WebInTravel conference - pre conference interview with the BOOT

Siew Hoon Yeoh's WebInTravel conference is now less than three weeks away. October 21-23 in Singapore alongside the Asian ITB event.

I am presenting at the event as well as moderating a couple of sessions. Full agenda is here. Siew Hoon has recently published a pre-conference interview with me in the conference newsroom. It builds on the themes from my post "Financial Collapse. George Bush in charge. We're all doomed!". Here is the begining of the interview

At times like these, when the news is all bad on the financial front, there are the pessimists who see doom and gloom and there are the optimists who see silver linings behind every dark cloud.

You could probably put Timothy Hughes, who will be speaking at WIT this month, more towards the optimistic camp, albeit he is a pragmatist as well.

Asked what he thought the financial meltdown in the US would mean for travel and tourism, the vice president-commercial, Hotelclub,com and the blogger behind BOOT - The Business Of Online Travel, said, “The news will be bad. Money will dry up for investment in start-ups and people in affected industries will think twice (three times and more) before pulling out he credit card.”

But, being the optimist, he added, “We (the industry) have survived worse and the consumers have rebounded from worse and continued to travel. I blogged about this just recently pointing out that the US travel market bounced back from 9/11 within a quarter. Same for Hong Kong and Macau post SARs. Humans love to travel and will come back with a vengeance. However the industry can’t just wait for them (the consumers), we need to keep re-inventing.”

more at the conference site here....

Google Positioned in Leaders Quadrant

In their recently released Magic Quadrant for Email Security Boundaries (published September 11, 2008), Gartner Inc., an information technology research and advisory company, placed Google in the "Leaders Quadrant." Quadrant leaders, as Gartner defines them, are "performing well today, have a clear vision of market direction, and are actively building competencies to sustain their leadership position in the market." Quadrant leaders also "offer a comprehensive and proficient range of email security functionality, and show evidence of superior vision and execution for current and anticipated customer requirements.

Leaders typically have relatively high market share and/or strong revenue growth, own a good portion of their threat or content-filtering capabilities, and demonstrate positive customer feedback for anti-spam efficacy, and related service and support." The report goes on to say that "The email security market is rapidly maturing, yet continues to show strong growth and remains a 'must have' security purchase."

We're pleased to be included in this report and recognized in the leaders quadrant, as it underlines, in our opinion, the importance we attach to protecting against email-based threats and the ways we're helping our customers do so. Since the integration of the Postini email security product line in 2007 into Google's Enterprise Apps, Google has continued to innovate these products with functionality for our customers, including a new early detection quarantine that uses our own heuristics to detect new virus strains before virus signatures are available. We have also added new content filter types, policy prioritization for messages that trigger more than one policy, and new policy engine interface features.

The Gartner Magic Quadrant is copyrighted 2008 by Gartner, Inc., and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner’s analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the "Leaders" quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Posted by Adam Swidler, Google Enterprise Product Marketing

MLM Prospecting-A Beginners Guide to Social Media Marketing

MLM prospecting-In the past few years, Social Media and Social Media Marketing have become buzz- words. This is due to the popularity of sites like MySpace, Digg, etc. The social media have two components - user generated contents and the ability to form networks of friends for sharing contents. If you learn to use these sites correctly, they are great places for mlm prospecting.

In sites like MySpace and Facebook users create their profile pages and use texts, pictures, and videos to embellish the pages. They can then share those contents with others in their friends' network, or the social network

In sites like Digg, YouTube, Flickr users submit a summary of news articles, pictures, videos and they vote on the contents submitted by others. Popular contents are featured on the homepage and it drives massive amount of traffic.

There are many variations of the two models described above, including a combination of the two.

Using the social media sites to promote your product or services (or a website) is called social media marketing. There are two types of traffic you get when your content becomes popular in a social media site.

The primary traffic or the direct traffic comes from the site where it becomes popular. For sites like Digg, it can be huge and your site should be ready to handle the surge in traffic without crashing.

When your site becomes popular in a social media site, people talk about your site and the post that becomes popular. They will put links to the content. The secondary traffic or the indirect traffic flows from those links long after the surge due to the primary traffic is over.

So, what are the benefits of primary and secondary traffic from the social media sites? The primary traffic exposes your site to people who have no other means of knowing about your existence. Some of those visitors will become regulars to your site if you are providing something that they want on a regular basis. One thing to remember is to never use hard selling techniques to generate mlm prospects. Always focus on building relationships first and foremost. Then, when the timing is right, you can talk about your business.

The greatest benefit is the natural links to your site given by others because they want to discuss your offering. Natural links from a large number of relevant sites improve your search engine rankings and organic search traffic.

Social media marketing lets you expose your site to a large group of people. If your search engine traffic has leveled off, shifting your focus to the social media marketing and becoming successful in that will take you to the next level in search engine traffic.

The only other alternative for increasing your search engine traffic is pay per click advertisement. If you are already running a PPC campaign, you can continue your PPC campaign through out the year to sustain increased traffic from search engines at a cost.

Social media marketing is free and making your site popular a couple of times in a year is enough to sustain increased traffic through out the year. You will have a great stream of steady mlm prospects.

Happy MLM Prospecting!

To Your Success,

Monique Hawkins
mentormonique@gmail.com
Skype: Monique371
Be A Mentor With A Servant's heart

I finally found how I can be successful in mlm with this free ebook. The same can happen to you! Grab your free ebook today: http://mentormonique.bigmlmtruths.com/?mad=9091


If you are looking for powerful tips, ideas, and secrets about achieving success, visit http://www.squidoo.com/tipstoexplodeyourhome-basedbusiness/

RedHerring likes tripJane at lot, TechCrunch 50 a little but I have not idea what they do

RedHerring is the tech boom magazine who's death keeps being reported and yet somehow managed to survive. Every now and then I check in on the online version to see what is happening. In keeping this week's (accidental) start-up theme at the BOOT, I came across the list of the Red Herring North America 100 from back in May 2008. This is their list of the top 100 start-ups in North America. Lots of good pedigree here as past winners include Google, Yahoo!, Skype and YouTube (with a little glitch around Netscape).

Much like TechCrunch50 I could only find one travel company on the list - tripJane. tripJane was also a finalist in the TechCrunch50 - being part of what they called the demo pit (ie not on the main stage but out in the foyer on a card table).

No details on the tripJane website on what they do. Something about social networking, purchasing and planning - which we have heard before. Here is the Crunchbase profile for a little more.

At lot of time has passed since the May RedHerring awards. Anyone out there from tripJane want to share with us what you do.

Promise next week to leave start-up land the get back to the more regular feature of this blog - whining about Qantas covering general industry trends.

AdSense for content, now in Thai

Late last year we welcomed Thai to our AdSense for search family, and we're now excited to let you know about the launch of AdSense for content in Thai. If you're a publisher with a Thai website, you'll now be able to earn money for valid clicks and impressions for Google ads on your site. Get started by logging in to your account and visiting the AdSense Setup tab to generate ad code. Or, if you don't have an AdSense account yet, review our program policies and then feel free to submit an application.

To celebrate this launch, why not look up a few Thai recipes and prepare traditional dishes like Som Tum, a spicy green papaya salad, or Tom Yam, a hot and sour soup? We hope they'll leave you content and ready to create new content of your own.

ยินดีต้อนรับสู่โปรแกรมของเราค่ะ

Posted by Nopparat Yokubon - AdSense Thai Publisher Support

Questions to Ask a Managed Service Provider - Part 2

With more and more managed service providers (MSPs) entering the market, your choices are expanding. If you choose the wrong one, however, you might wind up with more challenges than benefits.

How do you know? According to Matt Cowall at Appia Communications, it’s often as simple as asking.

In part one of this post, we covered three of the top five questions to ask a managed service provider: How long has an MSP been in business? What kind of support does the MSP offer? And what kind of redundancy does the MSP offer?

Today we’ll cover the remaining two questions that Matt recommends you ask, and they’re arguably the two most important:

What quality of service does the MSP provide?
This is probably the most important question, of course. You’ll learn quite a bit about an MSP’s service quality when you check its references. Be sure to ask what happens when there are issues. Does the MSP respond quickly and take ownership of the problem?

Another key indicator is the MSP’s service level assurances. A service level agreement (SLA) is a document describing the minimum performance standards an MSP promises to meet. It should also clearly describe remedies — and even penalties — if the MSP ever fails to meet the minimum standards. An SLA is an essential part of a contract between you and an MSP.

Does the MSP have formal SLAs? Do the assurances cover what you’re buying? And do the assurances have ramifications? The willingness of an MSP to offer SLAs with significant penalties for service interruption is a sure sign that the MSP is a high-quality provider. No MSP can remain in business if it has strong SLAs and can’t deliver on its promises.

How willing is the MSP to meet your specific requirements?
Your company or organization is unique; it’s often that very uniqueness that has resulted in your success. Unless an MSP is willing and able to tailor its services to meet your specific requirements, you may find yourself bending your operations to suit the MSP — instead of the other way around.

You can tell a lot about an MSP’s flexibility during the procurement process. Do they ask a few questions and then send you a quote, or do they take the time to listen to your specific needs and develop a custom proposal? And since no MSP can meet every requirement, are they forthcoming about what they are able — and not able — to do, so you can make a fact-based determination of how well their offerings fit your needs?

Lastly, ask about a roadmap for their products or services. Your needs will evolve over time, sometimes quickly. Therefore, your MSP should have a plan that aligns with your future business needs.

GoPlanIt - interview with COO Jimmy Ku on the day the Dow imploded

It is start up interview and profile week here at the BOOT. Earlier this week we talked with Yen Lee of UpTake about how he felt cashing a $10,000,000 cheque moments before the Dow went into (the first of many) freefall(s). Then I posted an exchange with Our Explorer CEO Dave Cunningham about his efforts to match tour guides with lost tourists.

Today I had a chance to speak with GoPlanit COO Jimmy Ku. You’ll recall that GoPlanit was the only travel company to be part o the high profile start-up competition TechCrunch50. My earlier profile of them is here.

Discussions around money

On any normal day our interview would have focused on GoPlanit's plans to move from beta to a full release, how they would generate traffic and thoughts on balancing editorial and user generated content. Unfortunately this is not a normal day. On this day Washington degenerated into a $700 billion game of “I like George Bush less than you do” driving the Dow down 778 points (check out this interactive graphic on nytimes.com tracking the decline of the Dow with the counting of the nae votes– registration required). Unsurprisingly it meant we spent time talking about GoPlanit’s plans for raising their first full round of funding. As the Crunchbase profile states and Ku confirmed GoPlanit have raised $500k in seed capital. This is enough to support current efforts and the team of 7 but Ku admits that they will need more.

Thankfully for GoPlanit the profile boost of Techcrunch50 participation has opened a huge number of doors as they look for funding. As Ku put it Techcrunc50 guaranteed me “days of back to back meetings”. But even Ku admits that the horror on the Dow going to make it tougher. “Anyone not scared [about the Dow decline] is probably lying” said Ku “but good products will still make money and VCs will still invest in those that can succeed”

Discussions around traffic

It is too early for Ku to share any traffic numbers with us but we did discuss GoPlanit’s marketing tactics. As expected the focus will be on SEO through user and editorial content. GoPlanit needs to take time to develop each destination it is planning to launch through connecting tot a “respectable source” of content and information, building out the links to providers and setting up the framework for attracting user generated content.

Sidebar - While discussing this I noticed that both TripIt and TripAdvisor are bidding on the keyword phrase “planning a trip” (as you can see in this poorly cropped photo image).



This seemed odd to Ku. He said (and I agree) that you want to attract the people looking for a destination not someone generically searching for a trip planning tool.

Discussions around the founders

The idea behind GoPlanit is best drawn directly from CEO Steve Chen’s presentation at Techcrunch50. In short the founders separately experienced the pain of trying to organise large holidays. In Ku’s case he found himself as the designated organiser for group holidays with friends. In CEO Chen's case it was in organising his honeymoon and his general experiences post a career with Accenture as an event organiser in the Bay Area. Chen and Ku are also joined in the founder club by CTO James Chen, most recently of CNET, Rotten Tomatoes and HotorNot.

My take

I like the idea and as with many start up interviews with travel content/tool companies, if they can generate the traffic, then the ad revenue will follow. The CPM rates and advertising desire for good consumer travel eyeballs is strong enough to survive this economic Bush-wacking. The challenge is raising the money to support the product to attract the eyeballs on a day no one can get $700 billion from the US government.

Related News

• TechCrunch story on a site upgrade at the Microsoft backed PlanetEye;
• TechCrunch story on impact of the credit crunch/implosion on VCs and Startups; and
  
• Jason Calacanis on "the Startup Depression"
  

Went shopping, enjoyed and dozed off like a log back home

Yesterday i went for Id shopping, and thank god my whole shopping was complete! hehe because usually i end up with some missing accessories like matching earrings, hair bands, some other tiny things.. I like to be a perfectionist, you know, in terms of everything. So if i find i have anything missing, the tendency to feel incomplete appears and irritation occurs, and then i cant enjoy myself thoroughly. As every pieces would agree;)?

The market was pretty crowded because the place where i live, west Bengal, will be celebrating not only Id-ul-fitr but also Durga Puja(important Hindu festival). So you see, the Muslims are celebrating Id tomorrow and just four days after that, the Bengali's(other religion of Calcutta) will be celebrating Durga Puja. I don't celebrate puja but just like to go pandal hopping and will explain about it in my next few posts:).

From the market, i bought lovely frocks/skirts/tops for Alisha, some shirts and jeans for Aryan. My husband and myself shopped for ourselves too. Both the kiddies enjoyed lots eating away, but Alisha was a bit irritated with the crowds. We landed home, ate and dozed off like a log... ZZZ.. I dreamed about Alisha's birthday plans.. hehehehe.. That's also surely going to be a pretty exciting shopping too!!

How sports created a major impact on my life

Here at a online sports videos site, i recalled memories of my sports injuries which i can never forget. At this SportsVids site, lots of other sports videos are embedded to recall any of your memories too. Now for my story below..

I was a sports crazy person back in school and as the leader of my house i had some responsibilities, lots of them, so that my team was able to win the cups and medals. In 2007, the basketball practice began. We scored quite a few points in the first round and was quite happy but during the mid of the second, i suddenly felt a pin pain in my head like i always used to feel but never bothered. As i felt so dizzy and felt like fainting i saw my opponent charging towards me with the bounding ball and all of a sudden there was a loud thud, bang and her head butted mine! I thought i died that day but the lord saved me, i was rushed to the school hospital and i was put to rest for a few days. Was advised to visit an eye doctor to find out the reason for the unusual pains.

On the day of the main basketball match, i hurt my toes and my little toe bled profusely under my sports shoe. Felt the pain, which was terrible, yet i ran bounced, ran bounced and scored some points for my team, at least. Though they advised me not to take part i was reluctant and we went on to win:) But i can never forget about my sports injuries even today, it has created a huge impact on my life for whenever i watch any sport, i look for some crazy injuries that are likely to happen anytime.

Out of all the videos, i liked one that somewhat effected my life forever and you will know why when you take a look. It has some serious injuries and how you get them while in a game. You must also upload some of your videos, whether its your child’s first homerun or any sports clips. Am sure it would be loved:)


Sports Injuries - Click here for more sports videos

Gardening with my mom, as a kid

I remember there used be a huge green bed of land surrounding my home as a child, where a a huge garden lay right in front of my house and it used to be there, that i spent most of my time while on vacations from boarding school.

My mom used to do her gardening whenever she was free from caring for my brother who was little at that time, and she loved all the flowers too, like her own children:) believe me, when you talk to your plants or sing to them, they grow better. Seeing her, i used to be loving them too and observed they responded by growing beautifully!We grew lots of other plants other than flowers but that i'll be posting few posts later.

I had my own side of the garden where i experimented with my plants but as I couldn't dig into the ground, my mom got me gardening pots to do the job. I used to add layers of mud and other mixture into the pot, then plant the seeds below a final layer of mud, but thank god, i never needed to water the plants because my maid done the needful every morning/evening. I couldn't be carring water all the way to he pots;) It would spill and get me a trashing.. hehe.. But yeah when the plants grew way big to keep growing in the pots, mom put them into the ground:)

The garden was always attractive with seasonal plants all throughout the year, like roses, water lilies, marigold, balsam, bougainvillea, bleeding hearts, anthurium, sunflowers, carnations, jasmine, china rose buds, and lots more.. I use to chase away the butterflies from the flowers thinking they were eating them up! hahaha

Can Retailers Respond to Changing Corporate Needs?

Joe Panettieri did a great job describing the IT management and business implications of the growing dispersion of today's workforce in his post "Managed Services: Safe at Home".

This trend is not only creating new challenges that are driving greater corporate interests in managed services, it is also attracting a broadening array of managed service providers (MSPs) to satisfy businesses' escalating needs.

The office supply retailers are increasingly nibbling around the edges of the IT services market. The most obvious example is Best Buy's Geek Squad which has primarily served the consumer needs of the residential market, but is also responding to the needs of the small office/home office (SOHO) market which Joe described in his post.

The latest example of this trend is the recent news that Staples is going to deliver a portfolio of IT services to small and mid-size businesses (SMBs). These services are going to center around the acquisition Staples made in late 2006 of Thrive Networks Inc., and the online storage services offered by EMC's subsidiary, Mozy Inc., formerly Berkeley Data Systems which was acquired in 2007.

Although Staples' new services are primarily aimed at SMBs, they could also appeal to large-scale enterprises trying to support remote workers working in branch offices or out of their homes. Both Thrive and EMC are already serving large companies grappling with these challenges.

So, should you consider out-tasking your IT support and management requirements to these retailers?

Your Selection Criteria
Staples' on-site and remote services will appeal to many companies who could get the best of both worlds -- economical field support and cost-effective managed storage services. You can also bet that Staples will continuously expand its portfolio to include managed security and desktop services, along with a wider array of on-site capabilities.

But selecting a retailer to support your IT needs will still depend on the complexity of your end-user requirements, and the geographic reach of the retailers' local personnel.

The Scalability Challenge
While EMC's Mozy service is location agnostic, the scalability of Staples' Thrive Networks staff is still unknown. Best Buy has been able to grow its Geek Squad to satisfy the bulk of its residential customers' needs. The key to success for Staples will be the retailer's ability to recruit and retain IT professionals to satisfy the on-site needs of SMBs anywhere, anytime.

If Staples, and other major retailers, succeed in delivering these on-site and managed services they will disrupt the highly fragmented IT services market in the same way they disrupted the office supply industry.

EBay Seller? Diversifying? You Need This!

If you're one of those savvy sellers who has been diversifying your selling venues beyond eBay, have I got some great news for you. It's called EveryPlaceISell.com and the name alone should give you a huge hint about its purpose.

Steiner Associates (as in AuctionBytes.com) has created EveryPlaceISell.com as a user-generated directory for online merchants to list and tie together every venue on which they sell. Do you sell on eBay? Amazon? Etsy? Your own site? List them all here - f r ee - and help your customers, as well as new shoppers, find you at all of those locations. Besides the obvious benefit of having all of your sites available in one place, the backlinks this will generate for your sites should make the search engines very happy.

The fact that this new site is owned by Steiner Associates should give you confidence in its future; the Steiners know their business and do it well. The site is beginning to boom, so don't delay in getting your registration process started. Policy states that every registration is verified within 24 hours though may take longer due to high traffic; my initial registration was confirmed within minutes.

By the way, you don't have to be an eBay seller to use this site. You are allowed to list 10 different sites and there's a long list, alphabetically from Abebooks to Wibix, of venues to select from. With EveryPlaceISell.com you have nothing to lose and everything to gain, so give it a try, then let me know how it works for you.

P.S. Here's my link.


My52cents-Susan52 Online

Our Explorer - pitching to be "the eBay" of tour guides

Recently a contact introduced me to Dave Cunningham the "Chief Exploring Officer" of Our Explorer. Our Explorer is an online market place for tour guides - not books, but physical people. Local accredited tour guides register for the service and build a profile page setting out their expertise and prices. Consumers come on the site, select a destination and then are provided with lists of guides that are experts in that location. Tours can be booked directly on the site. Guides have the capacity to lodge their professional qualifications. Fellow consumers can also leave testimonials in a classic eBay trust building activity. Our Explorer takes a 10% cut from the guides - no transaction fees for the consumer.

This is a great idea. I get the value proposition to consumers here. Giving consumers access to truly local guides - an alternative to just riding the generic tourist bus.

The biggest challenge that Dave and the others at Our Explorer have is that they are in the classic "Fax Machine" business paradox. The great fax machine problem was that everyone could see the benefit of a fax machine but is was useless unless their were lots of them. You would only buy a fax machine if the person you wanted to sent a fax to also bought one. In other words, in the early days of the fax machine you need to take a leap of faith that other people would buy one too. In the case of Our Explorer, the guides have to join first, taking a leap of faith that the customers will come. Our Explorer need a critical mass of guides to generate the customer interest. They need to generate that critical mass before the consumers were ready to book. It is not a chicken and egg story where you debate which came first - in this case lots of patient guides had to come first.

