Why Your Second Startup Will Outshine Your First

What do the founders of Netflix , Zappos, Whole Foods, and Alibaba.com have in common?

They were all started by entrepreneurs in their second (or third) act:

Before Reed Hastings founded Netflix, he founded Pure Atria Software, which was eventually acquired by Rational Software. Soon after the acquisition, Hastings took a couple of years off to think about his next business, which would be Netflix.

Before Zappos, Tony Hsieh founded LinkExchange, which was acquired by Microsoft for $265 million in 1999.

John Mackey started a health food store called Safer Way in a garage years before he founded Whole Foods.

Jack Ma founded China Pages four years before he launched Alibaba.com in 1999.

Take a look around and you'll find that many entrepreneurs find their biggest success in their second act. In fact, I'd argue that having a chance at a second act is one of the best reasons to build your first business to sell it.

For starters, the second time around, you can bring all of your knowledge, contacts, and capital to a new idea, but I also think there are subtler factors that often make second acts more successful than the first:

1. You'll feel less pressure.

When you are scraping tooth and nail to make something of your first business, every decision feels like do or die. Like a 16-year-old driving on the highway for the first time, new entrepreneurs tend to be a little heavy on the wheel, blowing every small problem into a life-threatening emergency (I know I did). In a second act, entrepreneurs mellow a bit and have a steadier hand at the wheel. Once a business owner has become financially independent, the pressure to succeed to feed your family is off.

2. You'll be a better leader.

Being a bit mellower, entrepreneurs in their second acts often are better bosses. They tend to be a little more willing to give others credit and let juniors make mistakes -- within reason -- instead of micromanaging every detail. Like a parent who enjoys coaching his kids more than playing, the second-act business owner wants to succeed as part of a team, not just as an individual.

3. You'll be motivated by a higher cause.

Once entrepreneurs are no longer motivated exclusively by making money, they are forced to find larger reasons for doing what they do -- to start to think of how they can have a bigger impact on the world and make a difference. Being motivated by something other than money makes a founder much more likable as a leader and, therefore, better able to attract good people -- loyal employees, partners and board members who want to contribute to a cause -- to their mission.

So go ahead and build your first business -- get the pressure, the mistakes, and a little bit of success out of the way. Then sell it and get to work on an even better second act.

This post originally appeared at BNET.

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See Also:
Why Mentoring Helps Men More Than Women
Small Companies: Lead, Grow, Or Get Out Of The Way
This Is How Long "Overnight Success" Really Takes

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What Paul Allen Really Thinks Of Bill Gates (MSFT)

Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen still calls Bill Gates his friend, but the two had a competitive and occasionally rocky relationship.

That's according to an excerpt from Allen's upcoming memoir, "Idea Man," published by Vanity Fair last night.

In it, Allen talks about how he met Gates at Lakeside Prep -- Seattle's top prep school -- and their early days at Microsoft together.

Allen paints Gates as an incredibly shrewd and competitive businessman, but acknowledges his brains and says that the two of them were basically on the same page when it came to general strategy and direction.

Here are some things we learned:
Gates was interested in business at a very early age -- when he was 13, he asked Allen "What do you thin it would be like to run a Fortune 500 company?" and suggested that the two of them would have their own company someday.
In high school, Gates was always showing off how smart he was, but he hit the wall at Harvard when he came up against other prodigies. He switched his major to applied math after getting a B in his first theoretical math course.
The night before they were due to show their first commercial project -- a programming language called BASIC for the Altair 8080 microcomputer -- Gates stayed up all night double-checking Allen's work to make sure it was free of errors. It was.
Allen came up with the name Micro-Soft.
Gates was a tough negotiator. When they formed the company, Gates suggested that they split revenues 60-40, with Gates getting the larger share because he'd done more work on BASIC. Allen accepted. A little later when they got their first big sale, Gates suggested a 64-36 split. Allen accepted again.
Gates expected long hours and perfect work, and occasionally insulted early Microsoft employees with statements like "I could code that in a weekend," but if they stood their ground and were correct, he would back down -- traits that he kept throughout his career at Microsoft, according to many anecdotes.
When they hired Steve Ballmer in 1980 to run the business side of Microsoft, Allen agreed to give him up to 5% of the young company's equity. Gates went behind his back and offered Ballmer 8.75%. Allen challenged Gates on it, and Gates offered to make up the difference out of his own share.
Allen tried to convinced Gates and Ballmer to switch from flat-fee licensing to per-unit royalties. He failed, but they later made the switch, and that business model is what made Microsoft the richest company in tech history.
In December 1982, when Allen was sick with cancer, he overheard Gates and Ballmer discussing his lack of contributions and how to dilute his equity by offering stock options to other employees and shareholders. Allen confronted them and quit a little bit later.
As he quit, Gates tried to buy his stock out for $5 per share. Allen asked for $10 and Gates refused. Allen kept his stock, which eventually made him one of the richest men in the world.

The entire excerpt is available here.

Now, don't miss: The Amazing Life Of Microsoft Cofounder Paul Allen.

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See Also:
PC Makers Get Their First Taste Of Windows 8
Tablets Are Hammering The Notebook Market: Acer Sales Off 10%
Amex Launches Serve, Its Visa-PayPal-Square Killer

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How To Develop Breakthrough Ideas Within Your Organization [Interview]

The following is an interview with Kevin P. Coyne and Shawn T. Coyne, co-authors of Brainsteering: A Better Approach to Breakthrough Ideas.

HH: What is Brainsteering, and how does it differ from brainstorming?

KC: Both brainstorming and Brainsteering are designed to help you generate ideas, but the way they do it is virtually 180-degrees different. Brainstorming is an unfocused activity that takes people's creative energy and scatters it in all directions, rarely producing breakthrough ideas. Meanwhile, Brainsteering takes people's creative energy and steers it in a consistently productive direction by following two key principles.

First, by asking what we call the Right Questions, people are able to approach their ideation challenge from a different perspective than ever before. Second, by using what we call the Right Process, people are able to add just enough structure to the process to focus their efforts. Following these two principles has consistently helped people come up with ideas they could never previously have imagined.

HH: What is your definition of the Right Question, and how can asking it help propel your business forward?

SC: A Right Question is one that forces you to focus your thinking, and to look at your ideation problem from a different perspective than you've ever done before--and once you ask the Right Question, you'll find that right answers begin to flow fairly quickly.

So, for example, instead of asking an overly-broad, same-old-perspective question like, How can we increase profits?--at which point the mind reels with possibilities, doesn't know where to focus, and wears out quickly--ask yourself a more focused Right Question like, What's the biggest hassle customers face when using products/services in our category, and how could we eliminate that hassle (in ways that others haven't done already)?, or, Where are customers using my product/service in unusual ways, or in unusually large quantities, and how could I get more customers to do so?

HH: What are the criteria for recognizing the Right Question?

KC: A Right Question meets four criteria. First, as Shawn said, it forces you to look at your ideation problem from a different perspective than you have in the past  because if you always look at a problem from the same perspective, it becomes exponentially harder over time to think up new, high quality ideas.

Second, it focuses your thinking by placing certain limits on the conceptual space you must explore  because when people are told, there are absolutely no constraints  just think outside the box! their minds struggle to focus, and research shows they actually come up with fewer good ideas.

Third, although a Right Question creates certain boundaries, it doesn't set those boundaries so tight that there could only be one answer  if the question is so narrow that there's only one obvious and dominant answer, it won't work.

Finally, a Right Question just plain succeeds  it's one that, when you ask it, immediately makes you and others think of multiple, intriguing possibilities. When you find those kinds of questions, write them down and remember them for future use in other situations!

HH: How do you choose which Right Question to pursue?

SC: After you've built an arsenal of powerful Right Questions, the way to know which ones to use in a given situation is...to ask yourself more questions!

Does the question target an aspect of the problem that hasn't received much attention in the past? Does it force a different perspective than you've taken in the past? Does the question itself suggest directions for answers that aren't simply generic, but that meet the specific needs you have for this assignment? Is there information available that will actually answer the question (there's a big difference between we don't know the answer to that question right now  that's fine  versus there's no way to ever know the answer  that's not fine.)? Does the question prompt ideas that your organization will actually be willing and able to implement, or would it require such major changes in the status quo that you'd be wasting your time?

HH: How do you develop the Right Question?

