Firefox 3.5 And Its Questionable Image Enhancement
Email to a friend
By Marcus Hochstadt | Filed in HTML, CSS, Design
When I installed Firefox 3.5 last week I was immediately impressed by one of its improvements: When viewing the source code of a Web page URLs in that source are now underlined and clickable. And the best news is when you click on a link you’ll get to see that page or file! Wow, very neat and time saving. :-)
There’s also a questionable enhancement, however…
Did you notice that images on some Web sites appear darker than before or when viewing with a different browser? For example, go to istockphoto.com and you’ll see that all of their images are darker now, when viewing with Firefox 3.5.
My coder, Pat Heard, educated me on this new “feature.” I was asking him because the face image in the footer of MyGermanCity.com appeared darker. Pat pointed me to a thread in the Mozilla forums that provides a fix.
What I did, however, was I simply opened up the image in Adobe Fireworks, re-saved it and voila — the image now appears correctly again.
Why or when do images appear darker in FF 3.5? I’m not completely sure, but my guess is when you save images with an ICC profile or in an CMYK instead of RGB color set.
—Marcus Hochstadt
28 CommentsPermalink Tags: firefox
Luciana Domingos Faustini — Nossa Musa do Carnaval 2009
Email to a friend
By Marcus Hochstadt | Filed in Chitchat, Contests
Carnival is one of the most important cultural and economical events in Brazil.
Brazil’s biggest television broadcaster, TV Globo, holds a contest every year to find the Musa do Carnaval do Rio de Janeiro (Muse of the Carnival of Rio de Janeiro) — a Samba girl who best represents the Carnival in Rio. Think of it like the “Miss Country” competitions throughout the world each year.
My sister-in-law, Luciana, won second place out of twelve competitors, and it was her first appearance in this big TV Globo contest!
Rio de Janeiro’s twelve major Samba schools pick their best Samba girls to represent their schools on TV Globo for this big contest. Mangueira, the Samba school Luciana dances for and was chosen to represent Mangueira in the TV Globo contest, is one of the biggest and oldest Samba schools in Rio.
The TV Globo contest was divided into two rounds. The first round (to pick the four finalists) was divided into two groups. Luciana performed in the first group (six participants) which was broadcasted on January 17.
Here is the video from that day where she won first place, showing her incredible first-class performance…
The Final, recorded on February 5 and divided into two semi-finals, was shown on TV last Saturday, February 14.
Here’s Luciana — first showcasing her home, then dancing to win the second semi-final…
And here are the voters, including the audience, clearly voting her to enter the Grand Final…
Based on Internet votes, Luciana is even the clear winner of all twelve participants, thus she is The Internet Muse of the Carnaval of Rio de Janeiro 2009…
(The winner, Suellen from Portela, is voted fourth place here.)
Please join me in on a BIG Congratulations (Brazilian: Parabens) to Luciana Domingos Faustini by submitting a comment below! :-)
—Marcus Hochstadt
P.S. Luciana: Você é nossa Musa do Carnaval 2009 — uma garota muito simpatica, com estilo, corpo perfeito, elegante, muito profissional, samba como ninguem, e linda demais. Parabens! :-)
WordPress Developer, Coder, Consultant Needed
Email to a friend
By Marcus Hochstadt | Filed in Business
Before I go ahead and create another project on Elance or RentACoder for this, perhaps I’ll find you thru my blog? That way you would receive more money for your time. Let’s see… :-)
I need a seasoned WordPress developer, coder, and consultant for a few hours per week or per month (depending on the amount and intensity of questions and requests I have).
First, you will assist me in getting a few things straight such as utilizing existing WordPress codex without installing new plugins as well as finding the most appropriate plugin(s) for certain tasks (and setting them up properly).
Later on I may ask you to handcode plugins that fulfill specific tasks or to modify, expand, or improve existing plugins.
Ideally, you are an expert in…
- PHP
- JavaScript
- XHTML and CSS
- WordPress
- MySQL
If you feel that you would be the perfect fit then go ahead and post a comment below. Please include a link (or links) to a few of your work examples as well as your hourly rate (in USD).
If you prefer that I keep your proposal confidential, please indicate so in your submission and it will remain an unapproved comment.
Payments via PayPal.
