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First, know that the 250 links will come over time – it’s not a one time event. It is actually a pretty simple strategy and will have more benefits than just getting inbound links. I am referring to the practice of strategically commenting on blogs.
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There are a lot of companies that will happily relieve you of your dollars, in exchange for buzz monitoring services. While many large companies will enjoy the peace of mind that comes from having a company track their reputation for them, the rest of us need something a little less expensive–or better yet, free!
Author: golf Page 13 of 22
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Privacy concerns stemming from online shopping rose in 2007, a new study finds, as the loss or theft of credit Privacy concerns stemming from online shopping rose in 2007, a new study finds, as the loss or theft of credit card information and other personal data soared to unprecedented levels. Sixty-one percent of adult Americans said they were very or extremely concerned about the privacy of personal information when buying online, an increase from 47 percent in 2006. Before last year, that figure had largely been dropping since 2001.
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In 2006, B2C e-commerce sales for the five major markets in the Asia-Pacific region totaled only $59.1 billion, and Japan accounted for a tiger’s share of the sales. But things are changing.
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Web surfers aren’t just mad about online privacy violations. They’re getting even. Consumers are speaking out publicly against companies they say have gone too far in tracking their Web surfing patterns, creating public relations nightmares.
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A massive hack of legitimate Web sites has been spreading malware to visitors’ PCs, using a new tactic that has made detection "extraordinarily difficult," security experts said today. According to the researcher who broke the news, the hack, which involves several hundred sites, may be related to a November 2007 break-in at Fasthosts Internet Ltd., a U.K.-based hosting service that in early December acknowledged that some clients’ log-in credentials had been pinched.
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Bob Greene, co-founder of Contour Venture Partners in New York, wants you to know that venture capitalists aren’t half as tough as their reputations would have you believe. "A lot of entrepreneurs think VCs are haughty or arrogant," says Greene, who earned his bachelor’s degree from the Wharton School in 1982. "All the VCs I know, we do it because we love it. We want to see entrepreneurs succeed. If the wrong impressions get cast, it’s because we get inundated with requests for review and capital."
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The most important advice Jeff Fluhr, W’96, Eng’96, got as a young entrepreneur was to go with his gut. Fluhr, founder of online ticket sales website StubHub, says he had to stay focused on his vision for the business even while others who became involved in the business advised differently. “I learned that it’s important to listen to what others have to say,” said Fluhr. “But you have an obligation to do what you think is right.” Fluhr co-founded StubHub in March of 2000 and was responsible for setting the overall strategic direction. As CEO, he led the company to its position as the fan’s top choice when looking for a safe and trusted way to purchase or sell event tickets online, attracting A-list investors and advisors including major league sports teams, NCAA universities and top performing artists. StubHub was sold to eBay in early 2007.
Should entrepreneurs worry about the loyalties of their lawyers? That is the question posed in a recent article on TheFunded.com, and to be honest, it is a fair question.
Most venture financings have closing legal expenses in the mid-five figures, and I know of Series B deals where the closing expenses have approached a quarter million dollars (yes, you heard me right… $250,000). At the end of the day, these expenses are ultimately paid for by investors. In addition, within local venture ecosystems, the venture lawyers obviously do many deals with the venture capitalists in their area over the course of time. These factors certainly create the potential for major conflicts of interest, and according to many entrepreneurs, the conflicts of interest are real.
My team has always had the benefit of terrific legal counsel, and we haven’t personally struggled with this issue. However, if you honestly assess the dynamics of the venture relationships as well as the economics of where and how corporate lawyers get paid, you will have to agree that entrepreneurs probably should be keeping a close eye on your lawyers.
As I mentioned, there was a terrific post on this subject at TheFunded.com – Venture Legal: A Conflict of Interest and a Complicated Mess. The author of this post hit the issue right on the nail.
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Why do people shop online? How do they find items, and what factors are important to them in making purchasing decisions? These are some of the questions we set out to explore in our December online-buying survey. Over 900 people took the survey. By aggre
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Robert Scoble, he of many thousand friends on Facebook, was suspended from the social network after he used a new Plaxo feature to automatically export the contact info of his Facebook friends. Facebook has now let him back in, but only after the uber-blogger’s brief hiatus created quite the stir in–where else?–the blogosphere. This brings up an interesting question: Do you own your social network? Or does Facebook?
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Click Forensics, Inc., a provider of click fraud prevention solutions, recently announced the availability of Click Forensics for Publishers. The new product allows online publishers and ad networks to automatically block sources of click fraud and poor-quality traffic from hitting pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements running on their sites, according to the company. Similar to a spam filter, the product filters out click fraud and other low quality traffic in real time so publishers can improve the overall quality of the traffic they pass through to advertisers.
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In your experience, what are the chances a talented entrepreneur will make $1M from his startup? (And no, I don’t mean making $150K/year for 6 years and 8 months. 🙂
As many of you know, 2007 was an amazing year for buySAFE as we accomplished more than 100% growth for each of the last four quarters. I expect buySAFE to continue to grow at a very fast pace in 2008, and so as you can imagine, that means we are looking to hire very talented people. Specifically, buySAFE is hiring exceptional software developers (see the position description below) and sales executives, but of course, we are always interested in meeting talent across the board.
If you are a VERY smart person that enjoys BIG challenges and wants to work REALLY hard on a talented team to help build a great company, then you and I should probably talk. Similarly, if you know someone that fits that description, please let he or she know that I want to talk to them as well.
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Venture capitalists don’t want to pay their legal fees for financings. Don’t fight this term—that’s a “big move on a little issue.” Instead, cap your contribution to the investor’s legal bill. And watch the legal bills in small financings: don’t spend a large portion of the investment on lawyers or give up a lot of equity for the privilege of paying your investor’s legal bill.
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Forget about strings of pearls, dive watches or flower baskets. This could be the year of Barcaloungers and blenders. According to early online shopping statistics, sales of holiday stalwarts like jewelry, watches and flowers have dropped from last year’s levels, while sales of more practical items like furniture and appliances have climbed about 70 percent.
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As the holiday shopping season is getting shorter, the biggest procrastinators are men, according to NRF’s 2007 Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, conducted by BIGresearch. The survey found that 19.4% of men had yet to begin their holiday sho
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Software pirates who peddle their goods on eBay, watch out. A software industry trade group is hoping to entice buyers of counterfeit computer programs to blow the whistle on sellers by offering rewards of up to $500.