Sometimes the Internet can open up whole new markets for you. I had the opportunity to talk to a gentleman who runs a small  company that provides hand’s-on training for specialized industrial equipment. He sets up training classes all over the country. About 3 months ago he decided to jump into web based training. He hired a company to  make high quality  training videos, and a programmer to initially setup his site. He priced his classes at a very low price point, and after just one month of being live, he is thrilled with the outcome. In that time he has gotten more new customers than he gets in 4 months for his traditional classes. He told me that he has been able to reach a whole new demographic of customers, (younger, more computer literate). Because of his low price point (under $50.00), if his customers can’t get their employers to pay for the class, many are willing to pay out of their own pockets.

What’s the moral of this story–If you have a business that’s not web based, stop, look around, and see if you can expand  your business with web based technology. Technology that was very expensive just 5 years ago is now very affordable. Technologies like web 2.0, cloud computing, and video are high quality and easily within reach of almost any business. Take a few minutes today and think about what you could do for your business, and then see if you can make it happen. Its probably cheaper and easier then you could ever imagine.

According to a one research study I read about recently, nearly 40% of small business do not have a website. If you are one of these businesses you are invisible to the nearly 220 million US Internet users. It’s like having a retail store with no sign, your ARE loosing potential business. Keep in mind that my Grandmother’s 85 year old boyfriend has figured out how to look thinks up on Google, so there are a lot more potential customers on the web then you might think. You need something, it doesn’t have to be large, expensive, or complicated, but you do need something. (Understand that having a website doesn’t mean you will be found — that involves advertising and specialized site design, but not having a site 100% guarantees that you won’t be found!)

Other than presence on the web, what are some of the advantages of having a website?

• It makes your company appear more legitimate.
• You can use your web address on marketing materials and advertising to point people to more information about your company.
• If you start listing your business in on-line directories, you can point to your site for more information.
• Someday (soon) the yellow pages will go away.

What do you do next?

1. Register a domain name. If at all possible get a .com, but .biz addresses are good too.

2. Find a web host. Microsoft Office Live will host your site for free  (yes, free). They also have templates you can use to build the site.  Currently I use GoDaddy.com‡ for my site and blog.

3. Design your site. Most hosting companies offer either free or paid packages to help you design your site.

(By the way,  when you setup your hosting, you can usually setup an email address that uses your domain name. Do that. Nothing screams ‘fly-by-night’ more than an @hotmail, @gmail, @aol, or @yahoo address for a business)

If you don’t want to do it yourself, hire someone to do it for you (like my company‡), it won’t be that expensive, and it will be worth it in the long run.

Resources

Solutions4Tech for for Website Design (Thats me!)‡

GoDaddy.com for domain registration and hosting‡

Microsoft Office Live

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”.