about internet marketing

There’s been a surge of messages to us asking us to please write about and expose Spokeo, a company that collects and then sells your personal information. Mostly this is from all the mainstream press the service has been getting. Alarming stuff. “Please expose this like you did with ScamVille,” read one message.

Here’s the deal. There’s absolutely nothing you or I can do about it.

Data laws are so lax in the U.S. that companies can do this sort of thing quite legally. Heck, even the WSJ, which got all worked up over cookies on Facebook apps, couldn’t say much bad about Spokeo. You’d think they were sister companies or something.

In 2006 I ranted about Jigsaw, a company that basically does the same thing as Spokeo. What happened next? Did they cower in shame and disappear from the Internet? No, they raised a $12 million round. And then last year SalesCrunch…er…Salesforce, bought them for $142 million.

Yeah, we sure showed them.

Look, the kind of person who starts a company like Spokeo isn’t the kind of person who really cares about bad press. It’s just a bunch of free marketing.

What angers me, but doesn’t really surprise me, is that the Better Business Bureau (click the link if you actually think they serve consumers) has rushed to Spokeo’s defense in a blog post. See Spokeo.com: Panic Unnecessary.

In my opinion panic is probably the best way to react to this. Because unless various state Attorneys General pause their governatorial election campaigns for a moment to actually do something about this mess, all that’s going to happen is this – someone will buy Spokeo for a boatload of money.

And anyway, you’re all enraged right now, but by next week you’ll have forgotten all about this.

There’s been a surge of messages to us asking us to please write about and expose Spokeo, a company that collects and then sells your personal information. Mostly this is from all the mainstream press the service has been getting. Alarming stuff. “Please expose this like you did with ScamVille,” read one message.

Here’s the deal. There’s absolutely nothing you or I can do about it.

Data laws are so lax in the U.S. that companies can do this sort of thing quite legally. Heck, even the WSJ, which got all worked up over cookies on Facebook apps, couldn’t say much bad about Spokeo. You’d think they were sister companies or something.

In 2006 I ranted about Jigsaw, a company that basically does the same thing as Spokeo. What happened next? Did they cower in shame and disappear from the Internet? No, they raised a $12 million round. And then last year SalesCrunch…er…Salesforce, bought them for $142 million.

Yeah, we sure showed them.

Look, the kind of person who starts a company like Spokeo isn’t the kind of person who really cares about bad press. It’s just a bunch of free marketing.

What angers me, but doesn’t really surprise me, is that the Better Business Bureau (click the link if you actually think they serve consumers) has rushed to Spokeo’s defense in a blog post. See Spokeo.com: Panic Unnecessary.

In my opinion panic is probably the best way to react to this. Because unless various state Attorneys General pause their governatorial election campaigns for a moment to actually do something about this mess, all that’s going to happen is this – someone will buy Spokeo for a boatload of money.

And anyway, you’re all enraged right now, but by next week you’ll have forgotten all about this.

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Apple airs new &#39;two is better than one&#39; iPhone spot | iLounge <b>News</b>

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.

AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: WikiLeaks: Middle East peace process exposes <b>...</b>

All the US government was interested in, Erekat went on, was "PR, quick news, and we're cost free", ending up with the appeal: "What good am I if I'm the joke of my wife, if I'm so weak?" | Facebook | Reddit | Digg | StumbleUpon ...

4 Detroit Police Officers Shot; Gunman Dead - Detroit Local <b>News</b> <b>...</b>

DETROIT -- Four Detroit police officers, including a commander, were shot Sunday afternoon inside a station in the department's Northwest District. Monday, January 24, 2011.

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Apple airs new &#39;two is better than one&#39; iPhone spot | iLounge <b>News</b>

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.

AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: WikiLeaks: Middle East peace process exposes <b>...</b>

All the US government was interested in, Erekat went on, was "PR, quick news, and we're cost free", ending up with the appeal: "What good am I if I'm the joke of my wife, if I'm so weak?" | Facebook | Reddit | Digg | StumbleUpon ...

4 Detroit Police Officers Shot; Gunman Dead - Detroit Local <b>News</b> <b>...</b>

DETROIT -- Four Detroit police officers, including a commander, were shot Sunday afternoon inside a station in the department's Northwest District. Monday, January 24, 2011.

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Apple airs new &#39;two is better than one&#39; iPhone spot | iLounge <b>News</b>

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.

AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: WikiLeaks: Middle East peace process exposes <b>...</b>

All the US government was interested in, Erekat went on, was "PR, quick news, and we're cost free", ending up with the appeal: "What good am I if I'm the joke of my wife, if I'm so weak?" | Facebook | Reddit | Digg | StumbleUpon ...

4 Detroit Police Officers Shot; Gunman Dead - Detroit Local <b>News</b> <b>...</b>

DETROIT -- Four Detroit police officers, including a commander, were shot Sunday afternoon inside a station in the department's Northwest District. Monday, January 24, 2011.

