ICANN have just announced that it is going to be introducing a whole new level of internet domain names as they explain below.
“Presently, users have a limited range of 21 top level domains to choose from — names that we are all familiar with like .com, .org, .info.
This proposal allows applicants for new names to self-select their domain name so that choices are most appropriate for their customers or potentially the most marketable. It is expected that applicants will apply for targeted community strings such as (the existing) .travel for the travel industry and .cat for the Catalan community (as well as generic strings like .brandname or .yournamehere). There are already interested consortiums wanting to establish city-based top level domain, like .nyc (for New York City), .berlin and .paris. “
This is really good news there has been a flourishing market in buying up 4 to 5 letter domain names with the intention to sell them on at a higher price. This will effectively put an end to that. Which means I have a few blog posts to change.
The plan is set for implementation in the first half of 2009. Read more here
The tea is on you
I asked these questions a couple of months ago, and today I posted the last answer. Enjoy.
How effective is social media?
Answer here:http://tinyurl.com/5cdt2y
How long is it going to be around?
Answer here: http://tinyurl.com/3o989x
How much does it cost in relation to other media forms?
Answer here: http://tinyurl.com/5znakl
What is the biggest growing age group?
Answer here:http://tinyurl.com/4lmpk5
What can it do for my company?
Answer here: http://tinyurl.com/4d3veg
What can it do for me as a director? Can I do it my self?
Answer here: http://tinyurl.com/3kk325
The tea is on you
With the Olympics almost over I was catching up on some of the events last night. The running events always amaze me. Some of these long distance runners, in fact all of them, run with such grace. They run long distance events the same time I could do 400 meters when I was at school and I was one of the best runners in the North West aged 13. These athletes run with such grace that it almost looks like no effort at all. There is a lesson for us all there. I am sure that America and many other countries have much better resources and trainers. But it is the Africans that dominate this sport. While I am sure they train very hard I think they have something more.
Do you run your business on Style and Grace? Would you like to?
The tea is on you
You have been out somewhere and had a great idea for generating some money or starting a business. We have all been there. What should you do next?
If your idea is to be anything more than just an idea you will have to test it. It is important to test each idea as potentially you can save yourself alot of time and money. A well tested idea is of a benefit to everybody involved. So how do you test your idea?
The first step is to write it down. Writing things down focuses the mind more clearly on what you are trying to achieve. Below is a step for step plan on how to test any new idea. If your idea can make it to the end of these questions then you may well be ready for stage two, a business.
1. Write the idea down in its pure simple form.
2. Go onto the internet and see if there are any related products or services that compete with your idea.
3. If the idea is serving a local area, check local newspapers and magazines to see if anyone is doing something similar.
4. Write your ideas down on paper so that you can present it in email or paper form to a small group of people related to the project.
5. Gather a small group of people who will benefit or help you and do a brain storming session. The objective of the brain storming session is to find faults in the plan and reasons not to do it. Not the other way around.
6. If your plan survives this far you are ready to build a prototype. A prototype can be a model of your idea or a process flow chart if it is a service. For example, if you are designing a new sort of gear system you are going to have build that either in model form of for real to see if it works and if there are any possible problems that may exist with it. If it is a service (a non physical object) than you will need to document the process flow including as much information as possible.
7. After you have done this, one will have established any potential problems and to see if the idea is still feasible. But you are not finished yet. A second round of group analyses is necessary to see if the idea still stacks up. If you succeed in this, you can pat your self on the back and start on your business plan.
The tea is on you
To grow an internet business it is much like any business in the physical world. The more contacts you have the more business you can do. So attending networking events, Keeping in touch with related bodies, companies, and individuals is going to keep your name fresh in their mind. In the online world this is done by the same method. I recommend spending an hour a day, subscribing to sites, posting adverts, having a blog, leaving comments on other peoples blogs. It is also important to build up a relationship with any likeminded people. If you like what they do then send them an email, or leave a comment. As the relationship develops you will be able to do reciprocal links. The name of the game is linking. The more links you have pointing to your website the higher your page rank will be, the more traffic you will get, the more business you will do. This is the most ethical way to increase web presence and fundamentally is what the Work Connexions site does.
If you have leanings to the dark side of the force, he he J you can try SEO’s (Search engine optimization). They will do all of the above but not usually by ethical methods. They will set up a bogus site for example http://eaby.com/ which will automatically have links to their customers and will open up a number of windows. (quite often used on porn sites) when you try to close the windows you end up clicking the site. Google and Alex registers this click as a visit. What Google sees is the higher traffic to the website and thus decides that the website is important and gives it a higher page ranking. It also adds up all the links in its database to decide the sites relevance.( A method that is closely guarded and regular changes) So when someone types in a word related to your site on Google you will appear on the first page of results. The risk is with such techniques is that Google will eventually catch you out and ban your page to the salt mines in Siberia never to be found again. In till you sincerely apologise to Google and promise not to use such techniques again. That’s it in a Nut shell. I hope it makes sense……..
The tea is on you
Business relationships are just like any other sort of relationships. I have heard it said many times that that people do not mix business with pleasure or say may I introduce a colleague. We may think that we have to work less hard on our realtionships with colleagues because we are being paid to do a job. Nothing could be further from the truth. If one wants to be successful at work then they are going to have to develop relationships. What kind of relationship you choose to develop will give a fair idea of how you feel about your work. From a purely mathematical point of view. A person will probably spend more of their time with their colleagues than anybody else. What kind of relationship would you like? Would you mix business with pleasure?
The tea is on you
The number of adverts that I see for a business development manager, or a relationship manager in the papers and on job boards I find to be amazing. It would seem that every company has something to develop; even my local butchers spent half an hour telling me how there has been no free range chickens sold in this area for the last 20 years. Now he may be right, but it does not solve my problem. I tend to eat very little meat nowadays as it is so damn hard to tell where it came from, how was it kept, what it was feed etc… Was it allowed to wander around outside? Has it been properly hung etc? Of all the businesses, that I can think of my butchers would do very well with some product development.
I cannot think of any reason at all why do not think for the life of me that our butchers is going to employ a thirtyish looking business developer, dressed in a suit to explain his products to the customer. This is something the head chopper feels he can do perfectly well. How much more custom would he get? At presently he is the only butchers in the village… Developing a relationship with your customers is difficult, especially in a highly competitive world as the one we live in, where every corner you turn there is somebody ready to quote a better price, do it faster, guarantee for it longer.
Why would anybody want to employ somebody just to go and talk to potential customers? Well the truth is they may not want to just that. But if there was that golden touch business developer who could go out and bring back the golden eggs, with the use of his or her persuasion, then you have got a foot in the door and you would have been able to open the box to much greater business and all for less than 40,000 a year. Surly though, the true role of a business developer will always remain with the MD. You may have many skills in your organisation , from people that can program computers underwater, to scientist who know how to calculate rockets landing on the moon but if you cannot get the money to pay you staff, you will all have go home.
It is possible that business developers have the most to lose from Web 2.0. as their means to and end is generally undefined. Imagine having something tangible for a process for business development. Web 2.0 can document that process. Not just for one customer but for all customers providing a backup and a status report, from the start of a product, to customer interest, to selling products, to customer feedback.
The tea is on you
