Jessica Simpson: January 2011

Monday, January 24, 2011

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Making Money Without

Social Networks

According to Cisco, criminals are targeting social network users more aggressively. In particular, criminals are spending more time and effort trying to steal users' social networking credentials, since that makes it possible to exploit the trust of all that users' friends.

Although the exploitation of trust is crucial, Cisco predicts a decline in simple phishing and social networking scams. The company expects instead a rise exploits similar to the Zeus trojan, which steals banking credentials and propagates on social networks, mobile devices and more.

Social Engineering

Cisco warns of the "seven deadly weaknesses" exploited by social engineers:

Sex Appeal

Greed

Vanity

Trust

Sloth

Compassion

Urgency

Even the most savvy users can fall prey to social engineering. For example, Thomas Ryan of Provide Security created fake identity called "Robin Sage." Ryan was able to get hundreds of government officials and security professionals to friend this imaginary person on social networking sites and, as a result, share personal information with Ryan.

According to the report:

Clickthrough rates for most malware or spam incidents consistently hover at around 3 percent, according to data from Cisco ScanSafe. While 3 percent may not seem high, imagine the impact of repeated waves of spam to which 3 percent of workers consistently respond to and click on. Even this small percentage is the equivalent of having a gaping hole in the network firewall that cannot be closed. Instead of trying to change human behavior, security researchers are exploring the possibility of changing the way we use software to reduce risks.

Java: The New Number One Target

Java and PDF are both frequently exploited, but according to Cisco Java exploits rose last year and PDF exploits fell. Java surpassed PDF as the most commonly exploited technology.

Cybercrime in the Post-PC Era

According to the report, Windows has been so prevalent and so easy to exploit that there was no need for criminals to try to exploit other systems. However, the proliferation of other devices and OSes along with improved security in Windows 7 has changed that.

However, this move is happening slowly. A report from Forrester on security in the post-PC era notes that mobile device OSes are inherently more secure than desktop OSes due to sandboxing. This means that even jailbroken iPhones and rooted Android phones will be harder to compromise than older Windows PCs. However, social engineers can prey on anyone, regardless of the device they are using.

The Cloud: Friend or Foe?

The report cites the cloud as having both benefits and drawbacks for security. The drawback is that data can be intercepted while traveling between a server and the devices that access it. The advantage is that having data stored off-device makes it hard to extract sensitive information from lost or stolen devices.

Money Mules

The report has an interesting section on "money mules." Once a criminal has stolen a victim's bank account information, they need a way to get the money into their own accounts without getting caught. Money mules are people who transfer money from a victim's bank account to a criminal. One way to do this is to transfer money into the mule's account, then have the mule wire it via Western Union to the criminals overseas. The recipient of the wire from Western Union might not have to provide bank account information to receive the money, making them more difficult to trace.

Some mules are low-level criminals who participate for the money. Others are duped by work at home job ads. Students and people with large debts are often targets.

However, there's a shortage of mules. "Currently, the ratio of stolen account credentials to available mule capacity could be as high as 10,000 to 1," says the report.

Winners of the Cybercrime Showcase

Cisco highlights two winners in this year's "Cybercrime Showcase" - a "good" winner and an "evil" winner.

The Good winner is Thorsten Holz of the security firm LastLine. Holz identified the top 30 servers that the botnet Pushdo/Cutwail used for sending spam. Holz got ISPs to shutdown those servers and, as a result, the rate of spam decreased from 350 billion messages per day to 300 billion per day.

The Evil winner is Stuxnet, which we've covered frequently.

What, No Malvertising?

Surprisingly, there is no discussion of malvertising in the report. You can read our post "What You Need to Know About Malvertising" for more about this threat.

This occurred on a panel at a meeting of the Mortgage Bankers Association, where Platt appeared with Georgetown Law Professor Adam Levitin, who has been critical of MERS. I corresponded with Levitin, and this was an accurate rendering of Platt’s remarks.

“My response was that’s nonsense,” Levitin wrote in an email. “No one, absolutely no one, is arguing that a valid security agreement should not be enforced. Instead, the issue is whether we should enforce invalid security interests or let parties that do not hold a security interest enforce someone else’s. I hardly think that denying parties that right will result in a change in the cost of credit. It might result in them changing law firms, however, to ones that didn’t screw up their securitization deals.”

