Steve Woda's Blog

… Ecommerce, Internet Security, Economics, and Entrepreneurship

Category: Web/Tech Page 4 of 8

So You Want to Be a Blogging Star?

By

On March 25, 2008

In Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Web/Tech

I have discovered the hard way that blogging is not an easy endeavor, and this is especially true for folks that have real jobs during the day.  At a minimum, it takes time, dedication, and creativity.  I have often wondered how to others do such a great job with their blogs while still maintaining excellence in their day jobs.  To that point, I thought this article was very interesting, and it included a number of practical tips for all of us aspiring bloggers.  I hope you find this useful as well.

MARK CUBAN, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, has a full plate. Besides his basketball team, the busy billionaire also owns part of a media company, and serves as chairman of the TV channel HDNet. He recently competed for five weeks on “Dancing With the Stars” on ABC. How on earth does he find time to blog?

Yet his site, blogmaverick.com, is one of the top 1,000 Weblogs, according to the search engine Technorati. Thousands read Mr. Cuban’s posts every single day. If he can do it, why can’t you?

Read more of "So You Want to Be a Blogging Star?" – New York Times >>>

 

Daily Roundup for 2008-03-25

By

On March 25, 2008

In Bookmarks, Marketing, Online Advertising, Online Fraud, Venture Capital, Web/Tech

  • Region’s Venture Capital Rank Slips – washingtonpost.com
    Regions of the West Coast and Midwest moved ahead of Washington as top destinations for venture capital in recent years, as the local venture economy grew more slowly than the national average, a Washington Post analysis shows. In 2001, the year the technology bubble popped, Washington ranked sixth among top destinations for venture capital, after Silicon Valley, New England, the New York metro area, Texas and the Southeast. Last year, it was ranked 10th, overtaken by the Northwest, San Diego, the Midwest and Los Angeles/Orange County.

  • Hammering out Wikipedia’s financial future, argument by argument – Technology Review
    Scroll the list of the 10 most popular Web sites in the U.S., and you’ll encounter the Internet’s richest corporate players — names like Yahoo, Amazon.com, News Corp., Microsoft and Google. Except for No. 7: Wikipedia. And there lies a delicate situation. With 2 million articles in English alone, the Internet encyclopedia ”anyone can edit” stormed the Web’s top ranks through the work of unpaid volunteers and the assistance of donors. But that gives Wikipedia far less financial clout than its Web peers, and doing almost anything to improve that situation invites scrutiny from the same community that proudly generates the content.

Read More

Daily Roundup for 2008-03-21

By

On March 21, 2008

In Bookmarks, eCommerce, Grotech Capital, Microsoft, Online Advertising, Venture Capital, Web/Tech

  • Report ranks Washington and Baltimore hotbed for investors – Washington Business Journal:
    The Washington and Baltimore region was the nation’s fifth fastest-growing area for venture capital funding in the last decade, according to a report released Tuesday. In 2007, 180 Washington and Baltimore companies received nearly $1.3 billion in venture capital backing, the MoneyTree Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, Thomson Financial and the National Venture Capital Association said. That number is up 130 percent from $558.24 million put into 105 companies in 1997.  The report lists Timonium, Md.-based Grotech Capital Group and Chevy Chase-based New Enterprise Associates as the most active investors in the region. The top industries for investments around the region were software, life sciences and telecommunications.

  • Affluent Hobnob on Social Networks – eMarketer
    The rate of affluent US Internet user participation in online social networks increased dramatically to 60% in January 2008, from 27% in January 2007, according to The Luxury Institute’s latest WealthSurvey "The Wealthy and Web 2.0."  "While some in the luxury industry are still debating e-commerce, search and banner ads, the majority of their customers have leaped into the online dialogue," said Milton Pedraza, CEO of the Luxury Institute. "Luxury needs to catch up quickly."

Read More

The Technology That Toppled Eliot Spitzer – Technology Review

By

On March 19, 2008

In Web/Tech

If there is a lesson from former New York governor Eliot Spitzer’s scandal-driven fall (aside from the most obvious one), it is this: banks are paying attention to even the smallest of your transactions.

