Hey everybody, this is Jennifer Korol coming at you with Industry News today with another "this just in" my inbox. I wanted to share this video and article with you, because it said two things to me. 1) Doing what is unpopular or contrary to the majority of the Marketing and Business Industries can open the doors for what people are looking for (compassion and delivery). 2) The growth or lackthereof that can come out of such a new, innovative idea really puts the Business(es) in a place where they start to understand that feedback matters! Yes, I exclaim this, because it really is important to care about your customers and what their interests are.
This is the article that had inspired my train of thought and the way I think about my business:
As discussed in this article from the other day, Bonanzle is a site that is emerging as a contender to compete with eBay, who as we all know has been driving a lot of sellers away for various reasons.
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Editor's Note: Bonanzle's growth rate is remarkable, as you will see in the graphs at the end of this article. This is a site could eventually take on eBay, although you wouldn't know that was an objective based on the modest words of the site's co-founders. Do you think Bonanzle has what it takes to become the next eBay?
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I contacted Bill Harding and Mark Dorsey, co-founders of the site that was recently named Best eBay Alternative of 2008 to ask them about their strategy for competing with the well-established brand of eBay.
"Our 'competition' with eBay is probably something that is paid closer attention to by our users than us," they tell me in a joint email. "That said, we do think that for Bonanzle to matter in such a crowded alternatives environment, we need to distinguish ourselves clearly from eBay and similar sites."
"Our main point of distinction is that we're trying to create a marketplace where people matter. On other ecommerce sites, there generally isn't a compelling reason to visit unless you have a specific item you want to buy or sell," they add. "We have tried to create a more social atmosphere, where it's easy to meet and talk with people who share your interests in items.
Bonanzle has real time chatting built right into every "booth," as well as real time messages you can send to anyone on the site. Users can create lists of their favorite items that others can browse and comment on, a feature they say is extremely popular. "And you can see where in the country any user is from, so it's easy to meet and talk with people who live nearby you," they note.
Based on what the two had to say, the environment Bonanzle has created is one of openness and positivity. "All of these features lead to an environment where the level of anonymity is much lower than eBay, and we've found that with lower anonymity, people have more positive attitudes," they explain.
"We call our community one of the friendliest online -- if you sign up and say 'Hi, I'm new' in the forums, you might well receive 25 welcomes within a couple hours. People really seem to enjoy each other's company, and we try to keep our site's policies as open as possible to promote that."
As for the growth of the site, the compete.com data referred to in this article may have been a bit understated. "Compete has been very accurate at measuring our monthly percentage growth, but not very accurate on getting the actual numbers right," they tell me, providing a new graph from Google Analytics showing traffic at slightly over 280,000 unique visitors for the month of December.
They also provided me with the graph below for January that shows over 435,000 unique visitors. "We've now got more than 26,000 users and 1,072,320 items. Total unique visitors for January were 435k, an increase of 55% over December (our lowest monthly growth percentage so far, but all of our competitors whose traffic is available on Quantcast show traffic declines in January, which makes sense, given that it's the month after the busiest shopping month of the year).
But still, Bonanzle continues to grow rapidly. After WebProNews ran the last article, the site attracted over 1000 new users in one day, according to Bonanzle co-founder Mark Dorsey. Based on the comments WebProNews received on that article, plenty are eager to continue spreading the word of Bonanzle too.
The future is looking pretty bright for this site right now. Let's hope they can continue to keep up the good spirits of the site's users in a way that eBay once did during its own rise to fame.
About the Author:
Chris Crum is a staff writer for WebProNews and iEntry Network.
Source: http://www.webpronews.com
Take a look at the article on the website as well to see the charts and thanks for reading,
Jennifer Korol
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Can Your Business Survive In Any Economy?
Can Your Business Survive In Any Economy? is a question most ask themselves only when they feel they are in peril, but what about the times we feel most comfortable?
Everyone asks the question, can your business survive in any economy? The truth is, any business can if you learn to DIY. You don’t have to sell car parts or non-perishable foods to stay safe in any economy as every business developed and established serves a purpose. Given I have said this, there are also some personal decisions to consider; as every Business Man or Woman knows personal expenses effect the budget...Click here for full Article
Everyone asks the question, can your business survive in any economy? The truth is, any business can if you learn to DIY. You don’t have to sell car parts or non-perishable foods to stay safe in any economy as every business developed and established serves a purpose. Given I have said this, there are also some personal decisions to consider; as every Business Man or Woman knows personal expenses effect the budget...Click here for full Article
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Should You Be Sued For Linking? - WebProNews Tells It
Should you be sued for linking? WebProNews Tells It
In an age where the web appears to be getting more and more open, with the rise of data portability and everybody sharing stuff with everybody else, it is fascinating to see that a newspaper publisher is suing another one that is linking to its content.