MERS, an electronic database created and funded by the banks to avoid land recording fees at county offices, has been criticized on multiple fronts. First of all, they don’t track the information inputted in the database, leading to inaccuracies between what appears in MERS and what appears on the note. Second, they stand in as the mortgagee and sell Vice Presidencies in their company when servicers attempt to foreclose, at the same time saying they have no financial interest in the loan. Third, banks using MERS failed to convey mortgages and notes properly, instead using this unregulated private system, and have broken chain of title in many circumstances, voiding their right to foreclose or even collect payments from a borrower.

Platt clearly wants to threaten the political system here. He’s saying that mortgage interest rates will skyrocket and constituents will become angered if the banks aren’t allowed to do what they want. That aims at a political settlement that stops the courts from making findings of the banks’ wrongdoing under the law. “If we want to have a well functioning credit system, we need to enforce security interests when they are done in compliance with the law, and not enforce them when they fail to comply,” Levitin wrote. “This is fundamental commercial law—you screw up on dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s in a security interest and you’re SOL. Everyone knows the rules of the game going in and there’s no reason to bailout sophisticated parties who failed to comply with the law.”

The notion that MERS saves the banks so much money that they can offer loans at multiple percentage points less than what they’d have to without it is extremely puzzling. “I don’t know of anyone who has argued that MERS lowered interest rates,” Levitin wrote. He estimated that the banks saved “maybe $50 per loan” using MERS, which certainly makes it worthwhile from their perspective, given the millions of loans on the system, but which makes the claim of massive savings to interest rates just foolish. “Of course, even if MERS lowers interest rates, we have to ask at what cost, and a screwed up title system is a pretty high cost for saving a few bps (basis points),” Levitin concluded.

Looking at this chart of mortgage rates from before and after MERS came into existence in 1995, you can see no evidentiary basis for the claim that MERS lowered interest rates; the mortgage lending rate basically tracks the prime interest rate.

At the root, this is a scare tactic. The banks don’t want to change their systems, and they certainly don’t want them found illegal. So they trot out corporate lawyers to make baseless charges that will be taken in Washington as conventional wisdom. And the politicians will scramble to make sure the inaccurate consequences never take place.

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Apple airs new 'two is better than one' iPhone spot | iLounge News

iLounge news discussing the Apple airs new 'two is better than one' iPhone spot. Find more iPhone news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

Last Night's Party: Club Monaco Courts Cool Kids With the Help of ...

Streetwalker � Would You Rather? Would You Wear � Your Bag � Careers � Internships � Jobs � People/Parties � People We Like � Parties � Shopping � Retail � Sales � Glossary. Posted in: Campaigns, News, People & Parties ...

Tucson Hero to Sit With Michelle Obama at State of the Union on ...

Polson Kanneth reports: Daniel Hernandez Jr., one of the heroes of the mass shooting in Tucson, Ariz., two weeks ago, tells ABC News that he will be sitting, along with his father, Daniel Hernandez Sr., with Michelle Obama at the.

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Apple airs new 'two is better than one' iPhone spot | iLounge News

iLounge news discussing the Apple airs new 'two is better than one' iPhone spot. Find more iPhone news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

Last Night's Party: Club Monaco Courts Cool Kids With the Help of ...

Tucson Hero to Sit With Michelle Obama at State of the Union on ...

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Apple airs new 'two is better than one' iPhone spot | iLounge News

iLounge news discussing the Apple airs new 'two is better than one' iPhone spot. Find more iPhone news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

Last Night's Party: Club Monaco Courts Cool Kids With the Help of ...

Tucson Hero to Sit With Michelle Obama at State of the Union on ...

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Apple airs new 'two is better than one' iPhone spot | iLounge News

iLounge news discussing the Apple airs new 'two is better than one' iPhone spot. Find more iPhone news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

Last Night's Party: Club Monaco Courts Cool Kids With the Help of ...

Tucson Hero to Sit With Michelle Obama at State of the Union on ...

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Apple airs new 'two is better than one' iPhone spot | iLounge News

iLounge news discussing the Apple airs new 'two is better than one' iPhone spot. Find more iPhone news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

Last Night's Party: Club Monaco Courts Cool Kids With the Help of ...

Tucson Hero to Sit With Michelle Obama at State of the Union on ...

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Apple airs new 'two is better than one' iPhone spot | iLounge News

iLounge news discussing the Apple airs new 'two is better than one' iPhone spot. Find more iPhone news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

Last Night's Party: Club Monaco Courts Cool Kids With the Help of ...

Tucson Hero to Sit With Michelle Obama at State of the Union on ...