For this we can thank modern software, and post-9/11 U.S. government pressure to find evidence of money laundering and terrorist financing. Experts say that all major banks, and even most small ones, are running so-called anti-money-laundering software, which combs through as many as 50 million transactions a day looking for anything out of the ordinary.

In Spitzer’s case, according to newspaper reports, it was three wire transfers amounting to just $5,000 apiece that set alarm bells ringing.

Read more of "The Technology That Toppled Eliot Spitzer" – Technology Review >>>

 

Daily Roundup for 2008-03-19

By

On March 19, 2008

In Bookmarks, Core Capital, eBay, eCommerce, Entrepreneurship, Grotech Capital, Online Fraud, Venture Capital, Web/Tech

  • Woman to record industry: Stop spying
    A woman who claims the recording industry’s anti-music piracy campaign threatens and intimidates innocent people has filed a new complaint accusing record companies of racketeering, fraud and illegal spying.

  • Startup RatePoint bets that people want user reviews refereed – Technology Review
    One of the great things about the Internet is the way people post reviews on just about anything you are considering trying, whether it is a movie, a new restaurant or the local florist.  This also introduces one of the worst things about the Internet: trying to figure out which reviews to trust. Was that effusive praise written surreptitiously by the merchant? Was that anonymous online slam posted by a devious competitor?  The dilemma might be unavoidable in this age of abundant user-generated content, when we have to be smarter about separating signals from noise. But a startup called RatePoint Inc. begs to differ. It wants to play referee, giving consumers more clarity into a business’ reputation and protecting the business from unwarranted blights on its credibility.

Read More

Daily Roundup for 2008-03-13

By

On March 13, 2008

In Bookmarks, Facebook, Marketing, Microsoft, Web/Tech, Yahoo!

  • Direct Marketers Bullish on Online Ads – eMarketer
    US direct marketers may reduce their media budgets this year, judging by Target Marketing’s "Media Usage Forecast" report. Nearly one-quarter of respondents surveyed in January 2008 said they would reduce their media budgets compared with last year. The n

  • Yahoo activates smart mobile bookmarks – Reuters
    Yahoo Inc, still fending off a $41 billion takeover bid by Microsoft Corp, unveiled a cell phone tool on Tuesday that lets users keep up with their favorite topics using dynamic bookmarks. OnePlace, to be launched in the second quarter, allows users to ma

Read More

Daily Roundup for 2008-03-08

By

On March 8, 2008

In Bookmarks, eCommerce, Entrepreneurship, Google, Grotech Capital, Marketing, PayPal, Trust and Safety, Venture Capital, Web/Tech

  • Jeremy Siegel on Politicians, Prices and a Potential ‘Buying Opportunity of the Decade’ – Knowledge@Wharton
    The U.S. Presidential race has reached a critical juncture. The Republicans have a confirmed nominee in John McCain; as for the Democrats, Hillary Clinton has bounced back, while Barack Obama retains a marginal lead in terms of delegates. How the presidential race evolves will be shaped in part by the increasingly worrisome state of the U.S. economy. Consumer prices are rising, oil has crossed $103 a barrel and gold is nudging $1,000 an ounce — suggesting that the economy could be entering a phase of 1970s-style stagflation. Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, however, told Congress last week that he doesn’t anticipate stagflation, and he continues to indicate his willingness to keep cutting interest rates. What lies ahead for the U.S. and world economies? Knowledge@Wharton discussed these questions and more with finance professor Jeremy Siegel, author of The Future for Investors.[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeDUeIBomzM&rel=1&border=0]

  • Ecommerce Blogging: Who, What And When: Well-written blogs create credibility, interest
    Last month I talked about blogging platforms and the value blogging can bring to ecommerce sites. When a website makes the decision to begin a blog and decides upon a blogging platform, it will then have to decide who will blog and how often. Time allotted to blogging is also a relative issue, as is subject matter. So why bother at all?  Relative to static ecommerce sites, search engines consider blogs more real and trusted because blogs tend to have fresh content and there is a less financial, more informational link between a blog and its readers. An ecommerce site should take advantage of this tendency by adding a blog to augment the overall site.

