By: Co-Editor. Bobby B:
Brainshark, Inc., a leader in on-demand presentations, and transforming static business content into high-impact communications is offering its platform at no cost. Brainshark’s platform is delivered via Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Brainshark enables audiences to access and engage with business content when and how they want.
Its core application enables businesspeople to easily create, edit, publish, and track multimedia presentations that are available on demand. It also enables business people to transform Microsoft PowerPoint slides and other business materials into powerful voice-enriched, interactive presentations.
On September 21, 2009, Brainshark announced the launch of MyBrainshark – a Web site where anyone can create, share and track publicly available multimedia presentations for free. The company’s is ideal for cost-conscious star-ups and small and medium businesses. The site lets you add your own voice – as well as video, survey questions, attachments and more – to uploaded presentations, so you can show and tell your story to your target audience, as well as track their reception.
For the last 10 years, Brainshark has offered its very popular on-demand presentations service for enterprises. As has been pointed out by many commentators, most web services today typically start out by offering free services (such as one of our affiliated sites RaiseCapital.com) and then slowly move towards offering paid features as they get more traction. Brainshark turns this model on its head. The company already offers a profitable paid product. By launching a free version of its service, MyBrainshark, they are attempting to unseat competitors such as Slideshare who are operating in this space.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
There are many restaurant guides on the web and also many sites that allow you to search for restaurants based on specific criteria. Now there is a new site that allows you to search based on social criteria.
TasteSpace, LLC, a New York based portfolio company of The Global Enterprise & Intiative Group, LLC, originally launched TasteSpace.com in beta in 2007.
TasteSpace.com is a multi-faceted Search Engine and Centralized Index of bar/restaurant content available across the Internet. They offer their own database of area bars and restaurants, as well as targeted access to popular online blogs and videos.
The site’s Venue Profiles feature menus, photos, highlights, user reviews, event schedules, specials info and other content, all in one place. You can also order food or make reservations directly from many of the venue profiles. The site’s interactive features let users upload venue photos, suggest details and highlights, and save their favorite bars/restaurants. To ensure accuracy and up-to-date information, we allow owners from our registered venues to manage and regularly update their profiles themselves.
Other options include the “Take Me Out” option, which allows you to search for restaurants or bars based on criteria you choose. While other sites like Zagat.com have search features such as this, but it is not based on profiles provided by the restaurants and bars themselves. The bar search feature breaks down bars by lounge, pub or nightclub. The real innovation is the social criteria search feature. For example, if you are going out with your friends you can search based on that criteria and add one of the following categories; “Young and Reckless”, Young and Sophisticated”, “Mature, But Young At Heart”, “Cultured and Classy”, “Girls Night Out”, and “Just The Fellas”. In the results fields it will give you a percentage on how close your criteria matches to the restaurant or bar retrieved.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
As a born and bred New Yorker who also spent his youth bar hopping and cab hopping in Manhattan, I was intrigued to hear about CabCorner.com.
CabCorner.com is an innovative Internet-based cab share program that aggregates user-generated cab rides and matches riders willing to split a cab and a fare. The service provides a market-based solution for people who want the convenience of a cab for a fraction of the cost. The obvious benefits of cab share include sharing resources, providing an additional transportation option, increasing capacity, easing congestion, and improving fuel efficiency. On top of these benefits, cab share will provide a measure of certainty as the MTA scrambles to plug its $1.2 billion budget deficit.
CabCorner helps its users find cab rides that complement their itinerary. If no such trip exists, users can create a new ride. Traditionally, this type of service has been restricted to blue van shuttles that organize trips by either starting or ending at an airport. By organizing riders by point of origin or destination, it is easy to coordinate a route that picks up or drops off riders along the way. CabCorner, however, casts a wider net than previous services by using the Internet to pool riders who share a common itinerary.
There is a “Hot Spot Map View” that outlines popular locations in NYC where you can meet others and share a cab. There is also a video on the site that explains in detail how the site works.