KC: One great way to develop Right Questions is to read the list of 101 Right Questions in the Appendix of our book! Many of them could be useful to you in different situations even if you just copy them verbatim, while many others could be useful to you with just a bit of tailoring to your situation.

To develop your own list of Right Questions, every time you see a great new product or service  or a great new idea of any other kind  ask yourself, What are three questions I could have asked that would have made me think of that idea?

And last but not least, look at your own best past ideas  you know you've had some!  and ask yourself, What questions were going through my mind at that time, implicitly or explicitly, that led me to that idea?

HH: What role does analysis play in developing and executing the Right Question?

SC: Kevin and I believe that many people draw a false dichotomy between being creative and being analytical. In fact, analysis plays a major role in developing and executing the ideas that arise from asking the Right Questions.

Sometimes, you can use analysis to originate new ideas  the key, as we explain Chapters 4 and 5 of the book, is to do non-traditional analysis that will enable you to take a perspective that others haven't taken in the past, thereby causing you to spot interesting anomalies and think up ideas that others haven't thought up in the past. Then, further analysis can obviously be used to help you refine and successfully execute ideas.

Most new ideas are, by definition, average  therefore, it's critical to figure out quickly which of your ideas has the potential to be truly great, then focus your development time and efforts on those high-potential ideas. The key there, as we explain in detail in Chapter 5, is to do the right amount of analysis at the right time, taking special care to truly understand the few critical issues (like your concept, the need it fulfills for your intended target audience, and the short list of practical operational issues that could kill your idea on the spot) before you waste your time developing detailed spreadsheets and financial projections (which you'll do only after you're sure that your idea isn't a dud).

HH: How do you improve your odds of asking and answering the Right Questions?

KC: There are several actions you can take to get yourself in the zone more often and maximize your odds of asking and answering the Right Questions, as we detail in Chapter 6.

First, understand the impact of emotions on creativity, and use this knowledge to your advantage  for example, contrary to conventional wisdom, many people actually turn out better ideas when they are given certain stress-inducing constraints such as budget limitations and deadlines (versus being allowed to just turn their minds loose to wander).

Second, neutralize what we call emotional overhead, or those emotional attitudes that can pull you off course, by learning how to compartmentalize your thinking and then practicing that valuable skill until you're an expert at it.

Third, understand your personal response to intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, and tailor your idea generation process to your personal style (whether that means working more often by yourself or with a thought partner, working in long stretches or short bursts, working in the mornings or evenings, and so on).

HH: What is the best way to teach others how to ask and answer the Right Questions?

SC: When teaching others in your organization to use the Brainsteering approach, you'll find it's best to show people that it works before trying to tell them exactly how to do it, because they'll need to have faith and confidence in the Brainsteering approach before they'll be willing to adopt the new behaviors that will be required to make them more productive and successful.

So, for example, you may want to run a small pilot project with a subgroup of people and create some killer new ideas before trying to spread the approach throughout your entire organization.

Once people have faith that Brainsteering can work, they keys to successfully rolling out the approach throughout the organization, including its junior staffers, are: (1) establish a commonly understood definition of what constitutes good ideas in your organization, so junior staffers can recognize success (or failure) when they see it; (2) teach them the Brainsteering approach in manageable steps, beginning with the basics of Right Questions and adding subtleties from there; (3) delegate responsibilities to the junior staffers appropriately, building their experience and confidence (yet controlling your risk) as they come up the learning curve; and (4) overcome your own built-in reluctance to providing feedback to so-called creative types  after all, there really are bad ideas out there, and if you don't tell a junior staffer when and how he's missed the mark, you can't expect him to improve.

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How One Software Company Turned Freemium into Philanthropy

Do freemium business models actually work? The answer is yes for one software company, where freemium served as a perfect way to grow its business and donate more than $1 million to charity at the same time.

Atlassian recently announced a donation of $1 million to Room to Read, a global non-profit aimed at improving literacy and gender equality education in developing countries. They did this through their "Causium" campaign, a twist and portmanteau of "freemium" and "cause marketing." The name fits: Rather than just give away its products for free, Atlassian charged a minimal amount of money and donated all proceeds to the non-profit.

Freemium runs on the premise that if you give away a curtailed version of your product, your fans will enjoy it enough to then upgrade to a paid subscription. Causium, for all intents and purposes, is freemium in the sense that Atlassian doesn't receive any money from the heavily discounted sales. It does, however, give the product a nominal value and help brand Atlassian as a charity-minded company.

Started in 2009, the Causium model raised $100,000 in one week through sales of $5 starter licenses for Atlassian products. When the influx of customers didn't slam Atlassian's customer support, the company began selling 10 user licenses for $10. Right now, it sells approximately 14,000 of these licenses per week, generating close to $80,000 per month for Room to Read, according to Jon Silvers, director of Audience and Community.

Even if you haven't heard of Atlassian, you definitely know its clients. Atlassian's software helps power major brands like Nike, Cisco, Ikea, Adobe and HP. Given its success, Atlassian initially struggled with whether to go freemium. "There are a lot of pros and cons to freemium, and whether it is the right approach," Silvers said. "We definitely felt like we kind of stumbled on a way to combine the same concepts of lowering the barriers to entry to your product and how to do that nobly."

More than a one-off, Causium creates a constant annuity stream for Room to Read that Atlassian donates on behalf of its users. The $10 licenses can be renewed each year to get software fixes and keep customer support. Any upgraded subscriptions will continue to donate $10 of the standard fee to charity.

Donating to just one charity meant that the company could better track the good that subscribers were doing, Silvers explained. As of 2010, this includes impacting 45,000 children across four countries in Asia by establishing 99 libraries, building four schools and supporting the holistic education of 430 girls. Atlassian makes sure to follow up by sending emails to its users about where their money has gone, said Jay Simons, VP of Sales and Marketing.

Atlassian has even gone so far as to create a foundation dedicated to charity work. It donates 1% of company and employee time and 1% of company equity to the foundation. Each year, employees are actually given five days of "foundation leave" to volunteer at local charities.

While Atlassian has certainly benefited financially from its take on freemium, the organization has done a tremendous amount of good without cutting corners. Causium may not seem like much, but it ably combines social good into an expanding business. Even if it's just $10, Simons said, "That $10 license means a lot to a little girl in Cambodia."

What's your opinion of mixing freemium with charity? Does this make you more or less willing to buy a product from Atlassian? Sound off in the comments.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Taekwonweirdo

More About: atlassian, causium, charity, freemium, non-profit, room to read, social good

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Sendoid Transfers Huge Files in Seconds in the Browser

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: Sendoid

Quick Pitch: Sendoid allows for instant and private large file transfer in the browser.

Genius Idea: Peer-to-peer file transfer.
---------------

With the sudden rise of Chatroulette, the world was exposed, for better or for worse, to the peer-to-peer possibilities of real time media flow protocol (RTMFP) technology the technology that establishes a direct connection between two individuals.

Sendoid, a Y Combinator startup, is applying the same peer-to-peer technology to a far less visually arresting purpose: file transfer. The peer-to-peer system, which forgoes cloud or server storage entirely, lets users transfer gigantic files in the browser in seconds and at no cost.

Veteran file-transfer service YouSendIt charges the user $14 to move a 100 MB file, with the transfer taking about 24 minutes, as Sendoid co-founder John Egan said during the startup's Demo Days presentation. The same file is transferred in 35 seconds free of charge via Sendoid.

With this in-browser transfer experience, the user selects a file and gets a link to share with the recipient. Upon receipt of the peer link, the recipient is securely connected to the sender's machine, and the file is transferred directly from the sender to the receiver without passing through Sendoid's servers. It's this peer-to-peer exchange that makes Sendoid so fast.

Sendoid's browser-based file transfer service maxes out for files around 1 GB, but the startup also offers a desktop application for transferring files of unlimited size. There's no cost for either option, and Sendoid has no plans to introduce fees based on file size or transfer frequency. "It shouldn't cost money to send a 1 GB file," says Egan. "It just doesn't make sense anymore. The technology has caught up."

The file transfer experience heretofore has been clunky, client-based, slow and expensive for end users. Plus, Sendoid believes the demand for sending larger files, especially in the form of high resolution digital photographs, is growing. For these reasons, Egan and fellow co-founder Zac Morris believe the startup is launching at just the right time.

"The technology is here now to move large amounts of data inexpensively," says Egan. "And this is about the moment in time when file sizes for consumers are crossing the threshold [in size] and are no longer able to be transferred through traditional means."

Sendoid has moved roughly 250,000 files an early sign that Egan's predictions about changing consumer behaviors are fairly accurate.

The just-launched startup is currently operating on seed funding from the accelerator program, but it's currently in talks with several interested investors and will likely raise a substantial round in the weeks ahead. Eventually, Sendoid will introduce for-charge premium features that provide additional security or support file grouping.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Fred-D
---------------
Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark
---------------

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

More About: bizspark, file transfer, sendoid, spark-of-genius, y combinator

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A Tale of Two Infographics: Before and After Firefox 4

Firefox 4 was released Tuesday, and early reports indicated the latest version of Mozilla's open-source browser was downloaded more than 5 million times in the first 24 hours.

Those reports were wrong. It turns out, Firefox 4 was downloaded 7.1 million times in its first day. In fact, in the first 48 hours of release, Mozilla racked up more than 15.85 million downloads.

Over at the Mozilla blog, the team put together an infographic detailing the first 48 hours of activity. Downloads peaked at 10,200 per minute and averaged 91.7 downloads per second. That kind of leaves IE 9s 27 downloads per second figure in the dust, doesn't it?

The team at Pingdom put together their own Firefox infographic, this time showcasing the lead-up to Firefox 4. the infographic details the browser's timeline, marketshare and assorted usage stats.

Firefox has more than 400 million users worldwide and has been downloaded more than 1.35 billion times since 2004.

Although the web browser has only increased in importance since Firefox 1.0 was released in 2004, many users and Mashable readers have expressed indifference or even disinterest in Firefox 4. The desktop browser wars are still going strong; however, most of us would agree the real battle is on mobile devices and tablets. It's an issue I discussed at length with Dan Benjamin on a recent segment our podcast, Briefly Awesome.

The number of people who downloaded Firefox 4 in the last 24 hours, however, indicates to me that the desktop is still an area of great importance for the web and its ecosystems.

Are you one of the 15.85 million Firefox 4 downloaders? Let us know your experience in the comments.

More About: Firefox, Firefox 4, infographic, infographics, web browsers

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Google Releases Group Messaging App Called Disco (GOOG)

So this is what Max Levchin has been doing since Google bought his social gaming company Slide last year for $182 million: building a group messaging app.

Yesterday, Slide quietly released Disco, an iPhone app that allows group SMS messaging. The app, which was first revealed by TechCrunch, enters a crowded market -- it seems like half the new apps debuted at SXSW earlier this month involved group messaging.

Slide has been allowed to operate as a largely independent subsidiary within Google, and this is probably only the first of many projects that the team is working on.

Levchin was brought on board to help Google come up with a social networking answer to Facebook, but that effort seems to have been split among different groups in the company, with Vic Gundotra leading the team working on the "+1" project, which is rumored to be adding a social graph on top of Google properties like Gmail.

To check it out, download Disco from iTunes, or check it out at Disco.com.

Join the conversation about this story

See Also:
These Startups Want You To Pay For Stuff With Your Phone, Beat Apple And Google, And Make Billions In the Process
Google, Microsoft, eBay, Yahoo And Facebook Trash AT&T-Mobile Deal
Forgotten Operating Systems

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BGR | Boy Genius Report » Ovum: Android to dominate smartphone growth, Windows Phone will beat BlackBerry

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Is “Closing” Honeycomb the Beginning of an Androidocalypse? Hardly.

Earlier today, we learned that Google would be limiting access to the source code for Android 3.0, a.k.a. Honeycomb, its tablet-specific OS.

For a famously open-source platform, this decision was startling to many in the field; however, the situation isn't as dire as it seems at the outset. For one thing, any tablet manufacturer or dev can get their hands on the code; all they have to do is ask.

As a Google rep told us in an email, the Honeycomb OS was designed for the larger form factor that goes along with tablet devices; it definitely wasn't intended for use on phones. And Honeycomb includes new features and improvements to existing features such as multi-tasking, browsing, notifications and customization.

The rep stated, "While we're excited to offer these new features to Android tablets, we have more work to do before we can deliver them to other device types including phones. Until then, we've decided not to release Honeycomb to open source."

"We're committed to providing Android as an open platform across many device types and will publish the source as soon as it's ready."

In other words, this doesn't signal a fundamental shift in everything that Android stands for; after all, the open-source mantra has been such a fundamental part of the platform's PR that killing off that aspect of the technology would amount to Google shooting itself in the foot.
---------------

Hardly the End of Open-Source Android
---------------

Google's isn't locking down the source code for Froyo (Android 2.2) or Gingerbread (Android 2.3) any time soon, and it doesn't have and intentions of keeping future releases closed, either.

And as we know, the tablet and phone forks of Android will be merged in a future release (possibly Android 4.0), which will also be open-sourced.

The "I" release, which may or may not be code-named "Ice Cream," will combine the Gingerbread and Honeycomb capabilities, and it's rumored to be coming this summer. We may get to learn more about Ice Cream at Google I/O this May.

Also, for developers, the Honeycomb SDK is still freely available for developing Android tablet apps. And the source code for Honeycomb is still available; it just isn't publicly posted on the web for anyone to download.

Anyone in the Open Handset Alliance can get the source code for Android 3.0. And any person working with Android tablets can contact Google directly, sign a licensing agreement (no fees required), and get the source code that way, as well.
---------------

The Real Reason for the Decision
---------------

In short, Google is simply trying to prevent sloppy implementation of a slick OS. The company doesn't want to see more gaffes like tablets running Froyo or earlier mobile OSes and Google sees phones running Honeycomb as an equally inept implementation.

As we asked ourselves around the Mashable office, "Who in the world would want to put a tablet OS on a phone?"

Hackers, that's who. And when we say "hackers," we don't mean the script kiddies trying to steal your bank info; rather, we refer to the creative technologists and tinkerers whose guiding principle is a question: "What's this button do?"

In fact, such hardware hackers have already played with putting Honeycomb on the ancient T-Mobile G1 and the equally early Nexus One.

While neither of these hacks would likely come to a mass market, Google might be making a legitimate argument about misunderstanding and misuse of the Honeycomb OS.
---------------

Timelines Influences
---------------

Two questions then remain: When will the tablet OS be open-sourced, and did current Honeycomb-using manufacturers who happen to be particularly close to Google (here's lookin' at you, Motorola) have anything to do with the decision?

The Google rep we spoke to was unable to comment on specific timelines or Google's decision-making process, but we did reach out to Android dev and Android blogger Fred Grott for his take on the matter.

We noted earlier that Ice Cream was expected to arrive between May and later in the summer of 2011. Grott noted, "I would hazard a guess that the Android phone-tablet port is due out this summer, and the source would be open to public this fall."

He also said that at Mobile World Congress, the more cutting-edge devices with NFC tech were not running the most recent versions of Android for mobile devices, which hints that manufacturers may be lagging in adoption of the newest releases.

"What I gather from what Google has stated," Grott continued, "is that they want the Honeycomb port to the phone branch correct and right the first time to head off any manufacturer customizations of the UI and finally nip that part of fragmentation in the bud."

Grott also said that dealing with those OS customizations is a pain point for manufacturers; they have to rewrite native apps, and they don't get any kickbacks from carriers for doing so.

Also, for manufacturers, carriers, Google and the community of Android tablet consumers, having a partially closed door for OS customizations helps breed a culture of trust. It's not the closely guarded world of iOS, but it's also not an unpredictable, anything-goes free-for-all. And in the new, new arena of Android tablets, that might be a good and solidifying factor.

This might chafe FOSS advocates mightily, but it's likely in Google's best interest for the time being. Let us know what you think about Google's decision and reasoning.

More About: android, honeycomb, open source

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Small Business News: More Tips for Business Owners And Entrepreneurs

Owning, operating or starting a business is hard work. While you may think at first how exhilarating it is to be the boss (and it is), there are many challenges to meet as well. In fact, even though it comes with no specific job description, at least in the beginning, running a business may be the hardest job of all. Here are some tips with some links to resources we hope you find helpful on your journey Advice

Give it some passion. Though the post linked to here is specifically about pitching to investors, this should apply to just about anything you do in your small business. Are you passionate about your products, services and brand. Rest assured that others can tell and will respond accordingly. Open Forum

Go deep on the problem you solve. you might well ask yourself, just how much room for growth could there be for a company offering online short term home rental like Airbnb, but it's clear in this interview that the group is still growing and evolving. But picking their niche market well and going very deep on the needs within the market, the company still has plenty of room to expand. Inc.com Tools

Understand the technology. Even online tools like Google Display Network take time to learn about, understand and master. But this learning can pay off in dividends down the road as you learn to market your business online. You don't necessarily need to be a programmer or master of any specific technology to leverage what's available, but you must take the time to truly grasp what technology can do for and improve about your business. Small Business Trends Marketing

Seriously consider social media. Social media is much more than a fad or trend. It is a marketing tool that even the biggest brands are using to great effect. And small businesses can use the same tools to leverage their own brand identity. Here are some thoughts from the big guys! BizSugar Blog Operations

Study up on deductions and other operations. It's not just your products or services or the technology involved in delivering them that you must consider as an entrepreneur or small business owner. There are also important decisions to make about the way your company will operate including issues like tax deductions and health insurance. How your business operates are as important as the products or services you provide. Grow Smart Biz Sales

Rethink the whole cold calling thing. Is cold calling really dead? OK, we'd like to hear from our small business community. We know there are a lot of sales people out there. Do you agree? With the changes in technology available to small business today, especially social media, is there really a need to call number after number. Let us know. The InsideView Blog Productivity

Make neatness part of your company culture. Can clutter really be that destructive to a small business's operations? What truly bad habits or other problems with productivity can lack of organization really cause? You may be surprised as you check out the link above for more details. EpicLaunch

From Small Business TrendsSmall Business News: More Tips for Business Owners And Entrepreneurs

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Make Any Content on the Web Embeddable With Embedly

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: Embedly

Quick Pitch: Embedly is a platform for converting URLs into embeddable content.

Genius Idea: Embedding all the media on the web.

When traversing the web, most site visitors will stay on a page 250% longer when there's embedded media, Sean Creeley tells me. This stat is based on findings from a Google AdWords test he ran last year.

Creeley is the founder of Y Combinator startup Embedly; Embedly's mission is to make it painstakingly easy for publishers and application developers to add that embedded media and better engage their web users.

"The idea is to engage the user where they are," says Creeley. "We really want to get the user where they live, instead of making them try to jump through hoops to view multimedia content."

Embedly can make a call to any web URL or RSS feed, grab the associated media photos, videos, audio and text and embed it on a third-party site. So, what the "New Twitter" can now do for TwitPic photos and YouTube videos in the stream, Embedly can do for nearly anything.

In fact, Embedly has created the consumer-facing Parrotfish available as a Safari, Firefox or Chrome plugin to bring the web's media from more than 165 providers into the Twitter.com experience. Twitter becomes infinitely richer via Parrotfish and gives all those URLs your friends share in their tweets instant context even Mashable articles become readable on Twitter.com.

Parrotfish is just proof of Embedly's behind-the-scenes technology something you likely encounter as you flit about the web but never notice it. On a daily basis, Embedly serves 5.5 million URLs to 1,100 sites.

Here's what that means: if you use Yammer, Tweetdeck, Bit.ly Bundles, Storify, Keepstream, Reddit and several other social web products, then you're using Embedly. Embedly powers the content embedding for all of these services so that URLs come alive as content you can see or hear on site. On Meetup, for instance, Embedly makes it possible for users to add and listen to SoundCloud tracks on site.

The Embedly customer can choose from a free plan with access to 250 providers or the pro plan that unlocks content associated with any URL or RSS feed. The paid service comes with daily, hourly and minute-by-minute breakdowns of the most popular URLs and domains, as well as Google Safe Browse security features to protect their site visitors against masked URL phishing tactics.

In the future, the Boston-based company hopes to help more publishers get their content off their site and assist with the "Youtube-ization of the Internet," says Creeley. "Every piece of content is going to be able to be shared and embedded elsewhere."

Look for the startup to push into the mobile frontier first. Embedly plans to release an iOS library and Android library, which will let customers add embedded content into the mobile experience. The company will start accepting signups for beta access next week.
---------------
Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark
---------------

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

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Will Visa Become PayPal’s Biggest Rival?

For more than a decade now, PayPal has reigned king of online payments. Just last quarter alone, their revenue was nearly a billion dollars ($971 million according to VentureBeat). It was a good move for eBay to gobble them up years ago, because today, an estimated 40% of the company's revenue comes from the PayPal unit. In a press release last month, eBay stated that by 2013 they expect PayPal's annual revenue to be in the ballpark of $6 to 7 billion. Will that still happen now that Visa has entered the playing field?

Visa's new PayPal-like service
On March 16th, Visa issued this press release about their new service, which will allow Visa debit and credit cardholders to send money to each other. Visa has offered personal payments outside the United States but this is the first time such service will be available domestically.

Bank customers of participating financial institutions will have the option to select a Visa account as the destination for funds when making a personal payment. By simply entering the recipient's 16-digit Visa account, email address or mobile phone number, consumers can send funds directly from their bank account to a recipient's Visa account.

The press release didn't specify an exact date this feature would be rolled out, other than saying it will be soon. Two other companies  CashEdge and Fiserv  have partnered with Visa to offer this service.

Is Visa the first formidable opponent for PayPal?
Obviously, this will not be the first or last competitor. A number of similar services have sprung up over the years, without taking root like PayPal has. Google Checkout was supposed to be "the PayPal killer" when it launched in 2006, but that expectation never materialized. So if the Goliath Google can't beat PayPal, why would Visa have a fighting chance? Here are 3 things to consider:

Customer Base: At the end of last year PayPal reportedly had 94.4 million registered users  no small feat to accomplish and their first-mover advantage surely contributed to that success. Visa, on the other hand, may be new to personal payments here in the U.S. but they already have a massive customer base they can tap: 269 million credit cards and 397 million debit cards, as of September 30, 2010 (Source: Visa).

Processing Costs: Due to their sheer size, one can assume that the credit card processing fees incurred by PayPal must be bargain basement, comparable to a Wal-Mart or McDonald's. Regardless, it's still a big expense. That's why when a credit card is selected as the funding source, they direct you to a page to try and persuade you to use a checking account instead (where you will find an eye-catching orange button for it, which some allege is visually confusing). By cutting out the middle man, Visa might have a real advantage here when it comes to costs.

Card Benefits: If you're like me, you prefer card payments. I love to exploit my cash back credit card rewards whenever I get the chance. Of course you can earn cash back on your credit card when sending PayPal payments, but the 2.9% fee incurred on the other end can be a deterrent (if the recipient doesn't want to pay the fees, or you don't want them to). Visa hasn't stated whether or not these payments will qualify for rewards, but if they do and the fees are lower, that would be attractive to both parties.

Another benefit [some] credit cards offer is top notch customer service and dispute resolution. I admit, it does sound like PayPal's dispute resolution has improved drastically over the years, but I think many would agree it still won't hold a candle to the service you get with something like a Chase Sapphire or other Visa Signature card (disclosure: my website markets the Chase Sapphire card). The benefit of dealing directly with your credit card company's customer service might be considered a selling point.

Conclusion?
It's too early to tell if Visa's personal payment feature will be a hit or miss. Both companies have their strengths and weaknesses. PayPal definitely knows their stuff when it comes to online payments, however my PayPal credit card review demonstrates their ineptness in the card arena. It will be interesting to see whether Visa's idea fizzles or sizzles.

Disclosure: My company's website, CreditCardForum.com, advertises credit cards. Therefore I have direct and/or indirect financial ties to some credit cards. Additionally, a close family member of mine owns a small amount of Visa stock, which I had advised them to buy several months ago.

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11 Ways To Completely Reinvent Yourself

New startups are popping up daily. With so much competition, older companies are struggling to stay relevant.

Bill Taylor, the cofounder of Fast Company and author of Practically Radical, studied businesses that are successfully reinventing themselves in today's uncertain economy.

"Long-established organizations are really being rocked to their core," he says. And if they don't adapt, they'll die.

Which companies are changing the right way? And how are they doing it?

We asked Taylor to reveal everything.
Don't be content with being middle of the road.

"We all do business the same way. We think we'll be a little better with our products, or a little cheaper with the service," says Taylor. "But, in an era of so much change and so many new ways to do everything, the middle of the road has become the road to nowhere."

Instead, Taylor says to become the most of something. "Maybe it's the most exclusive. Maybe it's the most affordable. The question is not, 'What products and services does a company sell?' The question is, 'What ideas do you stand for?' What are the ideas that distinguish how you do business differently from everybody else?"