—Marcus Hochstadt
2 CommentsPermalink Tags: coder, developer, wordpress
Using A CMS For A Content-Rich Website
Email to a friend
By Marcus Hochstadt | Filed in Business, HTML, CSS, Design, SEO
It was when I visited my good friend, Daniel Levy, in Paris that I heard of the term CMS for the first time.
If you’re now wondering (like I was) what the heck CMS means and for what it should be good… outspoken it means Content Management System, and it can be useful for organizing and managing content that you publish on the Web. Here’s what Wikipedia says about it…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_management_system
There are free or open source and paid content management systems available.
Up to that point, I was using Macromedia/Adobe Dreamweaver for my websites (except for this very blog). But when Daniel and I were talking about the future of my Blue Baby, MyGermanCity.com, a travel related content-rich website, and the plans I have with it in terms of features and number of pages, his reaction was: “You need a CMS!”
“CMS?” I asked.
“CMS,” he said. He then went on and explained what CMS means, what it is, does, and the advantages — and possible disatvantages — of using one.
It made sense to me so I went ahead and researched both costly and open source top content management systems. One tool I used was the CMSMatrix.org, although their database was — and still is — partially outdated. (Showing WordPress version 2.2.1 when the current version was 2.6? That’s a huge difference.)
I also went to OpenSourceCMS.com, but take it with a grain of salt since feedback is marbled by spammy comments of users and partners or owners of the respective software.
Additionally, there were at least 40 reviews and reports whose URLs I purged; though I’m sure you’ll find them using Google’s powerful search engine. ;-)
This entire research (plus testing, and testing, and testing…) took me almost three months.
Which content management systems did I test?
In alphabetical order:
- Bitrix Site Manager (7.0)
- Drupal (5.10 & 6.4)
- e107 (0.7 — six years old and still no version 1?)
- ExpressionEngine (1.6.5)
- eZ Publish (4.0)
- Joomla! (1.5.7)
- Mambo (4.6.5)
- MovableType (4.2), and…
- WordPress (2.6)
There were a few more, but due to the fact that I removed them from the test domain within a few minutes — or did not even bother installing them due to detailed reviews — I avoid mentioning them here.
Daniel also mentioned the name CMS400. At that time, the company behind this software, Ektron, did not provide prices on its website (hmm…). And when I contacted an Ektron representative, all the person did was ask questions… still no price.
End of conversation.
At the time of this writing, Ektron does provide prices on its website, starting at a whopping $5,000 per URL for the Standard Edition. But what I would have needed would have been the Professional Edition for which it says, “Ask your sales person for details.”
Sure…
You can see that I was not necessarily after a free or open source content management system. No CMS is “for free.” You always spend time (= money) and energy figuring everything out and familiarizing yourself with it. Or you have someone else do it for you, in which case you spend money, too.
Of course, I could have outsourced this task. The thing though is that I wanted to familiarize myself with it to know whether I want to work with it for the next few years, and to see which is the best or most appropriate CMS for MyGermanCity.com.
At one point I narrowed it down to Joomla! and Drupal with tendency towards Drupal. The thing was I would have spend at least $1,500 just for transitioning the existing template alone. Plus, I also needed someone for setting everything up.
What actually pushed me away from it, however, is the lack of plugin development (which they call modules).
You need to understand that modules are being developed for certain main Drupal releases (ex., 5 or 6) since the main Drupal versions are backward INcompatibel. Now, there were a couple modules that I needed upfront or soon, but they were not available for version 6. So I would have been forced to use Drupal 5 instead. Not that bad, perhaps, but what if I want or have to upgrade from 5 to 6?
That’s a huge task, they say.
This got me to remove both Drupal 5 & 6 from the test domain.
OK, then I was ready to use Joomla!.
Gosh, what a software… really impressive, speaking of customizability and features available right from the start! I even was about to fall in love with it (buy me a t-shirt!), but then…
Writing a simple content page, publishing it, and trying to access it on the Web (using the URL alias, not the ugly dynamic URL), displayed a 404 error… WTF?
The thing was this: If you do not assign a page to a left or right hand navigation bar, a Category, or a Section, you canNOT see the page on the Web using the pretty or search engine friendly URL!
End of discussion. What a pity, but Joomla! was removed from the server within a minute.
Another possible CMS was the Bitrix Site Manger. Again, it does have a cost upfront, but this can be compensated by the fact that most tools are already included. This may save you a lot of time later on.
As an example, one developer I got in contact with said that Drupal can do the same things Bitrix Site Manager does. The difference in terms of cost?
Almost non-existent.