Cunningham thinks he is there. He claims to have cracked the 595 guide mark and adding 89 a month. I don't know if that is magic number to hit critical mass - but it sure is fantastic start. Lots of great potential here in affiliate marketing, especially if they can develop an API to feed this into the booking path of travel transaction sites.

If you are interested in a little more colour, below is an email interview exchange with Cunningham. What do you think about this business?

BOOT - Where did the idea for Our Explorer come from?

Cunningham - it came from a trip in South America I did with another of the founders Anne McDonnell. We had the services of private tour guides in Peru, Bolivia and Mexico. The first thing we noticed was that the type of tour guide you got on the day was out of our control as the hotel or local travel agent just provided them. Perhaps there would be a personality clash, you may share nothing in common or the guide may be of poor quality. So we wished we could book private guides in advance. Second thing we researched while talking to the guides is they all just got business from travel agents, at 30% commission - I knew we could get them worldwide access to travellers on the web for lower cost. We agreed it was an opportunity to take commercial.

BOOT - Tell me more about the background of the founders

Cunningham - Me [JPMorgan investment banking for 3 years, Founded a Chinese Real Estate company for 5 years. Overall Chief Exploring Officer] , Jean Liu [Expertise in Web Marketing for Chinese companies and now heads up the marketing efforts in China for OurExplorer - based in Shanghai. Ray Walsh [is a computer science graduate and leds the technical direction and strategy for the site development and growth] Anne McDonnell [Project manager in Investment Banking - Heads up the relationships with our suppliers - tour guide acquisition strategies]

BOOT - how hard is it to launch a destination, sign up guides?

Cunningham - Getting the critical mass of 500 tour guides initially was very tough as when you ask the tour guide to register we have zero traffic to the site. But partnerships with several tourist guide organisations around the world really helped us to the 500 tour guide point. Now we get over 80 organically registering per month as the value OurExplorer give them is now clear.

BOOT - How much money have you raised and who from?

Cunningham - the project has been financed internally by all the co-founders thus far. No external fund raising required as we believe in this project and the upside some much.

BOOT - What do you need to do to the product to take out of beta?

Cunningham - OurExplorer needs to implement 5 more enhancement features e.g. improved messaging system and restructuring to increase conversion rates etc

BOOT - What's next?

Cunningham - OurExplorer goes live in Chinese to the high growth Chinese travel market at the end of October.

UPDATE - Joris of AKOPSO www.akopso.com posted a comment below wondering about how Our Explorer goes about selecting guides and the need for official licences. The comment is below and here is Cunningham's (of Our Explorer) response sent to me by email.

As OurExplorer displays tour guides from all over the world it is sensitive that the specific licences and requirements for licences varies from country to country. Therefore when a tour guide registers their services on OurExplorer they upload their licence only when they feel it is appropriate and required for the specific tour they offer. Of course, a visiting client can request to see a licence copy from an OurExplorer tour guide at any time.

MLM Prospecting-The real "secret" about "secrets" . . .

Many networkers sometimes feel there is some magic secret they are missing when it comes to mlm prospecting . They fl they must be missing something because people don't seem to joining them or want any part of their products; at least not on a consistent basis.

The truth is, there is something that you are missing but it is very simple. Listen to what Tom Schreiter has to say about this:

The real "secret" about "secrets" . . .

When new distributors start their network marketing careers, they spend hours, days, months and more looking for the "secret" to network marketing success. And, they don't find the "secret."

Why?

Because there are no "secrets" in network marketing -- just a whole bunch of stuff we don't know.

These new distributors chant affirmations, cut out pictures for their goal boards, tell themselves how motivated they should be, sing the company song, cheer at rallies, practice flipping pages on their presentation books . . . and they don't "get it."

You see, success in network marketing comes from learning the "magic words" and "magic sequences of words" that trigger the prospect's mind to understand, believe, and want to use our products or join our opportunity.

There are hundreds of these magic words and sequences of words.

All we have to do is to start learning them and watch our businesses improve.

So instead of surfing the Internet, working hard in 100 different directions, and wondering what's wrong, distributors need to simply concentrate on learning the magic words, and magic sequences of words that get their prospects to act.

Now, this is too far from new distributors' current beliefs to accept, and they don't have the case studies and examples yet to change their beliefs. That's why when they come to the "live" workshops they "get it" and understand how to get prospects to join effortlessly.

But remember, it's the things that we don't know, the things that sound unbelievable, the things that sound bizarre, that have the best chance of getting us the new results we want.

I hope this makes sense to you. I also hope you will take action and learn the right things to say that Tom was talking about so you can take your mlm prospecting to the next level!

To Your Success,

Monique Hawkins
mentormonique@gmail.com
Skype: Monique371
Be A Mentor With A Servant's heart

I finally found how I can be successful in mlm with this free ebook. The same can happen to you! Grab your free ebook today: http://mentormonique.bigmlmtruths.com/?mad=9091


If you are looking for powerful tips, ideas, and secrets about achieving success, visit http://www.squidoo.com/tipstoexplodeyourhome-basedbusiness/

Creating Online Business Marketing

The following paragraphs summarize the work of experts who are completely familiar with all the aspects of . Heed their advice to avoid any surprises.

Throughout these sets of articles we keep looked at populous different ways that one can create online business ideas. This is very front-page but it is equally important that you know how to market your business ideas in consequence that people know what you have to offer. Within this article today we are going to look at what you can do in creating online business marketing that will sell your product. We will look at two different methods that you can use but, to truly become successful at online marketing, you are going to have to make sure to learn about the subject as much as possible. Without a certain number of hits to your website every day, you authority be guaranteed that you will not have great sales figures. The only way to stimulate the hits that you yearning is finished marketing and this is where this article comes in.



The first thing they can do in creating online business marketing is to make sure that your website is properly created. This article isn't long enough to go into everything that you need for your website but you should make sure that your site is properly indexed by all of the major search engines so that you're getting the maximum amount of natural search engine traffic you can. If you need more information about this, look in your library for books on search engine optimization. This can help you redesign some pages on your website to make sure that you are getting maximum exposure. If you want to get more people to your website, you may also want to look pastime Adwords. Where this can benefit you is that you can bid on certain keywords so when people search on these keywords, your ads cede come up.
If your facts are out-of-date, how will that affect your actions and decisions? Make certain you don't let important information slip by you.
You will paya certain amount per click that you receive from your ads being displayed. This is very good for you because you can target the audience that you want to bring to your website. By bidding on this, you are energetic to control your marketing costs and still receive leads.
Another way to get traffic coming to your site and remedy in creating online business marketing is to offer some free giveaways. There are a great deal of free forums independent there where you can trade about free giveaways at your website and this is an additional way to bring traffic to your website. The word free is one of the most scalding buttons for most people so by offering vital for free if they visit your website, you will be guaranteed to get a great deal of traffic. The way to run giveaways would be to have someone sign up for your newsletter in contention for the free gift. This will help build your newsletter and create more online business marketing because you have a larger responsive list who is potentially interested in the products that you sell. The way to perform this in a newsletter is to make sure you engage in not onslaught products but rather pacific bestow them while pushing information your target audience can use.
Hopefully these two different methods of creating online business marketing can help you foreign. What we have told you about today only scratches the surface of the possible things you can do but these are two of the more recognized methods and they are very low - assessment methods so that you do not have to use a great reaction of money that you may need to run the business.
So now you know a little bit about . Even if you don't know everything, you've done something worthwhile: you've expanded your knowledge.