Ask yourself: "If I go out of business tomorrow, will anybody notice?"

"One of the questions Roy Spence, a great ad man who runs GSD&M, likes to ask clients is, 'If you went out of business tomorrow, would anybody really notice?'" says Taylor.

"So few organizations really stand for anything truly distinctive, compelling, or memorable; the ones that do are the ones creating all of the value in the economy."

The biggest risk is not taking a risk

"So many leaders have a tunnel vision. They see things the way everybody else in their industry sees them and they chase after the same opportunities," says Taylor.

Successful leaders see a different game.

"The biggest risk is being afraid to experiment," says Taylor. "At that point the game becomes, Can I go out of business a little slower than them?"

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eBay Uses PayPal To Spy On Its Sellers (EBAY)

eBay monitors the PayPal accounts of its biggest sellers to see how much off-eBay business they're doing and thereby reward or punish them on their platform. That's at least the allegation made by Daniel Leffel, the CEO of eBay competitor Yardseller, citing "a senior level eBay person." (eBay owns PayPal.) Leffel also says it uses PayPal to spy on competitors.

eBay's core business is in a bad shape in many ways. Though it's still a cash machine, it's still very inefficient, and many of these inefficiencies privilege big eBay sellers over smaller ones, which is noxious for the platform in general. In many ways, eBay is held hostage by its biggest sellers.

The company is planning to address this with its "New eBay" strategy, which sounds good, but as so often, execution is what will make or break it.

Don't Miss: The New eBay Is Like The Old eBay, But Leaner And Meaner

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The Future Of Journalism Involves Recognizing The Community Exists... And Talking With Them

One of my biggest complaints about the way some old school journalism folks view "the news business," is that they still have trouble recognizing they're in the community business. They're so focused on delivering the "news," they forget the bigger issue. The news business has always been a community business. It was a way of bringing together a community of people with something in common (usually locality), and then selling their attention to advertisers. The big problem facing the industry today is that there are many more ways for communities to form. They used to be one of the few games in town. These days, however, there are many, many more places for communities -- and most of them treat the communities much better, and provide a lot more value. And yet, too often we hear newspaper folks talk down to and insult the idea that they should ever be expected to actually rub virtual shoulders with their community. They don't like using comments. They don't want to talk to fans or critics alike. They just want to report the news and move on.

Obviously, there are many, many exceptions to this. And the number of exceptions are growing and that's a good thing, because eventually they won't be exceptions at all. For now, though, it's nice to highlight stories of journalists recognizing the importance of actually communicating with their community. Pickle Monger points us to a piece by a long-time BBC reporter, Paul Reynolds, talking about his experience embracing the community rather than shunning it, and recognizing that this involvement of the public really is "the future of news." He admits it wasn't always pleasant, and it did require establishing something of a thick skin, but he seems to feel that it's worth it.

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SXSW Crowd Earns $10K for Charity by Playing a Game [PICS]

In an unusual keynote speech at South by Southwest Interactive, SCVNGR founder Seth Priebatsch captivated the crowd with examples on how game mechanics can solve the world's problems.

Better yet, he leaned on the communal-play game dynamic and motivated the crowd to successfully complete a complex game in 180 seconds, the prize being $10,000 for the National Wildlife Foundation.

The opening keynote address included two games one a test mixed with thought-provoking points on the game dynamics inherent in education, customer acquisition, loyalty, and location based services. His goal: to convince the crowd that game mechanics can solve big problems. He succeeded in his mission with a little help from the crowd.

Midway through the talk, Priebatsch tested the crowd with a simple task. Clap in unison, he told us, and in just 15 seconds we the more than 2,000 attendees in the room were doing so.

The real game came at the end. This time around, Priebatsch instructed the crowd to work together and use cards double-sided cards with either blue, green or orange on each side they were handed on the way in. Each row had to decide on a single color to hold up in less than 180 seconds. The challenge, an example of the communal play game dynamic Priebatsch discussed extensively, would involve massive amounts of trading should the audience pull it off.

Priebatsch also sweetened the deal with a $10,000 reward. He told the audience that if each of their rows successfully held up cards of the same color, SCVNGR would donate $10,000 to the National Wildlife Foundation.

When Priebatsch gave the go-ahead to start trading, a bit of organized chaos ensued, but the audience managed to complete the task in less than 180 seconds.

The life-sized card game served as a microcosm of how game dynamics can solve real world problems. With an honest look at the location services space, and some practical ideas on how game mechanisms can fix a broken grading system (in his mind), the real meat of his sometimes-funny keynote address gave the audience a lot to chew on. In the end, the crowd rallied to complete the challenge and cheered upon achieving the mission.

It's too soon to known if Priebatsch's keynote address wowed the crowd enough to get them to use SCVNGR. But, by the time the keynote concluded, "Seth Priebatsch" had become a trending topic on Twitter in the United States, proving that the 22-year-old Princeton dropout can game SXSW.

Holding Up Cards

Crowd With Cards

Priebatsch

Card-Carrying Priebatsch

Images courtesy Michael Cummings/dreaminpictures.com

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The Particle Protocol

In the previous entry, I defined the Internet atmosphere as every piece of the infrastructure that allows us to get access to the cloud. In this entry, I will explain how to alter that infrastructure so it becomes more resilient in the future.

But beyond a statement about the internet infrastructure, this is also about figuring out a solution to avoid losing the internet. So to help it, we need to define a way to build the atomic components that will help it become resilient to any attack, whether they are from repressive dictators or over-reaching corporations.

Fortunately, the internet happens to be at a key point in terms of its evolution, with the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 being upon us. With one major effort to upgrade large part of the infrastructure, it seems that new efforts could help us increase the overall resilience of the net.

A few years ago, I put together some basic requirements for a tool that I would like to see, something I had called a "Personal Relationship Manager." A few years later, there are several of those so I'm thinking that I can start planting similar ideas into the ground for possible implementations by people who understand protocols much better than I do. The following are imperfect thoughts based on my understanding of core internet protocols and discussions I've had around them with several people over the last couple of years.

A lot of this, of course, has substantial precedence. For example, the idea of completely rewiring connectivity is not really a new one. Here's Doc Searls, about 3 years ago:

Connectivity-as-infrastructure is soft in several senses. One is that you don't need a big utility company to provide it. Another is that data and its protocols are soft. They have no physical substance, yet they have supportive qualities that are substantive in the extreme. That's because the Net is a way of connecting. It is not the wires and waves that do the connecting.

.. and there has been a lot of work put into making the internet protocols faster and more reliable but few have taken the radical approach of making the net completely self-reliant.

So without further ado, here are some basic requirements:
Open
Light
Easy to use
End-less

I will now go into the thinking behind each of these points.Open

Wikipedia defines a protocol as:

a set of guidelines or rules.

The challenge then becomes who is responsible for setting those guidelines or rules. Ownership of the responsibility for setting the guidelines or rules should be diffused around the community of interest on the internet. In that sense, the particle protocol should be a protocol without a head group. Decisions around what to include and exclude in its core should come from the community as a whole, with no central office, no central committee, no central individual, ultimately responsible for it.

Open is the way of the net, where ideas are given dominance based on their individual value and not based on the value of the individuals that brought them forth.

Because it is headless, open is uncontrollable. One could argue that peer-to-peer networks are the closest thing we have to open networks as every node in the network serves and routes things for every other node and the disappearance of an individual node does not impact the network as a whole for very long.

A corollary to open then seems to be that the network will be peer-to-peer, making it impossible to shutdown the network altogether. Peer to peer networks have been the bane of the music and movie industry for a decade because they cannot be shut down and it seems that if we are to build a network that cannot be shut down, we can learn from that model.

Open also means unencumbered from any pre-existing patent. The particle protocol should be something that is owned by absolutely everyone and by no one in particular. The reason for this is that lack of ownership means that the owners cannot be leaned on by any organization or government. With that point of friction removed, the ability to create backdoors or shut down such a protocol would be more limited and require substantial efforts on the part of the people trying to do the shutting down.

Open also means that the particle protocol should be sitting at the lowest level of the infrastructure stack with little or nothing below it. Once again, this is to ensure its resilience as the closer it is to the foundation, the harder it is to remove.