I would have paid a similar amount of money for either CMS. The Bitrix Site Manager as it’s being shipped plus transitioning the theme: up to $3,000 altogether. Letting a developer set up Drupal, hand-code and/or customize certain modules, and have another or the same developer transfer the existing XHTML/CSS template to Drupal: up to $3,000 altogether.
Someone may argue that the Bitrix Site Manager does have a whole bunch of features built-in — tools one would need to develop for a Drupal powered site first. Plus, the assurance that Bitrix will maintain and improve those tools further since they’re part of the whole package, whereas one may need to hire a developer for maintaining and improving a Drupal powered site.
So again, both may sum up to an equal amount of time/money.
The thing that made me uninstall the Bitrix Site Manager was that file names are supposed to end in .php. They did say that it should work without the .php, but my testing consistently displayed nothing but error messages.
Another point was that this software is fairly complex (installation consists of thousands of files and folders), and, again, the need of someone to convert the existing site template to the Bitrix Site Manager would likely amount to up to $1,500 (which one may pay for a new but not for transitioning an existing custom template).
Next station was ExpressionEngine, which was recommended by the gentleman who created MyGermanCity.com’s site template — a coder extraordinaire, Pat Heard.
I can code HTML and CSS on my own, but Pat does it better, he does it in lightening speed, and he’s an expert in JavaScript.
If you’re ever in need of a first-class coder — one who exceeds your expectations — I highly recommend Pat Heard of fullahead.org. Let me warn you though… he’s usually booked out for weeks if not months.
Now, he did not only recommend EE, he also gave me a very important tip:
The choice of CMS is highly personal. Usually, once someone has invested the time to learn WordPress, TextPattern, Joomla, etc., they’ll swear up and down that it’s the best out there.
His comment set me up brilliantly. It made me look beyond the reviews of “raving fans.” ;-)
Back to ExpressionEngine…
The backend looked promising. Somehow, I felt comfortable right from the start. Plus, they promote their excellent forum and staff. Sounds good. They further promise to be extremely flexible. Also good. But then…
You CAN customize the layout to your hearts content. The downside, though, is that it affects the URL structure of your site!
As a side note: You can, somehow, program the software (or add something to the .htaccess file) to remove those template related words from URLs, but they strongly recommend you to not do that. “Extremely flexible?”
The other CMSs also just didn’t make it. e107 is too plain and doesn’t meet my needs; eZ Publish was a bit difficult to get to work, plus I couldn’t figure out how to do certain tasks; and Mambo — I dismissed that one, somehow… (doesn’t it lack development power now that some of Mambo’s previous core developers are in on developing Joomla!?).
That was the point where the thought of using WordPress as a content management system started to grow. But before that… “let me give MovableType a chance”.
First off, they consistently announce which websites use their software, and I don’t care who is using what. What interests me is what a software can do for me and my visitors, and its momentum in terms of development.
Long story short, what got me uninstall MovableType were mainly two things:
1) Somehow, it stands on its own. URLs with underscores?? And you have to be a registered user to enable things such as showing your own image next to your own comment?
2) To me it seems as though their marketing and vision is blurred and fuzzy. One day they decide to have this price; another day they decide to release MovableType as open source — with limited features over MovableType Pro. Yet another day they decide to remove those limitations and have the open source version match exactly the Pro version. Yet another day they change the price structure, again.
What about consistency and a clear plan?
Another thing that underscores my thesis is that their staff often writes mt.com or mt.org instead of movabletype.com or movabletype.org. Laziness (or fuzziness) can lead to strange destinations… ;-)
Enough said; on to WordPress.
But can it do what I need it to do?
I quickly realized that it can, and much more.
- Custom page templates without altering the URL.
- Custom breadcrumbs navigation (and many more custom fields) by utilizing the Custom Fields options when creating pages or posts.
- Customize the file name structure to your heart’s content. You could even add any file extension to it, if you wish.
- Compared to other CMSs, to create a WordPress template is very easy and pretty straight forward. In other words, the transition from a static XHTML/CSS template to a WordPress template was done within a few hours — by myself, a PHP newbie.
- The momentum and professionalism in terms of development and improvement is unmatched. Really impressive. New version after new version; plus, plugins are consistently developed and improved. And if not, it should be comparably simple to create a new custom plugin or alter an existing one — or to find someone who can alter or create and maintain one for a reasonable price.
