October 2008

I just found out that the network that I think has a lot of potential (and has helped bloggers like me) says goodbye to its members.

BlogRush is one of the promising start-up in late 2007.

The main idea is wonderful - sharing the blog contents among members, thus increasing visibility for the blog posts. This, in additional to the unique system of traffic referring has helped good bloggers with even ore visibility.

Unfortunately, as I learn from the BlogRush website, many game the BlogRush system, and some other hack the systems - all in all, resulting in an inconsistent system.

Here is to highlight the statement by John Reese, the owner of BlogRush:

BlogRush didn’t grow without its fair share of problems — from security issues to abusive users trying to ‘game’ the system to much lower click-rates than expected. We also had some problems with trying to fairly control the quality of the network, and in the process made many mistakes in deciding what blogs should stay or go. All of these issues, ultimately, limited the service’s full potential.

Another case study of big Internet start-up failure

This is another case of big Internet start-up failures - the saying ‘In great power, lies great responsibilities’ is fulfilled, again and again - the bigger you are, the more people try to take advantage of your system and test the depth of your team.

Today’s survivors - Digg, Facebook and the likes are put under constant challenge and thrive - that’s why their market values are sky-high.

Lessons learned from the BlogRush case

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Today’s rough competition and tough recession push you, a business owner, to offer as much option as possible to your clients and customers.

It is considered as a smart move, if not a must-do.

In retailing, one of the areas that you can always improve is checking out process.

Checking out key success factors may include quick service, courtesy, cross-selling, and payment options.

Of all, payment options are the most important, as transaction flexibility is a strong add-on value.

Payment options made possible by merchant services, that allow businesses to accept payment made from a credit or debit card.

Merchant services

Merchant services today not only offer credit or debit card on-site transaction processing, but also other broad range of financial services for business, such as:

• Wireless merchant account service, to do credit card processing anywhere, anytime.
• Check conversion service, to convert checks into cash.
• ECommerce transaction handling, to accept and manage payment made through the Internet.
• Gift and loyalty card programs, to accept member management, along with the on-offer promo programs.

How to choose the right merchant services

To allow you the ease of payment processing management, I recommend you to partner with one merchant service provider that offer a broad range of financial services, such as Flagship Merchant Services, that is not only offer you payment options, but also other services, such as free set-up and credit card machine reprogramming.

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Despite all of the recession hypes all over the world, you can actually do something for your local community, that also being hit by recession.

Why?

The community has give your business a lot, and it’s about time for you as a small business owner to give back to the community.

You might say, “Come on - our business is struggling to ace recession, and you asked me to give back?”

Well, giving back doesn’t always mean monetary gifts.

One of the most common ways for businesses to give back to their communities is through fundraising.

Of course, fundraising is always involving a certain amount of money for the fundraiser, in this case, your small business. However, doing fundraising will arguably cost you less money, but more involvement, and doing it almost always yield better result than simply donate a sum of money for your local organisations.

Starting and organising a fundraising event

You can start by searching for fundraising ideas online.

You will not only yield loads of ideas, but also interesting twists along with the fundraising ideas, such as ‘go green’ fundraising, that not only impact the people, but also the environment.

If you are not sure how to do fundraising the right way, you can always partner with non-profit organisations to help organise the fundraiser.

If you are more of an adventurous type of business owner, you might want to consider DIY your fundraising event.

Again, you can search the Net for a free fundraising kit and tips and tricks on how to start and organise a successful (and impacting) fundraising events.

My recommendation of fundraising idea

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With so many ecommerce sites on the Net today, how to choose the best?

You can always look for recommendations, but you actually can also assess the site yourself. Along with the recommendations, this will ultimately help you deal with online businesses most suited to your need and want.

Or, if you plan to start an ecommerce site, what things to consider?

What Builds an Ecommerce site

I’m thinking of the ability for an ecommerce site to close sale as follow:

(website design + content + product quality) x perceived brand value = sales

Website design

Website design, nevertheless, is your part of online business identity. Design yours bad, lose your potential customer.

Visual hooks help site owner to attract prospects and help prospects to asses your online business reputation.

To me, if I visited an ecommerce site that has a superb design, I trust the online business more, because I assume that if an ecommerce company invests resources on the website design, it got to have above average quality.