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Apple airs new 'two is better than one' iPhone spot | iLounge News

iLounge news discussing the Apple airs new 'two is better than one' iPhone spot. Find more iPhone news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

Last Night's Party: Club Monaco Courts Cool Kids With the Help of ...

Tucson Hero to Sit With Michelle Obama at State of the Union on ...

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Apple airs new 'two is better than one' iPhone spot | iLounge News

iLounge news discussing the Apple airs new 'two is better than one' iPhone spot. Find more iPhone news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

Last Night's Party: Club Monaco Courts Cool Kids With the Help of ...

Tucson Hero to Sit With Michelle Obama at State of the Union on ...

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Apple airs new 'two is better than one' iPhone spot | iLounge News

iLounge news discussing the Apple airs new 'two is better than one' iPhone spot. Find more iPhone news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

Last Night's Party: Club Monaco Courts Cool Kids With the Help of ...

Tucson Hero to Sit With Michelle Obama at State of the Union on ...

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Apple airs new 'two is better than one' iPhone spot | iLounge News

iLounge news discussing the Apple airs new 'two is better than one' iPhone spot. Find more iPhone news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

Last Night's Party: Club Monaco Courts Cool Kids With the Help of ...

Tucson Hero to Sit With Michelle Obama at State of the Union on ...

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Apple airs new 'two is better than one' iPhone spot | iLounge News

iLounge news discussing the Apple airs new 'two is better than one' iPhone spot. Find more iPhone news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

Last Night's Party: Club Monaco Courts Cool Kids With the Help of ...

Tucson Hero to Sit With Michelle Obama at State of the Union on ...

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Apple airs new 'two is better than one' iPhone spot | iLounge News

iLounge news discussing the Apple airs new 'two is better than one' iPhone spot. Find more iPhone news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

Last Night's Party: Club Monaco Courts Cool Kids With the Help of ...

Tucson Hero to Sit With Michelle Obama at State of the Union on ...

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Apple airs new 'two is better than one' iPhone spot | iLounge News

iLounge news discussing the Apple airs new 'two is better than one' iPhone spot. Find more iPhone news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

Last Night's Party: Club Monaco Courts Cool Kids With the Help of ...

Tucson Hero to Sit With Michelle Obama at State of the Union on ...

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Apple airs new 'two is better than one' iPhone spot | iLounge News

iLounge news discussing the Apple airs new 'two is better than one' iPhone spot. Find more iPhone news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

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Tucson Hero to Sit With Michelle Obama at State of the Union on ...

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Making Easy Money

Last night just before 12 a.m., Twitter began exploding with the news: Facebook had raised $500 million — from Goldman Sachs. Bolstered by a $50-million stake from Russia’s Digital Sky Technologies, a previous FB investor, the Wall Street behemoth had slapped down $450 million to snag the Internet behemoth — now valued at a cool $50 billion. As if on cue, the internet noted that yes, that was cooler than a million dollars.

Notes the NYT’s Dealbook, which broke the scoop: this makes Facebook “worth more than companies like eBay, Yahoo and Time Warner.” It also doubles Mark Zuckerberg’s multi-billion-dollar worth. It also makes Goldman Sachs the gatekeeper to who now gets to invest in the super-hot Facebook, and to the inevitable Facebook IPO. According to Dealbook’s Andrew Ross Sorkin and Evelyn Rusli, Goldman is “planning to create a ’special purpose vehicle’ to allow its high-net worth clients to invest in Facebook, which would allow for max investment while circumventing disclosure rules for companies with 500 or more investors. Clever, that.

So: This is a big deal. Everyone’s already saying that this is putting Google even more on the ropes (seeing as now Facebook is the most visited website in the land) and that Goldman couldn’t be sitting prettier. Here are a few other things it means:

(1) Facebook hiring spree! To paraphrase Antoine Dodson, hide your startups, hide your engineers — Facebook’s a-comin’. Snapping up Hot Potato and Drop.io? Poaching Foursquare’s Nathan Folkman? That’s nothing compared to what Facebook’s got coming. Rumor has it they’re about to close on purchasing the Sun Microsystems campus in Menlo Park from Oracle. That’s probably not just for the scenery. They want to stock up, preferably with talent – and, importantly, companies – that will help it integrate across every platform possible. (I’m guessing one of the new buzzy photo apps will be snapped up.) If you think people are complaining about a developer shortage now, just wait.

(2) China! Mark Zuckerberg recently returned from a trip to China. Innocent pleasure jaunt for the Mandarin-speaking Facebook founder or connection-making relationship-building fact-finding mission to the land of 450 million potential users? China is certainly not an easy place to do business — they just kicked out Skype — but in a globalized, connected world, it’s certainly tough to ignore. Approximately 33% of its massive population is online and as we all know from the rest of the world, that is growing. It’s an insane market to ignore and smart, Mandarin-speaking audacious visionary CEOs probably aren’t going to shy away from trying. Facebook China. It’s gonna happen.

(3) Goldman’s PR Whitewash The Vampire Squid just attached itself to the buzziest, growing-est, Oscar-nominated-est, Person Of The Year-iest tech company around. Who will remember their year of scandal and record bonuses and how everyone hated Goldman Sachs (sample Gawker headline: “Who do you hate more, BP or Goldman Sachs?“). Goldman’s not there for you to like them, people, they’re there to make money — lots of it. But they did have a bruising year and being attached to the shining future-makers at Facebook (never mind the gatekeeper to the Facebook IPO) will certainly help. This lets them offer something shiny to their clients, and bask in that reflected glow. (And guaranteed cashola.) That doesn’t fool the people who know — I like Howard Lindzon’s take:

For Goldman Sachs, this is a no lose situation. If it works, they get the IPO and make some money. That is their job. They got off so easy with the government that this is like Vegas money they probably thought would be the taxpayer’s at some point a year back…The only thing I DO know is that Goldman could give a rat’s ass about the social web and sharing. If they are the top in social web, it’s small potatoes. The war in bonds, currencies and commodities is where the real money is at. This is play money. I hate that Facebook is letting them in.

This is not a coup for Goldman Sachs, this is a shame for the social web.

Okay I lied. I love Howard Lindzon’s take. So, maybe Goldman’s got an uphill PR sell. But — they’ve also got Facebook. Watch the narrative change.

(4) Bigger Players, Bigger Bets When Lindzon points out that this is small potatoes for Goldman, he’s not kidding. But now the bigger fish are sniffing around and what started as mutterings about a bubble somewhere in the late fall now seems to be turning into a gold rush. (Doesn’t Google and their adorable $6 billion offer for Groupon seem so quaint right now? Never mind Twitter’s recent $3.7 billion valuation.) These are billion-dollar figures, and they are actually now starting to sound…eensy. As Ray Kurzweil points out, when technology advances it does so exponentially — so it makes sense that the explosion of tech startups would chicken-egg in conjunction with an explosion of investor dollars — not just the usual (and educated!) suspects, but people on the sidelines reading about Facebook in their Time magazines and deciding that maybe the Internet’s not a fad, after all. (Yes. These people do exist, and many of them have a LOT of money.) High valuations, big deals, young companies getting scooped up — it’s gonna be a dizzying year.

(5) Sympathy For The Google. It’s official: Facebook has gone from underdog challenger of the mighty Google to the top social-tech dog. So watch for everyone to start rooting for Google again. After a wave of backlash (see here and here), the pendulum will swing back around to rooting for the loveable search giant with the cuddly name. Google can take your pity – its market valuation is almost four times Facebook’s at $190 billion, and its current year revenue is about $22 billion to Facebook’s $2 billion. Back to Lindzon: “I think that Google has to buy Twitter and that will start to be a meme soon. It’s a chess game and nuclear war now in the social space.” That sound you hear is the sound of the tech press collectively wetting itself. Ew. But still — everyone likes to root for an exciting matchup. Expect to see some bold moves from Google, soon — if they’re smart. Big “if” (RIP Google Buzz). But isn’t that how underdogs like it?

(6) New Facebook Ad Models. All that said…Facebook has made a big point about how it hasn’t really focused on the silliness of “making money” yet, despite that $2 billion annual rev and nearly 1 trillion display ads per year. I believe them — can they really not do better than targeted ads for Jewish singles in your area? You bet they can: They also make a point about knowing every little bit of information about you for the ultimate in micro-targeting. The online ad industry is evolving and innovating right along with the rest of the web (see AdKeeper) and the key to dominating going forward will be data — using it wisely to convert your users into dollars for advertisers. This is where smart technology will take user data and figure out how to map it on top of shopping data, so that purchasing intent can best be harvested. The stigma about buying online has now pretty much disappeared. With more people using the web, and mobile devices, more often do run more of their lives, there are big bucks at stake. And I’m not even TALKING about how Facebook is looking to horn in on search.