Last but not least, is that open is not about money.  That is because the core portions of the particle protocol should be free in a monetary sense too. However, beyond the core, innovation should be allowed so anyone can build (and make money) by providing extra components for the particle protocol. However, the people doing so must realize that any changes they decide to make to the core are dictated by the underlying principles regarding the protocol and must be redistributed in the same open fashion.Light

The particle protocol should have the lightest CPU and memory footprint possible. Some may feel it is too much of a constraint but the particle protocol should be so light that it can run on most devices. For its initial version, I think that the ability to run, without impacting their pre-existing operations, on mobile phones, computers, and devices with as low a footprint as a 400Mhz CPU and 128Mb of RAM (Apple watchers may recognize this as the original specification behind the first iPhone: it is no accident as I believe the particle protocol should run on any smartphone in the future).

Light, in my view, also means unattached, which means that the particle protocol would be wireless by default. Sure, devices could be created to connect some points of the network to some wired network (and this could turn into a whole new sector for the telecom infrastructure industry).

Finally, light also means unencumbered of extras. The problem to be solved here is resilience (ie. it can't be shutdown). Anything beyond that is extra. So the particle protocol should allow for TCP/IP to run on top of it but things like extra security, guarantee of services, and so on, should not be part of its core. However, I'd like to see some kind of a plug-in approach that could allow that protocol to be extended with such features by anyone who wants to.Easy to Use

The first dotcom boom taught me an important lesson about technology: if it is not easy to use, people won't use it. The internet was around for a long time prior to 1995 but it wasn't until then that people adopted it. Why was that? I think it was due to two factors: first, Microsoft built a TCP/IP stack into their operating system, making internet access a question of configuration and AOL started splattering the world with their disks, making access to the online world just a question of setting up a username and password and handing out your credit card information to them. The rest was automated.

In order for the particle protocol to succeed, it should be easy to install and easy to use. By easy to install, I mean that it should be a question of downloading it and, if needed, clicking on an icon to install it but that would be it. The software would install itself, look for ways to connect to its peers, identify any peers nearby, and automatically connect, becoming another node in the network.

By easy to use, I mean that there ought to be no actual work to use it once installed. The first thing the protocol installer would look for is all the ways in which it can connect to other devices (wired: eg. via a modem or ethernet / wireless: eg. WiFi, Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G, 4G, etc…) and attach itself to all the available modes without disturbing the other software attached to those. There should be, embedded in the protocol itself, a logic as to how it would prioritize its connectivity, based on how many nodes are available in a particular connectivity mode and how reliant other nodes are on its connectivity to more than one connection (eg. tying 3G communication to WiFi links).

By being completely invisible, the protocol would become something that can exist without being acknowledged and can be installed without much notice after installation. So, if you were to take Libya as an example again, hacktivist could work to install the particle protocol on every communication devices the government owns, and protesters would leverage those installation for their own communication.

The only way to stop such a protocol would be to completely shutdown every electronic device available in an area/country. While it is not impossible that some strongmen could go down that route (I'm thinking of places like North Korea, maybe), the impact would be that the only way to shut things down is to shut down your own communications line. While it is theoretically possible, such a shutdown could create a race as to who is bringing their own network back up in order to communicate. If we were to take into account network theory, this is basically creating resilience by ensuring that the information assymetry created by a network shutdown forces ALL the players to rush back to restoring it, thus restoring nodes for all sides at the same time. In a perverse way, it leverages the assymetry to get rid of it.End-less

Many years ago, my good friends Doc Searls and David Weinberger argued that the internet was a World of Ends. The principles were sound but unfortunately, by creating a view based on ends, they opened the possibility for creating points of controls.

If the internet has ends, it can be closed down.

But what if it didn't have end-point. What if it had addresses that changed on a more random basis. Then exerting control over one point would not necessarily work. What if the addressing were to change on a time and location basis as well as some other factors based on sudden changes in traffic (spikes or drops) with violent drops in traffic resulting in a complete re-assignement of the addressing space along with a drastic change in how long devices would attach to that space before changing address again.

Without those ends, and by creating a network protocol that would carry traffic while seeing radical changes in its addressing space could create a situation where an attack against a portion of the network would be seen as an attack against the network as a whole and solutions would be handled on a global basis.

So whether that network is shutdown because a political strongman decides to do or an earthquake damages a region, the network as a whole would have some form of self-healing capacity to start rearranging the damaged parts quickly and without any involvement from the users in the affected areas (network management should be the least of people's problems in a time of crisis).Beyond the principles: Addressing

Since this would be a relatively new protocol, I would throw some backward compatibility away. As protocol development takes place, I can only assume that it won't be until 2012 that we would see the first implementations of this. As a result, I would go as far as to venture that the particle protocol should not have to worry about IPv4 addressing and should focus on working with IPv6 instead. The reason behind such an approach is that IPv6 will increasingly be the new standard for addressing beginning in 2012. IPv4 support, as a result, would be great to support legacy systems but this is about fixing problems in the future so let's support the systems that are future proof.Beyond the principles: Implementations

Ultimately, protocols live and die by their implementation. The first step towards implementation would be a lightweight version of the particle protocol that could work on linux, android and iOS devices.

Why those first?

First, linux. Linux is available in a variety of forms, including as an embedded OS for devices. In the future, I think we could see the particle protocol as something that would be available over embedded devices (particle boxes) that could be assembled cheaply and connected to power sources and network sources. Such boxes should be relatively inexpensive to produce (in discussion with people, I've been using the price of $25 in parts as a stake in the ground) and all schematics should be open-sourced.

However, the challenge with the hardware only solution is that linux is not something the general population uses on a regular basis. So creating a mostly linux-based solution would attract the attention of people who want to disconnect things to those devices and get the to disconnect them.

More difficult to disconnect, however, is an overall telecom infrastructure and here are I am making some technical bets: that iOS and Android will be the major operating systems powering mobile phones in the future. Taking that approach, a version of the particle protocol working on those devices could turn every smartphone with those OSes on them into a network point. I'm sure that this might make some people unhappy (Apple would probably not approve) but I suspect that it could allow for quick deployment of devices in regions needing them.

Any other implementations would be welcome, of course.Conclusion

Protocols are agreements and this set of concepts is only a proposed set. I'd like to see discusion around the concepts in the technical community but, at the core, the problem is simple: we need an communication network that works based on network effects, making the network much stronger with every node that joins it. Recent events, both geopolitical (Egypt, Libya) and environmental (earthquakes and tsunami in Japan) have shown that our networks are still brittle.

The particle protocol is the beginning of a discussion to strengthen the network at one of its lowest layers and ensure that disruption in one physical location can be healed by its proximity to other locations.

Tristan Louis is the founder and CEO of Keepskor and writes the influential tnl.net weblog, where this was initially posted under the title The Particle Protocol.

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Cool Websites and Tools [March 12th]

Check out some of the latest MakeUseOf discoveries. All listed websites are FREE or come with a decent free account option. You can make use of them without spending a dime. If you want to have similar cool websites round-ups delivered to your email daily email subscribe here.

Add Your Website Here!

TV Show Favs - Are you wondering when the next episode of your favorite series will air? If yes, then a TV guide would be extremely helpful. With TV Show Favs, you get a portable TV guide on your Android smartphone. TV Show Favs is a free and simple to use application for Android smartphones with an easy to use schedule. Read more: TV Show Favs: Up-To-Date Portable TV Guide for Your Android

Safer Chrome - Many malicious websites seem like all other normal non-malicious websites. To recognize these malicious sites and better protect yourself from them, you can make your browsing sessions secure and safer by using a tool called Safer Chrome, a browser extension for Google Chrome; it helps notify you if the site you are browsing is potentially malicious. After installing the extension you will notice a new icon in the URL bar. Read more: Safer Chrome: Makes Chrome Browsing Secure Safer

Puntalo - If you always misplace or lose your phone, you may already wonder how to get it back when you lose it again. Fortunately, Puntalo is a cool app that makes it easy for you to find your lost or stolen phone by tracking its whereabouts. In addition, Puntalo also lets you track your family or friends by sending you SMS or e-mail notifications. Read more: Puntalo: Track Your Family Find Your Lost Or Stolen Phone

Android Icon Generator - The best thing about Android phones is the ability to customize everything. Android Icon Generator lets you create your own icons for Android phones by simply uploading an image. You can generate icons for the menu, tabs, status bar, list view and dialogue. Each icon can be generated with hdpi, mdpi and ldpi designations. Read more: Android Icon Generator: Create Icons For Android Phone Online

Wallcast - Setting your photographs as your desktop wallpaper personalizes your computer experience. Turning on your computer and being greeted by a auto changing wallpaper with your family photographs will surely put a smile on your face. Wallcast helps you do exactly that. The program generates beautiful wallpapers by combining photographs that you provide it with. Read more: Wallcast: Creates Cool Auto Changing Wallpapers Of Your Photos

Add Your Website Here!