Fun and cat fights at the big boss house

Dancing in the big boss house

Hahaha whats makes me laugh even right now, is the fun going on at big boss with Rahul Mahajan and Raja Chowdhury fighting like cats and dogs.. they were given a task the other day, and it had to be carried out by both, who dressed themselves like Drona, a charator from Abhisheks Bachchan's coming movie. The story: Good over Evil.. so Drona vr's Evil had to fight it out.. that meant Rahul verse's Raja.. But something went wrong and Instead of good over Evil, it resulted in Evil winning over good.. hahaha..

I cant express how i was in splits while the whole fight was on. Earths enemy won over the saviour! yeah, Raja and Rahul started out fighting with swords like in the movie but slowly they moved onto to boxing each other but all with fun, and Raja who is known to be very hot tempered and who takes to fighting for any reason, cought rahul by his legs and dragged him all aroud. Poor Rahul, he was so embarrassed but luckily Zulfi came to his aid.. finally both, Rahul and Raja hugged and ended the cat fight. It was an awesome cat fight i had seen on reality TV! hehe..

Rahul is our late politician BJP leader Pramod Mahajan's son and now he is a politiction himself!!! But hes a very down to earth and helpful person, has no airs like many others and he comes across as very childish. I must also mention that Rahul also cleans the toilets of the big boss house, and he doent mind dancing like a clown in his bath robe(he cant dance;)) He is nominated every week but maybe luck is with him for hes still in the house.

Raja is our tv actress shweta's ex husband, who is known to beat her while they were married which was the reason for their divorce. But he is also very friendly and has opened up lots since the day he first came on the show. Seems to win over his other housemates by his fun nature, for when he was evicted this friday.. he was missed, and the whole house remained quiet. Normally he is upto all sorts of things.

Jump-start your online business with heritage web solutions

If i were to initiate my own web business i would prefer to take help from Heritage Web Solutions which allows it clients to get access to custom flash graphics, ecommerce assistance, database creation and management, traffic driving resources, and more. A website is needed to improve even a tiny business online, web solutions specialises in creating unique, original, and authentic designs for their clients business website because each website is custom fit, without no use of templates. So its advisable to jump-start a business with a professional and reputable technology company like web solutions.

This company is no ordinary company but has been featured on the inc 500. They are well known for their work and has been recognized by numerous highly regarded sources for their unique and innovative style of working. They are ranked in the top 1% of all web-hosting companies. 3rd overall in IT services and 1st for those in the state of Utah! so what makes you think you shouldn't take a look at this website if you are looking for a trusted company? You'll be in good hands and that's what the company strongly feels too for they have the experience to go about any task, and have even proved it.

While working with them, you can make changes to your own website or they will do it for you. That's only an option, entirely up to you, as a client. They offer very affordable prices but with top quality service, top web designers, programmers, and technical Support. Take one look at their portfolio and its so convincing that they are surely unique.

Managed Services: Safe At Home

As more businesses allow employees to work from home, a new IT challenge -- and opportunity -- arises. It's impossible for employers to offer on-site, full-time tech support to all of their stay-at-home workers. But the rise of managed services -- including remote monitoring and pro-active administration -- can bring order to these highly distributed workplaces.

The trend toward telecommuting is undeniable. More than 40 percent of American and Canadian companies let their employees telework, according to WorldatWork, a global HR association. As energy prices continue to fluctuate and businesses increasingly focus on environmental issues, the march toward telecommuting will surely accelerate.

Home Networks Become Complex
As a small business owner myself, my home office includes a network with multiple nodes -- three PCs running a mix of Ubuntu Linux and Windows XP; and my trusted MacBook Pro running Max OS X.

Now, multiply that IT complexity across hundreds of home offices and you'll understand why many small, midsize and even large organizations struggle to keep their home-based employees online and productive.

That's where managed services enter the picture. Increasingly, managed service providers (MSPs) and VARs (value-added resellers) use remote monitoring and administration tools to troubleshoot small and mid-size business networks.

The New Executive Suite
The managed services trend is now spilling over into the home market, where entrepreneurs and executives now demand the same level of IT service and support that they experience within corporate offices.

Small business owners and midsize business executives need to rethink their IT outsourcing strategies. In fact, all IT projects and network administration decisions must now include the extended enterprise -- including home offices and mobile devices.

The old corporate network as we know it is dead. The clear line between your enterprise and your employees' homes are gone. Going forward you need an IT architecture that blankets all of your employees -- regardless of where they're working.

Make Your Move for 2009
As you negotiate IT service contracts for 2009, ask your IT consultants and integrators how they're addressing the growing trend toward stay-at-home workers.

And make sure your IT contracts for patch management, security, storage and other automated services cover those telecommuters.

Lucy's final tips for Friday newbies

As the summer draws to a close, it is with a heavy heart that I bring you our last Newbie Friday post. I hope you've enjoyed our words of wisdom over the past few months and have found the information useful. Our team will continue to update this blog with the most up-to-date AdSense news and information, so please don't let this be goodbye. If you missed part of the series or want to re-read specific posts, just visit our Newbie label at any time and look for our summer-themed logo. So, from one oldie to many newbies, I'll close out this season with a few final tips for our new publishers.

Go wide and get rich (media)
If you've just recently started with AdSense, there are two format-related tips I would instantly recommend. The first is to enable both text and image ads, which will increase competition among ads to appear in your ad units and may result in higher CPMs. Second, use some of our wider units, such as the 160x600 wide skyscraper, the 300x250 medium rectangle, or the 728x90 leaderboard. There are more rich media (image, flash, video and gadget) ads available in wider ad formats, and wider ad units are the preferred formats for advertisers looking to target your site. Again, increased competition or your ad space will help you maximise your earnings potential.

Use channels
Channels are powerful reporting tools, sometimes overlooked by new publishers. They allow you to view the AdSense performance of a site, a specific page, or even a specific ad unit, which can help you see where your ads are performing best. You can name these channels, give them descriptions, and then define them as ad placements so that they are visible to AdWords advertisers.

The secret
As top AdSense earners will tell you, when it comes to earning with AdSense, the most important thing is a policy-compliant site with good-quality, original content. Such sites attract users, relevant ads and, ultimately, revenue.

Finally, we constantly maintain online resources like our AdSense Help Forum, Newbie Central, and our Known Issues page to share useful information with you. We hope you'll use them to make the most of AdSense.

Posted by Lucy McKenna - AdSense UK Publisher Support

Face and body piercings- do you have one?

