the goal should be to find a plan that provides the most income with the least amount of people.

Do the math

Look at your Compensation Plan and ask yourself the following question:

* How many people will it take in your organization to make $10,000 a month?

I'm talking about passive, recurring, residual income on the backside, not including bonuses, one time commissions and any additional perks. This $10,000 figure can be replaced with whatever dollar amount you choose in order to reach your personal goal for financial success, but we'll use $10,000 for the purpose of our example.

While the simplest method for determining this figure would be to ask someone in your upline how many people they have and how much money they are making, they may not be exactly forthcoming in their response. So the best solution is to figure it out for yourself.

Crunch the numbers

Although the formula for this equation is relatively simple, depending on what type of Compensation Plan you have it will probably require the use of a calculator. But the time expended on this short remedial math exercise will prove to be well worth the effort and will give you a clear idea of exactly what level of success you can expect from your efforts. It will save you a lot of frustration and feelings of failure later on when you realize your paychecks aren't quite what you were expecting.

Formula for Success

For a matrix or unilevel plan the equation is pretty straightforward. Figure out the average percentage of commission you are making on each level (usually there is a different percentage for each). Then determine the average monthly dollar amount (BV, PV or CV) spent by each member of your organization. Divide that by the average percentage, leaving you with the dollar amount generated by each member of your downline. Divide $10,000 by this average amount and you have the number of people you will need.

Example: Say you have a 5 X 7 matrix that pays an average of 7%, seven levels deep. If the average monthly purchase for each member is $50, then 7% of $50 is $3.50 per person. $10,000 divided by $3.50 equals 2,857 people.

Wow! They didn't explain that in the literature, did they?

Just for reference, for a monthly income of $10,000 a stairstep breakaway plan typically requires anywhere from 1600 to 1800 people (if you can keep them from breaking away), a binary somewhere in a range of 3000 to 5000 (taking into consideration the balancing act you'll need to perform), and a matrix about 2200 to 3200. However, I recently crunched the numbers for one unilevel plan that required almost 14,000 people!

Do your math homework

If you do a bit of investigating, you will find that there are some great Network Marketing companies with beneficial compensation plans requiring less than 500 people in your organization to make $10,000 a month. But don't just take the company's word for it. Do the math! Just because you happen to be mathematically challenged, don't let this deter you from figuring out how much your paycheck will be. Even if math just isn't your thing, it really shouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out. But if you have difficulty it's worth eliciting the help of one if needed. And if you can't find one on a nearby street corner, I'm sure you can find someone who is more left-brained than you are that will be willing to help.

Don't rely on recruiting alone

One final tip: Make sure that your company offers a product or service that has a legitimate need in the marketplace and that it is priced competitively. The company must emphasize getting products or services into the hands of consumers, not just on finding new recruits. If the company is not centered around the movement of a product or service, your success, if any, will be limited.

Terry Montague is a successful network marketer and MLM Mentor. Her objective is to provide as many people as possible with valuable information and equip them with skills for success in order for their dreams to become their reality. Download her Free eBook to learn more about analyzing your Compensation Plan, or visit "MLM Success Training-The Full Monte" for more tips and resources.

I hope you find this article helpful.
Monique

To find the best home based business ideas and
opportunities so you can work at home visit:

http://moniquerh.3stepsecret.com

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A non-taxing tax wizard

As you might know from our Payments Guide, one of the steps to getting paid is submitting your tax information. We've recently updated the Tax Information page located under your My Account tab with a new format that we hope will make it easier to determine which form is right for you. Also, you'll now be able to see when your information was last saved so that you can make sure all updates have been recorded in our system.



Every publisher's tax situation is different, but we aren't able to provide any tax advice. To help determine what's right for you, we recommend walking through the tax wizard in your account or visiting our Help Center for additional help. If you're not able to find the information you're looking for, we encourage you to speak directly with your local tax advisor.

Posted by Elizabeth Ferdon - AdSense Publisher Support

THE-BEE - Phillips, WI

THE-BEE - Phillips, WI: "At that time Janssen was employed as a sports equipment salesman but was aware of a demand for dependable people to do exterior painting. He began doing that type of work part-time and found that he preferred painting because he could be outdoors when the weather was nice.

'I began doing painting jobs in Phillips in 1997, and within a year, I decided to move here,' he said. 'I was doing interior painting, too, and noticed a need for handyman work. My grandfather was somewhat of a handyman, so I knew how to do some of those jobs.'

Janssen learned how to do additional construction-type tasks and began accumulating the tools and equipment required. However, he never expected that the business, J & J Painting, would expand so much that he would need to replace his work van with two enclosed trailers."

What A Difference A Name Makes?

I have changed the name of this blog which was originally titled:

Creativity Driving Innovation In Business

to

Creativity And Innovation Driving Business

Some may not even notice the name change; while some may believe this is frivolous.

However, the name change bears some merit.....

First, the original name implied the Blog was about Creativity that fuels Innovation in a Business; further, the Blog's supposed focus was on Creativity alone. However, after blogging away about thirty new posts on both Creativity and Innovation, and reading posts of fellow bloggers on Creativity and Innovation, I have come to realize the following:

Whereas Creativity indeed can be a primary driver for Innovation, Creativity is not Innovation. Creativity and Innovation are indeed intertwined. Creativity can not only drive Innovation, but can drive Business in general. There are several drivers for Innovation - for example Marketing, Passion, Technology, Leadership, Culture, Co-Creation, Hard Work, Acquisitions, Agility to name a few. Of course, Creativity can be paramount for each of the above. Innovation drives Business as well. However, can Innovation drive Creativity? That would be innovative.

The new name:

Creativity And Innovation Driving Business

is bold. It gives equal weight to both Creativity and Innovation propelling the business forward. It provides a platform to include insights on both Creativity and Innovation and its impact on business. It makes business sense.

Rumour of the week - Travelport is interested in Worldspan

ATW are reporting the underground rumour that Travelport may be interested in buying the struggling Worldspan.

Worldspan has long been the rumored target of acquisition by Amadeus, but the attention has now shifted to Travelport's Galileo.

I have no idea either way but the searches of "Worldspan" and "Travelport" in the same search entry are one of the leading drivers of traffic to my blog. Clearly someone/people are typing that a lot into Google.

Comedy break

Check out the Tripadvisor weird postings blog - here. Collections of wacko comment, typos and stuff you could not make up.

Sidestep content deals - a wider view

Quick follow on to posts on Sidesteps content acquisition frenzy including the Travelpost acquisition. Interest post here from fellow Travelport refugee Ed Silver on the paralells between that deal and the acquisition of Reddit by Conde Nast (Wired) and Google's buyout of Jotspot.

Expedia turns on Japan

Completely crushing my hopes of having an acquisition to talk about - Expedia have launched an organically developed Japanese site - Expedia.co.jp. Japan is arguably the hardest market in the world to sell air online as no-one has cracked a way to show a consolidated display from the two GDS's - Axcess and Infini. Expedia either haven't cracked it either or are still working on it so have launched with hotels only.

On the hotel side there have been two issues that have been hard for non-Japanese players to solve for a launch. Firstly that Rakuten Travel (Mytrip) charge hotels a low as 6.5% commission setting an expectation for the hotels on pricing for domestic demand and secondly how to load, sell and fulfil the traditional Ryokan inventory. Not sure if Expedia have solved these but congratulations are due in putting the site into double byte Kanji and in setting up a local fulfilment system.

The Best Way To Choose A Residual Income Home-Based Business

Residual income programs are built on people recruiting people. One person
sells their business idea to another who joins and becomes the down line to
help earn that person money. Selling is all about appealing to a person’s
emotions. They try to get a person to feel passionate about what they do,
so they will buy into it. That is why many people choose a residual income
program that is not for them. They were sold based upon their emotions, not
rational thinking, which is the best way to choose a residual income
program.

The process of selling is showing passion and getting other to feel that
passion about what is being sold. One of the goals in a residual income
program is to get others to sign up and become part of the team. As more
people sign up the people who signed them up make more money. It is easy to
see why people use aggressive tactics to sell the residual income program to
others. It is also easy to see why many people end up choosing the program
that is not the best for them.

Overcoming the emotions and being able to choose based upon well thought out
reason is the way to choose the best residual income program. So, how can a
person do that? They need to learn the top things to look for in a good
program. The program needs to have an appealing product. It needs to be
something that is interesting and something that people will buy. They
should also be unique and something people cannot buy anywhere else. The
company should have a stable history. It should have good growth potential
and not have any problems financially or structurally. It should have a
good marketing system that is taught to every new person. It should be easy
to use and something that is easy to learn. The payment plan should be easy
to understand and make sense. It should be easy for a person to see how
they can make a long term profit. Lastly, the company needs to show
teamwork is built into it. Teamwork should be a main part of the company
and should be easy for a person to see when they start to learn about the
company.

The best residual income program is defined by each person. It is perhaps
easier to define the worst program. The guidelines above, though, should
explain how to weed out the bad ones and settle in on the ones that have the
possibility to be the best. By reading through them and getting to
understand them a person should have a good understanding what makes for a
good company where they can earn a good income.

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To find the best home based business ideas and
opportunities so you can work at home visit:

http://moniquerh.3stepsecret.com
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Priceline to launch "Synergy.com"

Activehotels.com is no more - no it hasnt gone bust. It has shed its name in favour of Priceline stable mate Booking.com. Eyefortravel.com is reporting that they now have a common business model. It also says that the locations will remain separate and

"its websites will continue to be marketed with differentiated products".

The change is yet to make the front page of www.activehotels.com (at publications date).

I don't understand how Priceline plan to make this work. I have praised in the past their integration work and they have enjoyed the results with huge growth in online hotels sales in Europe. However it can only be a mistake to assume that you can market the same brand [Booking.com] to different customers with differentiated products. The only way to try and do this is that I can think of is to have different product or pricing depending on where a customer comes from (either by country or marketing channel). That never works online - as I have said before. Will have to wait for the site launch to see if Priceline can make this work - but I fear for them. Sounds like the word "synergy" and "costs savings" have been overly used across the board-rooms of Priceline Europe.

UPDATE - found an interview with Adrian Currie - Priceline CFO - from ITB in October. Talks about ActiveHotels and Bookings in Europe. Talks of successful integration but no mention of killing the Active Brand.

UPDATE 2 - in the Q4 2006 earnings call the CEO of Priceline Jeff Boyd talked more about the plans for the ActiveHotels brand in Europe. There is no intention of killing off the brand - rather the marketing focus will go behind the Bookings brand. I think that is a good balance. Would continue to caution against making the products inter-changeable to avoid the problems that best Expedia and Hotels.com when they first began to work on common inventory pools. But there does come a point when you have to balance the cost of marketing against the potential cannibalisation.

Webjet CEO cashes in

Webjet boss David Clarke has cashed in some of his shares to take advantage of the recent financial success and resulting stock price. SMH record of Australian Stock Exchange filing (registration required) says that David sold 1,938,226 shares worth AU$731,486. Congrats to David.

Tech Tip: More operators join the inmeta operator

Posted by Nitin Mangtani, Google Search Appliance Product Manager

In the last tech tip we talked about how the inmeta operator can be used to do sophisticated queries leveraging the metadata associated with your documents. What if your needs are more complex? You not only want to do queries based on specific meta tag values but also need to provide price range searches on your e-commerce site or date range searches inside your document management system. Luckily we added few interesting operators in the recent release of the Google Search Appliance and they will play nicely with the inmeta operator.

We added new operators for doing number (including price) and date range searches. For number range searches, just add two numbers, separated by two periods, with no spaces, into the search box along with your search terms. For date range searches, use the daterange operator. Let's take a look at some common examples and see these operators in action.

An e-commerce site sells electronics and apparel goods and wants to make it easier for it's customers to search products by keywords and also restrict the searches by price range and other numeric meta tags. For example to express a query that searches for rain jacket in the price range of $100 to $500 one would enter a query like:

rain jacket inmeta:retailprice:$100..$500

You can also express a query that searches flat panel TV between 30 to 50 inches; one would enter a query like:

flat panel TV inmeta:size:30..50

In case of enterprise search, a search-user may be interested in the documents within an ECM system like Documentum or Livelink that provide information about "marketing plan" but restrict to only those documents that were published between Jan 1 2006 to Nov 27 2006. To express such a query one would simply enter a query like:

marketing plan inmeta:publishdate:daterange:2006-01-01..2006-11-27.

I have also seen e-commerce sites that use the Google Search Appliance to power their search, implement a simple search front-end that has a search box and a price slider along with it. Search-users enter the keyword in the search box and pick the appropriate price or number range using the UI widget. The search front-end in turn converts that request to the appropriate search syntax described in the above examples. This way the search-user not only has the power to express complex searches but she also doesn't need to familiarize herself with the additional syntax.

These range-based operators are more examples of how you can provide the power and precision of Google search with the flexibility and customization that your business requires.

The Secret to A Residual Income Through Marketing A Home-Based Affiliate Program

Copyright © Monique Hawkins

http://moniquerh.3stepsecret.com

Everyone wants to earn a residual income with their home-based business. What is a residual income? In a nutshell, it is being paid many times over for something that is done right one time. It is being able to let a business run on auto-pilot and still receive income without you having to be present.This income is possible through affiliate programs, but the key is understanding how to market them effectively. Anyone can learn the secret to a residual income through marketing an affiliate home-based business program.

Marketing is getting an idea out to others, getting them interested in itand selling it to them. It is being able to have your business stand out from the crown.Marketing is the foundation for any good business. It is more than placing ads or pitching ideas. Good marketing is provoking. It catches the eye and makes a person want to know more. It makes them interested so they seek out information and are willing to look for it.

Affiliate programs usually are centered around a website. The idea is that
the website serves as the information base for the program. People come to
the website and learn about the products and program. If they are
interested they buy or sign up. That is what is so hard. Most of the time
people will scan an ad and see a hundred others just like it, so they ignore
it and move on. They need something to catch their eye. They want it to be
different. Once they get to the website the information better be clear and
explain it all or else they will simply walk away. Good marketing will not
only lead them to the website, but peak their interest enough that they
willingly read through the website and learn more on their own. This is
what residual income is all about.

A good marketing campaign starts with well written ads. The ads should make
a erson want more information. They should compel a person to spend time
learning about the program or products. A good ad will not explain, but
leave things open-ended. It should give enough information to make a person
curious, but still make them have to visit the website to learn more. Once
they get to the website it should have everything there they need to know.
It should also make them want either to sign up as an affiliate or to buy
the products. Their next step should be to buy or sign up. That leaves
very little left to do and makes it the ultimate residual income
opportunity.

A person who can market successfully will only have to place ads. Then the
rest is handled by their website. If they can make people want to learn
more then their job is done. It really can be that simple. That is the
ultimate in residual income. A little work developing advertising and then
ongoing income. If marketed successfully an affiliate program can help a
person build a stable and solid residual income.

About the Author:
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To find the best home based business ideas and
opportunities so you can work at home visit:

http://moniquerh.3stepsecret.com
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Your search engine, your way

We've heard it time and time again: as publishers, you want to give your users a relevant search experience on your websites. You want the power of Google search, and you want to make it your own. And then, of course, you want to make money from this search engine, not spend time and money building it. Well, here's news you can use -- now you can do all this with Google's Custom Search Engine (CSE).

With CSE, you can create a highly customized and (free) tailored search experience for your users that reflects your knowledge and expertise. You place this search engine on your site and, if you've got an AdSense for search account, you can link your CSE to it and make money from the resulting traffic. In a few simple steps you can create a CSE that looks and feels like your own, prioritizes or restricts content based on what you specify, as well as open your search engine index to trusted members of your community so they can contribute to its comprehensiveness and relevance.

Here's an example from Macworld. In the first screenshot, you'll notice a search box in the upper righthand corner of the page. After performing a search with the query [macbook], the search results page shown in the second screenshot appears. The search results are integrated smoothly with the site layout and the Macworld publisher earns revenue from clicks on the ads in the "Ads By Google" section.





It's easy to build a CSE -- no Ph.D. in computer science required. Here's how it works:

1. Visit http://www.google.com/coop/cse/ and select the websites you'd like to include in your search index.
   
2. Then choose to restrict search results to include only those pages and sites, or you can give those pages and sites higher priority and ranking within the larger Google index when people search on your search engine.
3. From the CSE site, you can generate the code to place on your site and make the search engine, through an IFRAME, look and feel like your own. If you choose, you can easily link to your current AdSense account so you have a centralized place to manage your Google AdSense relationships.
   
4. Last but certainly not least, you can invite members of your community to contribute to your search engine index, in real time. Simply enter email addresses of people you'd like to contribute and an invitation along with Google Marker will be sent to your invitees.

You can check out a few more CSEs in action by visiting our featured examples page. You'll see some created by industry experts, bloggers, educators and techies. We're continuing to add customization and advanced features to the CSE too. We hope you'll try it out and let us know what you think.

Posted by Jennifer Hyman - CSE Product Marketing Manager

Direct Marketing and Direct Mail Innovation powered by USPS ® - United States Postal Service

According to Direct Marketing Association -- DMA, direct marketing generates incremental sales of more than $1.93 trillion in the U.S, or 10.3% of the U.S. GDP. Direct Marketing delivers more than double the ROI of other marketing efforts -- each Direct Marketing dollar spent generates an ROI of $11.65 compared to an ROI of $5.29 for other marketing programs. Direct Marketing employees total 1.7 million, with collective sales efforts supporting 8.8 million other jobs, or a total of 10.5 million jobs in the U.S.

Selected references:
Leading eBook on Creativity and Innovation in Business
Creativity and Innovation Best Practices
Creativity and Innovation Case Studies
The Innovation Index
Top 50 innovative companies in the world

The United States Postal Service -- USPS delivered over 210 billion pieces of mail in 2005, an increase of over 5.5 billion pieces from 2004. The total annual revenue was about $70 billion, with an increase of about $1 billion from 2004. Standard Mail fueled by the growth in Direct Mail and Direct Marketing exceeded 100 billion pieces for the first time, with an annual increase of over 5.4 billion new shipments from 2004.

The Standard Mail volume even exceeded the First-Class Mail volume for the first time in the history of USPS.

Market Trends buoying Direct Marketing

What are the key trends resulting in this disruptive growth of Direct Mail and Direct Marketing for USPS?

1. A strong retail market with higher annual sales and profits creates a favorable investment environment for advertising spending.
2. Increasing strength of direct marketing channels serving more businesses and the strong market demand.
3. Huge growth in credit card and home loan / mortgage marketing fueled by the growth in credit card and financial services market.
4. Seasonal increases owing to election year marketing.
5. The national "Do Not Call" telephone restrictions providing consumers the rights to deny telemarketers calling them, and its positive effect on Direct Marketing.
6. Passing of e-mail marketing legislation in most states that expressly prohibits marketers to send out email blasts to consumer lists without express permissions from the consumers, and its positive effect on Direct Marketing.
7. A physical and tangible quality inherently lacking in e-mails or online media, and its positive effect on Direct Marketing.

Have you checked your mail and your mailbox recently? Among the many direct marketing mailings you receive are unaddressed grocery circulars, sales flyers from local brand-name stores, Penny Saver booklets, ADVO coupons, "Dear Neighbor" coupon packages, pre-approved credit-card offers, home mortgage financing and re-financing offers, car dealership offers on new models and attractive financing, and more.