By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
So-called wrapped vehicles have been around for about 15 years. A company called SuperGraphics , now a division of GM Nameplate, no relation to General Motors, contends to have designed the world’s first computer generated bus wrap for the now discontinued Crystal Pepsi. Such advertising has spread to other forms of public transportation-taxis, trains etc.
The problem is this type of advertising is very expensive, plus bus and train supply is limited and often requires sorting through governmental or bureaucratic red tape. By wrapping cars, advertisers are able to use this extremely effective form of advertising in a more cost effective manner.
We have been contacted by few of these new sites, but they are based outside the United States and would not really be of interest to our readers until the catch on here. For instance, a recently launched startup CashURWheels.com (profiled on KillerStartups.com) is based in Australia and has only listings in Australia. It does however, feature auctions and free registration so if it can catch on here in the United States it should be of interest. This type of marketing so intrigued me that I decided to survey some of the companies doing wrapped advertising over the Internet. It seems most of these companies charge for access to their sites, unlike CashURWheels.
DirectFreeCars.com offers access to its database of 20 companies for $24.95. They claim that you can either get a new car absolutely free or get paid for driving your car and receive checks from $120-$3400 every month.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
For many people the Internet is a vast, unwieldy, intimidating organism. For other it is a vast playground with fun around every corner. For others it is merely a business. No matter where you fit on this spectrum, it is nice to learn and get feedback on various websites you might encounter.
Hiztoria.com, a Kansas City based start up launched in July of 2009, is a place for people to share and discover anything and everything about websites. Users can rate, review, share, and discuss websites both big and small. Users can earn points and level up by contributing to the site and writing reviews.
A totally revamped Hiztoria 2.0 is launching in a few short weeks. This brand new version of our Hiztoria will feature brand new designs and improved features.
As stated, Hiztoria can be used for web behemoths like Facebook and Google, to even the minutest websites in the corners of the Internet universe. Every website has an unknown counterpart or competitor, and Hiztoria plans to reveal the true gems in the ever-expanding digital world. Hiztoria users can do more than just rate, review, and talk about websites; users also even have the power to add new websites to Hiztoria.
Currently, there are over 1000 websites reviewed in the Hiztoria directory. You can sort them by name, category, most views, most fans, rating or date added. In case you are interested, Facebook.com has the most fans and Espn.com has the highest rating.
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By Co-Editor, Bobby B:
GreatStartups.com is committed to celebrating the entrepreneurial spirit that is embodied in anyone who has started a new business. That spirit has been sorely tested over the last two or three years. However, things appear to have turned a corner.
For the first time since September 2007, the majority (55%) of small business owners have a positive view of the economic environment and its impact on their ability to grow, according to the American Express OPEN Small Business Monitor. However, more firms are at risk of going out of business (17%) than six months ago (11%), due in part to personal funds being tapped out: one-third (32%) say they are using personal or private funds to manage cash flow challenges (up from 23% six months ago).
While there appears to be a widening divide between healthy and struggling businesses, even the healthy businesses are proceeding with caution. Fewer firms have hiring plans than at any point in the eight-year history of the Monitor (falling below the fall 2002 recession level of 26%), and plans for capital investments equal the record-setting low from Spring 2009 (42%).
The semi-annual survey covers a very broad range of topics and offers segmentation by business owner age, industry sector and geographic region. Some highlights from the survey are as follows:
Nearly seven-in-ten entrepreneurs (68%) are stressed out by the economy and three-in-ten (31%) say that the current economy has caused them to question their decision to become an entrepreneur;
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
At GreatStartups.com we typically focus on a specific company or start-up venture. However, we are also interested in focusing on issues that impact entrepreneurship.
We were happy to see that close to half a million dollars has been committed to the annual Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation Competition (SEIC) sponsored by the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at Washington University in St. Louis.