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Apple airs new &#39;two is better than one&#39; iPhone spot | iLounge <b>News</b>

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.

AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: WikiLeaks: Middle East peace process exposes <b>...</b>

All the US government was interested in, Erekat went on, was "PR, quick news, and we're cost free", ending up with the appeal: "What good am I if I'm the joke of my wife, if I'm so weak?" | Facebook | Reddit | Digg | StumbleUpon ...

4 Detroit Police Officers Shot; Gunman Dead - Detroit Local <b>News</b> <b>...</b>

DETROIT -- Four Detroit police officers, including a commander, were shot Sunday afternoon inside a station in the department's Northwest District. Monday, January 24, 2011.

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Apple airs new &#39;two is better than one&#39; iPhone spot | iLounge <b>News</b>

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.

AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: WikiLeaks: Middle East peace process exposes <b>...</b>

All the US government was interested in, Erekat went on, was "PR, quick news, and we're cost free", ending up with the appeal: "What good am I if I'm the joke of my wife, if I'm so weak?" | Facebook | Reddit | Digg | StumbleUpon ...

4 Detroit Police Officers Shot; Gunman Dead - Detroit Local <b>News</b> <b>...</b>

DETROIT -- Four Detroit police officers, including a commander, were shot Sunday afternoon inside a station in the department's Northwest District. Monday, January 24, 2011.

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Apple airs new &#39;two is better than one&#39; iPhone spot | iLounge <b>News</b>

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.

AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: WikiLeaks: Middle East peace process exposes <b>...</b>

All the US government was interested in, Erekat went on, was "PR, quick news, and we're cost free", ending up with the appeal: "What good am I if I'm the joke of my wife, if I'm so weak?" | Facebook | Reddit | Digg | StumbleUpon ...

4 Detroit Police Officers Shot; Gunman Dead - Detroit Local <b>News</b> <b>...</b>

DETROIT -- Four Detroit police officers, including a commander, were shot Sunday afternoon inside a station in the department's Northwest District. Monday, January 24, 2011.

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Apple airs new &#39;two is better than one&#39; iPhone spot | iLounge <b>News</b>

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.

AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: WikiLeaks: Middle East peace process exposes <b>...</b>

All the US government was interested in, Erekat went on, was "PR, quick news, and we're cost free", ending up with the appeal: "What good am I if I'm the joke of my wife, if I'm so weak?" | Facebook | Reddit | Digg | StumbleUpon ...

4 Detroit Police Officers Shot; Gunman Dead - Detroit Local <b>News</b> <b>...</b>

DETROIT -- Four Detroit police officers, including a commander, were shot Sunday afternoon inside a station in the department's Northwest District. Monday, January 24, 2011.

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Apple airs new &#39;two is better than one&#39; iPhone spot | iLounge <b>News</b>

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.

AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: WikiLeaks: Middle East peace process exposes <b>...</b>

All the US government was interested in, Erekat went on, was "PR, quick news, and we're cost free", ending up with the appeal: "What good am I if I'm the joke of my wife, if I'm so weak?" | Facebook | Reddit | Digg | StumbleUpon ...

4 Detroit Police Officers Shot; Gunman Dead - Detroit Local <b>News</b> <b>...</b>

DETROIT -- Four Detroit police officers, including a commander, were shot Sunday afternoon inside a station in the department's Northwest District. Monday, January 24, 2011.

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Apple airs new &#39;two is better than one&#39; iPhone spot | iLounge <b>News</b>

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.

AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: WikiLeaks: Middle East peace process exposes <b>...</b>

All the US government was interested in, Erekat went on, was "PR, quick news, and we're cost free", ending up with the appeal: "What good am I if I'm the joke of my wife, if I'm so weak?" | Facebook | Reddit | Digg | StumbleUpon ...

4 Detroit Police Officers Shot; Gunman Dead - Detroit Local <b>News</b> <b>...</b>

DETROIT -- Four Detroit police officers, including a commander, were shot Sunday afternoon inside a station in the department's Northwest District. Monday, January 24, 2011.

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Apple airs new &#39;two is better than one&#39; iPhone spot | iLounge <b>News</b>

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.

AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: WikiLeaks: Middle East peace process exposes <b>...</b>

All the US government was interested in, Erekat went on, was "PR, quick news, and we're cost free", ending up with the appeal: "What good am I if I'm the joke of my wife, if I'm so weak?" | Facebook | Reddit | Digg | StumbleUpon ...

4 Detroit Police Officers Shot; Gunman Dead - Detroit Local <b>News</b> <b>...</b>

DETROIT -- Four Detroit police officers, including a commander, were shot Sunday afternoon inside a station in the department's Northwest District. Monday, January 24, 2011.

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Apple airs new &#39;two is better than one&#39; iPhone spot | iLounge <b>News</b>

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.

AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: WikiLeaks: Middle East peace process exposes <b>...</b>

All the US government was interested in, Erekat went on, was "PR, quick news, and we're cost free", ending up with the appeal: "What good am I if I'm the joke of my wife, if I'm so weak?" | Facebook | Reddit | Digg | StumbleUpon ...

4 Detroit Police Officers Shot; Gunman Dead - Detroit Local <b>News</b> <b>...</b>

DETROIT -- Four Detroit police officers, including a commander, were shot Sunday afternoon inside a station in the department's Northwest District. Monday, January 24, 2011.

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Apple airs new &#39;two is better than one&#39; iPhone spot | iLounge <b>News</b>

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.

AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: WikiLeaks: Middle East peace process exposes <b>...</b>

All the US government was interested in, Erekat went on, was "PR, quick news, and we're cost free", ending up with the appeal: "What good am I if I'm the joke of my wife, if I'm so weak?" | Facebook | Reddit | Digg | StumbleUpon ...

4 Detroit Police Officers Shot; Gunman Dead - Detroit Local <b>News</b> <b>...</b>

DETROIT -- Four Detroit police officers, including a commander, were shot Sunday afternoon inside a station in the department's Northwest District. Monday, January 24, 2011.

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Apple airs new &#39;two is better than one&#39; iPhone spot | iLounge <b>News</b>

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.

AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: WikiLeaks: Middle East peace process exposes <b>...</b>

All the US government was interested in, Erekat went on, was "PR, quick news, and we're cost free", ending up with the appeal: "What good am I if I'm the joke of my wife, if I'm so weak?" | Facebook | Reddit | Digg | StumbleUpon ...

4 Detroit Police Officers Shot; Gunman Dead - Detroit Local <b>News</b> <b>...</b>

DETROIT -- Four Detroit police officers, including a commander, were shot Sunday afternoon inside a station in the department's Northwest District. Monday, January 24, 2011.

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Apple airs new &#39;two is better than one&#39; iPhone spot | iLounge <b>News</b>

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.

AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: WikiLeaks: Middle East peace process exposes <b>...</b>

All the US government was interested in, Erekat went on, was "PR, quick news, and we're cost free", ending up with the appeal: "What good am I if I'm the joke of my wife, if I'm so weak?" | Facebook | Reddit | Digg | StumbleUpon ...

4 Detroit Police Officers Shot; Gunman Dead - Detroit Local <b>News</b> <b>...</b>

DETROIT -- Four Detroit police officers, including a commander, were shot Sunday afternoon inside a station in the department's Northwest District. Monday, January 24, 2011.

Making Money Your

In an interview, a former credit card thief talks about some of the scams he used to run on unwary consumers. It's got some good takeaways for protecting yourself, like the one where you make up fake answers to security questions. With all the info that can be found online now some of these security questions aren't that hard to figure out. So instead of putting down the real answer to "What's your mother's maiden name?" put down "unicorn princess."

Secrets of a Former Credit Card Thief [Yahoo] (Thanks to Newdreams!)

Make a picture illustrating "The Dangers of Being in Debt" and you could win $1,000 in our publisher Consumers Union's new contest. Simply submit your Photoshop, drawing of a spider, collage or what have you on this Facebook page. Get people to vote for you and the image with the most votes wins. Then you can use your cash prize to pay down your credit card debit. See, it all circles back...

Dangers of Debt Image Contest

Source:http://removeripoffreports.net/

Apple stock falls on <b>news</b> of Steve Jobs&#39; medical leave <b>...</b>

Apple shares have dropped after the announcement that CEO Steve Jobs is taking some time off to deal with medical issues. Shares of Apple fell 6.45% immediately after markets opened on Tuesday morning, but quickly made up about half of ...

Soap <b>News</b>: &#39;AMC&#39;s&#39; 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.

Pitchfork: The Strokes Confirm Release Date for New Record

TwentyFourBit points out that the Strokes' bassist Nikolai Fraiture has confirmed a recently speculated rumor concerning the release date of ...

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It has always been the case that anyone who has the benefit of Legal Aid would go running to their solicitor at the first sign of any problem. They did this on the basis that they weren't paying for any legal advice so they would have as much as possible! Sometimes however this shot them in the foot.

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Very often, funding is not a free lunch. If, (in a divorce for example) the parties are arguing over money or a house then some of the value of their house or their money may be at risk. There is an exemption which (the last time I looked) was £5000 but other than that any monies or property in dispute were at risk. In a nutshell, if the fund paid for someone to fight over the old matrimonial home then in the event that the matrimonial home was awarded to the person with the benefit of Legal Aid then the Board would want the costs they had paid, repaying from the value of the home.


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Make sure to pay ALL future fills and obligations online. This is an obvious one of course, but it is so very important to keep things completely clean at all points forward.

