One great thing about the Internet is the wide variety of information that is available at your fingertips. The bad thing is that anybody can publish anything (look at me), so you have to make sure that the the site has something of real value, and is not just a rehash of old dated information.  On the subject of marketing, there are two sites that I feel would be valuable to ANY small business owner. These sites consistently provide quality, timely, and useful information.

(OK, this site is called Irunabiz:Technology, and these sites are about marketing, so how do I justify this post. First, They are on the Internet, that’s technology, isn’t it? Second, sometimes they talk about technology subjects like Twitter and Facebook. Third, this is my blog and I can write about anything I want to, so there!)

• Copyblogger. While ‘blogger’ is in the name, this site is about a lot more than blogging. Its about good writing, with a focus on persuasive, and engaging copy. I pick up great tips almost every time I go to it.  It’s also organized very well, so it’s easy to get lots of information on a specific subject.

• The Duct Tape Marketing Blog. This blog is written by John Jantsch (who also has  books and related media on this subject). His blog has a lot of cutting edge information on marketing in general with a focus, lately, on Internet and social media marketing. I think I have referenced material from his blog more than any other. He is well worth reading regularly.

Take some time to let me know about any site you think are worthwhile below.

Related Posts

• Figuring out Twitter when you can barely figure out email.
• Fast Read: Sales and Marketing

I’ve posted a couple of articles(here and here ) about how some major  ISPs (ATT and COMCAST) are piloting usage based Internet access, and it got me to thinking of the possible impacts this could have on how the Internet is used in the future.

1. Everyone will pay more.  (I guess this is kind of obvious). Even if there is an unlimited plan its going be more than what we are paying now. (Look at wireless phone service plans as an example.)

2. People will finally secure their WI-FI networks since they won’t want to pay for their neighbors surfing.

3. No more free WI-FI hotspots at coffee shops and hotels.

4. Large ISPs will partner with various bandwidth heavy sites/apps  (Video,Backup) to  provide services that are ‘exempt’ from usage charges.

5. There will be less video/multimedia on the web.

6. Alternate connection methods that provide unlimited access will see an upsurge (WI-MAX,Satellite, 2nd Tier DSL).

7. There will be less “cloud” computing apps for small business and home users.

8. Google will come up with a low bandwidth items search options.

9. People will be downloading less ‘free’ software to try out. (This may help the Post Office since it may be cheaper to mail a CD/DVD than download, and the Post Office needs help.)

10. Plain-text email will make a comeback.

Those are some of my predictions, what do you think ?

Beware, the Internet may be getting much more expensive:

Time Warner Cable Expands Internet Usage Pricing

There are two major free Office Suite Zoho Office (zoho.com) and Google Documents (docs.google.com) that I am aware of.  Both are competent suites but they have limited functionality. Google Documents includes a word Processor, spreadsheet and presentation application.  Zoho has the same as well as a number of other applications including an organizer, invoices, and CRM. The office applications are free but some of their other applications are subscription based.

Having worked extensively with the Google Applications, my general feeling is that it is good for basic word processing and spreadsheets, but if you are interested in slightly more sophisticated formatting, you will be disappointed.   Google Does not allow you to create columns, and embedded table formatting is quite limited. 

I’ve looked at Zoho as well, and tried some basic formatting on it as well and came to the same conclusion. While the tables have more formatting options, it also doesn’t support columns. Overall, I think that Zoho has better features than google, and its worth a look.

While I don’t do the most sophisticated formatting on my documents, I do like to have a certain level of features,  and I don’t feel that either of these free suites will suite meet my needs. If you choose to use them for your primary office application make sure that they will do what you need before you throw away your PC based software. I think I’ll stick with OpenOffice for now.

If you know of any other suites, please feel free to let me know in the comments.

This is the third post in my series on Cloud Computing. Click here for the introduction and index.

Email is the obvious place to start with cloud apps because its both one of the oldest cloud based applications, and because its one of the most common. Almost every email provider has a web based email program, so its pretty easy to get your mail on the web. the problem with most of those web based applications is that they only allow you to read one email account at at time. Since I have personal email address, a business email address, a blog email address, and an email address that only my in-laws use, I don’t want to be going 4 different places each time I check my email.  PC based email programs like Outlook Express, and Mozilla Thunderbird let you pull and send from different accounts in the same program, I want to be able to do this on the web too.

This is the second post in my series on Cloud Computing. Click here for the introduction and index.

Updated 12/17/08 with a ‘Good’ item I forgot– Sharing Data.

OK now that I bored you theory in my last post, I’ll finally give you something mildly worthwhile.