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Editor's Note: The Internet is based on linking, and news aggregation is just part of how it is done. This has become more and more the norm over the past decade. Generally speaking, this kind of practice benefits all parties involved. The original source gets more exposure along with its advertisers (who love exposure by the way), the aggregator gets content, the readers get more places to find content they're interested in. Would you have a problem with a publisher linking to your site using your article headline and lede?
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GateHouse Media Inc., which owns 125 Massachusetts newspapers as well as web properties like WickedLocal.com, sued the New York Times Co. because its Boston.com-run website "Your Town Newton" was posting headlines and small article snippets from WickedLocal.com.
Now the snippets linked to the original site, but that was not good enough for GateHouse. The company claimed that this created confusion over where the content originated, and leads to readers missing out on advertisements from WickedLocal's front page.
It seemed that GateHouse was not considering the very real possibility that readers would never have made it to their site in the first place had Boston.com's site not driven them there. Then readers would be missing out on the ads on the article pages too, and frankly, I can't see how that would help GateHouse's cause. Boston.com offers its parent company's stance on the matter:
In a statement, New York Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis said the company is simply doing what hundreds of other news sites already do -- aggregate headlines and snippets of relevant stories published elsewhere on the Web -- and believed GateHouse's lawsuit was without merit.
"Far from being illegal or improper, this practice of linking to sites is common and is familiar to anyone who has searched the Web," Mathis said. "It is fair and benefits both Web users and the originating site."
Now Save Money on Facebook Ads
It was like GateHouse was not interested in expanding its web traffic. Traffic comes from links. And many, many sites drive traffic to other sites by doing exactly what Boston.com did. They show article titles and snippets and link to the original.
Ever looked at a Google SERP? Ever shared a link on Facebook? Ever browsed tech news on Techmeme? Digg? Most publications would love to be linked to via these venues.
Since I originally posted this article, the two companies announced that they reached a settlement, the details of which can be read in their entirety here. Under the terms of the settlement, the New York Times Co. has agreed to remove all GateHouse feeds that contain headlines and ledes from Boston.com.
GateHouse will implement solutions that prevent the copying of its content from its sites and RSS feeds. "Nothing shall prevent either party from linking or deep-linking to the other party's websites," provided that the other conditions are met. The agreement of course applies to all of GateHouse's and the New York Times Co.'s properties.
So there you have it. It's settled, but the topic is still up for debate is it not? Who would've won tihs case? Fair use still exists right? As Paid Content points out though, the New York Times Co. is in no position to deal with a lengthy and costly legal battle.
To me, it still seems like GateHouse's loss. It should be interesting to see how much difference in traffic there is after losing the Boston.com links. Yes, they can still "link" to them, but I would imagine the rate of links will be significantly reduced. After this, I'd be surprised if they still wanted to link to them anyway.
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Our CEO Rich Ord has a great deal of experience in news aggreagation. He offered the following commentary on the subject:
Linking is the basis of the Web
Linking is an old issue on the Internet and has generally been accepted by news organizations as a benefit to them. The idea that so-called "deep linking" is evil and is a violation of a news organizations copyright is ridiculous and goes against the very nature of the Web. If a news site doesn't want to be linked to then they shouldn't put pages on the Web.
I originally came up with the concept of linking directly to news stories with the founding of NewsLinx.com back in 1996. I was approached by many news companies, including ironically, the New York Times. They asked if I had permission to link directly to their news stories and I answered, "No I don't." I then asked if they would like me to stop linking to their articles, and every single news organization told me to keep linking.
Since then, deep linking to news stories has become mainstream and accepted as a win-win for the publisher and the news aggregating re-publisher. Examples include Google News, Drudge Report, Techmeme, WebProWire, Topix.com and thousands of articles written each day which deep-link direct to articles.
The Web is based on links and couldn't exist without them.
Rich Ord
CEO, iEntry, Inc.
Publisher of WebProNews
richord@ientry.com
Jennifer Korol's Notes: Where did I get this great post that keeps me updated?
Check it out here... http://www.webpronews.com
If you would like to stay updated on WebProNews's latest articles as well as my news all in one Feed, feel free to subscribe here where you get it all.
Thanks for reading,
Jennifer Korol
Industry News
In an age where the web appears to be getting more and more open, with the rise of data portability and everybody sharing stuff with everybody else, it is fascinating to see that a newspaper publisher is suing another one that is linking to its content.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editor's Note: The Internet is based on linking, and news aggregation is just part of how it is done. This has become more and more the norm over the past decade. Generally speaking, this kind of practice benefits all parties involved. The original source gets more exposure along with its advertisers (who love exposure by the way), the aggregator gets content, the readers get more places to find content they're interested in. Would you have a problem with a publisher linking to your site using your article headline and lede?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GateHouse Media Inc., which owns 125 Massachusetts newspapers as well as web properties like WickedLocal.com, sued the New York Times Co. because its Boston.com-run website "Your Town Newton" was posting headlines and small article snippets from WickedLocal.com.