(7) New Facebook Business Models. They have all these users. All this data. They’d be crazy just to stick with what they’ve got. Hell, now they’ve got fun money just to fling up into the air and see where it goes. They’re poaching the best and brightest who all gush on and on about how “exciting” and “creative” and “free” it is. Clearly these people are getting to work on some fun stuff. So far Facebook has shown itself as adept at replicating the innovations of its competitors (see: Foursquare –> Facebook Places). But with all the resources at their disposal and innovations happening across every industry on every platform, they’d be nuts not to at least test the waters. Hey, that car’s not gonna drive itself. Oh, wait.

(8) People Generally Freaking Out This has already started to happen. First Groupon (“What? But they AREN’T EVEN A TECH COMPANY!!!”) and now Super-Sized Facebook. Entrepreneurs and founders and people with fledgling ideas that are half-built that they’ve been slaving over at night are obsessing about all day are suddenly freaking out that they have to get to market NOW before the bubble pops and the money dries up. Chill out, dude. (And, ladies!) If you’re making something of value, it’ll take. Just focus on it, be smart, and don’t let Twitter and TechCrunch freak you out. (Here, take some advice from these people.) Just a moment of Zen amidst the craziness. All right, now – onward! It’s 2011 and YOU’D BETTER NOT SCREW THIS UP. Haa, just kidding. Mostly.

Well: It should be interesting. Happy New Year, everybody!

Related:

Goldman’s Facebook Coup [Felix Salmon - Reuters]

The Social Web Index … All-Time Highs in Pressure and Price and Shame on Facebook [Howard Lindzon]

Was Goldman wise to invest $500m in Facebook at a $50B valuation? [Quora]

Goldman Sachs Just Bought The Facebook IPO [Business Insider]

Follow Rachel Sklar on Twitter here.

Illustration of Mark Zuckerberg as Avatar-ized Time Person of the Year from Sandbox World (via Boing Boing) (hat tip: Bnter).

“We wanted to be the Bose of the digital world,” Cullen said. But in order to do that, the Sonos crew had to figure out how to make a product that was easy to use and could deliver a sound quality that audiophiles and those listening to MP3s would appreciate (as an aside for digital music junkies, Cullen says he stores his audio files as 320 kbps MP3 files). Improvement is ongoing, with the latest advancements being the way it built its S5 boombox-style device. Sonos, not longer content to shuttle bits around the home network through a proprietary wireless system, designed a new speaker for the S5 that digitally controls the output from the different parts of the speaker.

An advantage of this is that the S5 sounds the way most consumers prefer their speakers to sound (at least according to the gurus at Lucas Arts who vetted the sound quality for Sonos) and that the speaker profile can be changed via a DSP programmer tweaking the settings. Expect those advances to be seen in future Sonos products. Cullen also notes that the home audio market is the focus today, but people listen to music in other places, such as in their cars or via headphones — an area Sonos will one day explore. As it does, it’s staying focused on providing the best sound for digital music and continuing to refine the way it builds its products in the service of that goal.

Lesson#2: Consider Usability Before You Build

It took the guys at Sonos a few months to build their first prototype, and at the end, they were left with a product only a geek could love. Realizing this, they sought help from a usability expert, who told them they didn’t need a usability expert until much later in their process. What they needed was an industrial designer who could get in early and help them build the hardware and software with an eye toward the consumer. The team eventually hired Meiko Mieko Kusano, a designer for Phillips, who told them, “Usability is in the bones of the product, not the skin.” Cullen still credits that mentality with Sonos’ success.

“Most consumer electronics companies build out hardware and then add software to update it and change their designs every 18 months. We turned that on its head, building hardware that will last and software that we can update whenever we need to in order to improve the experience.” Cullen credits that shift to Kusano, and offers up Sonos’ Zone Player products as an example. “You should be able to stream music over that for the next 15 years.”

Lesson#3: Don’t Be Afraid to Cannibalize Yourself

That long-term vision for the hardware is part of the success of the Sonos platform, but the other is the philosophy the company has about working with partners and even introducing new products to expand its base. When it launched, a Sonos system could run a user about $99 for a wireless router, another $350 to $500 or so for something that picks up that signal and connects to speakers in one room (each room would need another of these), and a special controller for about $350 to drive the system. But in 2008, Sonos released a free app for the iPod that mimicked the functionality of the controller and thus brought down the cost of the system. Sales surged. The loss in controller revenue was more than offset by sales of the new system, Cullen said.