These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last couple of days. If you want us to send you daily round-ups of all cool websites we come across, leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed.
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Dual core SGX543 dramatically boosts iPad 2 graphics

The multiple core SGX graphics built into the iPad 2 A5 System on a Chip processor deliver benchmarks from 3 to 7 times faster than the original iPad, and smoke competing mobile chips such as Nvidia's Tegra 2.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/03/12/dual_core_sgx543_dramatically_boosts_ipad_2_graphics.html

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How To Buy Products for Cheap on eBay: The Art of Arbitrage Bargain Hunting

In a recent arbitrage tip, we showed you the secret to making money fast by buying and selling the same thing over and over again on eBay. But there's one thing you need to know about the buying part—get the lowest price possible! This article aims to show you some of the best methods to making sure you're paying the lowest prices on eBay, so you're the best arbitrageur out there, with your profits higher than ever!

Step 1 Research

Before you go out buying and selling products on eBay, you need to do your research. Find out what's currently hot on the market, like the iPad 2 or Motorola XOOM tablets. These items sell for a decent amount of cash, and almost always sell. Consumer electronics are always a safe bet, like computers and cell phones. Fashion is also a decent category to check out. But it's best to do you research on everything before devoting your time to one thing. And you may consider a niche area you can control the market for.

And one thing to take in account when figuring your product is how much it's worth overseas. If you're selling primarily to a North American market, you could be losing out on some serious cash. In China, they couldn't purchase the 3G version of the iPad locally (though this may change soon), meaning they would pay well above market price for one elsewhere (or perhaps settle for a cheap knockoff).Step 2 Improve Your Search Skills

If you're using the same search strategies on eBay that everyone else is using, then you're just going to be finding the same items as everyone else. You need to start thinking outside of the box.Misspellings in Titles

It might sound bizarre when it comes to eBay bargain hunting, but looking for misspelt words can easily point you towards auctions that have no watchers. And let's face it—not everyone is great at spelling, and you definitely don't need to be to list something on eBay. But this doesn't mean that the item isn't valuable.

Those with poor grammar skills aren't necessarily using spell check, so varying your keywords in search will give you a real bargain from time to time. Also, sometimes the mispelt words are intentional, due to space-saving techniques in the headline. Here are some examples:
digtal = digital
anitque = antique
electic = electric
Motorola Zoom = Motorola Xoom
Sony Ericson = Sony Ericsson

And believe or not, there's actually a few tools to help you search for misspelt words on eBay. One is called Auction Speller. You just enter in a word, and it will open up a new window, searching for that word in eBay, along with all its misspelled variations. You can also do searches without the correctly spelled word (as in the example below), along with more options, like country search and word exclusion.

There's also an online tool called Searchspell Typo, but it only shows you the misspelled words, which you would need to input into eBay yourself.Tips
Use a multiple keyword search by inputting all of your word variations, separated by commas and inside of parentheses, i.e. (atique, anique, antque, antiue, antiqe, aantique). This searches for any of the words, not all, i.e. (atique OR anique OR antque OR antiue OR antiqe OR aantique). The Auction Speller tool above automatically does this, but you can also do it manually, with help from the Searchspell Typo tool.
The search box on eBay is limited to 300 characters, so you may want to split up your keywords for those with tons of misspellings.
Avoid deliberately misspelled words. Some sellers know what you're up to and want you to find their items, so they include the correct and misspelled versions in the headline. You have a much better chance getting a good deal on an accidental misspelt word. When performing your search, just add a dash (or minus sign (-)) before the correct version of the word, i.e. (ctique, anique) -antique.
BID! If you notice a huge misspelling, chances are the seller has, too. But if you hurry up and bid on the item, just the minimum bid, the seller won't be able to make any changes. And that means you've secured a possible steal deal, because no one else will find it!Abbreviations in Titles

Just like the intentional misspelt word due to limited room on the headline, adding abbreviations and acronyms are a great way to keep the heft down. Search for a common (or uncommon) abbr. or acronym. Here are some examples:
kt. = karat
sq. = square
iPod Touch - iTouch
MacBook Pro = MBP
Dungeons & Dragons = D&D

Missing Keywords in Titles

Another word-savvy way to find the cheapest products on eBay is to try searching for the non-obvious keywords. If you're a man looking for a pair of shoes, you're probably going to search for "men's shoes" or some variation of it. You may want a pair of sneakers, but if you search for "men's sneakers", you may be missing out on some deals than if you were to search for just "sneakers". A seller may easily forget (or not even think) to include the word "men" in their headline, making it nearly impossible for anyone to find them (or bother to find them)—except you, the master arbitrage. Then, you can narrow your results by category (which hopefully would be correct).Tips
Don't limit yourself to the headline. Though someone might have spelled something wrong in the headline, they may have spelled it correctly in the description. Searching in the descriptions doubles your odds of finding your wanted items. Also, an item that's missing an obvious keyword in the headline may have it in the description. When you perform a search on eBay, it limits you to headlines only, but you can easily change this by using Advanced Search.
An easier way to go about this is by performing your headline only search, then on the results page, you have the option to add description to the search, by simply checking the "Include description" box.

Poor Images

Something that dissuades eBayers from bidding on auctions is poor image quality. But remember, just because an image is bad—grainy, black and white, dull, blurry, etc.—doesn't mean the product isn't valuable. Rely on the description to tell you what it's worth. Chances are they don't have a good camera or any image editing skills, or maybe they even used some poor stock photos. Just keep your eyes peeled.

Step 3 Saving Your Favorite Searches

You may get tired of searching for the same things over and over again. This is especially daunting if you're searching for misspellings, using the multiple keywords search. But you can easily save your favorite searches for later, and eBay will email you daily so you can stay up to date with everything. This is particularly useful if you're focusing on one item, and buying and selling on a daily basis. When you perform a search, just find the "Save search" option.

After you press it, eBay will prompt you with a confirmation message.

You can manage your favorite searches by going to "My eBay" and "Save Searches".Tip
This is great for getting notifications for hard-to-find items that only pop up every now and then.Step 4 Find the Going Rates

Now that you've found something to bid on, you should research its worth. You can do this by checking eBay for average selling prices, or even checking other online stores for fair prices. This will give you an idea of what your maximum bid should be when trying to buy.

When searching in eBay, you need to browse the completed transactions for your item in question. Just perform your search, then in the gray, left-hand options bar, find and check "Completed listings".

This will show you everything that's been completed, sold and unsold. The unsold auctions are great for seeing what prices don't work, while the successful auctions give you an idea on the average going price.

Try to pay less than these prices, so you can actually make a profit when it comes time to sell.Tips
Search for specific model numbers to make sure you're getting a more accurate price average.
Consider "Used" and "New" prices separately, for they probably have different final values.
If selling outside of eBay, like in a trade magazine or paper, research going prices there, too.
Auctions usually have final sell prices than Buy-It-Now prices.
Remember to factor in shipping costs! Some sellers have absurd shipping prices, to make up for a loss from the selling cost (as in the ridiculous example below, which actually sold).

Step 5 Snipe Your Way to Steals

So, you've found something you want to buy—great. But don't jump right into bidding. In fact, don't do any manual bidding. There's plenty of reasons why you shouldn't.
It's a waste of time. If you bid on an item right away, you're more than likely going to be watching it until the time expires, which could be a couple weeks, and a great deal of time lost that could have been used scoping out other auctions.
You're more likely to bid more than intended. Watching someone outbid you time and time again is sure to make you keep bidding and bidding, even if you're passing your maximum intended price. Nobody likes to lose—but either way, you're going to, because you're not going to get it or you're going to spend more than you can resell it for.
If there's someone out there doing the same thing you're doing—arbitraging—then surely he/she is using a sniping tool. So, why aren't you?

It's nearly impossible to compete against a sniping tool, because it's automatically outbidding everyone at the last second. Using a sniping tool will help you secure an item, as well as prevent you from getting carried away in a bidding war. Best of all—you don't have to keep watching the items you've bid on. You just enter in your max bid, along with a few other details, then you just wait until you win.

