© Dmitry Baranovskiy

I've been contributing over the last few months to the content of a vibrant and growing site that points toward the future of the Internet and has profound potential for eCommerce and business. The site is NetworkingForPros.com.

When I look across the web at the moment, it's clear that the Internet of yesterday (static pages where you could find information and news) has been replaced by an interactive, social Internet that is about people instead of facts and figures.

One of those people is you. Today the Internet is about you, and about me.

Who are you? The old model of the early Internet allowed a handful of writers and bloggers to publish information about people. Most of those people that info got published on were the stars - the Madonna, Mel Gibson, Mylie Cyrus, and the like. Who where you in that mix? Probably nobody, because they didn't write about you at all.

NetworkingForPros.com is part of a trend that is changing what the Internet is about. It's helping to make the Internet more about you and less about Tom Cruise and Oprah Winfrey. And the best part is that you can even help control what gets said about you. Using a wiki format, NetworkingForPros.com lets you enter your own information. You can write about yourself and about your friends or colleagues. Like with any wiki, you can comment on and contribute to the pages that other people have started. It's an interactive space focused on providing information about real people. People like you. After all, just because you're not Madonna or A-Rod, that doesn't mean you shouldn't be on the Web.

NetworkingForPros.com is where the professional relationships of tomorrow start: a place where you can find out about real people, a place where you can contribute to what knowledge is available on the web, a place where you can find and connect to people who share your interests.

Find yourself and find your friends at NetworkingForPros.com. And if they're not there already, put them there…

I talked yesterday over at BizPlanHacks about getting customers through your company website. Do you have a company website? You should.

SimplWeb has an online course available to help you start a website. They describe it as "a free 7 part guide to creating a killer content site that can make your business more successful." And it looks pretty acceptable.

If you decide you want a vompany blog as part of the website, the Blog Herald has a free seven-day course on business blogging. Upi may also want to look at YOUmozBlog, which has a piece on the "seven deadly sins" of company blogging.


© MiaNet Album

If you're looking for a convenient way to get your business noticed on the Web, you're probably looking for Yescalate, a site were local business information is built by users.

If you're looking for a convenient way to get your business noticed on the Web (or to publicize your experience with a local business), you're probably looking for Yescalate, a site were local business information is built by users.

Yescalate is a wiki, a site where users collaborate to create content and built knowledge for the Internet. On the one hand, Yescalate works like the business pages of an online phone book. You can put basic information (street address, products and services, phone numbers, prices, website, even pictures) on a Yescalate entry about your business. On the other hand, your customers can add to the site, creating comments or adding to the content about your business.

Best of all, you don't have to deal with sales people or pay some fee the way you world with a newspaper or phonebook ad. The site is free to use, and free to build.

© chrisdlugosz


Whether it's online commerce, advertising or trading in Internet properties and domain names, the Web has come to play an important role in 21st Century business.

With the influence of the Web growing, transparency has become a major concern on the Internet. The ability to find out just exactly who is behind a particular website has become important. And being able to find important facts about a web domain (like revenue, traffic patterns, and speed, and contact info) can be important to you, either for business reason or just to assess the credibility of the website. Where do you go to get information like that?

I recently came across the philoneist, a wiki that investigates and tells you what and who is behind a domain name. And with out much effort I found valuable information on a couple of websites I use pretty much every day.

An entry at the philoneist will often give you a screen capture image of the site being examined. That way you know that the entry is really about the site you're interested in.

Have you paid money recently for a new outfit for your Second Life avatar? Or to send a friend a teddy bear on Hi5? We talked not long ago about virtual currencies. Now VentureBeat has an article out on virtual goods. And they say that while the actual good might not be "real," their value better be...

We buy this detergent because it'll clean dishes more efficiently and that overstuffed chair because it's comfortable and looks great in the living room. We buy ridiculously huge stuffed animals because their comical appearance makes us happy with laughter, and we buy $7,000 electronic gadgets and $400,000 cars to make a statement about our wealth and status.

Inside of a game, that mentality doesn't change. Whether we're purchasing real, tangible objects or virtual, pixellated images, the driving question behind whether or not we pull out our wallet is the same- what will this do for me?

The cost of virtual goods can be relatively low. How much overhead is involved in a virtual teddy bear once it's been designed? I don't expect to eat a virtual steak any time soon, or start getting to my day job in a virtual car. But the potential for attracting buyers to virtual goods goes up everytimes someone registered for Facebook or Twitter.