It now has a free app for the iPad, and as mentioned earlier, Cullen says support for other platforms will come. But last year, Sonos introduced a much more disruptive product: its S5 boombox. For $400, the S5 has speakers and allows someone to create a Sonos network with the addition of a Zone Bridge for $99. The launch of that product has changed the profile for Sonos, moving it out of the specialty market and into the mainstream. At the time of this writing, items No. 3 and No. 6 on Best Buy’s Top 10 bestselling wireless and streaming audio products were S5s. However, Sonos’ S5 cracked the top 100 of Amazon’s Bestsellers in Home Audio & Theater Products list at No. 73, behind rivals Logitech and Bose. But Cullen says the fear of cannibalizing sales of its more expensive gear hasn’t been realized; instead people buy an S5, then tend to add more onto their networks.

Lesson #4: A True Platform Doesn’t Pick Winners

As a platform, Sonos plans to release a breadth of hardware and software to ensure a better digital music experience, but it also extends that to partnerships it signs with music providers. Sonos currently supports Spotify in the U.K. and Scandinavia, and that partnership alone has enabled it to boost sales of its system in those countries by a non trivial amount. In the U.S., a partnership with Pandora has had a smaller but still noticeable affect on sales as well. Cullen said Spotify and other some partners have offered to pay Sonos for providing access to their content to Sonos users, but Sonos doesn’t play that game. “We don’t take revenue from people,” Cullen said. “We don’t want any incentives to guide our behavior rather than the user choosing what they want to listen to. We don’t want to be picking winners and losers.”

So far, Sonos’ strategy is working. The company has now raised $65 million,and while Cullen wouldn’t discuss IPO plans, he says the company has been approached by buyers. However, the $15 billion home audio market beckons, and Sonos believes it has learned how to play the game well and can take the disruption provided by digital music and home networks to give the industry giants a run for their money.

Related GigaOM Pro Content (sub req’d):

Will Sonos Ever Be the Next Big Thing?

5 Connected Consumer Companies to Watch in 2011

Connected Consumer 2011: Rise of the Virtual Video Operator

Source:http://removeripoffreports.net/

Movie News Quick Hits: First 'Spider-Man' Action Shots and More ...

Darth Vader's other son from another mother [via GeekTyrant]-- A simple post on the official Tumblr for Rian Johnson's time travel movie 'Looper'

Soap News: 'AMC's' Debbi Morgan Has Lyme Disease and More

A few weeks ago we reported that 'All My Children's' award-winning actress Debbi Morgan would be taking some time off from the soap. This week.

Arnold Schwarzenegger set to make Hollywood comeback as a nice ...

Look out, Hollywood. Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has a warning for.

Friday, January 14, 2011

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President Obama's dramatic news at last night's memorial service in Tucson that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' has just minutes before opened her left eye for the first time since the shooting has created some confusion in light of news from ...

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Small Business News: Building Better Strategy

Building a better strategy should be the constant goal of every small business owner and entrepreneur. Think your business is running as well as it can, has.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Making Money Online Easy

I've been working in the IT/Internet field since the pre-Google era, so it's been a number of years now. It's been a rough ride of ups and downs, but a great one. Being constantly on the internet, I've always wanted to do something extra, apart from my full time job.

I've tried a million different things and had truckloads of ideas on how to make money online. Forums this, blog that, advert here and advert there, but they all failed. I've read gazillions of documentations, watched hours and hours of presentations about how to make money online — how easy it is to work from home and make over $10,000 a month. Really? Well you want my opinion? Screw all that and do it your own way because YOU LIKE WHAT YOU ARE DOING.

Look at the history of most companies, giant corporations of today, especially the online ones such as Google, Twitter, Facebook and many others. They all started as a hobby, as a project, and never specifically to make money out of the idea. All the founders of the above mentioned companies, believed so much in their idea, that they dedicated their life to building it. It is not a matter of luck that they are who they are today, but it is sheer determination and good ideas. Money is a secondary thing; it's the result of what you've done. I never used to believe this but now I do believe it, been there, done that.

As I specified above, I've tried a million types of online ideas and website, but they all failed because I specifically wanted to make extra money. Thought there was only one thing that I really liked and loved, and never gave it a shot, music! It was always my dream to have the time to discover new bands, to have all their original CDs and albums, and if possible get in touch with them.

He tells you that negative remarks posted online have the effect of impacting on profitability of the company.