Read More

Daily Roundup for 2008-03-07

By

On March 7, 2008

In Bookmarks, eCommerce, Entrepreneurship, Facebook, Marketing, Online Fraud, Trust and Safety, Web/Tech

  • Sites With Anti-Fraud Sign Still Flawed – The Associated Press
    When a small padlock appears in the corner of your Web browser’s address bar or the entire bar turns green, it seems like a powerful signal you’re safe to proceed.  But experts say the SSL certificates those green lights signify — digital stamps of approval that Web sites buy to prove they’re running a legitimate business and can send and receive encrypted data safely — don’t provide the safety they seem to.  "They instill some sense of security, but that could be a dangerously false sense of security," said Paul Mutton, a researcher with UK-based security firm Netcraft Ltd.  The site itself could still be riddled with security holes for hackers to exploit. And the certificate could simply be bogus: Criminals have been forging them to get the padlock icon and dress up fraudulent sites.

  • Web 2.0’s Long Road to IPOs
    During the Web’s heyday, a profitable Internet company nearing $100 million in annual sales while luring a million new customers a month would have found itself on the IPO fast track. But that’s hardly the case for LinkedIn, a professional networking site that has cleared those hurdles and then some.  Instead, LinkedIn is hewing closely to the Web economy’s new motto on initial public offerings: Easy does it. Founded in 2003, LinkedIn may not sell shares until some time next year. Likewise, social networking site Facebook, worth $15 billion on paper, may not go public until 2010,

Read More

Daily Roundup for 2008-03-06

By

On March 6, 2008

In Bookmarks, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Microsoft, Web/Tech

  • The Tipping Point—Web Logo Style
    The other day, a friend who runs a small business lamented that his Web site wasn’t worth the trickle of business it brought in. Something told me he’s not alone. In fact, some estimates have found the majority of small-business Web sites fail to generate revenue.  Which is too bad, because I think that entrepreneurs like my friend make a mistake by blaming the site itself, or even the medium of the Web. The problem, in my view, is not the site—it’s the lack of trust in the company behind the site. Trust is an elusive concept, of course; the sort of term bandied about freely in Marketing 101 but rarely defined adequately since any of us found ourselves in that class. Building trust is important. Building trust via your Web site is essential. Now here comes the biggie: How?

  • A VC: Thoughts On Choosing Board Members
    I am a professional board member. I’ve been sitting on boards for almost 20 years and I’ve seen a lot. I’ve seen some of the best board members in action and have tried to copy them. I’ve seen some of the worst board members in action and have tried hard to forget them.  Here are some thoughts on choosing board members. This advice is for everyone, but it’s of particular use when you are a bigger company, maybe public, and need to fill your board with good people.

Read More

Daily Roundup for 2008-03-02

By

On March 2, 2008

In Bookmarks, eCommerce, Marketing, Venture Capital, Web/Tech

  • The Psychology Of Buying – Behavioral Insider
    The recently launched 7 Billion People is an intriguing application to e-commerce of the real-world psychology behind buying behaviors. As CEO Mark Nagaitis tells us, his new Web analytics system tries to discern in a site’s audience different "buying personalities" that marketers can talk with in very different ways.

  • InternetNews Realtime IT News – Americans’ e-Commerce Conundrum
    A new study from the Pew Internet Project casts light on the love-hate relationship many Americans have with e-commerce. In response to the survey, 78 percent of U.S. Internet users said that online shopping is convenient, and 68 percent said it saves time. Yet, 75 percent said they don’t like giving out personal information like a credit card number over the Internet.  The security risks, real or perceived, are hampering the growth of the Internet economy, said John Horrigan, associate director of the Pew Internet Project and author of the report.

Read More

Page 4 of 8

Previous

Next

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén