08/31/2005
Enter the top Url for Yahoo's new site map. The Yahoo crawler will take it from there.

08/30/2005
Ten-Minute Guide To Network Security
Keeping your network secure is a tough, time-consuming job. But it needn't be that tough --- for help, follow the ten-minute guide to get you started on keeping your network safe.

The Internet can be a dangerous place, full of viruses, worms and hackers bent on doing harm to your network. "Security first" has become a kind of mantra for IT professionals and CIOs, while regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley have made network protection as much a question of legal responsibility as good business sense.
But between upgrading the local area network (LAN) to Gigabit Ethernet, deploying voice over IP (VoIP), putting out network fires and making sure everything runs smoothly, many IT managers are already stretched to the limit. Security can be a complex, expensive and time-consuming business.

Nevertheless, every great journey begins with a single step, and even if you only have ten minutes to devote to the project, you can still use that time to get the security ball rolling. "I think the key is not to think about securing your network in ten minutes," Hilling says, "but to get the whole process started in those ten minutes."

Complete Article

08/29/2005
Top 10 Rules for Small Business Success
from Brian Grinonneau

Target
You are not all things to all people. Decide on your niche--narrow your focus and broaden your appeal.

Be Different
If your competitors are doing it, don't. Stand out from an overcrowded marketplace where so much of the advertising and products look the same.

more tips

08/26/2005
The By KIDS For KIDS™ Company recognizes the ingenuity and creativity that kids possess. They also know that kids have great ideas and often no place to take them. They provide the support needed for kids to create great ideas and inventions for other kids to use. They will even help bring the best ideas into the marketplace! True to their name, all products are invented BY and FOR kids.

Submit your inventions!

08/23/2005
FORTUNE SMALL BUSINESS today announced five teams as finalists in the FSB Student Showdown, FORTUNE Small Business's national business plan competition for students. The top ranked team will receive a $35,000 prize from contest sponsor SAP America Inc., a subsidiary of SAP AG, the world's leading provider of business software solutions. The second place team will receive $10,000 and the third place team will receive $5,000. The winners will be revealed in the November issue of FORTUNE Small Business magazine.

The finalists are:

Bigfoot Networks, Inc., a company from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin that has devised a technology to improve the speed and performance of online games

FibrinX, a team from the Wharton School of Business that is developing a proprietary wound sealant

LicketyShip, a company that aims to provide same-day delivery of online purchases. It was started as a partnership between students at University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business and undergraduate program and Yale University's graduate program

NeuroLife, a startup from the David A. Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University that makes a noninvasive monitor designed to help in the early detection of brain injury and disease

PrepMe Corp., an online test preparation company created by students from Stanford University, University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, and University of Michigan

08/19/2005
Small Business Pipeline recently sat down with Chris Ogburn, director of SMB sales and development for Hewlett Packard, and talked about the growing use of a virtual workforce and dependence on telecommuting within the small and medium-size business (SMB) market. According to Nemertes Research Group, virtual workers in the United States have increased by 800 percent in the last five years; likewise, an InStat study predicts that the number of telecommuters will reach 51 million by 2008. Chris used these statistics as a jumping-off point to discuss the growing popularity of working virtually, and to provide 10 tips for starting a virtual small business:

Complete Article

08/17/2005
Users installing Google v3 toolbar will find that Google has automated "AutoLink" that inserts links, modifying the web page content with links that *they* feel are helpful. How kind of them.

Now Google is not only a brilliant search engine, it reads minds and knows what you want to see. Even better, Google knows better than the website owners ,what site visitors should see better than the website owners!

Google stick to search, suggestive search is condescending to many who consider you a partner.

08/16/2005
Read and syndicate the latest Small Business articles. All the articles listed on the Free Website Content page contain permissions to reprint the contents *provided* that the author resource box remains intact. Instant content for your website!

Long Term vs Short Term Marketing Efforts - In order to create consistent sales cycles and a positive growth trend businesses usually engage in both short and long term marketing efforts.

Copyright Infringements - I've always been of the opinion that competition is a good thing. It encourages all of us to be better and make better products. While it might be true that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, copying someone else's work is simply wrong.