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There are several other specific and little-known steps that can accelerate your success with getting the right kind of mortgage and can help you avoid a bad credit mortgage--make sure to keep reading and researching.



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Great <b>news</b>: Elected officials know less about the Constitution <b>...</b>

So claims the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, which just concluded a five-year study on the American public's knowledge of its foundational legal document. The bad news: the general public gets an F, with just a 54% average on the ...

The Write Stuff For Test Anxiety - Science <b>News</b>

Students score higher after jotting down worries before a big exam.

Blagojevich defense wants Obama subpoenaed - Chicago Breaking <b>News</b>

Attorneys for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich today asked a federal judge to subpoena President Barack Obama to testify in Blagojevich's upcoming corruption trial on charges that include allegations Blagojevich sought to sell Obama's former ...

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Senator Bernie Sanders - the socialist Senator from Vermont who we’re supposed to pretend isn’t a socialist because the Democrats get upset about us bringing up the entire ’socialism’ thing - has decided that the best way to handle last weekend’s attempted assassination of a Congresswoman (and the murder of six people, including a nine-year-old girl) is to send out a fundraising letter blaming the whole thing on the right wing.

Given the recent tragedy in Arizona, as well as the start of the new Congress, I wanted to take this opportunity to share a few words with political friends in Vermont and throughout the country. I also want to thank the very many supporters who have begun contributing online to my 2012 reelection campaign at w ww.bernie.org…

[several paragraphs' worth of Left-pornography]

…??In light of all of this violence – both actual and threatened – is Arizona a state in which people who are not Republicans are able to participate freely and fully in the democratic process? Have right-wing reactionaries, through threats and acts of violence, intimidated people with different points of view from expressing their political positions?

Bernie Sanders’ answer is, of course, “Not if you give me money!”  That the attacker was a 9/11 Troofer who opposed the war and believed in shadow conspiracies - which is pretty much Sanders’ fund-raising base right there - is irrelevant to the Senator’s purpose, which is to transfer as much money from the pockets of the gullible to his own*.  So is the charmingly naive bourgeois notion of ‘human decency,’ which might have otherwise kept the Senator from Vermont from engaging in this behavior.  Nope: this is about bringing in the cash by making people afraid and hateful - which would be ironic, except that anybody who is a voluntary socialist in America is dead to the concept anyway…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Just in case nobody’s ever told Senator Sanders - or his friends, supporters, and/or admirers: raising money off of the corpse of a nine year old girl?  Vile.  Thinking that raising money off of the corpse of a nine year old girl was a good idea?  Also vile.

*Hey, just because Bernie Sanders is a socialist doesn’t mean that he’s a good one.

Bump Technologies makes an app that lets people bump their phones together to exchange things like business cards, photos and even money.

On Tuesday, Bump will announce that it has raised $16.5 million in venture capital. The firm Andreessen Horowitz is Bump’s newest investor, and its previous investors, including Sequoia Capital and Ron Conway, also contributed.

Bump started in 2008 as a way for people to exchange contact information without trading old-fashioned paper business cards. But in its newest incarnation, the start-up wants to become a mobile social network for exchanging photos and messages with family and friends.

Now, in addition to contact information, people with iPhones or Android phones can share photos, music, calendar appointments and location, and can also become friends on social networks and send messages to one another. Other apps also use the technology. PayPal, for instance, lets people exchange money by bumping their phones, and two apps trade sexual compatibility information.

The company is changing direction because people started using Bump more for social interactions than business ones, said two of its founders, David Lieb and Jake Mintz. For example, each day people now share about 40,000 contacts but almost a million photos.

“Bump just opens up a whole new landscape of social interactions and interpersonal functions and uses and photo-sharing and transactions, all based on physical proximity,” said Marc Andreessen, the Andreessen Horowitz partner who will join Bump’s board.

There are many other social networks that people already use on their phones to share photos, location and status updates, like Facebook, Foursquare and Instagram.

Bump is different, the founders said, because it enables private exchanges between two people, unlike others that are for publishing messages or photos to wider groups or the public.

“It’s a proximity-based social network, for people and things you’re actually physically interacting with,” Mr. Lieb said.

Bump is one of a group of mobile apps that give people a way to use Internet-connected cellphones to bridge the virtual and physical worlds.

That could become a way to make money, the founders said. For example, people could someday bump their phones to get information or coupons from businesses or brands. “That could be valuable to merchants,” Mr. Mintz said.

Other apps, like Shopkick, offer similar ways for businesses to reach customers. Bump is not making money yet, beyond a bit from other companies that license its technology.

Bump works by gathering several signals from phones, including location and motion detection. Those signals are sent to Bump’s servers, where Bump figures out if another phone in the same place just experienced a bump, then matches the two phones. It all takes place immediately.

Andreessen Horowitz has been busy. On Monday, the firm also announced that it invested in Groupon’s $950 million round of fund-raising. The firm invests in very small Web companies and very big ones, and the Bump and Groupon investments exemplify both ends of the spectrum.