Now the snippets linked to the original site, but that was not good enough for GateHouse. The company claimed that this created confusion over where the content originated, and leads to readers missing out on advertisements from WickedLocal's front page.
It seemed that GateHouse was not considering the very real possibility that readers would never have made it to their site in the first place had Boston.com's site not driven them there. Then readers would be missing out on the ads on the article pages too, and frankly, I can't see how that would help GateHouse's cause. Boston.com offers its parent company's stance on the matter:
In a statement, New York Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis said the company is simply doing what hundreds of other news sites already do -- aggregate headlines and snippets of relevant stories published elsewhere on the Web -- and believed GateHouse's lawsuit was without merit.
"Far from being illegal or improper, this practice of linking to sites is common and is familiar to anyone who has searched the Web," Mathis said. "It is fair and benefits both Web users and the originating site."
Now Save Money on Facebook Ads
It was like GateHouse was not interested in expanding its web traffic. Traffic comes from links. And many, many sites drive traffic to other sites by doing exactly what Boston.com did. They show article titles and snippets and link to the original.
Ever looked at a Google SERP? Ever shared a link on Facebook? Ever browsed tech news on Techmeme? Digg? Most publications would love to be linked to via these venues.
Since I originally posted this article, the two companies announced that they reached a settlement, the details of which can be read in their entirety here. Under the terms of the settlement, the New York Times Co. has agreed to remove all GateHouse feeds that contain headlines and ledes from Boston.com.
GateHouse will implement solutions that prevent the copying of its content from its sites and RSS feeds. "Nothing shall prevent either party from linking or deep-linking to the other party's websites," provided that the other conditions are met. The agreement of course applies to all of GateHouse's and the New York Times Co.'s properties.
So there you have it. It's settled, but the topic is still up for debate is it not? Who would've won tihs case? Fair use still exists right? As Paid Content points out though, the New York Times Co. is in no position to deal with a lengthy and costly legal battle.
To me, it still seems like GateHouse's loss. It should be interesting to see how much difference in traffic there is after losing the Boston.com links. Yes, they can still "link" to them, but I would imagine the rate of links will be significantly reduced. After this, I'd be surprised if they still wanted to link to them anyway.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our CEO Rich Ord has a great deal of experience in news aggreagation. He offered the following commentary on the subject:
Linking is the basis of the Web
Linking is an old issue on the Internet and has generally been accepted by news organizations as a benefit to them. The idea that so-called "deep linking" is evil and is a violation of a news organizations copyright is ridiculous and goes against the very nature of the Web. If a news site doesn't want to be linked to then they shouldn't put pages on the Web.
I originally came up with the concept of linking directly to news stories with the founding of NewsLinx.com back in 1996. I was approached by many news companies, including ironically, the New York Times. They asked if I had permission to link directly to their news stories and I answered, "No I don't." I then asked if they would like me to stop linking to their articles, and every single news organization told me to keep linking.
Since then, deep linking to news stories has become mainstream and accepted as a win-win for the publisher and the news aggregating re-publisher. Examples include Google News, Drudge Report, Techmeme, WebProWire, Topix.com and thousands of articles written each day which deep-link direct to articles.
The Web is based on links and couldn't exist without them.
Rich Ord
CEO, iEntry, Inc.
Publisher of WebProNews
richord@ientry.com
Jennifer Korol's Notes: Where did I get this great post that keeps me updated?
Check it out here... http://www.webpronews.com
If you would like to stay updated on WebProNews's latest articles as well as my news all in one Feed, feel free to subscribe here where you get it all.
Thanks for reading,
Jennifer Korol
Industry News
Grand Opening Of Industry News Blog
Hey everybody and welcome to the grand opening of Industry News Blog. What I would have to share here, for the most part, will be resources for Citizen Journalists, and independent Authors. It's not going to end there though. You are also going to be updated on just about every aspect of the marketing and business industries respectively. Of course, most of my reporting about those sujects will be primary and secondary source. So, I will be linking back a lot to the provider of the reports I receive when I get them in my inbox. There is so much I want to do with Industry News as it pertains to giving others the spotlight and giving all of my viewers/readers the latest about everything self employed. If you have watched my channel representing Industry News (Jennifer Korol), you will also see that it is in part of Selfemployment Solution Center http://www.freewebs.com/leaderscare and there is also a blog being created for that self-branded website. Feel free to wander around in there and become a site member to stay updated and check back to this blog to stay updated on other primary and secondary source news.
Thanks for reading,
Jennifer Korol
Selfemployment Solution Center http://www.freewebs.com/leaderscare
and Megapixel Productions http://www.freewebs.com/megapixelpro
Thanks for reading,
Jennifer Korol
Selfemployment Solution Center http://www.freewebs.com/leaderscare
and Megapixel Productions http://www.freewebs.com/megapixelpro
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