USPS Innovations

USPS proposes the following recommendations on initiating a Direct Mail and Direct Marketing program. Each recommendation provides a business process on how a business can build an effective program around Direct Mail:

1. Build or buy a mailing list
2. Select postcards, letters, or brochures
3. Explore design ideas
4. Create your message
5. Get tips for printing your mail piece
6. View Direct Mail payment options

USPS ® has created the following innovative services that fuel this growth in Direct Marketing:

1. Direct Marketing and Direct Mail can be targeted to specific audiences down to a zip code, address, and socio-economic profile by building a list or using the available list brokers. USPS provides NetPost service that “makes it easy for you (business) to create Direct Mail pieces, right from your home or office computer,” and customized MarketMail services that “allows you to test your creativity and send a truly dimensional mail piece of any shape or design.” Some mailing lists can be rented from a local newspaper, chamber of commerce, trade publications or specific brokers. This means a company of any size can create marketing programs of any size and scope with razor-sharp focus.

2. Direct Marketing effectiveness can be measured with the tools available from USPS for both NetPost and MarketMail services, and also tracking tools for mail services. This means that a company can finally tie down deals to the leads generated by specific Direct Marketing campaigns.

3. USPS provides a suite of online resources to businesses that are at various stages of their Direct Mail and Direct Marketing. For instance, you can not only learn the benefits of Direct Mail, and leverage the available research and white papers, but also execute marketing programs using the Tools & Resources and the USPS services.

Fusion of Direct Marketing, e-mail and the Internet

According to a whitepaper on Mail and the Internet by the USPS, "consumers, even heavy Internet users, continue to view mail as a highly relevant and significant part of their lives." The same whitepaper shows that when mail is working side by side with digital media, it can have a substantial impact on the use of commercial Web sites.

Here are some key findings on the integration of Direct Mail and Marketing into Online marketing:
* 30% more dollars are spent by multimedia shoppers (mail and email, mail and website, etc.) than single-media shoppers.
* 37% of e-commerce dollars come from catalog recipients.
* 41% of Americans shop using both catalogs and the Internet.

There are significant insights to be gained from an integrated Direct Marketing program that combines Direct Mail with E-mail and Website.

1. E-mail is a complement to mail, and when smart companies combine them together and create a cohesive marketing strategy, they "achieve high-impact results...even shake things up."
2. "Mail motivates customers to visit your stated website more often, stay longer, and spend more money while shopping." A cleverly designed mail creates the hook. Website serves to fulfill the need.
3. "Consumers rely on e-mail as a useful tool to manage their personal lives." A report released by DoubleClick.com in March 2005 found that 59% of respondents feel that “knowing and trusting the sender” is a factor in opening and reading an e-mail. Compared to the mail, consumers take less time to read Internet offers and retail messages through e-mail. Mail not only opens up a customer to a company's brand and goods, it can create an ongoing relationship with the customers.

USPS Case Studies

USPS touts case studies of Internet companies such as eBay and small businesses who used Direct Mail and Direct Marketing innovation to achieve disruptive sales results:

* "eBay created its first-ever catalog to entice readers to its online retail site. The holiday catalog was distributed to several million eBay members in November 2004, and eBay saw a dramatic climb in sales. “The catalog is the latest tactic we’re using in an integrated campaign,” said Michael Dearing, eBay general merchandising manager. “We used the print medium during the holidays to keep eBay top of mind and drive readers to our Web site.”"
* Another company, "21 CD, Inc. produced a mini CD for a North Carolina coastal resort area. Compared to prior mailings, the results were a 300% increase in reservation inquiries over the next three months. The multimedia mailer also had a 16% response rate."
* Country Supply, Inc. is a family business whose sales had grown to just under $200,000 annually. Limited to potential customers in the small town of Ottumwa, Iowa, the husband and wife pair decided to expand their business through catalog sales. They designed and printed a catalog featuring their products. In essence, they then "partnered" with the USPS ®. They economically delivered their catalog via Direct Mail. Their sales doubled within 2 years and increased by over 500% within 5 years. Country Supply now serves over 400,000 customers nationwide, with annual sales exceeding $17 million. Direct Mail made this disruptive growth a reality for Country Supply.

Bottomline

USPS enjoys a virtual monopoly in Direct Mail and Direct Marketing owing to its millions of delivery points, great quality of service (over 90% customer satisfaction) and program innovations. USPS embraced and capitalized on the e-mail and the Internet demand, which many analysts initially thought would be the beginning of an end for Direct Mail and Direct Marketing. However, USPS is uniquely positioned today to not only grow its own Direct Mail business, but also enable disruptive growth for customers who leverage its Direct Mail service for Direct Marketing. A Win-Win recipe for growth!

Selected references:
Leading eBook on Creativity and Innovation in Business
Creativity and Innovation Best Practices
Creativity and Innovation Case Studies
The Innovation Index
Top 50 innovative companies in the world

References:

USPS: http://www.usps.com/
USPS Annual Report: http://www.usps.com/history/anrpt05/contents.htm
Direct Marketing Association: http://www.the-dma.org/
USPS Direct Mail Info:
http://www.usps.com/directmail/welcome.htm
Mail and the Internet – Whitepaper: http://www.usps.com/directmail/_pdf/MailandtheinternetWhPaper.pdf

Ebay Special Offers

Ebay is having another terrific listing special today. Did you know about it?

The special is for three days only. If sellers offer “Free Shipping” on their listings, they get border and subtitle at no charge. That's a savings of $3.50 in listing upgrades! (To read the details of this promotion, click here.)

To receive notification of all of ebay's special promotions and other important ebay announcements, you can do so by:
1. Going to www.ebay.com
2. Clicking on "Community" in the top header.
3. Clicking on "Groups" underneath the "Connect" heading.
4. Going to the "News and Events" heading and clicking on the "Announcements" link.
5. Clicking "eBay Announcements" on the next page. From this page, just click "Join Group" on the right-hand side, and you're all set!

Go on. Go sign up to receive ebay's special announcements now. Don't ever miss another money-saving ebay promotion!

How to Use Affiliate Programs And Smart Marketing To Make A Residual Income with Your Home-Based Business

How to Use Affiliate Programs And Smart Marketing To Make A Residual Income with Your Home-Based Business
Copyright © Monique Hawkins

http://moniquerh.3stepsecret.com

If you are looking to begin a home-based business, affiliate programs are a great way to make a residual income. They allow
you to take part in an established system that has already been tested and
built up. All that is left to do is take control and build a down line.
Combine an affiliate program with smart marketing and it equals a great way
to make residual income. Let's discover a little more how this works.

Affiliate programs are often misunderstood. Originally the idea of building
a down line and making a residual income off recruiting people was called a
pyramid scheme. These pyramid schemes didn’t work because they relied
solely on recruiting and not at all on selling. The main idea behind them,
though, was a good one, so the affiliate program was created. An affiliate
program is more than building a down line of people, it also is based on
selling real and useful products. Affiliate programs work because a person
earns money through their down line and through product sales.