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Obama&#39;s Tucson Speech Fails To Accommodate Cable <b>News&#39;s</b> Attention <b>...</b>

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 on the left and right ...

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A bomb specialist enters Fitzsimons Park near Nichols Middle School in Evanston on Tuesday. (José M. Osorio/ Chicago Tribune) In the dead of night, an explosion ripped through Evanston's Fitzsimmons Park, shaking houses and waking ...

Small Business <b>News</b>: Twitter Tycoons

With just 140 characters, Twitter has changed what it means to communicate. And, in case you haven't noticed, the way we do business too. If you aren't using.

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Obama&#39;s Tucson Speech Fails To Accommodate Cable <b>News&#39;s</b> Attention <b>...</b>

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 on the left and right ...

Headless body and pipe bomb near school rattle Evanston - Chicago <b>...</b>

A bomb specialist enters Fitzsimons Park near Nichols Middle School in Evanston on Tuesday. (José M. Osorio/ Chicago Tribune) In the dead of night, an explosion ripped through Evanston's Fitzsimmons Park, shaking houses and waking ...

Small Business <b>News</b>: Twitter Tycoons

With just 140 characters, Twitter has changed what it means to communicate. And, in case you haven't noticed, the way we do business too. If you aren't using.

Obama&#39;s Tucson Speech Fails To Accommodate Cable <b>News&#39;s</b> Attention <b>...</b>

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 on the left and right ...

Headless body and pipe bomb near school rattle Evanston - Chicago <b>...</b>

A bomb specialist enters Fitzsimons Park near Nichols Middle School in Evanston on Tuesday. (José M. Osorio/ Chicago Tribune) In the dead of night, an explosion ripped through Evanston's Fitzsimmons Park, shaking houses and waking ...

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With just 140 characters, Twitter has changed what it means to communicate. And, in case you haven't noticed, the way we do business too. If you aren't using.

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Obama&#39;s Tucson Speech Fails To Accommodate Cable <b>News&#39;s</b> Attention <b>...</b>

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 on the left and right ...

Headless body and pipe bomb near school rattle Evanston - Chicago <b>...</b>

A bomb specialist enters Fitzsimons Park near Nichols Middle School in Evanston on Tuesday. (José M. Osorio/ Chicago Tribune) In the dead of night, an explosion ripped through Evanston's Fitzsimmons Park, shaking houses and waking ...

Small Business <b>News</b>: Twitter Tycoons

With just 140 characters, Twitter has changed what it means to communicate. And, in case you haven't noticed, the way we do business too. If you aren't using.

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Obama&#39;s Tucson Speech Fails To Accommodate Cable <b>News&#39;s</b> Attention <b>...</b>

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 on the left and right ...

Headless body and pipe bomb near school rattle Evanston - Chicago <b>...</b>

A bomb specialist enters Fitzsimons Park near Nichols Middle School in Evanston on Tuesday. (José M. Osorio/ Chicago Tribune) In the dead of night, an explosion ripped through Evanston's Fitzsimmons Park, shaking houses and waking ...

Small Business <b>News</b>: Twitter Tycoons

With just 140 characters, Twitter has changed what it means to communicate. And, in case you haven't noticed, the way we do business too. If you aren't using.

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Obama&#39;s Tucson Speech Fails To Accommodate Cable <b>News&#39;s</b> Attention <b>...</b>

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 on the left and right ...

Headless body and pipe bomb near school rattle Evanston - Chicago <b>...</b>

A bomb specialist enters Fitzsimons Park near Nichols Middle School in Evanston on Tuesday. (José M. Osorio/ Chicago Tribune) In the dead of night, an explosion ripped through Evanston's Fitzsimmons Park, shaking houses and waking ...

Small Business <b>News</b>: Twitter Tycoons

With just 140 characters, Twitter has changed what it means to communicate. And, in case you haven't noticed, the way we do business too. If you aren't using.

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Obama&#39;s Tucson Speech Fails To Accommodate Cable <b>News&#39;s</b> Attention <b>...</b>

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 on the left and right ...

Headless body and pipe bomb near school rattle Evanston - Chicago <b>...</b>

A bomb specialist enters Fitzsimons Park near Nichols Middle School in Evanston on Tuesday. (José M. Osorio/ Chicago Tribune) In the dead of night, an explosion ripped through Evanston's Fitzsimmons Park, shaking houses and waking ...

Small Business <b>News</b>: Twitter Tycoons

With just 140 characters, Twitter has changed what it means to communicate. And, in case you haven't noticed, the way we do business too. If you aren't using.

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Obama&#39;s Tucson Speech Fails To Accommodate Cable <b>News&#39;s</b> Attention <b>...</b>

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 on the left and right ...