The Good

• You can use less than state of the art hardware since all you are running is a web browser.
• There are lot of free apps.
• You don’t have to update your programs.
• You can work anywhere you have an Internet connection, on any computer.
• You data is backed up on the provider’s server so you don’t have to worry about hardware crashes.
• You can share data easily with others

The Bad

• No Internet, no work.
• Many Internet based applications  don’t have all of the features of comparable pc based applications.
• You have to remember lots of logins and passwords

The Ugly

• If your application provider goes out of business your data goes with them.
• Bad guys don’t need access to your computer to try to access your data.
• If someone gets your password, they have your data (at least for that application, if you don’t use the same password everywhere!!)

This is the first post in my series on Cloud Computing. Click here for the introduction and index.

What is cloud computing?

Cloud computing describes computing where the Internet and Internet technology is a major portion of  an application. Examples of Cloud Computing include Web Mail programs, like Gmail, and photo sharing applications like Photobucket. Typically cloud computing only requires a web browser on the users’ computer, and an Internet connection.

Why is it called cloud Computing ?

Cloud computing got it name because about 15 years ago when people created diagrams of network connections they decided to make the Internet look like a cloud. (Don’t know why, but its always been that way.–they could have used a mushroom and called it mushroom computing…much more interesting.)

Why would you want use cloud computing

With cloud computing you don’t have invest in top of the line hardware to run sophisticated programs, the powerfull hardware is on on the server. All you need is a computer with a web browser, and an Internet connection. There are many applications that are free, and other applications can be used via subscription and may be more cost effective than purchasing an application for your PC . (This pay as you go method of prvoiding sofware is sometimes called Software as a Service or SaaS.) You also don’t have worry about updating your software and your data is stored on the server so you don’t have to worry about a PC crash destroying your data.

How about a picture of cloud computing ?

Cloud Diagram

What if I want to see real pictures of clouds ? 

Click here

How about a Cloud Computing Haiku ?

Why clouds and not rain/Rain makes the computer wet/Clouds block the sun’s glare 

Cloud computing sounds great so far.. but wait for  my next post where I talk about the advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing. (Storm clouds on the horizon perhaps.)

My Data’s up in a cloud, of that fact I may be proud.
You may or may not become wowed , but this info I shall shout aloud. 

I’ve always wanted to able to sit at any computer anywhere, whether at home or on the road, and be able to run my business with no worries about hardware or or software. Over the past few years the internet has grown to the point where this just may be possible for a small business owner. Among tech geeks, running your software over the internet  is known as cloud computing. If you’ve  ever used a web mail program like Hotmail, Google Mail, Yahoo mail, or AOL mail, you’ve already been computing in the “cloud”. 

I have started a few small business in my lifetime. Currently I am running a part-time home based business business that consists of this blog and a consulting business. Since this blog is about getting value from technology in a small business, I want to show you how I use technology to run my business better. 

Starting the business

Instead of paying a company to incorporate my LLC, I got on to the Georgia Secretary of State’s website, printed the forms and followed their directions to incorporate my LLC. This saved me about $100 in fees from a registration website. It may be worth your while to get to your states website and see if you can do this yourself. (I think you can only do this yourself if you register your corp. in the state you live in, but I’m not a lawyer and this isn’t legal advice.)

Internet and hosting

I use ATT DSL (So there’s no money saved there ). I registered my sites with GoDaddy.com‡ They usually have a good deals on website registration. While there are some free web hosting services, I also use GoDaddy‡ for my web hosting. They are very reputable, and since a good deal of my business comes from the web, it worth paying for hosting. GoDaddy has applications that you can install for free on its paid hosted sites, and I use a one of those, a blogging platform called WordPress  (So I didn’t pay for that at least). In any case I have  2 websites for less than  $120 per year  including annual registrations and monthly hosting fees. (Thats about $10/month !!!.)

Applications

I use both OpenOffice.org (a free MS office like office suite you install on your computer) and Google Docs for my Wordprocessing and Spreadsheet needs. Since both are free is saves hundreds ($250) compared to shelling out the big bucks for MS Office. For email I use Google mail (gmail). It allows me to consolodate my 5 email addressed (blog, consulting, 2 personal addresses, and one address that only my inlaws use) into a single location. Its easy to use and pretty robust for a web based email client

I do pay for my accounting software. I use Quicken Home And Business. But to save money I don’t upgrade it each year, I take about two and a half years between upgrades. I strongly belive that if it works, there’s no reason to upgrade (if you have to pay). I upgraded this last time becase they said that they were shuttng off my online bank access.

I think that, on average I have saved about $400 over the life of my business by making smart technolgy choices. 

I’m thinking of moving entirely to “the cloud” sometime soon so I’ll probably let you know how that goes.