But my antipathy does not apply to webcams used in collaborative sessions with people you already know. Why not invoke a little more personal interaction in your virtual meeting? Goodness knows, video is a hot selling commodity today in the web collaboration space.

One of the many problems with setting up a good space for video is getting rid of distractions in the background. I remember watching a professional presentation instructor give a webcast from his office. His webcam broadcast not only his image, but the desk of a fellow worker behind him, who came and went during the course of the webinar. It was immensely distracting and I found myself concentrating on my attempts to see what was on the other guy’s computer screen!

When I work from my home office, I am plagued by the same problem. I have bookcases against the wall behind my chair that are filled with knickknacks and paperwork. They don’t look very good as a backdrop to my video meetings.

(more…)

Another major change in Adobe’s steer towards their online presence is that of the just launched Acrobat.com. It is the combination of their online meetings tool - Adobe Brio, online Word Processor - Adobe Buzzword and online file sharing - Adobe Share. This new announcement comes with the release of their latest offering - Adobe Acrobat 9 - with Flash built into the PDF experience.

Adobe Buzzword

Buzzword is the word processor from Adobe and sports a sleek and elegant design interface. Of course, Adobe uses Flash/Flex to prove the UI and interaction complete with a WYSISYG tool. Adobe have taken care that your Buzzword document whether on a large screen or small screen or on a printed page, what you see on the screen - fonts, letter spacing, colors, and graphics - are all reproduced perfectly.

(more…)

For example, if your business launches a new product, how are you going to get it in front of consumers? Without fresh, existing channels, you would have to rely on expensive advertising via pay-per-click or be forced to wait months for a search engine optimization effort to take shape. A lack of existing channels creates time and cost barriers that can prolong the dissemination of information and push out the time to realize revenue. Yet, if you created and continually nurtured various communication channels (each with a specific purpose) you can drastically reduce time to revenue by gaining speed and lowering cost.

What are some communication channels worth creating and nurturing? Some of the best involve:

(more…)

Lots of companies in Boulder have the customer loyalty device in question: a frequent buyer punch card or similar. I have about a dozen of them in my wallet or car glove compartment and they’re all generally the same: get ten punches and the eleventh is on the house. Whether it’s an expensive coffee drink, a burrito, a smoothie or even a sandwich, companies from Safeway to Wahoo’s Fish Tacos have these ubiquitous cards.

According to the paper, Vic’s owes the city approximately $3,000 in unpaid sales tax, which is being labeled “use tax”. Rather than just pay it or register a complaint through the chamber of commerce, Vic’s has brought its fight public by putting up a Web site and hosting a fund raiser for its legal fund. You can check out the site at Vic’s Espresso.com.

I’m torn on this issue because on the one hand, I really like the loyalty card idea and it does help me decide to return to my favorite haunts on a regular basis, but tax revenue from commercial transactions are also an important source of funds for the city and the myriad of services I enjoy as a resident too.

(more…)

Under the new functionality, businesses may type in custom business categories, and the interface also provides helpful potential term using the Google Suggestion Tool:

(more…)

You’re probably a lot smarter than I was at that point, but I eventually learned two important lessons that changed my approach.

(more…)

OK, stop and think about your application. Do you really need to be a standalone site? Do you really want to write user registration code, or would you be better off taking your application and bringing these other sites where there are lots of users already and where they have already expressed both their personal information and their connections to other people?

The answer to that is of course you want to be your own destination. Writing registration code once means you can re-use it over and over again on various projects. If you can program a successful widget or application then you are not the type who thinks registration code is a roadblock.

Some of the most successful viral applications (like Paypal and YouTube) leveraged other platforms for growth, but a large part of their success was that they also chose to be destinations.

(more…)

He asked me point blank: “What can you do for me that’s better than what I can get on (name of ubiquitous host)?”

A very good question. We talked for about an hour, and I answered his questions and just submitted a bid for his project last night. But I thought I would summarize here (Not in any particular order).

(more…)

Home based business ventures and home satellite offices are now a fixture of the modern economy. Service based industries and outsourced subcontractors are one of the fastest growing segments of the business landscape. Many large corporations are using telecommuting and modern technology to manage off site employees as well. With the rise of the internet, as a base for entirely new business models, countless virtual companies exist purely as online entities.

(more…)

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a must, not a ‘maybe,’ if you want your business site to be found in Google. If you have a great-looking site that no one can find, it’s not doing its job.

2. Add a blog or podcast to your site.

If you like to talk (or write) about your business and you’re good at what you do, a blog or podcast may be just the thing. Both of them do one thing very well – they encourage visitors to come back to your site again and again. And they’re so easy to use! (I’m a huge fan of Wordpress). Blogs give you the advantage of adding a new page of fresh content to your site every time you post, while a podcast is like having your very own radio show.

3. Remove a blog from your site.

That might sound odd – but if you have a business blog and haven’t committed the time and effort to post fairly regularly, it’s probably better *not* to have one at all. If your last post was in 2005, consider removing the link to the blog for the time being. It reflects poorly on your company and makes it look like you don’t keep up with things.

(more…)