Affiliate programs are also very easy to get started in and most are
completely free with no costs to get started. Most programs offer a website
and plenty of help and advice on how to get the business going. A person
gets help from the people in their up line, too. The biggest challenge,
though, is marketing. No matter how much help a person gets, they still
have to master marketing on their own. The problem is that most affiliate programs do not teach good marketing skills. It is important that to consider whether the affiliate program also has a easy and duplicatable marketing system before you join it.

Marketing involves learning how to use the tools provided by the program to
get customers and sign others up for the opportunity. The affiliate program
will provide a person will written ads and their own website, among other
things. The website is the central hub of all the marketing efforts. The
main goal should be to get people to visit the website. Once there they
will be able to buy products and sign up to be an affiliate. The hard part
is not getting people to buy or sign up, but to get them to the website in
the first place.

A person has to take the ads and other marketing tools and place them where
people will see them. One of the biggest marketing platforms are search
engines. Most affiliate websites are a simple website, but with a little
work a person can optimize it to make it rank high on the search engines. A
good way to get started is to add a blog to the website and write entries
everyday. These entries should be keyword rich and informative. Search
engines like articles or blog entries and will assign the site a higher
ranking if they have them. Another way to go is to place links and ads on
other websites. A person should choose websites that compliment the
affiliate program, but that are not in competition with it. By using these
marketing methods a person should be able to get a good start in marketing.

Affiliate programs and good marketing efforts can really help to get a good
start in residual income. Building an affiliate program will take some
time, but they are made to produce a great residual income.
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WAYN joins the boom

The Travel 2.0 boom is spreading to Europe. Where Are You Now (WAYN) has raised $11mm in a funding round that included VC groups but also Travel 1.0 entrepreneurs such as Brent Hoberman of Lastminute.com and Adrian Critchlow and Andy Phillipps, co-founders of Active Hotels (sold to Priceline).

Paidcontent are saying that WAYN are claiming 7 million subscribers across 220 countries.

This is the scale that new comers to content like Sidestep and Webjet's Plantit have to come up against in their plans to enter the social networking battle-ground.

My World on ebay

Have you personalized your ebay "My World" page? If not, why not take just a few minutes to do so. "My World" is a relatively new part of ebay. Any time anyone clicks on your user id from one of your listing pages, your feedback page, your "me" page, or just about anywhere your user id appears, ebay shows them your "My World" page.

The "My World" page offers you the opportunity to share your world with, well, the rest of the world, and as widespread and well known as ebay is, that's no exaggeration. So, what do you want the world to know about your world? The page is limited to a handful of components, or modules, but you have the freedom to include or exclude most of those modules (your profile and feedback are always included, though you can specify how many feedback comments to display). You may display and personalize modules including your bio, your ebay blog, your listings, information about your store, your favorite searches, sellers, and stores, and your ebay reviews and guides. In the profile section you can also include an image, perhaps a picture of yourself so that people can see what that otherwise anonymous person they're transacting business with looks like.

The bio section has the most possibilities for customization, from a list of languages you speak to your hobbies and interests, as well as a couple of sections that you can title as you choose and include anything that you want to share that doesn't fit in any other category. This is a good place to include such information as your payment or return policies, perhaps in more detail than you would in an auction listing.

Whether you are a buyer or a seller on ebay, it's a good idea to update and personalize your "My World" page. Providing unique information about yourself gives you the opportunity to add personality to the otherwise very impersonal process of buying and selling online.

To personalize your own “My World” page, go to “My ebay” and click on your user id. Ebay will walk you through it from there. To view my “My World” page, look here.

.travel domain - I don't get it

Tralliance Corporation is the company pushing the roll-out of the ".travel" URL domain. Have scored a couple of coups in recruitment including hiring Daniela Wagner from OctopusTravel / Travelport. Daniela dragged GTA into the online era and grew Octopus to be the top hotel booking engine of airlines, so she knows a lot about online travel. She and Tralliance announced last month that they have 25,000 companies signed up to the .travel domain at $100 a pop (a cool $2.5mm in revenue).

That's a good start but I don't yet understand the compulsion for a travel company to have a .travel domain. Am sure most companies will buy the domain for their brand to stop somebody else (though a quick search shows that Webjet, Wotif and Expedia are yet to buy theirs - or at least switch on a referral). But aside from the defensive move it is not clear what the benefits area. Don't understand how having a .travel domain is better than having a .com, .co.uk, .com.au etc domain. You would never want to launch a business on the basis of having a .travel domain where someone had the same name under .com. The key for success then for Tralliance is to win support for their search product - search.travel. If this search engine gains traction then that could provide the positive reason for companies to support the .travel domain. Without it I see little benefit. Winning in search will also be hard work as Tralliance will be battling well established providers from Google at the top end through Sidestep, Kayak and Tripadvisor in the middle and Bezurk at the focused end.

Am not going to count out Daniela but am starting off very sceptical.

UPDATE - 16 July 2007 TravelWeekly are carrying the story that Ron Andruff the President of Tralliance and Cherian Mathai the COO will leave the company "pending finalization of certain agreements.". Which is later clarified to mean that their severance packages are still being formulated. The announcement has comments from Triallance parent company (theglobe.com) boss Michael Egan using very positive language about transition, growth plans and other improvements however as the annual report shows (and TravelWeekly quote).

According to theglobe.com's annual report, 25,200 domain names had been sold as of March. The company collects $100 a year for a dot-travel domain name.

That does not sound like a lot and fuels my continued scepticism in this business. To put this in perspective, Godaddy.com one of the world's largest domain name registrar services has more than 20 million URLs under management.

UPDATE 2 - here are HotelMarketing.com's comments.

Here come the Superstars

Posted by James Wang, Google Mini Team

Here they are, the first 3 Google Enterprise Search Superstars. This award recognizes companies, and the individuals involved, with innovative enterprise search implementations.

Titans of industry? Men among men? Juggernauts of their respective fields? You be the judge. We hope you enjoy their stories and glean a few things you can do to make your users, whether employees or customers, happier and more effective in finding what they are looking for.

Looking to get ideas about how to create search functionality that can recommend experts within your company about a topic? Learn more about this in Danny Perri's "Expert Search" implementation.

Do you have an international audience and want to get some ideas on how to improve your search and service? Read and hear how Chris Hall improved his site.

Would you like to learn more about turning your support site into a more self service portal and increasing the efficiency of support staff? Read and hear more about this from Razi Mohiuddin's story of improving the customer service experience.