I have seen people with piercings almost covering every part of the body and i always wonder what pleasure does it give a person. I have only three piercings, i mean one on my nose where i wear my gold nose pin and on my ears but i cant bare to think of a navel one or in some other part of the body! I always feel my hair raise when i see a piercing either on TV or real. It seems so unpleasant to the eyes, yet i cant understand how and why people pierce in places that can be extremely risky like inside the mouth. Whatever it is, if it looks and makes a person feel good, just take care of your piercing:)

When a piercing is done, it pains alot and on the next day it pains even more. I hope you agree friends? i must advice you to wash the area with warm water as you awake in the morning so that its clean of puss and clotted blood, after that don't forget to apply some good antiseptic cream ASAP. It should dry up within less than a month completely.

The mouth is the most important part you got to care for, so remember after eating and drinking, always wash your mouth with some alcohol-free, or antiseptic mouth solution.

But most of all, always make sure you use safely methods. You know what i mean? Never pierce with used needles and go for sterile methods. If you have pierced your skin lately, do let me know, and till then.. I will be back with lots more on body piercing soon:)

4 Internet Marketing Fundamentals That Increase Your Success Rate

By Luis Galarza - Internet Marketing Tips.

Internet Marketing Have The Same Fundamentals As The Offline Marketing World, Just The Strategies, Tactics, Tools, And Technology Is Different. But, If You Don't Understand The Main Element Of A Successful System, Your Efforts Will Have Not Effects For Your Internet Business!

All the main fundamentals of regular or offline marketing also applies on it's fullness to Internet marketing, or at least to successful one. As an entrepreneur you need to know about each of these elements and how it fit in your marketing plan or strategy. It will really help you if you add these fundamentals into your campaign, because every online marketing program depends on a few factors that will help it become a successful program:

- One that is focus on getting to your goals.

- One that follows a path of strategic actions and tactics that will take you closer to achieving your goals.

- One that it's base on performance and is design to boost conversion rates.

- One that have a list of campaigns working together and yet separate to find the best channel to distribute your marketing message.

- One that acts base on accurate analytic data, which comes from well plan testing and tracking system.

- One that can be adjust and improve if you marketing trends changes.

If your Internet business marketing program doesn't possess this attributes or do any of those things for you or your company, maybe is missing one of the puzzle pieces that are necessary to make any of those attributes possible.

Many online entrepreneurs fail because they forget to run their Internet business as a real business... With a business plan, an Internet marketing program, and a set of short term and long term goals. Remember that it doesn't matter what type of company you want to start, if you want to be successful you need to treat it as a real business and have an strategy for each of your of the marketing fundamentals.


The Four Internet Marketing Fundamentals You Need To Plan For To Increase Your Success Rate.

The four fundamentals every marketing should have are Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. Here is how it brakes down:

1. PRODUCT.

This is the element that involve finding something of quality to offer, product development or design (you can develop the product yourself, outsource, buy PLR or MMR pre-develop products, etc), list of features that translate into valuable benefits, creating your USP or unique selling proposition, needs to blend or become part of your branding, and needs to be deliver in a professional packaging that increase its value.


2. PRICE.

The price is always a tricky part of any marketing program, because if you price to high you will loose potential customers, but if you price to low you will lower its value. Also, you need to decide if you are going to sell it retail or wholesale, or if you planning to offer discounts to increase sales, or if you want to accept allowances or payment plans, and if you do, you need to have good credit terms in place.


3. PLACE.

This element is also crucial for your success, is where you plan what type of distribution channel you better fits with your product/audience, the location where you product or service is going to be shown (this can be a website, an eBay store, a stand alone sales page, an offline storefront, etc), or you can decide to use middlemen, affiliates or joint venture partners to distribute the goods effectively.


4. PROMOTION.

This is the one focus on distrubuting your message to your target audience through advertising, a sales force (offline sale reps and affiliates), public relations or press releases distribution, sales landing pages or lead capture pages (squeeze pages), also the use of offline marketing tactics like; Direct marketing, telemarketing, TV informatials. And of course Internet marketing strategies like:

• SEO or Search Engine Optimization.
• Email list building.
• Social media or web 2.0 authority.
• Online viral videos.
• Blogging.
• Viral campaigns (like free ebooks).
• Ezine ads.
• Etc...

So, make sure you use each of these fundamentals as soon it increase your web sales conversions, which is the one of the most important things about having a business, without any revenue you will be out of business in no time. The other most important thing is building a strong long term relationship with your customers, prospects, and your audience in general.

To learn how you can be part of an online association full with expert on Internet marketing and web business advisers by visiting the Internet Entrepreneurs Club.


In Conclusion: Is simple, just treat your Internet business as a real business, and you will be in your path to success. Before using any Internet marketing strategy try to master each part of it before applying it, this way you will increase your responses.

To your success,

Luis Galarza, Internet Marketing Consultant In Massachusetts.

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Uptake - near perfect timing on the second round of fundraising

Last week I carried the story of UpTake taking in a second round of $10mm to bring total amount raised to $13.95mm. In original post I wondered aloud why they had needed to raise a second round so close in time to the first round. Unfortunately due to some overzealous spam filtering in my gmail account I did not receive a reply to this pondering from Uptake CEO Yen Lee in time before the story was posted. That said, it looks like Yen's timing on this round could not have been better. Uptake announced the raising on September 16. September 17 the Dow closed down 450 points or more than 4%. In other words it seems they managed to close the deal moments before the recent round of AIG and Lehmann led shocks that are almost certain to dry up start-up company investment funds. Companies post this dark week on Wall Street are going to find it much harder to raise money as investors hunker down and wait for more clarity (or queue up from free tax payer funds as part of the bail out bonanza!).

As to valuation - Yen below says that "the valuation was very fair" and "we didn’t necessarily need to raise the round ". This is usually code word for an "Up Round" (where the valuation is higher in Series B than Series A). But is doesn't sound like the valuation was dramatically increased.

Finally Yen is on the hunt for talent (see interview below for details). With money in the bank and people in under-funded business looking nervously at their bosses this should be a good time to recruit.

Below is a slightly edited version of my email interview exchange with Yen that should have gone with the original post. If you want some background here my earlier interview with Yen.

BOOT -Who joined the Round?

Yen - Trinity Ventures led the round and Shasta Ventures, who led Series A, co-invested. Trinity has been looking at online travel for many years without pulling the trigger but they were really excited about our business model and specifically how we would solve the consumer acquisition challenge. Specifically, how our technology approach allowed us to create an infinite number of niche pages (e.g. Monterey romantic hotels) to dominate the torso and tail on SEO.

BOOT - How much and at what valuation?

Yen- We aren’t disclosing specific terms other then to say we raised more then $10M. Referring in advance to my answer to Q7 below, we didn’t necessarily need to raise the round now, so the valuation was very fair.

BOOT - What are the plans for the money? What about international destinations and non-eng languages?

Yen - ... building a search application is not for the faint of heart – nor is it cheap! Especially since we make the investment to not just spider all the travel content we can find but also to structure it. Despite the strong progress we have made, we think we are just getting started, so most of the money will be for continued product development. We are absolutely committed to helping consumers globally with their travel decision making. We don’t know the specific timing of when we venture outside North America although we will have a better estimate by end of Q1, 2009.