- WordPress with its array of plugins may save you thousands of dollars in comparison to certain other content management systems.
That’s about my decision of using WordPress as a content management system for a content-rich website. :-)
—Marcus Hochstadt
New Features In WordPress 2.7
Email to a friend
By Marcus Hochstadt | Filed in HTML, CSS, Design, Pickups
After following the beta development and testing it on another domain, I went ahead the other day and installed WordPress 2.7 RC1 here on my blog. Furthermore, I updated my blog’s theme to take advantage of the new features WordPress 2.7 offers such as threaded comments (where one can reply to individual comments).
Thank you, Otto, your 2.7 Comments Enhancements instructions were a big help. :-)
—Marcus Hochstadt
6 CommentsPermalink Tags: otto, wordpress 2.7
The Biology Of Belief
Email to a friend
By Marcus Hochstadt | Filed in Pickups
I just finished watching an excellent DVD — Bruce Lipton’s “Intelligente Zellen: Der Geist ist stärker als die Gene” which translates to “Intelligent Cells: The Spirit is Stronger Than the Genes.”
The DVD is based on his book The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles and showcases his live event in Vienna, Austria in 2008.
Excellent, excellent. I recommend it to anyone who wants to go beyond old-school medicine and take charge of their own life.
Looks like you can’t get it at amazon.com, but at amazon.de or koha-verlag.de.
The DVD is in English, German, and Italian.
—Marcus Hochstadt
Congratulations, America!
Email to a friend
By Marcus Hochstadt | Filed in Better-Than-TV, Lifestyle, Pickups
US Americans… Here is to congratulate you and your country for having Barack Obama as your 44th President. It is the right man at right place at the right time. He’s the one who can and will bring the United States back on track, and he’s the one who brings people together.
It was very emotional when I followed the Election Day last night (via TV and Internet) and watched the results pour in. And then… We both had tears in our eyes at Barack Obama’s incredible speech in Chicago. It was a very special moment. It still gives me the creeps whenever I watch it. (John McCain’s speech was also touching.)
The last time I had such emotional, deeply touching moments was during the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. Millions of people became free that time. And last night… I saw people from all over the world celebrating, including entire Germany. (Likely 98% wished he would win, including me.)
A historical moment that will change our lives to the better. The American dream is alive again.
I’m so proud and happy for you Americans.
Thank you, Barack Obama.
—Marcus Hochstadt
P.S. For some more touching moments, here’s a video of Barack Obama’s Berlin speech (July 24th, 2008) in front of more than 200,000 celebrating, cheering people (and this although he was just a candidate that time!). Listen closely to what he said.
Amazing. Simply amazing.
Utilizing Headers And Titles For SEO
Email to a friend
By Marcus Hochstadt | Filed in HTML, CSS, Design, SEO
Did you know that there is a difference between off page optimization and on page optimization? Yes, there is. And what I will talk about here has to do with optimizing with “on page” techniques. These are simple remedies to increase your traffic.
You already know how important keywords are in your copy. That almost goes without saying at this point. ;-) And you should put the most effort in your Web site development with the use of keywords. It’s not something to ever neglect. This is vital!
You may have already been told that it is ideal to have your main keyword within your URL. However, that’s not always possible at this late date. You might already have your URL and can’t go to the trouble of changing it.
But there are things you can do now to make your Web page better optimized. And you should take each page and treat it as a separate entity. I’ll explain…
The first trick here is to make good use of title tags. You do this by having each page with the targeted keyword appearing in the title of the page. If the entire Web site is about printers, then, depending on your market & keyword research results, most Web page files probably start with or contain the keyword printers. You can name them printershp.html and printerscanon.html and the like. I’ll bet the search engines will like this. ;-)
Another important point is to take care in using Header tags. You will find that most SEO people will recommend only having one single H1 tag per page that contains the main keyword. Then your other H2 and H3 tags should have within them the secondary keywords.
You could consider this a sort of puzzle game, listing out all the main keywords, the secondary keywords and then working out where to put them. The content will have to read correctly and be of high quality, of course.
These are changes you can easily make to optimize your Web site. Get those keywords in there where the search engines can find them. Use Headers and Titles intelligently.
You want those search engines liking your site, for when they do, you get indexed. And when you get indexed, you will likely show up higher and higher in the results when folks search for your product or service.
All these recommendations are geared to make you more successful with your site. I like to see my friends make more money and increase profits!
