I Live Online

Here in the United States, MySpace is extremely popular, but not so much in other places. Check out this cool map I found on LeMonde.

Tags: bebo, cyworld, facebook, friendster, hi5, linkedin, live journal, media, myspace, networks, orkut, skyblog, social

If you ever needed convincing on whether or not you should start an online business, I invite you to read the following press release.

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Internet Ad Revenue Exceeds $21B in 2007

NEW YORK (AP) — Online advertising revenues exceeded $21 billion for the first time in 2007, although preliminary data compiled by an industry trade group also suggest growth is slowing.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau said its estimates show ad revenues grew 25 percent last year from nearly $17 billion in 2006. In dollar amounts, the estimated gain was $4.2 billion — less than the 35 percent and $4.3 billion growth seen in 2006 over 2005.

Analysts have said the growth rate was bound to slow as the Internet commands a larger share of the advertising pie, taking dollars away from traditional media like newspapers. By most accounts, the Internet still represents less than 10 percent of all U.S. ad spending, meaning there’s room for a lot more growth, even at a slower rate.

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, which conducts a quarterly survey for the advertising trade group using data from the 15 largest online ad sellers, said fourth-quarter revenues totaled about $5.9 billion, topping the previous record of $5.2 billion in the third quarter.

David Silverman of PricewaterhouseCoopers said the latest record numbers demonstrate that interactive media continue to be important to consumers and marketers.

The IAB said final data and breakdowns by ad types would be available in May. Typically, the most lucrative are keyword ads such as those displayed alongside search results at Google Inc. and other search engines.

Source: Associated Press

Tags: Business, Entrepreneur, internet, marketing

There are a lot of ways to make money online, but for some folks, the internet can be pretty intimidating. If that’s you, then no worries! I have a solution for you - Give advice over the phone and charge a premium for it. Sound like a sales pitch for an expensive product? Is “free” too much for you?

I will give you a list in a moment, but let me tell you how these Pay-per-call services work.

1. You sign up and get a free phone number.
2. You advertise the type of advice you are giving. (Tax advice for example)
3. People call your number and the phone service charges so much per minute for as long as the call lasts.
4. Once the call is over, the customer rates your advice on a website.
5. The pay-per-call service processes the payment, takes out a percentage of what you earned, then sends you a check (or wires money to your bank account via PayPal) at the end of the month.

Intrigued? Sound too good to be true? Its not. Here are three companies to check out if you want to explore this option more.

Ether

I like what Ether has to offer and have heard good things about them. In addition to the Pay-per-Call service, you can also:

Earn money via email:

You can sell any digital content, such as reports, photographs, podcasts, videos, etc. Simply send an Ether Mail with the contents you’d like to sell and set the price you’re charging. People will only be able to view the contents when they pay your price.

Sell content on the web:

You can also sell digital content using an Ether Buy Now Button you can place on your website. Simply set up a Buy Now button with the contents you’d like to sell and set the price you’re charging. People will only be able to view the contents when they pay your price.

Click here for details on their service.

Keen

Click here for details on their service.

Kasamba

Click here for details on their service.

In case you are wondering if this type of service would work for you, here is a list (some) of the types of advice up for grabs.

• Professional Counseling
• Technical Support
• Tutoring
• Tax Advice
• Alternative Medicine
• Shopping Advice
• Translation Services
• Legal Advice
• Pet Care
• Dispute Mediation

If you find this helpful, or know of similar services not mentioned above, please leave a comment below?

Thanks!

-Jim

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Tags: howto, pay-per-call, Technology

Are you a news junkie? Or rather, do you stay informed on International Events? I try to, but not as much as I suppose I should. This is why I was so intrigued with this new product I found online called - Livestation.

Livestation is (more or less) a desktop application that streams news from all over the world to your computer screen. Once you download their product from their homepage and install it, you will see a sign-up window pop up. Fill out the info and then click the sign-in button.

Here is a sample shot of a news broadcast from France. Its broadcast in French (oui, oui monsieur), but someone is translating it for me which I do so appreciate as my french is very rusty. What immediately impressed me about Livestation is the picture and sound quality. It looked like it was in high-definition!

The other thing that somewhat disappointed me was that there were so few channels for me to review. However, I was pleased to find out from their website that more channels were on the way.

“Discussions are taking place with other major broadcasters who want to be art of the Livestation platform. New channels will be added as they become available.”

As you can see below, I could only access five international channels and two of those were radio stations. (BBC Radio 4 and BBC World Service)

I also noticed from their website that depending on where you are in the world, you might have more access to channels than I do. Here is a list of the channels that are ultimately available.