BOOT - If people are part of the plans (ie recruitment) what are the main areas that you need to attract people? Has hiring become slightly easier recently with economy downturn?

Yen- Yes, headcount is the lion’s share of our expenses and will continue to be as we scale our offering. Are you offering me a soap box to help with recruiting? Then ... we are continuing to look for engineering talent. Specifically more problem solvers on each of our three technology layers. We need engineers with domain knowledge in spidering the web and mining unstructured data, natural language engineers with experience parsing text to extract sentiments, and data warehouse developers who have built multi-stage data processing pipelines. We also need engineers who have built ranking algorithms and contextual targeting solutions. Finally, we need application and UI engineers.

Silicon Valley is really a little micro-economy unto itself and the increasingly tumultuous macro-economic conditions haven’t affected our little corner of the world – YET. While there is certainly more candidates out there now, it has less to do with the macro-economy then the number of engineers and others from Silicon Valley stalwarts like Yahoo, eBay and even Google who are looking for opportunities to show what they can accomplish in a nimble, focused environment. We are also seeing more candidates from the earlier generation of vertical search companies that generally just reprocessed already structured data and therefore found it challenging to differentiate and get market traction.

BOOT - the Site was constructed around organic search marketing. Any need with this new money to expand into spending money on market (paid search or otherwise)?

Yen - Nope. We are growing 30% month on month and have no plans to deviate from our successful playbook.

BOOT How are monetisation plans going?

Yen - We have been pleasantly surprised by the number of consumers clicking on paid leads. We certainly haven’t emphasised that on our site, but the consumers tell us we offer them all the information they need to decide whether that hotel or attraction is a good fit, so checking rates and availability is the natural next step.

BOOT Series A was just a couple of months ago. Why the need to raise again so soon?

Yen- We didn’t necessarily to raise now, but there is an old adage that the right time to raise is when you don’t need the money! And our decision was made easier given the shaky macro economic environment, our confidence that we have proven our approach works and we are ready to scale, that we have known the Trinity Ventures team for a long time and wanted to work with them, and that they made a very fair pre-emptive offer.

Business Introduction By Email - Sample Business Quote

Although I am against wasting your time attempting to make your initial business introduction by email, if you insist on doing so, then try to make that email as professional as possible.

Professional correspondence, whether by mail, fax or email is your key to success or failure in a matter of seconds.

I have posted a very good example of a business introduction email that provides pricing and product information on our web site. I have also critiqued it's positive and negative points to help you take this example and improve upon it.

Hope this helps your business: http://www.importexporthelp.com/business-strategies/sample-business-quote.htm

Google TV Ads partnering with Bloomberg TV

Today, we announced that we're partnering with Bloomberg TV to offer their national inventory to advertisers through the Google TV Ads platform. Bloomberg TV is a 24-hour business and financial news channel, reaching over 54 million households in the US.

This builds on our partnership with NBCU, announced earlier this month, and will provide advertisers with broader audience reach and access to desirable viewer demographics. Starting later this year, Google TV Ads advertisers will have access to premium inventory on Bloomberg TV, so stay tuned for further announcements. Currently, advertisers can target Bloomberg TV through our DISH Network inventory available on the Google TV Ads platform. Our partnership with Bloomberg TV means that advertisers will be able to reach all Bloomberg TV viewers in the US.

For more details on our partnership with Bloomberg TV, please see the announcement on on our Traditional Media blog.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

Financial Collapse. George Bush in charge. We're all doomed!

Lots of people are asking me about financial crisis. Two types of questions I get asked. The first is "how did this happen" and the second "is the travel industry doomed as a result"

On the question of "how" I have just read an article that gives the best explanation I have come across. In today's online version of the New York Times, Vikas Bajaj writes a great piece called "Plan’s Basic Mystery: What’s All This Stuff Worth?". In it he goes deep into the strange asset/securitisation products that were put together by Bear Stearns, Lehman etc and caused this whole mess. Worth a read (login required).

Despite the madness of these products and chaos that has resulted from their collapsed I am convinced that the Travel industry will not only survive this crisis but will come out the other end thriving. You might call me an optimist but my view is based on history.

The travel industry in America bounced back from 9/11 in a quarter. In fact the whole online merchant hotel business (and retail for that matter) was created out of the ashes of that tragedy. Hotels gave cheap rates to Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz etc. Expedia completed its acquisition of Travelscape and soon after bought HRN/Hotels.com.

In Asia, the whole business ground to a halt during the SARs crisis. Hong Kong and the region around it could not pay travellers to come visit. Now Macau is the centre of the gaming and Asian hospitality market. Bali has suffered through two horrific attacks and proposals for bizarre religious laws. Yet manages to survive and fight back each time.

In Europe London and Madrid also suffered horrific attacks in recent years. Yet still the customers flock to Spain and UK the for holidays and breaks.

Travel has survived tragedy and shocks before and will do so because at the core humans love to travel. But the secret to survival is reinvention, not hiding and hoping to ride it out. Growing through 9/11 came from reinventing online hotel distribution. SARs from reinventing the Asian hospitality industry. To get out of this Wall Street induced melting Bull will require the industry to once again find efficiencies in distribution, marketing and supply management. Mobile anyone?

Note - an observant reader (ok my mother) has pointed out that my melting "bull" reference doesn't work given the obvious udder on our molten friend above.

thanks to my number one anonymous commentator for the photo

MLM Prospecting-Are You Using the Eaves Droping Approach

mlm prospecting can become much easier if we do what Tom Schreiter says. I don't know where he comes up with everything he talks about, but it is really great!

Today, listen in to his tip on how to use the "eaves dropping" approach from his "77 More Hot Prospecting Ideas" series.

Tip #14: The "Eavesdrop Approach."

Do you have trouble getting prospects on an
opportunity presentation teleconference call?

Are they afraid of being "sold" by listening to
the sales presentation?

Relax your prospects by offering to have them
listen to a "training call." They can listen to
one of your teleconference trainings without the
fear of being "sold."


Tom 'Big Al' Schreiter
Fortune Network Publishing
Phone +1 (281) 280-9800
http://www.fortunenow.com
PO Box 890084, Houston, TX 77289, USA

Well, sounds easy enough right? So take action and happy mlm prospecting!

To Your Success,

Monique Hawkins
mentormonique@gmail.com
Skype: Monique371
Be A Mentor With A Servant's heart

I finally found how I can be successful in mlm with this free ebook. The same can happen to you! Grab your free ebook today: http://mentormonique.bigmlmtruths.com/?mad=9091


If you are looking for powerful tips, ideas, and secrets about achieving success, visit http://www.squidoo.com/tipstoexplodeyourhome-basedbusiness/

Building community awareness with Google Site Search

Since first launching Google Site Search, thousands of customers have been using Site Search to power search on their websites. Customers have also been reaching out to us to share different ways they have been using the tool to connect people to more information about their organizations, products and services. 

One of the most interesting stories come from Adobe, which integrated Google Site Search into this week's launch of Creative Suite 4, a milestone release of such desktop applications as Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash and other popular Adobe flagship products. 

