I love cooking shows as I enjoy watching beautiful dishes being created, that look so amazing I'd feel bad to actually eat them!
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
New Boom in Silicon Valley
Each day, Inc.'s reporters scour the Web for the most important and interesting news to entrepreneurs. Here's what we found today.
Office-space shortage in the South Bay. If you're planning on setting up shop in Palo Alto with all of the other tech companies, you better get a move on. Office spaces are filling up, fast. The Wall Street Journal reports that what just months ago looked like a lukewarm housing and office-rental market in the Valley is once again hot. According to Jones Lang LaSalle, there's been a 25 percent jump in office-space rent in the area from last year, the biggest one-year jump since 1999. Giants such as Google, Facebook, and others are responsible for taking most of the space that was once available. By the end of the year Google plans to increase its staff by 25 percent and we're all familiar with Facebook's big expansion plans in the Valley. Office space that was once available for the overflow, in Mountain View, is almost completely taken, leaving companies such as Polycom, LinkedIn, and the Nook e-reader division for Barnes & Noble (to name a few) still searching for places to call home.
Push to balance start-up gender ratios. In a continued effort to increase the number of female entrepreneurs, Pipeline Fund Fellowship is launching a program to to train women how to be angel investors, Mashable reports. A new organization itself, Pipeline Fund Fellowship has selected 10 participants for it first session in New York City and has plans to expand to San Francisco and Los Angeles next year. All 10 participants have agreed to invest $5,000 into the company the group selects at the conclusion of five workshops based in New York. Now, the organization is accepting applications for "women-led, for-profit social venture" companies to attend the program's pitch summit in June.
Sound practices. Just days after we at Inc.com explored the topic of sonic branding—all those bells and chimes and familiar tunes you hear in ads, for example—Aflac's gone and gotten a new voice for its signature duck. Why do you care? Because that hapless little duck mascot helps bring in more than $13 billion a year in premiums. And since firing comedian Gilbert Gottfried from the role and hiring 37-year-old radio ad salesman Daniel McKeague, investors have applauded, sending Aflac shares up 1.3 percent—or $324 million in shareholder value, the New York Post reports.
Friendster's facelift. Before Facebook and Twitter, there was Friendster. At its peak, the site had over 100 million users, but in recent years the site has seen a steady decline in new registrants, especially as a flurry of younger and more nimble social start-ups entered the market. But the "ghost town," over at Friendster's offices, as the New York Times puts it, is poised for change. The Times reports that Friendster's management plans to strip older material from the site's archives, including photos, early messages and posts, in an effort to freshen up the interface. Deleting a user's history, especially when that content contains personal—and emotional—material, can be a sore subject for some. "The mass deletion of so much evidence of embarrassing wardrobe choices and unrequited crushes might come as a relief to some, especially in an era when it seems that everything uploaded to Facebook can haunt people forever," the article notes. "But some say Friendster has unexpectedly turned into a time capsule with snapshots of who they once were." Aww.
Hello, my name is... What's in a name? Apparently a lot when it comes to executive status. TechCrunch reports that LinkedIn recently analyzed its vast network of professionals and identified names over-represented by CEOs. Surprisingly, Tom, Dick, and Harry did not make the cut, but other common monikers like Bob and Sally ranked at the top. LinkedIn also broke down the most popular names by country with unsurprising results. Charles was king for the U.K., Wolfgang was Germany's wunderkind, and Guido was big cheese in Italy. Succeeding in business without really trying just got easier in the United States as well. Just change your name to Howard.
Party like it's 1999. Back before it was a multibillion-dollar company with thousands of employees, Google was a start-up website with just enough people to fill a San Francisco cable car. If you need a mental health break, hop in the way-back machine and check out TechCrunch's video of a meeting from the end of 1999 that ends in silly string and cake.
Charlie Sheen's guide to better entrepreneurship. Despite losing his job and exposing his insanity to the world over countless interviews, performances, and stunts, Charlie Sheen somehow manages to continue winning. Many will dismiss Sheen's antics, but if you listen closely, there are little golden nuggets of wisdom buried within his drug-induced raves. VentureBeat compiled Charlie's six most memorable quotes and examined them under an entrepreneurial lens. The result? Advice that's as hilarious as it is helpful. Now that's bi-winning.
More from Inc. magazine:
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Follow us on Twitter.
Follow us on Tumblr.
Like us on Facebook.
Talk to Your Web Pages (About)
Okay, if you're like me, you probably already do talk to your web pages, or at
least the HTML, especially if it isn't working. But with the HTML5 `speech`
input attribute, you can set up your HTML forms to accept spoken input as well
as typed.
**Read the full article:** Collect Speech Input with HTML5 on Google Chrome
### More About HTML Forms
* HTML Forms Tutorial
* Free HTML Forms Class
* HTML Forms Links
Talk to Your Web Pages originally appeared on About.com Web Design / HTML on
Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011 at 03:48:11.