If you own a Google Mini or Google Search Appliance, then here's your chance at Search Superstardom. Come share your story with us so we can share it with the world.

How To Name Your Online Business Right

How To Name Your Online Home-Business Right
Copyright © Monique Hawkins

http://moniquerh.3stepsecret.com


Whether your business is a work at home Internet business or staffs several hundred in a downtown skyscraper you’re going to be online to succeed, and you’re going to have to come up with a good business name and a good domain name. Here are some things to avoid in naming your work at home online business prior to setting up your Internet site.

The first mistake many new work at home online business owners make is to ask for too much input on Internet site and business name, from too many people. They tend to ask family and friends what their new business’ name should be, and what domain name it should have. The problem with this is that not all will really understand the business idea or the jargon involved in that business. The second reason to avoid this consultative process is that you can only choose one name. This means that the more people you ask the more people you are going to disappoint – and perhaps even insult.

It is far better to kick off the online and other aspects of your work at home Internet business by asking the opinion and business help of those few people who have been chosen to have an integral management part of your venture. You might pull these folks together and have a brainstorming session which you all feed off each other’s ideas. That way when the end results in a name each will feel like they’ve been a part of giving you that idea.

Another entrepreneurial business naming error is to tack and adjective together with a noun to come up with one word former with a middle of the word capital letter. If, for instance, your work at home Internet business were to offer online sale of luggage at discount prices you might be tempted to call it something like EconoPack. It’s bad for two reasons. No one can look at that name and know what it is you offer. Is it like a UPS store that offers shipping services? The other disadvantage is that the domain name may turn out to be econopack.com or .net. Which, without a capital P is even fussier. Luggage for Less would be a much clearer name.

If you think of the new (in the last five years) work at home Internet business start ups that have grown online to become household names, you’ll see that they all took zingy, snappy, lively names that differentiated themselves from others and weren’t likely to be copied. They didn’t take boring names that could be forgotten or worse yet, confused with other companies. Yahoo is one example. It could have been World Wide Search Engine instead. Google is another. Monster is a great example of a name that is not only memorable but suggestive of high volume, strength, durability and vast reach. Monster could have been Online Job Resource. What a blah name that would have been. All these started out as work at home Internet business projects by unknown online entrepreneurs. Their choice of business and Web site names paid a large part in their ability to brand themselves and thus to succeed.
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How to Avoid Survey Home-Based Business Scams

How to Avoid Survey Home-Based Business Scams
Copyright © Monique Hawkins

http://moniquerh.3stepsecret.com

Getting paid to take online surveys is a legitimate work at home Internet business opportunity. Many sites, however, that say that they offer you a home Internet survey business opportunity are really offering you only the opportunity to pay upfront money for a listing of those who will pay you to take surveys. Most of these firms you could have found for yourself, and some aren’t even current. One consumer advocacy group reviewed hundreds of sites and firms offering survey taking as a work at home Internet business opportunity. Of the hundreds they reviewed they were able to recommend only five.

It’s so easy for a netpreneur to set up a Web site offering to pay users for taking online surveys. All it takes is a few hours. There are no surveys from this site, more often than not. These sites primarily turn out to be only a work at home Internet business opportunity for the netpreneur that set up the site. All others pay upfront and get little of value in return. Even if the lists they offer are any good or the links work (which many times they don’t) these are quite often companies that again want upfront money for an alleged work at home Internet business taking surveys.

The fees for the initial directories can be as $100. What you get for your money is usually a directory that is out of date, links that don’t work, phone numbers that are disconnected or reassigned, and email addresses that bounce back. You don’t find any customer service assistance or any refund offer. Once you start asking for a refund due to your inability to start a work at home Internet business opportunity from the material you paid them for, the refuse to reply and then the site is shut down after several dissatisfied buyers. These schemers aren’t gone, though – nor are their schemes. They just pop up on the Web under a different company name and different domain. Even when these alleged work at home Internet business opportunity sites are live their navigation is generally poor, information such as contacts is inadequate and some of the pages don’t work.

The five sites that the consumer advocate agency recommended as legitimate paid survey work at home Internet business opportunity firms charge upfront fees up to $60 but actually have staff dedicated to helping you find survey clients and assignments. They all offer a 100 percent guarantee of your money back after as many as 45 days. The actual honoring of this agreement has been verified by the agency with each of the five paid survey firms.

With these paid survey sites, the work at home Internet business opportunity may not make you rich but it’s a good income. What you can expect for your upfront fee is as many as 25 offers each day to take online surveys for which you are paid about $15-$25 each. Some of them, though not most, pay as much as $75. The lower end payment surveys amount to about 5-15 minutes of your time, while the higher paying surveys might take 30 minutes. So, a 20 hour week would provide you with a median monthly income of $1600. Not bad for something will the many benefits of work at home Internet business opportunity projects – little if any overhead, no dress code, no training or experience required and hours that you set for yourself.
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Subscriber-Only Specials

Do you have an ebay store? If you do, I hope you're using the store email feature to promote your auctions and fixed price and store items - and subscriber-only specials - to your customers.

Do you have a store mailing list? If you're not sure, go to your My eBay page and, from there, go to the Manage My Store page. Near the top of that page, in the store usage section, you should see an Email Marketing section with the number of subscribers that you have. If you have subscribers, good for you! If you're wondering how you got subscribers, it happens this way. When people choose to add yours to their Favorite Stores list, they are given the opportunity to sign up to receive newsletters from your store. If you have newsletter subscribers, then someone must have liked your store enough to sign up. Don't disappoint them, send them a newsletter!

Do you have a store newsletter? In the same Email Marketing section of the Manage My Store page, there's a link that says "Create email." Ebay does a good job of walking you through the process of creating a store newsletter. There are limitations as to how often you can send the newsletters and to what you may include in the newsletter (no off-ebay links!) and those are clear in the instructions.

Do you have a subscriber-only special? If you don't, why not create one and send a newsletter today! Take advantage of every advertising opportunity that ebay provides.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We'd like to wish our U.S. publishers a Happy Thanksgiving. We'll be out of the office sleeping off the tryptophan until Monday, so it may take us longer to reply to your emails. In the meantime, please feel free to visit our Help Center or discuss your questions with other publishers on our Help Forum.



(Turkey artwork courtesy of Suzie Dewey)

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

I owe my traffic to elephants

I have recently installed a site meter. The part I love the most about it is I can see where my modest amount of traffic comes from, including the search terms in Google that result in a link to the blog. Today I received the greatest complement ever. If you go to Google.de (German version) and type in "price for an elephant" I am the top result. Clearly there is no better place on the planet other than the BOOT to advise Germans on how much to pay for an elephant. Brilliant!