The YouthBridge Community Foundation, which has been a Washington University partner in the SEIC since its inception in 2005, is renewing its support with an initial three-year commitment of funding and training for non-profit, community-based ventures.
Although the newly named “YouthBridge SEIC” is unique to St. Louis, in terms of monetary awards, it is the largest competition of its kind in the U.S.
Over the past five years, the SEIC has made 23 awards totaling $480,000, including $5,000 student awards each year presented to the best student-founded or supported venture. The competition defines social entrepreneurship as “using entrepreneurial skills to craft innovative processes, approaches, and solutions to help resolve social issues.”
Last year’s 42 entrants in the SEIC included a diverse range of ventures with missions to provide educational, cultural and vocational training. Additional sponsors to the YouthBridge SEIC include the Incarnate Word Foundation, the Lutheran Foundation of St Louis, and the Daughters of Charity Foundation of St Louis.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
Online shopping has become ubiquitous in today’s society. Buying music, movies, clothes and computers online is now second nature to a large percentage of consumers. Now you can add contact lenses to that equation. ReplaceMyContacts.com is brand new way to fill your prescriptions and easily deal with eye care efficiently and at lower prices that you will find at brick and mortar operations.
ReplaceMyContacts.com was launched in January of 2008 by the Coplay, Pennsylvania based ReplaceMyContacts.
ReplaceMyContacts.com has grown from a family business that has been operating in the eyewear trade since 1875. ReplaceMyContacts.com offers some of the lowest prices in the industry. They having actual people available to answer questions and receive prescription information as part of their impeccable customer service.
ReplaceMyContacts.com stocks tough to find gas permeable lenses as well as lenses for those with an astigmatism at affordable prices. Dozens of lenses qualify for rebates with the purchase of multiple boxes, lowering some prices nearly 20%. For these reasons and many others, ReplaceMyContacts has been able to grow their customer base even during these tough economic times.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
With Thanksgiving around the corner, we are sure to see myriad cooking shows, blogs and articles discussing the pitfalls of cooking turkey. Most people cook turkey once a year and that makes for a lot of dry, bland and overcooked holiday birds. Sometime it is so bad it necessities a trip to the Chinese restaurant on Christmas Day.
Cooking a turkey correctly is not easy. The white meat breast cooks before the dark meat. Defrosting is problematic. Timing the finished product so that it is not sitting out for hours or still in the oven when guests are hungry also provides a challenge. However, maybe the most underrated and important aspect of cooking a turkey is making sure the stuffing is cooked.
Many people stuff their birds with concoctions consisting of vegetables, bread, crackers, fruit, other meats or any combination thereof. However, since the stuffing resides at the center of the bird in the cavity, it is singularly susceptible to contamination. Indeed, I cook my stuffing separately so as to avoid the possibility of contamination. But this year may very well find my stuffing in the bird where it belongs.
By: The Editor
If you would like to increase the online presence for your current business or if you have a domain name that you think could generate traffic than you should check out Freemalls.com
Freemalls.com, owned by the Arroyo Grande, California based Majon International, launched this month. They are dolling out free shopping mall websites to anyone who wants one. You can own a virtual online mall within a few short mouse clicks. You can create a virtual mall that is unique to any topic or subject matter you desire, complete
with relevant content, pertinent articles, videos, and plus the ability to earn income.
According to the press release the company issued on launch, “more and more people are looking to make some extra money from home, and if they can do that 24-hours a day, 7-days a week, even while they sleep, all the better. So the Internet is often a place where people look for an opportunity to do just that. Creating a website, however, is oftentimes easier said than done. The learning curve is great, and there are many marketing variables to be taken into consideration, e.g., just what does a search engine look for? ‘We’ve put a lot of thought and careful planning into creating this service and tool so that each unique website that is created will be search-engine friendly, pleasing to the eye, and loaded with
relevant content,’ says Matthew Hesser, CEO of Majon.com and owner and operator of Freemalls.com.”
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