Permalink | Comment | Email this
least the HTML, especially if it isn't working. But with the HTML5 `speech`
input attribute, you can set up your HTML forms to accept spoken input as well
as typed.
**Read the full article:** Collect Speech Input with HTML5 on Google Chrome
### More About HTML Forms
* HTML Forms Tutorial
* Free HTML Forms Class
* HTML Forms Links
Talk to Your Web Pages originally appeared on About.com Web Design / HTML on
Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011 at 03:48:11.
Permalink | Comment | Email this
New Boom in Silicon Valley
Each day, Inc.'s reporters scour the Web for the most important and interesting news to entrepreneurs. Here's what we found today.
Office-space shortage in the South Bay. If you're planning on setting up shop in Palo Alto with all of the other tech companies, you better get a move on. Office spaces are filling up, fast. The Wall Street Journal reports that what just months ago looked like a lukewarm housing and office-rental market in the Valley is once again hot. According to Jones Lang LaSalle, there's been a 25 percent jump in office-space rent in the area from last year, the biggest one-year jump since 1999. Giants such as Google, Facebook, and others are responsible for taking most of the space that was once available. By the end of the year Google plans to increase its staff by 25 percent and we're all familiar with Facebook's big expansion plans in the Valley. Office space that was once available for the overflow, in Mountain View, is almost completely taken, leaving companies such as Polycom, LinkedIn, and the Nook e-reader division for Barnes & Noble (to name a few) still searching for places to call home.
Push to balance start-up gender ratios. In a continued effort to increase the number of female entrepreneurs, Pipeline Fund Fellowship is launching a program to to train women how to be angel investors, Mashable reports. A new organization itself, Pipeline Fund Fellowship has selected 10 participants for it first session in New York City and has plans to expand to San Francisco and Los Angeles next year. All 10 participants have agreed to invest $5,000 into the company the group selects at the conclusion of five workshops based in New York. Now, the organization is accepting applications for "women-led, for-profit social venture" companies to attend the program's pitch summit in June.
Sound practices. Just days after we at Inc.com explored the topic of sonic branding—all those bells and chimes and familiar tunes you hear in ads, for example—Aflac's gone and gotten a new voice for its signature duck. Why do you care? Because that hapless little duck mascot helps bring in more than $13 billion a year in premiums. And since firing comedian Gilbert Gottfried from the role and hiring 37-year-old radio ad salesman Daniel McKeague, investors have applauded, sending Aflac shares up 1.3 percent—or $324 million in shareholder value, the New York Post reports.
Friendster's facelift. Before Facebook and Twitter, there was Friendster. At its peak, the site had over 100 million users, but in recent years the site has seen a steady decline in new registrants, especially as a flurry of younger and more nimble social start-ups entered the market. But the "ghost town," over at Friendster's offices, as the New York Times puts it, is poised for change. The Times reports that Friendster's management plans to strip older material from the site's archives, including photos, early messages and posts, in an effort to freshen up the interface. Deleting a user's history, especially when that content contains personal—and emotional—material, can be a sore subject for some. "The mass deletion of so much evidence of embarrassing wardrobe choices and unrequited crushes might come as a relief to some, especially in an era when it seems that everything uploaded to Facebook can haunt people forever," the article notes. "But some say Friendster has unexpectedly turned into a time capsule with snapshots of who they once were." Aww.
Hello, my name is... What's in a name? Apparently a lot when it comes to executive status. TechCrunch reports that LinkedIn recently analyzed its vast network of professionals and identified names over-represented by CEOs. Surprisingly, Tom, Dick, and Harry did not make the cut, but other common monikers like Bob and Sally ranked at the top. LinkedIn also broke down the most popular names by country with unsurprising results. Charles was king for the U.K., Wolfgang was Germany's wunderkind, and Guido was big cheese in Italy. Succeeding in business without really trying just got easier in the United States as well. Just change your name to Howard.
Party like it's 1999. Back before it was a multibillion-dollar company with thousands of employees, Google was a start-up website with just enough people to fill a San Francisco cable car. If you need a mental health break, hop in the way-back machine and check out TechCrunch's video of a meeting from the end of 1999 that ends in silly string and cake.
Charlie Sheen's guide to better entrepreneurship. Despite losing his job and exposing his insanity to the world over countless interviews, performances, and stunts, Charlie Sheen somehow manages to continue winning. Many will dismiss Sheen's antics, but if you listen closely, there are little golden nuggets of wisdom buried within his drug-induced raves. VentureBeat compiled Charlie's six most memorable quotes and examined them under an entrepreneurial lens. The result? Advice that's as hilarious as it is helpful. Now that's bi-winning.
More from Inc. magazine:
Get this delivered to your inbox.
Follow us on Twitter.
Follow us on Tumblr.
Like us on Facebook.
Media Decoder: Obama's Sunday Address Draws 56.5 Million Viewers (nytimes)
President Obama's announcement of Osama bin Laden's death was viewed by more
Americans than every other address he has given as president.