Headless body and pipe bomb near school rattle Evanston - Chicago <b>...</b>

A bomb specialist enters Fitzsimons Park near Nichols Middle School in Evanston on Tuesday. (José M. Osorio/ Chicago Tribune) In the dead of night, an explosion ripped through Evanston's Fitzsimmons Park, shaking houses and waking ...

Small Business <b>News</b>: Twitter Tycoons

With just 140 characters, Twitter has changed what it means to communicate. And, in case you haven't noticed, the way we do business too. If you aren't using.

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A bomb specialist enters Fitzsimons Park near Nichols Middle School in Evanston on Tuesday. (José M. Osorio/ Chicago Tribune) In the dead of night, an explosion ripped through Evanston's Fitzsimmons Park, shaking houses and waking ...

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Making Free Money Online

Even the long fawning UK press is now saying what any startup who has tangled with the music industry has said all along: Spotify will not be able to launch its free any-song-you-want-to-hear-the-second-you-want-to-hear-it service in the US. The Telegraph is reporting that at the last minute the labels demanded too much upfront cash, killing a hard negotiated potential deal.

This is sad, but not a surprise. Despite all the reasons consumers would love it and labels should be empowering a rival for iTunes, the labels are in defensive mode and have never been rational when it comes to these things. My issues with how Spotify has handled this aside, I actually didn’t want to be right on this one. It’s a sad day for users.

But this will be the interesting thing to watch: Does Spotify just roll these we’re-definitely-launching-in-the-US assurances forward to 2011, the way the company has the last two years or does it pivot, and focus on building a profitable site for Europe and other less guarded pockets of the emerging world? In the Telegraph link above an unnamed source says the year of brutal negotiations has forced Spotify to “stop and think about whether it can afford the move to the US and indeed whether it is worth it,” while the article quotes a Spotify spokesman as saying the negotiations are “on-going.” Oh, Spotify.

Here’s my advice: Pivot. Spotify has spent two years, and undoubtedly plenty of money and focus, fighting what was always a Don Quixote like battle to make the US labels listen to reason. This is the same industry who sued their users. It was a valiant effort, but it didn’t work. We can argue why they should back Spotify all day long, but the last two years has proven that they are just not going to listen without Spotify having to make some major concessions.

I think Spotify should walk instead of making those concessions. No matter how hot of a startup you are, money and time are exhaustible commodities. Spotify should start directing them at challenges elsewhere until there is enough of a sea-change in the US music market that labels see reason. Giving into the labels’ demands isn’t the answer. Instead, Spotify should retreat, build in other countries, perfect its model, get to profitability, and then come back to this market when the labels are weaker and Spotify is stronger, boldly proving cynics like me flat wrong. Use your international headquarters as an advantage, not a liability.

Spotify board member Klaus Hommels told me in an interview late last year that he believed Spotify may be the venture industry’s last-ditch effort to build an online music company. (Other than Pandora, of course, the online music company with nine-lives that finally won the right to exist.) He told the labels in negotiations that if they opted instead to drain Spotify’s venture cash and leave it for dead the way they have to so many others, they may never get another hot upstart to back. And that would resign them to an Apple dominated world.

He may be right. So why not play the long game, instead of the short one?

(Note: Don’t worry, I’ve put two dollars in the TechCrunch Pivot/Swear Jar.)

I’ve often wondered if the early Web pioneers had it all to do over again if Web companies would have put less of an emphasis on free.

People have been conditioned against paying for services or content on the Web, and the Web elite only have each other to blame. For all the talk of Web companies getting users first and “figuring out” how to make money later, the only two jaw-droppingly, multi-billion-dollar, innovative new ways to advertise online have been Google’s paid search ads and Groupon’s solution to unlocking local ad dollars on a mass scale. Those who win big–like Google– just perpetuate the cult of free content and services as a way of spoiling would be competitors. Witness a big disconnect between popularity and money. Exhibit A: Yahoo.

As a result, Netflix and Match.com are two of the only companies to have figured out ways to build large, lucrative subscription businesses online. Meanwhile, LinkedIn is one of the only Web 2.0 companies that has created a huge business with a freemium business model.

But on the mobile Web it’s a do-over, and it’s a totally different playbook from FREE! People are conditioned to pay for stuff over phones in a way they aren’t online, and they’re not flinching. According to Citibank’s US Internet Stock 2011 Playbook released today, Apple will generated as much as $2 billion in gross app revenue in 2011. For perspective, that’s about the same size as Citibank’s estimate for the entire online video advertising market next year, nevermind way more people watch YouTube than have an iPhone and it’s been in the cultural zeitgeist longer.

The report also cites Gartner’s estimates that the total app market was around $4 billion in 2010 and should grow to a whopping $27 billion by 2013. The biggest driver is smart phone penetration, the impact of which Citibank compares to the spread of broadband on the computer-based Internet in the early 2000s. Globally, smart phone unit sales grew 53% in 2010, and Citibank expects it to grow 29% in 2011 and stay in the mid-20% growth range through 2013.