Who is right and who is wrong? You can argue with your boss until the cow comes home. However, you cannot argue with the fact that your boss has the right to terminate your service.

It does not matter whether he terminates your service or dismisses you from work. The fact is that your casual remarks are costly.

It costs you the job.

That is why you must think carefully before you post anything bad about the company online.

It is especially important that you do not accidentally reveal customers details. That will definitely violate confidentiality clause.

Even the remark that your company is losing the account of the most important customer can land you in trouble.

If you want to complain about your boss, do so in the privacy of your house. Nobody will hear about it except your immediate family and your pet.

Words will not get into the ears of your boss. He cannot print out the statement, and uses it to fire you.

Internet does not invade your privacy, unless you willingly give information out to the world at large.

Be careful what you say about your work, your company and your supervisor.

Never let the casual remarks in Facebook or other social networking websites get you into trouble.

About me:

Scheng1 is a passionate blogger from Singapore.

Rich in every sense reveals my deep desire in enjoying life, and be rich in every possible ways. Personal Finance

is about money, from making money to investing money

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Obama's Tucson Speech Fails To Accommodate Cable News's Attention ...

Did you watch the memorial service in Tucson last night? It sure seemed to me to be a cavalcade of statemanship -- presidents of nations and universities and student bodies, governors new and old, political figures ...

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

The first impressions in light of President Obama's speech at tonight's memorial for the victims of the Arizona shooting, and, at least on Fox News, the reviews are overwhelming positive. Charles Krauthammer ...

Giffords' Eye Opening News - Political Punch

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Obama's Tucson Speech Fails To Accommodate Cable News's Attention ...

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

Giffords' Eye Opening News - Political Punch

Obama's Tucson Speech Fails To Accommodate Cable News's Attention ...

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

Giffords' Eye Opening News - Political Punch

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Obama's Tucson Speech Fails To Accommodate Cable News's Attention ...

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

Giffords' Eye Opening News - Political Punch

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Obama's Tucson Speech Fails To Accommodate Cable News's Attention ...

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

Giffords' Eye Opening News - Political Punch

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Obama's Tucson Speech Fails To Accommodate Cable News's Attention ...

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

Giffords' Eye Opening News - Political Punch

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Obama's Tucson Speech Fails To Accommodate Cable News's Attention ...

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

Giffords' Eye Opening News - Political Punch

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Obama's Tucson Speech Fails To Accommodate Cable News's Attention ...

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

Giffords' Eye Opening News - Political Punch

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Obama's Tucson Speech Fails To Accommodate Cable News's Attention ...

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

Giffords' Eye Opening News - Political Punch

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Obama's Tucson Speech Fails To Accommodate Cable News's Attention ...

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

Giffords' Eye Opening News - Political Punch

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Obama's Tucson Speech Fails To Accommodate Cable News's Attention ...

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

Giffords' Eye Opening News - Political Punch

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Obama's Tucson Speech Fails To Accommodate Cable News's Attention ...

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

Giffords' Eye Opening News - Political Punch

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Obama's Tucson Speech Fails To Accommodate Cable News's Attention ...

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

Giffords' Eye Opening News - Political Punch

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Obama's Tucson Speech Fails To Accommodate Cable News's Attention ...

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

Giffords' Eye Opening News - Political Punch

Monday, January 10, 2011

Making Money Ebay

In 1995 I remember waiting in lines to buy Windows 95. It effectively ended the design lead Apple had for 11 years in personal computers.

From then on Microsoft had both the thought leadership and the market share. Apple ended up with less than 10% market share. Microsoft had most of the rest.

Lots of people think that Apple could repeat 1995 in 2011. This time with iOS instead of Macintosh OS and with Google in the place of Microsoft.

We forget one little thing: 1995 was different.

Here’s how.

In 1995 Microsoft had a HUGE marketshare lead with DOS. That meant it had a huge army of developers who didn’t want to switch over to Apple’s system, which they saw as very closed and inflexible. I remember developers coming into the consumer electronics store I helped run in the 1980s and they’d complain bitterly about Apple’s policies (Apple was far less flexible back then than it is today and forced developers to fit into a “look and feel” set of guidelines).

But I look at who is making money. Back in 1995 developers were mostly making money from DOS. Remember, this caused WordPerfect and Borland to make bad bets. They bet on DOS for too long, while Bill Gates went and built some of the first and best Macintosh apps. The lesson, though, doesn’t pass from 1995 to 2011. Today where are most of the developers making their money? iOS (according to Sephora, Starbucks, OpenTable, eBay, and many other developers). So, Android has to convince developers to switch, or do both platforms at same time. That’s quite different.