Americans than every other address he has given as president.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
WordPress Plugin Releases for 5/3 (Weblogtoolscollection.com)
New plugins CataBlog allows you to catalog pretty much anything you would want
and share it through your blog in a simple but elegant gallery. Floating Menu
creates a widget, which adds a floating, sticky, drop down menu from any
standard WordPress custom menu using jQuery. Updated plugins Front-end Editor
lets you make changes to your content directly from your site. No need to load
the admin backend just to correct a typo. Mute Screamer uses PHPIDS to detect
attacks on your WordPress site and react in a way that you choose.
and share it through your blog in a simple but elegant gallery. Floating Menu
creates a widget, which adds a floating, sticky, drop down menu from any
standard WordPress custom menu using jQuery. Updated plugins Front-end Editor
lets you make changes to your content directly from your site. No need to load
the admin backend just to correct a typo. Mute Screamer uses PHPIDS to detect
attacks on your WordPress site and react in a way that you choose.
To Blog or Not to Blog
Outside of the fact that you happen to be reading one right now, I find that there are lots of smart, business savvy folks out there who when placed in the position of having to explain, strategize or build a blog (or decide if one should be built at all) are at a bit of a loss. Blogs are usually easy for most people to recognize but harder for folks to define.
When I hosted a free class on the subject (as I do from time to time) it "sold out" (in the way only free classes can!) the room filled to capacity.
Even those who can sort of describe a blog, often find it hard to understand when, why and how to create one so that it will actually create benefit for a business, organization, cause etc..
I Can Email You With the Next Update
Click here to get notified of new posts to "The Internet Strategist" by Email
Of course everyone who manages a successful blog has found themselves in a similar position at least once and gotten past it, so I thought I could impart a few words of advice.
First of all, what is a blog really?
A blog is just a Web site.
Let me repeat that for the non-believers — A BLOG IS JUST A WEB SITE.
But it's a special kind of Web site.
Let's start by looking at the different kinds of Web sites that exist. Many of the students of my in-person classes will recognize this.
According to my calculations and ruminations, there are essentially 4 kinds of Web sites you can build based on how your business attracts revenue:
Web Site Types
BrandingExamples: Coca Cola, Dove Advertising Revenue
Examples: Inc.com, Google.com eCommerce
Examples: Amazon, Zappos Lead Generation
Examples: messagemedium.com, razorfish.com
A branding site like Dove is working hard to immerse the viewer in the company's ethos. You can't actually buy any product from their site, they don't seem to sell ads, nor are they pushing hard for you to give up your contact information. Dove's site is all about convincing you of their commitment to improving women's natural beauty and self-esteem in the hope that this will generate an emotional affinity to their brand.
Related Articles by Maisha:Building Your Tribe - 6 LinkedIn Success Studies (final/part 3)
Building Your Tribe - 6 LinkedIn Success Studies (part 2)
Small Business "Success Studies" Using LinkedIn
LinkedIn the 11 Most Useful Features for Small Business
An advertising revenue site like Inc.com has articles and information as its content. It is designed and organized into categories like "Business Advice" "Tech Startup" "The Internet Strategist" to display that content in a way that's easy for you — the reader — to find, read and pass along.
An Online Store like Zappos.com has products — shoes - as its content. So it is organized and designed to make it easy for you to find the kind of shoes you're looking for. One of reasons Zappos is so popular is it provides a variety of ways to find what you're looking for.
A service Web site like message medium has services as its content. So our site is organized to make it easy for you to find our services and also to find the things that make us a credible company to work with — testimonials, articles, client samples, news clippings etc.
As a business owner, more than likely you are not looking to spend millions of dollars on a branding Web site so let's focus on the other three.
So How do Blogs fit in?
Blogs are an interesting breed of Web site. In structure, they are most like Advertising Revenue sites. Like a newspaper, they usually publish content with some predictable regularity, and the content is typically arranged by date and/or by category so that it can be easily found by readers.
But what's interesting about blogs and has made them so ubiquitous, is that they, with all of their content and social elements, can be used very effectively to support an Advertising, eCommerce or Lead Generation Web site.
My blog "The Internet Strategist" is designed to fit within Inc.com's business model of generating revenue through advertising and things like events.The blog of Tony Hsu, the CEO of Zappos, is designed to generate brand loyalty and increase sales of the products Zappos sells.
This blog also does double-duty, helping you the reader understand my areas of expertise as an Internet Strategist, which my company message medium hopes will help us generate more consulting, Web site design and construction, and Internet marketing clients as well as attendees in our classes.
So the first thing you have to identify when considering blogging is — what kind of business do I have and how do we stay afloat? How do we generate revenue? This will help you determine your ultimate blogging purpose.
Next time — I'll discuss "The Big Payoff" what can you expect a blog to actually accomplish for you?
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Building Your Tribe - 6 LinkedIn Success Studies (final/part 3) Building Your Tribe - 6 LinkedIn Success Studies (part 2) Small Business "Success Studies" Using LinkedInLinkedIn the 11 Most Useful Features for Small Business
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