What is your avatar whearing thses days?

BusinessWeek had an article last week on Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke's promise to promote women.

Seeking to counter Wal-Mart's image as a company that sells mostly to women yet is overwhelmingly run by men, new Wal-Mart (WMT) CEO Mike Duke pledged at the company's annual shareholder conference on Friday, June 5, to boost the retailer's commitment to developing female leaders by launching a "global women's council."

Just 27% of Wal-Mart's senior managers are women, and that number has been stagnant since 2007. A sex-descrimination case against Wal-Mart was filed by six women in 2001. The suit gained class action statu in 2004 (though Wal-Mart is seeking a judicial review on that). The case could eventually end up before the Supreme Court.


© dno1967

A couple of sources (Wired, Venture Beat) commented last week on President Obama's announcement that his administration will create a cybersecurity czar. Most saw the action as a positive step. And among the beneficiaries, the business world stands out.

Time is money. Regardless of the reason, when my Internet access disappears I begin to calculate the money I'm losing by not being online. It's the same for business large and small these days...

How safe are our information superhighways? I'm not sure. I see two threats. One is that they'll stop working. That would be devastating. But there's also the possibility that I'll get mugged online. I've had my eBay account highjacked, had to close a checking account over phishing schemes I fell for, and seen viruses shut me down for a few days. I think a cybersecurity czar will be good for me, and good for business. I look forward to seeing who get appointed to the post.


© tlindenbaum

Lisa Barone over at Small Business Trends had a piece earlier this month on a webinar called "Just Start - Getting Your Business Started Right." And according to people running the webinar, now is the time to get your small business started.

It may not seem so smart to start a business in a down economy, but according to Tim (Berry), this is actually the best time to do it. Costs are lower, you can get better talent for less, and people are a lot more receptive to entrepreneurs because of the fragile state of things. And don't tell anyone, but the economy is actually looking up.

Makes sense to me.

Lisa gives a deeper look at the webinar here.


© adrianol

There's money. People (me included) carry it around in their wallets and save small pieces of it in the ashtrays or cup holders of their cars. And they buy things with it - hamburgers, gasoline, and sometimes other small things. Then there's checks and credit cards. We pretend they're money and much of the time that works for us. They're closely related to money.

Then there's RockYou Pets from Hi5, Linden Dollars frm Second Life, and PEDs from the planet Calypso, in an online gaming world called Entropia Universe. How much like money are they? Some would say they are money - to the extent that you live your life in a particular virtual world. Some of them are actually exchangeable in the real world; 250 Linden Dollars is worth one US dollar. You can provide a service or sell a product in Second Life, change the Linden Dollars into "real money" (whatever that is now) and take it to the grocery store or the mall. PEDs can also be converted back into real money; 10 PEDs equal one US dollar.

A couple of questions come to mind. First, how close are we to seeing a dominant virtual currency come into existence that could be moved from game to game and virtual world to virtual world? Answer: MySpace and Facebook both seem to be working on that.

Second, how close are we to seeing these virtual currencies begin to bleed over into the non-virtual world? Answer: I don't think I'm going to see people spending Linden Dollars at Wal-mart any time soon, but VentureBeat points out a number of issues where real world legal issues about money are bleeding over into virtual worlds. Second Life closed its casinos rather than see government regulators invade their cyberworld. There have been other examples.

The issue of virtual currencies is going to be a fun one to watch over the next few years. And it has real world business implications. A few link...

• Teen entrepreneur Catherine Cook says myYearbook's Lunch Money adds up - VentureBeat


• Hi5 begins giving developers access to its virtual currency - VentureBeat


• Zeevex Debuts Virtual Currency For Online Games - TechCrunch


• Priority for MySpace: Do something about those virtual currency plans - VentureBeat


• 'Virtual currencies' power social networks, online games - CNN


• Virtual Currencies Gain in Popularity - BusinessWeek

© Bohman

It's getting harder and harder to have a business and not have a web page. But most businesss owners don't really have the in-house talent necessary to create a site on their own. So they find a web designer...

Entrepreneur.com had some good tips recently for working with a web designer. They say that it is possible to get exactly what you want from a web designer - on time and on budget. But their first tip is to do your homework. It's hard to get what you want if you don't know what you want.

They have some good tips on this subject. You can read them here .


© Fosforix