How to know how much to invest in design? You can always look for free web design quote from the Internet.

Content

By content, I am thinking of things beyond product description - blog posts, articles, product reviews, testimonials, podcasts, video, and any other kind of contents.

Why is it important? Content attracts visitors and prolong visitors’ visit to the ecommerce site, in such a way that during their stay, you can promote or cross-sell products in-content, thus improving closing rates.

Product quality

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If you visit Noobpreneur.com today, you might not be able to see anything displayed.

That’s because the blog has been experiencing problems with the Wordpress plugin upgrades.

With the upgrades, I hope for Noobpreneur.com to be more bug-free and secure. Unfortunately, the good things in mind result in a blank page and a big question mark.

What’s so special with the problem that make Noobpreneur.com displayed a blank page for the whole day?

Because the last time I did the check-up, everything is okay. I suspect that after the Noobpreneur.com’s server cleared its cache, the problem arose. Added with the fact that I went traveling with my family, Noobpreneur.com is having its own vacation for a day :)

I still look into the problems, and I found out that two of the problems come from Noobpreneur.com contact form upgrade and the most viewed plugin that displayed Noobpreneur.com Top 10 most visited blog posts.

Disabling them finally solves the problem - at last. Perhaps compatibility issues with the other plugins? I’m actually not sure, but I’ll find out somehow :)

So, in the mean time, the contact form is replaced with other (supposedly better?) plugin, and the most viewed plugin is still quarantined.

I’m not that qualified as a techie, so I can’t (and don’t have the guts) to tweak the plugins’ code.

I apologise for any inconvenience caused, hopefully this won’t happen again in the future :)

Ivan Widjaya
Wordpress plugin compatibility investigator
Image by stuckinsuburbia4.

This blog post titled the same as Steve Pavlina’s latest book, that I recommend you to read.

Why? Read on.

Who is Steve Pavlina?

He is, to me, the authority of personal development, well known in the Internet and the blogosphere.

With his colourful life stories, including his love for thrill and adrenaline rush that landed him to do 60 hours of community service when he was 19 years old, his personal endeavour and discovery has made him who he is today - a self-made personal development expert.

His blog, StevePavlina.com, is one of the most comprehensive blog that I have read online. As he indicated in his new book, his blog could easily be transformed into 20 personal development books - and he keeps writing today!

Indeed, although I’m not active in his site’s forums, I read many of his life changing articles. I insist you to do so, too.

The Book

I’ve read Personal Development for Smart People, and if you would asked me one word to describe Steve’s book, it would be “Personal” with the capital P.

Personal - the seven fundamental principles of personal development Steve outlined and explained focus on your personal growth - You, yourself and yours.

The seven fundamental principles - truth, love, power, oneness, authority, courage and intelligence - will allow you to build a solid foundation for you to improve, grow and enrich your life, personally and professionally.

You can actively involved in the self-assessments and exercises inside that will help you discover and develop keys for personal growth.

This book answers life’s challenges, including in the great recession times like today, focusing on the most important agent of changes that will revert today’s recession and any other personal problems you face - YOU.

One of my favourite parts of Steve’s exercise is the 30-day trials.

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Setting up a business is always fascinating for me, either off line or online. The fun, the thrill and the risk - all feels like extreme sports :)

One of the most challenging parts in setting up a business is knowing what people want and would expect from you.

Whether you like it or not, you need to survey your target market before you plunge your business into the local community - otherwise, it’s not a entrepreneurship - it’s gambling.

The conventional way (and still the most effective way) is market survey.

Fortunately, the Internet allows you to reach your market faster. Online surveys help you even more to do just that.

Why online survey?

You can conduct market research with an online survey service provider that offer you automated and accurate report generation. You can eliminate surveyor’s error in gathering and tabulating the data collected.

You can also cut cost - You don’t need to hire surveyors to do the survey. You probably want to hire online marketers (or go DIY) to distribute your online survey, though.

What online survey tool to choose from

You can always build the survey system yourself, but it would require resources that always involve time and money. So, in my opinion, you’d better be partnering with online survey provider to handle your market research.

There are actually plenty of online survey companies offering online survey tool for you.

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