—Marcus Hochstadt
39 CommentsPermalink Tags: header tags, SEO, title tag
Stand Out By Using Empty Space
Email to a friend
By Marcus Hochstadt | Filed in HTML, CSS, Design, Strategies
“Empty space? What’s that?” you may ask. “Is it like “dead air” on radio or television? You know, when the sound and picture cuts off on your TV and you’re just sitting there staring at a blank screen?”
No, that’s not empty space. That’s just plain dead air. Dead air is bad. Empty space is good!
There are articles out there on the Internet that describe how to use empty space on your Web site. And the reason they are there is because they contain some valuable data… data you should have when working out the design of your Web pages.
For example, if you want to maximize the headlines on your site, you can use empty space below them or above them. This will make the headlines stand out. And that’s what you want… for them to be noticeable. (Headlines are what pulls the reader “in.”)
You want the font you choose to be easily read, but did you know that you could make it easier to read if you leave some empty space around the text? Don’t fill in that space with a bunch of pictures, graphics and the like. Let it go! :O)
Empty space is actually eye catching. It is like some music that can make you feel the emotion of the creativity.
Have you ever listened to a song where the music suddenly stops and you think the piece is over – then it starts up again with some powerful melody? It’s very effective! The music can even sound louder and more electric as a result.
The same goes for a Web site with text on it. It also applies to ad designs or any design.
The message or offer stands out when surrounded by empty space – or white space you could call it. It draws the eye in to the important part of the page.
If you think just enlarging an image of a graphic will work, well, you might be right. But it can make your page seem amateurish or rough. You may think that will grab someone’s attention… and it very well might. But to just draw the attention to the image with empty space can be even more effective.
The central focus is what you want people to see. You want their attention pulled to your message. And this focus can be made to catch the attention by the use of space. You don’t have to fill every blank spot with images or text. Let them go! :O)
Everything on your page should enhance the main message you are trying to get across. If you have too much information, it can be distracting. If you are selling a product, rather than stuff your Web site full of data, you could possibly make it available in a newsletter or a free report.
Although there are no “set in stone” rules about empty space on a Web page, just use the rule of thumb that you should leave about one fourth of your page empty, letting the main parts stand out.
Keeping your Web site uncluttered and focusing attention on your message will make your site professional and attractive. Your visitors will be impressed… and stay and browse.
It’s not always what you fill the space with but how you don’t fill the space that makes the difference.
. . .
And you? How did and/or do you feel about the empty space on my blog recently? ;-)
—Marcus Hochstadt
Internet Lifestyle
Email to a friend
By Marcus Hochstadt | Filed in Lifestyle
It was a long time ago when I was so excited to travel like I am today.
Right in this moment, we are in the airplane and just taking off, flying from our home in north-east Brazil to my ‘ol comfort homeland, Germany, spending some time there.
I really love both places, Brazil and Germany. Both have their qualities. And most importantly, both places offer Internet access. ;-)
What a wonderful world it is that we’re living in, isn’t it?
Go ahead and create your own Internet Lifestyle and enjoy life wherever you want.
—Marcus Hochstadt
Content Vs. Design
Email to a friend
By Marcus Hochstadt | Filed in HTML, CSS, Design, Marketing, SEO
I will offer some opinions here, and you can take them or leave them. However, due to my experience (and actual tests run), I hope you will take what I have to say to heart! :-)
What is it that gets visitors to your Web site to stay there, browsing, looking and buying? Is it the design? Is it the layout? No, it’s the CONTENT. The written content keeps your visitors on your site and viewing your pages.
What causes your visitors to purchase from you? The content. They read, they read some more, they find good points that creates enough interest for them to purchase.
Let’s imagine you go to a Web site and the design is wonderful. Fancy, creative graphics. It really wows you. But the content is boring, or hard to understand, or it simply doesn’t capture your interest. Will you be encouraged to buy from them?
Another important question: Will you come back? It’s extremely doubtful. Maybe you’ll go back to get that wow effect from the design again, but not because of the content. Right?
On the other hand, if you go to a site that provides excellent content (like articles or informational text) you will likely bookmark that page. You will probably share that site with others.
Maybe this page with fantastic content has just a basic design, or an ugly default WordPress template. But you still bookmark and share it. You are likely to return for a visit. And this is because there is content that is more than interesting to read and that holds your attention.
Finding a template for a Web page should be a fast and painless process. Google doesn’t care about your design, they only care about the written content and the human behavior based on that content.