Plus, back in 1995, who owned the best distribution and supply chains? Microsoft did. Today? Apple does. Apple didn’t have stores back in 1995 which will ensure its products get seen in the marketplace. Back then Microsoft could outspend Apple for shelf space at Frys and other retailers. Plus, Microsoft’s model of having many OEMs building hardware for its OS was far superior to Apple’s approach. Today that’s not really true, because the OEMs aren’t really able to bring that much value to the table and Apple has the best supply chains in China locked up (I visited one of them about two years ago and keep in touch with the folks there and that’s still the case). So, it’s not very likely that a Google phone will ship with better screens or better materials. At least not in volume. That is a huge difference from 1995 to today.

Other differences? Apple has outspent Microsoft on Advertising around the world. Look at this picture. It’s in Paris subway. Apple bought every square inch of advertising space (it bought the entire subway system’s advertising space, it seemed, iPad ads were plastered down the entire trackway). Google isn’t able to get its message there. That didn’t happen in 1995. Remember how dominant Microsoft’s advertising was back then? Microsoft even convinced the Empire State Building to change its colors that evening.

Let’s go back to how closed Apple is. Most apps this month got approved in less than a week. Some even got approved in less than four days. During the Christmas rush. Is this as good as Android’s (you can ship in minutes) policy? No. But, on the other hand, there are quality controls which consumers appreciate. The apps — overall — ARE better on iOS than on Android. Just check out TweetDeck. It crashes every few minutes on my Android phone. Twitter isn’t nearly as nice. Facebook isn’t as nice. And most apps aren’t as well designed, nor crash resistant, as on iOS.

I am sensing a switch, though. Fred Wilson is leading the charge. But other developers are grumbling about Apple and want there to be an alternative and they are all comparing notes with each other. “How’s Angry Birds doing with its advertising-only Android apps?” they ask. Very well, the answer comes back. So that means more developers will take the bet on Android, but so far I haven’t seen many go “Android only.” Why not? Because they know most of the PR comes from journalists who use mostly iOS devices and most of the best users are on iOS devices too (Sephora’s lead mobile developer told me 80% of the users who pull out a mobile phone in her stores are using iOS, that is echoed by nearly every developer I talk with). Even Swype, which has been kept from delivering their keyboard on iOS devices showed me a prototype of it running on an iPad and the inventor whispered “if Steve Jobs wants to talk, we’d love to ship this on iOS.”

So, when someone says that Apple is repeating the mistakes of 1995 (yes, I’ve been guilty of saying that in the past couple of years too) you should tell them that 2011 is not even close to the same set of conditions as 1995 has.

The Middle East’s largest online auction and buying site has decided auctions are so last decade.

From the beginning of 2011 sellers won’t get the option to sell their products in an auction. It’s fixed price, or none at all.

The decision comes as a shock to many as Souq.com, which opened its doors to the public in 2005 and has since launched in 5 countries in the region, has always been portrayed as the eBay of the Middle East. At least in terms of online auctions, not anymore.

“We (and most of our sellers) want to offer the best online shopping experience to users in the region, and this is one step along the way to support this goal.” said CEO and Founder of Souq.com Ronaldo Mouchawar in an email about the recent shift.

This change, as most in life, will have its supporters and detractors. The good thing is, it looks like a only slim minority might end up annoyed.

To illustrate the above, lets say you’re a painter and you work from home during your spare time. I’m one of those who believe art has no price, but since it’s good to have paint to create priceless masterpieces, putting the occasional price tag on your work isn’t entirely evil. The only problem with that is how do you put a price tag on art in the first place? Van Gough considered giving money for art is as important as being an artist yourself. That’s where auctions come in strong.

By putting up a painting to sell through an auction, the seller allows the highest bidder to give her as much it takes to win the auction, or otherwise ask to ‘Buy Now’ according to a price the seller sets. Will this shift be good for those who realistically don’t know how much their work is worth? I would say no.

On the flip-side regional retail stores tend to invest large amounts of money to put their products online on their own, and usually fail miserably. Many factors come into play, but the most obvious are a large user base and an easy to use website to buy from.

This encouraged Souq.com to build a platform for merchants and retail stores to offer their products on Souq through fixed prices (almost all the time), and through Souq Stores which are customizable online outlets for retailers such as UAE’s
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