TV Channels
* Al Jazeera (English)
* BBC News 24 (English)
* BBC World (English)
* Bloomberg (English)
* EuroNews (English)
* EuroNews (French)
* France 24 (English)
* France 24 (French)
* i>TELE (French)
* Sky News (English)

Radio Stations
* BBC Radio 4 (English)
* BBC World Service (English)

I recommend: Livestation

Its easy to download, does not seem to slow down my systems, excellent picture quality and no spyware as far as I could tell.

Enjoy…

Jim

Tags: livestation, Technology, tv, Video, web 2.0, web2.0

If you have ever called a company for Technical  Support, chances are you were calling somebody in India. Ever wonder what it was like on the other end of the phone? Take a look at this video and find out.

Thank you Raghavendra for the referral.

-Jim

Tags: call center, Funny, geek, India, Video

Stumbled across a cool tool today called “Verify Email Address.” Okay, so the name of the product isn’t sexy; it does not matter to me just so long that it works. This is how to use it: step-by-step.

1. Go to Verify-Email.org and type in an email address.

2. Verify-Email goes to the mail server, checks to see if the address is legitimate, then returns a report that says “Ok” if its a valid email address or “Bad” if its not. If you are emailing passive candidates a lot or trying to track down people from old documents found online, this FREE product should (at least) let you know that you are not wasting your time in sending your email; only that the person on the other end does not want to reply. (Hey, it happens.) Add this one to your bag of tricks people.

UPDATE: Do not use this tool! Check the comments section for a VERY important update! 

-Jim

Tags: Demo, email, How To, Technology

How hard would it be to run an international exporting business without an office? According to our special guest - Luis Perez, its not that hard at all. Also, a quick tip on what it takes to get your next big idea off the ground. (Courtesy of Jake Press)

Just another exciting episode of “I Live Online.”

I Live Online - Entrepreneur from Jim Stroud on Vimeo.

Tags: Business, Entrepreneur, i live online, jim stroud, marketing

This is the first of several videos that will be showcased on this site. It is produced by a very good friend of mine - Otis Collier. I HIGHLY recommend that you check out his personal website and his blog over at www.otiscollier.com.

Enjoy…

Tags: Business, Entrepreneur, making money, Otis Collier

I really wish I could take full credit for this, but truth be told, this strategy is a knock-off of an idea I picked up from Eric Jaquith. (If you were among the fortunate few who attented SourceCon 2007, then you know what a whiz he is.) I started to snatch down somebody’s resume to demonstrate this process, but thought that somehow it would come back to haunt me. So what I have done instead is use my own resume with the reminder that this is for demonstration purposes only. (Click here to download my resume and see this trick in action. Be sure to double-click on the speaker icon and turn your speakers up.)

But I digress…

COOL TRICK: How to embed your voice inside of a resume

Let’s say that you are a TPR (Third Party Recruiter) or a Corporate Recruiter or a Retained Searchfirm, or whatever and you are SOOOO excited about a particular candidate that you will just bust if the hiring manager does not review the resume. However, the Hiring Manager is very, very busy and does not have the luxury of time to look at the resumes he asked you to produce, much less listen to all of the reasons why they should interview your candidate right away. So what do you do?

Well, you might want to try embedding a voice message into the resume you send in; that way they can hear your excitement and pay closer attention to the document that were planning to quickly scan over.

“So Jim,” you say, “That sounds interesting, but I don’t know how to do that.”

“No worries, all you need is a copy of Microsoft Word and a microphone,” I reply, “Let me show you how to do it.”

STEP-BY-STEP

1. Make sure you have a microphone that works with your computer. No biggie, as you can pick one up at Wallmart for $10.00 (more or less).

2. Open up a new Word document

3. Pull down the Insert Menu and click on: “Object”

4. From the Object window scroll down to “Wave Sound.”

5. Highlight “Wave Sound” and click “Okay.”

6. A little window that looks like a tape recorder pops up.

7. Click on the red dot button and begin recording your message. By default you get sixty seconds, but if you stop the recording before it gets to the very end and start recording again, you get sixty more seconds.

8. Once you’re done recording, close out that window.

9. Like magic, a speaker icon appears in your Word document.

10. To play back the sound file, simply double-click on the speaker icon.

11. Add a message next to the speaker to remind the reader that an audio message is embedded. (You might also want to mention that they should be sure to have their speakers on.)

And that’s it! Pretty cool huh?

*(Now I started this demo with a blank document and then I cut and pasted my resume in, but that does not matter as the resume could have been there the whole time.)

I would very much like to hear your comments on this and (even better) solicit your testimonials on how this strategy has worked for you. If you would, simply leave a comment below. And again, to see a working demo of this: Click here to download my resume, double-click on the speaker icon and turn your speakers up.

Good luck!

-Jim Stroud

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Tags: careers, Demo, How To, interview, resume, Technology

I am such a HUGE fan of this franchise!!! Can’t wait, can’t wait, CAN NOT WAIT!!!!

Tags: box office, indianna jones, movies, steven spielberg