My opinion is that folks spend too much time on the design of their site, modifying the template, etc… way too much time. They miss the boat in this regard. What they should concentrate on is having great content that captures interest and encourages people to return.
High quality content goes a long way to getting your visitors to come and stay. You will attract many more visitors through the search engines. You will SELL your product because of that.
Obviously, the above wouldn’t necessarily apply to those selling templates or promoting design services… ;-)
And I can’t say I am completely innocent when it’s come to getting carried away sometimes with the design. But I am ridding myself of that compulsion step by step!
—Marcus Hochstadt
23 CommentsPermalink Tags: design, SEO
The 72-Hour Rule
Email to a friend
By Marcus Hochstadt | Filed in Strategies
Do you make lists of things to do? If so, do you carry over to the next day(s) the things you didn’t accomplish the day(s) before? Most of us have things on our list that carry over… on and on and on it goes.
Ever heard of The 72-Hour Rule? I had heard of it a couple years ago from the German Money Coach Bodo Schäfer.
It implies that the longer you postpone something the less likely it is that you’ll actually do it. In other words, when you postpone something for longer than 72 hours, you usually found enough excuses to not do it. Really, it works that way. Sort of a rule of the universe or something… at least you will probably find that it has held true for you in the past.
Think about it. You’ve decided to do something… maybe replace that broken gate in the yard. You write it on a piece of paper and stick it with a magnet on the refrigerator where you can see it every day. And you do see it every day.
But do you get out there and replace the gate? No. In fact that little piece of paper stays there on the door to the fridge for 4 days. It becomes second nature to see the paper there… so second nature that you don’t even “see” it anymore, if you know what I mean.
It’s a bit funny, but I’ve found that the longer you wait to do the action, the longer it takes to actually get around to it. You’ll find you will create more and more excuses for not getting it done.
You might even eventually just take it off the list altogether, figuring the gate actually doesn’t look that bad at all really. ;-)
A friend of mine tells me that she would take all the things that she had been moving forward on her “to-do” list for days and days to a new list of “Things I May Get to Someday if I Think of It” list. Hey, no pressure!
A way to handle this trait of procrastination is to realize the motivation to act upon the idea or stimulation decreases after each hour that passes by. You then ask yourself, “I have to do it anyway, so let’s do it NOW and it’s done.”
I think Internet business matters should be at the top of this list, and you should get in the mindset that you really ARE going to get this thing done (or at least to get started), and no later than within the next 72 hours, no matter what. If you can’t get started right away, put the deadline on your calendar in three days time.
Remember that you may have to do some preparation to actually start on your activity by that date, but determine you are going to do it—for sure—in this 72-hour time frame. Again, the likelihood that you actually do it decreases after each hour as your brain finds more and more excuses and “good reasons” for postponement.
Longer projects can be divided up into steps and you can schedule that first step in 72 hours. Then once the first step is done, ensure you get the second step started in 72 hours, and so on.
You really can break the procrastination habit. It just takes a little planning, fortitude, discipline, and the courage to form the opposite habit. ;-)
—Marcus Hochstadt
16 CommentsPermalink Tags: habits, procrastination, self-motivation
Finding Your Profitable Market
Email to a friend
By Marcus Hochstadt | Filed in Business, Marketing, Product Creation, Strategies
When in search for a product or service to sell online (or off, for that matter), you must take some steps to get the perfect market (or some call it niche) that will have a high desirability in today’s marketplace. The public must want it! :-)
Normally, you’d research the supply and demand of a market first, then locate the product that market is demanding specifically. But let’s take a look at starting with the product first.
So how do you find that perfect thing to sell in your Internet business endeavors? There are many workshops that offer advice and recommendations, but it’s really you that has to come up with an answer. It’s crucial to find something that will give you a good chance at success.
First, get a list of products or services that are potential items you would like to market. Each thing on your list should be something you have some knowledge about… Don’t try and sell ski boots when you have never been skiing or have even looked at a ski boot. Of course, if you absolutely LOVE ski boots, you can always learn all about them! :-)
That brings up the other point… and one brought up by almost every seminar ever given on the subject—find something you love! When you are going to be spending hours and hours of your days (and sometimes nights) setting up your Internet business, working on building traffic and getting things moving, and this for the next 3-5 years, you better enjoy what you are doing.