Several years ago, it was controversial to say that a fledgling product called Android — not the hyped up purchase of YouTube– would be Google’s best bet at another hit on the scale of paid search. Android is already making $1 billion in revenues with an indirect monetization strategy, and Citibank expects that could double next year– not only eclipsing YouTube but the entire online video category. Now calling Android Google’s future is almost a cliche. Good thing Google hedged its bets.

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It pretty clearly seems to be a sarcastic remark about the large volume of Verizon iPhone stories. This one seems pretty redundant, of course Verizon plans to make news, why else would they call a press announcement? ...

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epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Masturbation Excuse FAIL.

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It pretty clearly seems to be a sarcastic remark about the large volume of Verizon iPhone stories. This one seems pretty redundant, of course Verizon plans to make news, why else would they call a press announcement? ...

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epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Masturbation Excuse FAIL.

Verizon Wireless is ready to make <b>news</b> on Tuesday | 9 to 5 Mac <b>...</b>

It pretty clearly seems to be a sarcastic remark about the large volume of Verizon iPhone stories. This one seems pretty redundant, of course Verizon plans to make news, why else would they call a press announcement? ...

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epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Masturbation Excuse FAIL.

Verizon Wireless is ready to make <b>news</b> on Tuesday | 9 to 5 Mac <b>...</b>

It pretty clearly seems to be a sarcastic remark about the large volume of Verizon iPhone stories. This one seems pretty redundant, of course Verizon plans to make news, why else would they call a press announcement? ...

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Making Money With Website

Every startup needs to understand that the customer paradigm has dramatically shifted over the past two years with pervasive social networks and smartphones. The customer base is no longer a mass audience that can be driven by mass media, but a dynamic network of individual customers who interact with each other, and expect to interact with you as a business.

If your business doesn’t connect with your customers, individually and as a community, demanding customers will not only ignore you, but will actively keep other customers away. According to the 2009 Tribalization of Business Study by Deloitte Development, one third of all online communities now launched by businesses fail to engage even a hundred participants.

A new book by David L. Rogers, titled The Network is Your Customer, elaborates on this paradigm shift, and outlines the following five key strategies to thrive in this digital age, prioritized from the most basic to the most complex in value to the customer:

1. Access to your business from the relevant network of customers. Every organization today faces the expectations of an always-on world. To compete, startups must find ways to provide customers an easier, faster, more pervasive connection to digital networks, via mobile as well as the Internet.

2. Engage customers with relevant and valuable content. In an environment of media overload and rampant ad-skipping, startups that want to engage customer networks need to create content that customers actually want to consume. Funny videos and worthless give-aways won’t make your website go “viral” these days.

3. Customize your interactions to meet unique customer needs. You need to give customers the tools to customize products, services, and content to suit their needs and interests, to engage them more deeply, add value, and differentiate your offering from competitors.

4. Connect to the customer in your communication. Join in conversations with customers who are already shaping brand perception and sharing their ideas and opinions on the Web. Conversations may be on existing social media, or on your own brand forum established specifically for this purpose.

5. Collaborate with customers on shared goals. One of the most powerful ways to engage customer networks is to invite them to collaborate with your startup on shared goals and projects. This requires the right balance of motivators (love, glory, and money), and the right balance of bottoms-up versus top-down control.

Many businesses that seem to understand the new paradigm still fall for some common mistakes, like the following, that can blunt the effectiveness of their efforts:

• Infatuation with technology. Founders too often see a list of the latest hot tools, and go after them, without first making the proper analysis and connect to relevant customers. The best tools, if not relevant or used incorrectly, can’t save you.

• Lack of customer insight. Startups launch plans without taking the time to understand the networked behavior of their customers, or the drivers for that behavior.

• Lack of clear objectives. Without a clear scope and vision, efforts become unfocused, lack impact, and are impossible to measure. Everyone on the team has to be involved and on board, or the efforts will be fragmented.

This book outlines a good process for planning and implementing a customer network strategy to match your customers, your business, and your objectives – whether you need to drive sales, reduce costs, gain customer insight, or build breakthrough products and services.

The bottom line is that today, whatever your goals and whatever your business, the network is your customer. Connect to it and win customers.

Marty Zwilling

This week over 13 million people watched the ‘Homeless Man with the Golden Voice’, the viral video that changed Ted Williams’ life.  The video featured homeless Ted, panhandling on the street offering his voice skills for money, and sharing a sample of his golden announcer voice for a dollar with Doral Chenoweth, a videographer for The Columbus Dispatch website.  Chenoweth uploaded the video to YouTube in order to share Williams’ skills with the world and hopefully catch him a break.  13 million YouTube views later he did, but if you want to see the original video now you’ll have to do it on The Dispatch website because the YouTube has removed the video due to a copyright claim.