Most sniping tools are available for free, though some will charge for securing a winning bid. Here are some to consider.
Auction Sniper
Has a free trial, then it charges 1% of the winning auction price (minimum fee of $0.25, max of $9.95). Web-based.
JBidwatcher
Free. Software available for Windows, Mac and Linux.
eSnipe
deSnipe charges 1% of the winning auction price (minimum fee of $0.25, max of $10.00). Web-based.
AuctionStealer
Offers a free service that gets you a winning bid 97% of the time, but their priority services offer more functionality. Monthly subscription plans start at $8.99, and one-time monthly plans start at $11.99. Web-based.
AuctionBlitz
Owned by AuctionStealer with the same free and paid services. Web-based.
Bidnapper
15-day free trial. Then, subscriptions ranging from $7.99 (monthly) to $49.99 (yearly). You can also prepay for snipes, either 10 for $19.99 or 25 for $36.99. Web-based.
Gixen
Free (with ads). There's also a "Mirror" service (without ads) for $6 a year, which doubles your chances of winning. Web-based.

For the most part, these sniping tools are extremely easy to use. You just use the eBay auction numbers, enter your maximum bid and time before the end of the auction. The sniping tool does the rest, emailing you on a successful (or unsuccessful) bid.

These tools are great for maintaining a profit. If you feel tempted to increase your max bid—don't. Your profits will plummet. Once you initially set up the snipe bid, remain detached from it until you receive a good (or bad) email. This ensures you're only paying what you can make a profit on.Step 6 Late Night Bargains

Sometimes shopping during sleep hours can help you secure a real bargain, as the number of last-minute shoppers is reduced. Auctions ending between midnight (00:00) and 5 a.m. (05:00) on a weekday often have fewer final bidders.

Also, if there are multiple auctions for the same items within a short time frame, focus your efforts on the later ones. Hopefully, other interested parties will get jammed up in bidding wars against each other on the earlier ones.Step 7 Keep an Eye Out for Best Offers

It may take a little more of your time, but search eBay for sellers who will consider "Best Offers". It's a fairly new eBay feature, and is usually coupled with sellers using "Buy It Now". You can also research those specific sellers to see what prices they've accepted in the past, which is most useful for sellers who post lots of the same item.

Warnings
Beware of knockoff items.
Don't expect to be great right away—practice makes perfect.

Once you've mastered your buying technique, it's time to master your selling technique. But that's for another time, though I'll give you some quick tips. Try selling in different or multiple categories to expand your watchers. Try combining your auctions, because you'll save big on insertion fees. Think about PayPay's Micropayments for selling low value items. And save money with a listing designer to help cut the costs of all the optional eBay upgrade fees.

Photo by AMagill
SOURCE Windows: The Official Magazine, SaleHoo

Via How To Buy Products for Cheap on eBay: The Art of Arbitrage Bargain Hunting on WonderHowTo.

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What’s the best SXSW app? So far, for me, it’s LocalMind

I've seen a TON of different location-based apps in the past two weeks. But today I was introduced to one that actually is useful AT SXSW: LocalMind. What does it do? It lets you ask questions of people who are around town. "Are they still serving free beer?" you might ask, for instance. Back comes an answer.

Here founder Lenny Rachitsky showing it to me in the hallway.

What caught my eye about this? It's like Quora and Foursquare got together and had a baby.

It shows you people who have checked in with Foursquare and have LiveMind open near you, in the past few minutes, and then you can ask them questions. Right now I'm using it and there's dozens of different venues with people checked in right now at them. I can ask them questions, like, "how long is the line for the Mashable party?" and get an answer back right away.

After SXSW I can see asking things like "who is playing at the Ritz bar tonight?" or "how crowded is it at the Metreon?"

They have a web version, although the iPhone version is nicer.

Do you have a hot app at SXSW? Text me at +1-425-205-1921

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It’s Not TV, It’s Social TV [VIDEO]

Interactive television experts gathered on Saturday at SXSWi in Austin, Texas to discuss the future of social TV.

Panelists, which ranged from the likes of Chloe Sladden of Twitter to Gavin Purcell from Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, discussed ways in which they incorporate social media into popular television shows such as "No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain" and "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon."

Fred Graver, the senior VP of Travel Channel, spoke to the audience about his initial skepticism regarding the integration of Twitter into "No Reservations." "It wasn't a no brainer for us." said Graver. "The whole thing here is if you have 36-48 hours before the show premiers, do you want to spend your time talking about Tony (Bourdain) live-tweeting? And that was a big discussion but we decided, yes lets do it."

Doing it proved to be successful for Graver and the Travel Channel, with "No Reservations" currently at more than 1 million "likes" on Facebook and an increasingly active Twitter following.

Watch the video for more highlights from the discussion.

MUSIC:
Artist: Pitx
Song: See You Later (ft. Fireproof Babies, Bmccosar)
Source: Freemusicarchive.org

More About: digital media, interactive television, social media, social tv, travel channel, twitter

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How Foursquare & AmEx Are Putting a Fresh Twist on Loyalty Marketing

In the summer of 2010, Foursquare's Head of Business Development Tristan Walker and American Express's Vice President of Global Marketing Capabilities David Wolf started talking about ways to work together to redefine loyalty for local merchants.

The fruit of their conversations is now on display in the city Austin, Texas where 60 merchants including Whole Foods, Starwood Hotels and Stubb's BBQ are offering Foursquare users "spend $5, save $5 rewards when they load the special and swipe their AmEx cards.

The pilot program started Friday and will run through Tuesday, March 15. Participating merchants have posted "Austin Unlocked" window clings to highlight their participation, and Foursquare users need only register their American Express cards to unlock this new type of special the Loyalty Special.
---------------

Loyalty and Location in Real-Time
---------------

On Friday, Walker and I journeyed to Le Cafe Crepe so he could demonstrate the special in action. Upon arrival, Walker launched Foursquare, checked in to the cafe, tapped to redeem the offer and then hit the green "Load to Card" button to initiate the special see a 44-second walk-through in the video above.

Several minutes later (there was a long line), Walker placed his order, the cashier swiped his AmEx card, and then together we waited for proof that the $5 savings reward had been activated by his swipe. Seconds later, Walker received a push notification alerting him that he had successfully redeemed the special. Soon thereafter, he also earned the "Swiped @ SXSW" badge for each badge redeemed, American Express is donating $1 to Grounded in Music.

Walker was quick to point out that the experience was nearly frictionless, happening exactly at the time of sale without requiring integration with the cafe's point-of-sale system.

This is what Walker and Wolf believe is a ground breaking initiative that finally creates the closed loop between a consumer's digital behavior and their offline spending behavior.

---------------

Phase One
---------------

Wolf calls the South by Southwest Interactive relationship with Foursquare, "phase one."

Being a first-of-a-kind program, AmEx decided to not only fund the offer it's paying for all of those $5 credits but to also send out a street team to recruit and train local merchants, print up informative cards for attendees and make QR code pins to get the word out at the festival.

American Express is making the financial investment because it believes it can use phase one to get to phase two: when the company's local merchant network will be able to set up, run and fund their own offers.

Wolf talks about the partnership as a strategic move on behalf of the company to align itself with a hip startup working on the location-meets-loyalty challenge. "We wanted to partner with a young, innovative company who understands the importance of providing value to merchants," he said.

Wolf also explains that "American Express is anxious to play in this space because of this closed loop of information that we get." To create the closed-loop effect, American Express is allowing a third party to access its APIs for card member data, merchant data and transaction data for the first time ever.
---------------

Regular Since 2009
---------------

On Foursquare's end, Walker speaks of the startup's desire to work with a preeminent company that truly understands loyalty, understands customer appreciation and has connections to local merchants. One of Foursquare's goals, he says, is to recreate the type of brand affinity that consumers have with American Express.

"Foursquare has taken inspiration from AmEx's member since' designation as to how we allow our users to evangelize or stake their claim to place. Much the same way that AmEx allows for that member since' designation, we want to create a regular since' designation … and allow merchants to communicate with those folks who are the most fervent, and are evangelists for their brands," said Walker.

In working with AmEx at SXSW, Foursquare is taking this "regular since" idea to the next level, while also delivering on its closed-loop promise to American Express and the participating local merchants.

Next up, phase two.

Image courtesy of Flickr, The.Comedian

More About: american express, amex, foursquare, loyalty, MARKETING, sxsw

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