Adobe is using Google Site Search as part of Creative Suite 4's Community Help to connect suite customers to Help content on and off Adobe.com including tutorials, technical support, online product help, videos, articles, tips and techniques, blogs, examples and other resources.

The most intriguing thing about this implementation is that Adobe desktop customers don't have to leave their software to connect to the wealth of help information in the cloud -- blending and blurring the lines between online and offline content in the first Google Site Search implementation of its kind. 

The Adobe team also mentioned that they loved exclusive features only offered in Google Site Search: advanced customization by utilizing XML feed technology and consistent brand messaging (ads and Google branding optional).

We love the Adobe story because it illustrates one of the many ways an innovative, forward - thinking company can use the power of Google Site Search to connect their users to information they need and improve their overall experience. Find out more about Adobe Community Help here. And, of course, if you have a similar story about how you're using Google Site Search, please send us an email to gsscs@google.com.

Posted by Alex Rodriguez - Torres, Google Site Search Marketing Lead

More administrative controls for Gmail with Google Apps

When small businesses use Google Apps, it's easy for administrators to help employees configure user settings account-by-account. But this approach doesn't scale up very well for larger companies.

Now that we have a growing list of customers with hundreds and even thousands of employees apiece, offering a streamlined way for admins to configure account settings is essential. Today, with the release of the Google Email Settings API, Premier and Education Edition administrators can programmatically update Gmail settings for their users in bulk by making requests to a GData feed. Modifiable settings include labels, filters, signatures, vacation responders, "send mail as" aliases, interface language, email forwarding, POP, IMAP, and more.

For all the details, check out the Google Email Settings API documentation.

Posted by Andrew Olsen, Google Apps Engineer

October 2008 Best Selling Items On The Internet

By Luis Galarza - Internet Marketing Tips.

So, I'm Ready To Become An Internet Marketing Entrepreneur! But, What Products Can I Sell Online? What Are The Best Selling Items On The Internet This September and October 2008?

OK, I know the month of September is almost over but that doesn't mean you can not be able to make money online promoting the best selling items on the Internet right now, these products are so popular that is no way you can increase your month end income a bit. The secret to start a successful home base business selling on the Internet any of these items is all about three words "Taking Action Now". Yes, that's it, I know you maybe was expecting the magic secret code of Internet marketing, the truth is that there is not magic code, is just setting goals, writing a strategic planning, taking daily actions, testing those actions, and improve those actions.

Below I added two tips to help you start selling online in less than 48 hours... Yes, is possible if you know how, and the thing is that is not difficult, but will need some hard work if you want to really make some extra money before this month end, which will give you the push to continue next month even stronger. So, don't forget to read the bottom part of this article.


September and October 2008 Best Selling Items On The Internet Hot List:

Back To School Products.
School already started, but there are a lot of people still looking for school supplies and accessories, searches still high and these can make you some or a lot of cash if you act now, of course. Some of those hot supplies are:

• Schools Supplies.
• Backpacks.
• Bags.
• K-6 supplies.
• Books.

Computers.
As you know computers are always been one of the best selling electronic items online, that's why it has it's own category. Here are some of the hot computer goods this September and October:

• Laptops.
• Monitors.
• PDAs.
• Desktops.
• Printers.
• Software.

Electronics.
Last Christmas digital cameras and video games were the most popular products on the Internet, but by now some of that has change, which also give us some views of what this Christmas hot sellers are going to be, but I'll talk about that tomorrow. Below are the hottest electronics for this month:

• Cellphones.
• Digital Cameras.
• MP3 Players.
• TV and Video Items.
• Video Games.
• DVD Players.

Student In Dorms.
Focus your Internet marketing campaign on college students can become a very lucrative alternative for your online business or money making venture. Many entrepreneurs have found that targeting college students can turn into big business, and the market still have a lot of room for new smart netpreneurs who want to monetize using strategic marketing campaigns that convert. Here some of the items those students want right now:

• Dorm-room Essentials.
• Room Accessories.
• Laptops.
• Stylish Backpacks.
• Stylish Bags.

Clothing.
Before clothing was one of those products that took a lot of time to be accepted as an e-commerce product, because many people really need to touch, and try it on before buying. But, with new web technology, better customers services, good guarantees, and the fact that people notice that buying cloth online were no different from buying it from a paper catalog, that turn clothing into a hot selling good. Here is what people want to wear right now or at list the most popular categories:

• Women's.
• Men's.
• Teen.
• Lingerie.
• Shoes.
• Accessories.

All this categories are popular right now and can generate a good substantial income for you, just harry. Halloween products aren't included here because I plan to write a post just about that before Friday.

Tip: When doing your keyword research go after the long tail to speed up your success. If you don't know what's the long tail is, here is an example: If you are going to target your marketing campaign to the "computer" which is one of the best selling items on the Internet I mention above, you need to know that "computer" is the main keyword, which has a lot of competitions and will be very, very, very difficult for you to optimize your site or blog for that keyword, and if you thinking on using PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising like Google Adwords, you must know that targeting the main key phrase will be very expensive, up to $15 to $20 per click.

The long tail is simply a longer key phrase use by web users who are looking for specific information or product related to the main word. In the case of the "computer" keyword the long tail can be something like "black desktop computer in New York", this phrase is cheaper and easier to optimize your site for.


Internet Marketing Tips To Make Money Online.

You can use many ways and strategies to create a new revenue stream with any of those best selling items, right now I going to give you two tips monetize this opportunity...

1. - Find this products below wholesale provided by drop-shipping vendors, then open a store on eBay and list at least 5 products on the right category using good headline sales copy to make it appealing to buyers, then use good description and list the benefits with bullet points, this is the easiest type of sales copy you can apply successfully. because you're not an eBay powerseller, you need to bring some traffic to your store so you can boost your bids and your sales, to do that you can use PPC targeting the long tail, also you can open a free Squidoo account where you need to provide some good unique information and link back to your eBay store, plus you can add eBay items right from the Squidoo integrated affiliate system, which can give you more stream of income per lens or Squidoo webpage.

2. - Use Google Knol and Squidoo to create a mass marketing campaign targeting the hot products that you like or have interest on, because this way you will put more efforts in building better pages with these two already search engine optimize content management systems. Google Knol will make you money with Adsense and affiliate programs, and Squidoo with their affiliate system, other affiliate programs, and you can use them to link to your main blog.


You can use these two tip and make it work for you, you can also mix the two to maximize your profits. After you income sites are set up you can increase traffic and your revenue by testing and tracking more Internet marketing strategies. Don't forget to write a simple marketing plan to help you get the best out of these best selling items.


To learn how you can be part of an online association full with expert on selling on the Internet and web business advisers by visiting the Internet Entrepreneurs Club.


In Conclusion: Each of the hot items from this list can be turn into profits, just remember that some strategies for selling on the Internet need some investment from your part and some work. Just research the keywords and make a list of long tail phrases that can be turn into cash. Don't try to create a marketing program for each popular product, instead pick one or two that you would like to learn more about or already know something about and make it work... You can pick other niches after learning how to make it work successfully.

To your success,

Luis Galarza, Internet Marketing Consultant In Massachusetts.

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