Thank you Lonely Planet.

Webjet in living audio

Thanks to boardroom radio here is a link to an recent interview with David Clarke of Webjet. I have commented a lot on their hotel plans and expansion plans. In this case will let David comment

• Acquisitions - Talks about his acquisition thinking saying that they have "external advisors looking at possibilities". Quite rightly he is only looking in the online space and only at product ranges they don't have - ie not air. Says he has "no current target in mind".
• International - Also talked about thoughts on future of international bookings online. Believes that consumers will soon be able to booking multi-sector international fares with different airlines - like domestic.
  
• Hotels - Admits hotel business is very small but is confident of growth. "Will not be a material component of profit in the next six months".

Nothing on Planit.

How to Write Great Sales Copy for Your Home-Based Business Website

How to Write Great Sales Copy for Your Home-Based Business Website
Copyright © Monique Hawkins

http://moniquerh.3stepsecret.com


Your work at home based Internet business relies heavily on your Web marketing to bring in new customers. To make this tactic work you must know how to write great sales copy for your site. Here are some ideas on just how to do that.

The first tip for keeping consumers on your site and inducing them to buy your product or service is to create headlines that get their attention. Of course, it has to be followed by material that keeps their attention, but we’ll get to that later.

Don’t be weak, but don’t be hyperbolic. If you’re weak you’re boring and not very convincing. If you use hyperbole you won’t be believed or trusted – the kiss of death for a work at home based Internet business. What we mean by weak is, “Welcome to my site. I think you’re going to like what you see here.” Well, if you’re not sure, they sure won’t be. Hyperbole is, “You’ll be glad you found the only site you’ll ever need again.” Yeah, right. Bye.

There are two things you must focus on when you create your site headlines. People want help and information, and they want it fast. Get right to the point. If you’re offering legal services for DUI citations you might start off by saying, “We can help You Save Your Job, Your License, Your Freedom and Your Reputation.” See how that works? You haven’t promised you will, because of course you can’t. But you’ve gotten right to the heart of why they are seeking you out, told them emphatically that you can help them, and did it in a dramatic and attention-getting way.

A work at home based Internet business must know its target audience and hone in on that segment of Web users. You can’t be everything to everyone, nor can your copy convincingly claim that. You must know what you are going to offer and to whom you are going to offer it and then focus your sales copy and your advertising campaign to bring those folks to your site. The best way to learn about who your audience is may have to be to get a small audience to your site and then see who they are and where they go. Your Web host can provide the details of the server logs from which you will learn which pages are the most popular, not only because they are visited most often but because users stay on them the longest. They can also tell you the days and times of day most people come to your site as well as the point at which (the page) they leave your site.

From this you’ll know your age, gender, and other demographics of your niche (if you’ve been smart and required or encouraged free registration) and what pages need rewrite and redesign to keep folks from leaving at that point.

The other important sales tactics for your work at home based Internet business are to establish business credibility with clear contact information, clear biographies of all key players in the business, and business testimonials. You want to focus not only on the features of your products and services but their benefits as well. Tell your potential customers what you can do for them. Don’t forget, as many do, to ask for that sale – over and over again.
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Finding your PIN in a mailstack

When your AdSense account reaches US $50, keep your eyes peeled for a PIN in the post.

Before we can send you a payment, we'll send you a PIN. Your PIN is short for your Personal Identification Number, and it's your key to verifying your AdSense account so that you can receive payments. Once you've entered your PIN in your account and your account balance reaches US $100, you'll be all clear for payment, provided you've removed all other holds from your account.

If you've reached US $50 in earnings, you can check when your PIN was generated by visiting your Payment History page and clicking the Please enter your PIN link. PINs are typically mailed 3-5 days after they're generated. They're sent by standard mail and usually take between 2-4 weeks to arrive.

Make sure you know what to watch for in the mail by taking a moment to study the example PIN mailer below. PINs are printed in postcard-sized envelopes with a Google logo.



If we've already sent you a PIN, your payments will be on hold until you enter it into your account. You can request up to two replacement PINs if you don't receive the first one, and all additional PINs will be duplicates of the original. However, you'll need to enter your PIN within 6 months - after this time period, your account will be disabled.

Have PIN questions? Look no further than the AdSense Help Center. Finding your answer should be easier than finding a needle in a haystack.

Posted by Neida Freitas - AdSense Publisher Support

Our warmest Thanksgiving wishes

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving -- a day to give thanks and rejoice with family and friends. Those of us on the Inside AdWords crew would like to offer our thanks to you, for your continued interest, readership, support, and feedback. And before we take the next few days off for our Thanksgiving holiday, we'd like to share with you our latest holiday doodle -- a little something that's become somewhat of a tradition on the blog. :-)

We wish you a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving.

Posted by Vivian, Inside AdWords crew

Travelport still trying to shake a (now 2) billion dollar hang-over

Travelport's Q3 06 results are out. Net revenue is at $631mm - down from last quarter's $693mm. B2C net revenue was $193, well down on Q2 of $221mm - in fact on par with Q2 2005 results of $195. But that is not the story. The story is that there was a "Net loss of $1.2 billion which included a pretax non-cash impairment charge of approximately $1.2 billion".

Two big questions from this line.

Firstly - how are they still being laboured with the hang over of turning $7b into $4.3b? I thought it clear that his monkey was off the back last quarter?

Secondly - a non-cash impairment of $1.2 bil means that there is a net loss of $1.2bil means a zero EBITDA (actually -$1.3mm).

The answer in the first one is buried deep in the Q3 press release where they say

"the Company recorded a total impairment charge of $2.4 billion (which includes the estimate of $1.2 billion taken in the June quarter), representing the difference in the carrying value of goodwill of the Company’s B2C and B2B reporting units and the implied fair value of goodwill of those reporting units"

In other words - I called the "monkey off the back" too early. I went back to the Q2 results and listened to Q3 call to see if I missed it. I did not. In the Q2 results they estimated the impairment of $1bil but through the period of Q2 realised that it was double that. Ouch!

The second - appears to be legitimately put down to continued restructuring and business challenges. They say on the conference call that B2C (Oribit, HotelClub/RatesToGo, Cheaptickets and eBookers) are at break even. Presumably held back mainly by eBookers (see also the delay in role out of their new Orbitz backed platform).

Hopefully finally we can call Travelport free.