What?  YouTube removed the video that changed this man’s life from YouTube due to a copyright claim?  Sounds ridiculous, right?  And what’s even more ridiculous is that that claim came from The Columbus Dispatch themselves—the online news outlet that got so much coverage and good karma because of this whole thing!

Ted Williams fans are in a tizzy over the fact that the video has been taken down.  A comment on a related video expressed disgust at the copyright claim, telling viewers about how the original video had been taken down.  It amassed 390 views in the first hour alone.

I, for one, hope that The Dispatch had a mighty good reason for asking YouTube to remove the video with 13 million plus views.  As of yet there has been no comment on the reason.  If you go to The Dispatch website you’ll find a page dedicated to Ted Williams, “The Man with the Golden Voice”, which includes links to Dispatch coverage as well as the original video itself, now with the Dispatch logo at the beginning.

I think the Dispatch is doing nothing except making themselves look bad by having the video removed from YouTube.  After all, the original clip gave credit to the Dispatch in the description and was even shot and uploaded by a videographer from the Dispatch itself, so it’s not like it was stolen, uncredited material.

But even if the video had been uncredited I’d say this is a little bit of a special case.  This is a video that changed a man’s life– a video that is pretty special to him, as well as a lot of other people who saw with this video that there is hope for all of us to turn our lives around.  Why did The Dispatch think it would be a good idea to simply wipe the clip from the face of YouTube, especially after so many people blogged about it, Tweeted about it, and posted the link on Facebook.

It sickens me that some people can’t think about anything besides views and revenue.  This was a special case in which some of their footage was uploaded to YouTube in order to do a great service to a man on the street.  It worked, which is amazing, and all the Dispatch could do was think about how it was theirs and they didn’t want it to be on YouTube on someone else’s account?  Like I said, they better have had a mighty good reason for their copyright claim.

Do you think it was a good move on their part to have the video taken down?

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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.

Sometimes crazy ideas for video games turn out to be hits. That must be the logic behind Real Life Plus, a startup game studio that’s making two interesting new Facebook apps, Style Studio and its companion game Fashion FaceOff.

As you can tell from the image above, this one involves hot girls and guns, sort of like Call of Duty meets Project Runway. Or, if you’re into games for women and girls, Stardoll meets Sorority Life. The company is coming out of stealth today and is one of those rare ventures that aims to create a game that both sexes will like.

You create your designs in Style Studio, an app that will be available on the web or on social networks such as Facebook.

Then you show your fashion designs off in the Facebook game, Fashion FaceOff, where you compete against other designers in a kind of gladiator’s arena. If you lose, you’re eliminated with deadly weapons, such as the rocket launcher shown above.

In Fashion FaceOff, users are the judge, jury and executioner for would-be fashion designers. If you’re talented, you can rise through the ranks and buy toys such as flamethrowers to destroy unworthy designs.

It may sound like a dude’s fantasy. But the founder and chief creative officer of the Emeryville, Calif.based company is a woman, Terry Redfield (pictured right), who has a mix of male and female video game veterans on her management team.

If Fashion FaceOff sounds a little crazy, Style Studio is more conventional. You can employ easy-to-use tools to create 3D fabrics, clothing and outfits. You can take Polaroid-like snapshots and put them in your portfolio. Then you can enter your designs in the Fashion FaceOff. If you hate a design, you can literally flame it with a flamethrower. If one of your own outfit designs gets flamed 50 times, you get an achievement badge of Asbestos Underwear.

“I wanted to create something easy enough for my mom to play, yet cool enough for my 15-year-old nephew to try,” says Redfield, who started the company with co-founder St.John Colón. “My goal is to make applications and virtual spaces that all tie together into one exciting experience.”

You can download the apps now on the company’s web site. But they will also be available on Facebook, MySpace and the iPad.

Redfield’s team has a lot of experience making games and social media. They’ve worked on games such as The Sims 2, Resident Evil, Toy Story, Tomb Raider, Psychonauts, SpongeBob Squarepants and Madden NFL Football. Redfield started working in online communities at age 15 and worked at game companies such as 3DO and Double Fine Productions. Throughout her career, she has straddled the traditional game and casual game businesses. Colón has worked on games that have sold more than 17.7 million units at companies such as Square, Warner Bros., Nickelodeon and Disney/Pixar.

Other key folks are Roselyn Romberg, president and chief operating officer; Dennis Harper, technical director; and animator Tara Packard. The company can create high-quality 3D animations because it uses the Unity Engine from Unity Technologies, which can create 3D graphics running inside a web browser.

The company was founded in 2009 and has 10 employees. Rivals include fashion-oriented games and virtual worlds such as Gaia Online and Second Life. Advisors include game veterans Ed Fries, former head of Microsoft Game Studios, and Robin Harper, head of marketing at Playdom and former executive at Linden Lab.

The company has raised $120,000 in angel funding and is raising a round of venture money. Here’s a concept video for the game below.

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