When Something is Free - What are consumer expectations when something is free? Realistically, consumers subconsciously assume free means free, and while that might be the initial intent rarely is it the case.

What is Wiki - Wiki is web server software that allows users to contribute content. Collaboration is the key to Wiki, which is designed as a powerful system for online communities to build web pages and web sites. Unlike blogs and forums, all users are allowed to contribute and edit existing content.

Developing Content Portals - Highly targeted, focused sites that are related to specific market segments are highly advantageous and can often be created using existing web content. The key is to provide value. Think of the time spent surfing the web gathering resources and information.

Google AdSense Evolution - The web has evolved into a complex "organism" which, to some, appears to have a life of its own. As the Internet has evolved, so too have online marketers and publishers. The dot-com balloon is said to have burst but savvy publishers have grabbed the coat tails of the Google search monster and employ Google AdSense on content-rich websites.

08/10/2005
Google Inc. is refusing to speak with reporters at CNET's online news site after it ran a story that used Google's chief executive to illustrate how easily the company's search engine finds personal information.

Google told News.com, the online tech news service of CNET Networks Inc., last week that it would not speak to any of its reporters for a year, according to News.com's editor.

Google was angered by a story last month that focused on potential threats the search engine leader's product poses to personal privacy, said Jai Singh, the News.com editor-in-chief.

08/05/2005
Yahoo Inc. on Wednesday launched in beta a service that enables small and medium-sized web sites to publish text-based ads and share in the revenue from Yahoo advertisers.

The service, which is only available during the testing phase by invitation, is meant to broaden the reach Yahoo can provide to its advertisers, Willan Johnson, general manager of Yahoo Publisher Network, said.

"What (advertisers) are interested in is getting leads to their web sites and generating sales," Johnson said. "This is a way of getting advertisers more leads by extending our distribution to small and medium-sized publishers."

08/04/2005
Increase your business productivity.

ClipMate enhances the Windows clipboard, making it a true power tool. The cut/copy paste capability of Windows works well for transferring single items of data, but is not useful if you want to move a lot of data or keep data longer than until your next cut or copy.

ClipMate works alongside the regular Windows clipboard and remembers every piece of data (both text and graphics) that you cut or copy. Once your data is in ClipMate, you can select an item and it is automatically placed back on the clipboard or directly into the application you were using.

You can view, print, edit, reformat, convert to upper/lower case, search, rename, and reorder clip items. There is even a built-in spellchecker. You can create an unlimited number of collections to store your data, and you have full control over the retention rules so that your collections will fit your own work process.

Download ClipMate to increase your business productivity.

08/03/2005
Yahoo is extending the reach of its Publisher Network with the launch of a contextual-advertising service for small-scale Web publishers who now will have access to Yahoo's advertising products throuch a single interface.

Initially offered as a beta product, the platform will let webmasters sign up online for the Publisher Network services that hitherto have been provided only to larger enterprises.

Yahoo Publisher Beta

08/03/2005
Jupiter sold SearchEngineWatch shows and forums for 43 million! The plan is to grow the Search Conference series on an international level.

08/03/2005
ASK's new paid listings program launches on the 15th of this month at sponsoredlistings.ask.com see Danny Sullivan's Search Engine Watch for the complete details.

08/02/2005
In order to create consistent sales cycles and a positive growth trend businesses usually engage in both short and long term marketing efforts.

Short-term marketing efforts tend to cause sudden sales spikes which rarely last. These sharp sales increases are usually the result of a targeted marketing campaign or time limited offer. While short-term marketing produces sales, long-term marketing efforts must be mixed in to sustain sales.

More on Short Term vs Long Term Marketing

08/01/2005
There were some rumors in the Webmaster World Forum that Google is changing the way it looks at directories like Web Search Engines . It appears Google may be penalizing the mini-directories. While they are attempting to stop search engine spamming I think they are clearly missing the boat in seeing the value of these niche portals. These sites make it very easy to find topic specific information in a single location and while they may all be rooted at DMOZ, they are significantly easier to navigate. Take a look at Monitoring Tools or Investing Partners to get a better idea how these sites are useful to members of their industry or consumers.