Home-Based Businesses To Avoid

Home-Based Businesses To Avoid
Copyright © Monique Hawkins

http://moniquerh.3stepsecret.com

While there are many legitimate work at home Internet business possibilities and many reputable and honest work at home Internet business vendors, there are also some fraudulent schemes. You must choose carefully. The most prominent of these fraudulent schemes is for medical billing. Touted as one of the best work at home Internet business ideas, these schemers are just out for your money. The idea is to charge an upfront fee to get you started, and then leave you to fend for yourself in an industry where you have little chance of succeeding. Other fraudulent business opportunity schemes such as envelope stuffing and product assembly take your money and then reject your work – and thus its payment – as substandard.

Advertisements touting these prepackaged medical billing centers show up on TV, on the Web and in newspapers. Major metro newspapers, probably the most savvy about these schemes, generally do not accept the ads. Responding to the ad for the medical billing work at home Internet business opportunity will result in your receiving a phone call, with a pitch about the burgeoning health care system crisis. Typically the hawker will tell you that claims are piling up and waiting to be processed. The result, according to the person on the phone, is to process these claims electronically, which is not being done often or expansively. This, the pitch goes, is what makes it a lucrative work at home Internet business for you.

The promise is that you’ll make a lot of money as doctors outsource their billing to you. You can, they say, work in accounts receivable, insurance claims and physician or dentist practice management. Including in the presentation is the assurance that not only do you not need experience but that their sales staff will kick start your work at home Internet business by putting you together with health care clients. The reality is that if you have any chance at all to make any money – or even get your initial investment back – you’re going to have to find your own clients.

The investment for this alleged lucrative work at home Internet business is not small – typically $2500-$9000. Prior to your commitment you will be mailed a business brochure, the application and license agreement (contract), document of disclosure, diskette samples, references and testimonials and videocassettes. Your investment is supposed to result in training, software and technical support. The references are commonly shills – the name for people that a company hires to provide favorable but dishonest testimonials.

The reality is that medical billing is seldom a lucrative work at home Internet business. Few people who purchase these programs are able to find enough clients to even recoup their investment much less make a living at it. It’s not that medical billing isn’t a legitimate business. It’s that the competition is fierce and the market is saturated.
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Travel video sharing sites - trying to fight off the porn like everyone else

Like the rest of the Internet world I have been tracking the phenomenon that is peer-to-peer video sharing and destination sites. From the gigantic (YouTube, MySpace) through the tussle in the middle (Metacafe, Break.com, ebaumsworld and Revver) to the targeted (Heavy). Only a matter of time before we saw the dedicated travel sites. First to come to my attention is Travelisitic. Founded by ex-MTV and ex-iFilm execs (MTV bought iFilm).

Site looks good - videos of white beaches, rolling hills, rushing waterfalls, ancient cities and (like every other video destination site), booze and soft porn.

You can tell from the monetisation efforts (lots of pre-roll video and good Google Adsense integration) and video quality that the founders know what they are doing. Will have a challenge in keeping out the porn and antics that are so popular on the other site while at the same time building scale but a great start.

New Features in Ads Diagnostic Tool

We know that one of the most common problems you face when managing your AdWords account is trying to figure out why your ad isn't showing for a particular keyword. If that sounds familiar, you'll be glad to hear that we've released a new feature that provides one-click troubleshooting for this problem. Here's an update on the feature from Peter H. on the Ads Diagnostic Tool team:

We're making the Ads Diagnostic Tool more accessible by incorporating it into the Ad Group details page. You can access this new feature via the new magnifying glass icon next to each keyword. If you are concerned that an ad is under-performing because of a particular keyword, you can point your cursor at the magnifying glass to get an instant diagnosis for that keyword. If the Ads Diagnostic Tool finds an issue that may be related to that keyword, you can receive troubleshooting suggestions by clicking the "What can I do now" link that appears inside the help bubble. If there are no issues with your keyword, the bubble will tell you that your ad is running normally on Google.com.

We've also added some very useful features to the full Ads Diagnostic Tool on the Tools page. Now you can request diagnostics for ads running in a specific geographic location. Another new feature in the Ads Diagnostic Tool is a direct link to the ad preview page for specific keywords. By clicking on "Preview search results" link for each keyword, you can now view what your ad looks like and where it's showing up on the search results page without creating an impression.

We hope that these improvements will make it easier for you to diagnose and resolve keyword performance issues!

Posted by Feng, Inside AdWords crew

Your Home-Based Business and Web Words

Your Home-Based Business and Web Words
Copyright © Monique Hawkins

http://moniquerh.3stepsecret.com

Your work at home based Internet business relies heavily on your Web marketing to bring in new customers. To make this tactic work you must know how to write great sales copy for your site. Here are some ideas on just how to do that.

The first tip for keeping consumers on your site and inducing them to buy your product or service is to create headlines that get their attention. Of course, it has to be followed by material that keeps their attention, but we’ll get to that later.

Don’t be weak, but don’t be hyperbolic. If you’re weak you’re boring and not very convincing. If you use hyperbole you won’t be believed or trusted – the kiss of death for a work at home based Internet business. What we mean by weak is, “Welcome to my site. I think you’re going to like what you see here.” Well, if you’re not sure, they sure won’t be. Hyperbole is, “You’ll be glad you found the only site you’ll ever need again.” Yeah, right. Bye.

There are two things you must focus on when you create your site headlines. People want help and information, and they want it fast. Get right to the point. If you’re offering legal services for DUI citations you might start off by saying, “We can help You Save Your Job, Your License, Your Freedom and Your Reputation.” See how that works? You haven’t promised you will, because of course you can’t. But you’ve gotten right to the heart of why they are seeking you out, told them emphatically that you can help them, and did it in a dramatic and attention-getting way.

A work at home based Internet business must know its target audience and hone in on that segment of Web users. You can’t be everything to everyone, nor can your copy convincingly claim that. You must know what you are going to offer and to whom you are going to offer it and then focus your sales copy and your advertising campaign to bring those folks to your site. The best way to learn about who your audience is may have to be to get a small audience to your site and then see who they are and where they go. Your Web host can provide the details of the server logs from which you will learn which pages are the most popular, not only because they are visited most often but because users stay on them the longest. They can also tell you the days and times of day most people come to your site as well as the point at which (the page) they leave your site.

From this you’ll know your age, gender, and other demographics of your niche (if you’ve been smart and required or encouraged free registration) and what pages need rewrite and redesign to keep folks from leaving at that point.

The other important sales tactics for your work at home based Internet business are to establish business credibility with clear contact information, clear biographies of all key players in the business, and business testimonials. You want to focus not only on the features of your products and services but their benefits as well. Tell your potential customers what you can do for them. Don’t forget, as many do, to ask for that sale – over and over again.

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To find the best home based business ideas and
opportunities so you can work at home visit:

http://moniquerh.3stepsecret.com
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