So… the items you put on your list should be products or services that reflect specific skills or aptitude you have, hobbies you are interested in, or things you know a lot about. You can add items that you have a high interest in learning, too. Just don’t make the runway for takeoff too long by needing to devote a lot of study to the subject first.
The idea is to leverage and improve your strengths, not your weaknesses.
Break down your list into three sections. First, list all the things you enjoy doing, such as baking, drawing, traveling, etc. Then list all the things you are good at doing… which could also overlap the first list. Now list your unique skills, perhaps playing the piano, computer programming or the like. And finally, list all the things that you have a lot of knowledge about.
Work out for each thing on your list what could be a product or service entailing the action involved with each one. This will at least give you some ideas—maybe really interesting and unique ideas at that!
Let’s say you came up with a product to sell such as fishing equipment. Some folks feel more comfortable to narrow the product/market down to something less competitive and more specific than “fishing equipment.” Perhaps you could just sell reels, lines or rods. Now you will need to find out if there is a market for this product. You instinctively know that there is, but research it anyway.
Find out how many out there will be your competition (or possible future partners). How much demand is there for the product? And is that demand high enough to sustain a business? Is it just too low, go back up a step or two until the demand number gets exciting. And ask yourself how you could create something unique—something that could be a Unique Selling Proposition that would make you stand out from the competitive crowd?
Turning your product or content rich Web site into a profitable Internet business venture is really doable if you are doing something you love, you are selling a product that is in high demand, and you stand out from the crowd in what you offer. You’ll have fun running your business every day, and will know how to handle customers’ questions effectively.
What an adventure!
—Marcus Hochstadt
12 CommentsPermalink Tags: internet business, market research, Product Creation
Competition Vs. Joint Venture
Email to a friend
By Marcus Hochstadt | Filed in Marketing, Strategies
Here’s a new look at your future Internet business endeavors. Think in terms of “if you can’t beat them, join them.” Rather than compete with other similar Internet businesses, you can join them as partners, escalating your business more than you ever imagined. :-)
In other words, Internet business doesn’t have to be about being “better than the competition” but can be about doing some business together and therefore growing together.
As an Internet business owner, you are likely searching out ways to increase your reach within your market, breaking down barriers and rocketing your revenues. And of course, you want to do this in a short amount of time!
In recent years, so many Internet businesses have united to augment their survival odds. It becomes necessary, I suppose, with many small businesses failing (or quitting) within the first five years.
So you hear more and more through various means that work-at-home parents and entrepreneurs have been looking into the possibility of working together with those who were competitors, thus becoming more successful in their endeavors.
Yes, many marketplaces these days are highly competitive. Of that there is no doubt. But when you look long and hard, you can find ways of overcoming. That’s why I wanted to include this topic for you to read about Competition Versus Joint Venture. It’s something to consider in your Internet business.
Taking part in a joint venture is basically teaming up with others (one person, a group or a business entity) in order to expand your business influence and to create a powerful market presence. It’s important, if you are going to do this, to do it soon… because otherwise your competitors may beat you to it!
Formally speaking, in a joint venture, an entity is formed between two parties (or more) to take part in economic activity together. They both contribute equity and share in the expenses and in the control of the business. It can be for only one project or be a continuing relationship.
So much to the formal stuff… ;-)
In a joint venture, you won’t be transferring ownership in any way. It’s not a merger, just a sharing. So what do you share with a partner?
You can share markets, assets, or knowledge, and of course, you can share (higher) profits!
For example, a large company may decide to start a joint venture with a small company to get some intellectual property not available to them otherwise, or to obtain hard-to-come-by resources.
Or a small business person with a Web site and hundreds or thousands of visitors per day shares the traffic with another webmaster who is in the same market but with eventually a slightly different audience (not necessary though!). Both have excellent products or services and share their excitement by recommending each others products. As a result, each of their audiences get more of what they want and improve their lives, so it’s a true win-win-win situation.
The advantages are great! It’s possible to expand into foreign markets, lower production costs, increase sales, etc. Collaborating with others definitely has pluses.
Bottom line, rather than invest large amounts of resources to enter into new areas of the marketplace, you can join forces with others who have identical products or services. And you will possibly find yourself able to compete (together with your partner) against some of your larger competitors—or even joint venture with THEM later, too!
So, before talking about “that competitor” again, why not shift your mindset from Competition to Joint Venture?
—Marcus Hochstadt
Fortunately powered by
RECENT THOUGHTS