Filed under: Products and services, Consumer experience, Internet, Google (GOOG), Yahoo! (YHOO), eBay (EBAY), Amazon.com (AMZN), Personal finance, Small business

There’s a bit of tension in Pennsylvania regarding auction laws in that state and eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY). It seems that Pennsylvania law requires that eBay sellers should have auction permits and regulators there have chosen to begin enforcing the law. The situation is revealed in a blog post by Terrence O’Brien at Switched.com .

It’s not surprising to me that this has come to the surface and I think it’s symptomatic of what’s to come. Internet taxation is a hot topic and various state authorities are jockeying for position. While the taxation of Internet access is a proposition which has been almost put to rest for good, the taxation of World wide web retail sales is still very much up for grabs. This assertion of law by Pennsylvania regulators is simply indicative of the state’s desire to have a piece of the action. I believe it foretells of the stresses to come.

An AOL news poll shows that 83% of nearly 24,000 respondents feel that eBay sellers should not be required to have an auctioneers permit. That sentiment reverberates throughout the World wide web. We should remember though, that sales made via the Internet often supplant sales that would otherwise be made through a brick and mortar retail outlet. I have the ability to assure you that say taxing authorities are weighing the effects of that change in dynamics carefully.

Should says lose sales tax revenue simply by virtue of a change in the sales venue? I don’t think they’ll stand for that. I still maintain my position that World wide web sales tax solutions should be addressed from the World wide web side of the equation rather than from the regulators side. We need a comprehensive solution on a national scale before the individual says come in and make eBay into a serious mess.

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Filed under: World wide web, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO), Small business

Many top players, such as Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO), and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), want to get a piece of the local on the internet sector. But it hasn’t been simple.

There are a myriad of smaller players trying to get an edge as well. One up and comer is Yodle, which recently announced that it has raised $12 million in venture capital. The investors include Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Bessemer Venture Partners.

Yodle offers a platform that allows small businesses to purchase local online ads. Keep in mind that roughly 63% of consumers now use the web to search for local businesses.

So what makes Yodle different? Well, the company has made it possible to measure the return on investment for ad campaigns. For small businesses, this is certainly a massive deal. For example, Yodle claims that a $1 ad spend can result in an $8 return.

If true, I can see why a small business wouldn’t pass on this kind of thing.

Interested in more cool venture capital deals? Visit DealProfiles.com.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar On the internet Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

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Filed under: Deals, Google (GOOG), Intuit Inc (INTU), Small business

Over the years, Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU) has been able to beat back Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), and in the process, build a powerful franchise. But investors are wondering: where will the next stage of growth come from?

Well, if you listened to the Q3 conference call, the company is excited about the small-business category.

So, yesterday Intuit announced that it will spend $170 million for Homestead Technologies, which is a provider of websites for small businesses.

True, this is a commodity business. Yet, it can be a way to sell value-add services, such as Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) Adwords, customer relationship management tools, and so on.

On its face, there are some clear synergies, such as with Intuit’s QuickBooks and TurboTax offerings. But, since it’s privately-held, it’s tough the gauge the size of Homestead.

But keep in mind that the company is in a fiercely competitive business, which is undergoing consolidation. So, it should be no surprise that Homestead finally decided to sell out.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar On the web Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

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Filed under: Consumer experience, Rants and raves, Small business

It’s simple for me to preach “shop local” from my blogger’s perch in Manhattan. While many companies are headquartered here in New York, boutiques, bodegas and mom & pop shops rule this roost. Aside from Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) — c’mon, they’re ubiquitous — and maybe Rite Aid (NYSE: RAD), I’d have to hike a mile or so to reach the nearest publicly traded business.

But committing my Christmas dollars to local businesses is a tradition I picked up from my ex back in North Carolina, and I think I’m all the superior for it — and all the better served.

For starters, you’re far more apt to be wowed with the service from a small shop. At a local business, often you deal directly with the shop owners, who have an undeniable stake in your transaction. Because their equity and livelihood depend upon the repeat business of customers like yourself, you’re worth more to the small business owner than the customer queued up at a crowded cash register at Circuit City (NYSE: CC) or Sears (NASDAQ: SHLD), and that value is evident in the transaction.

Many local merchants are passionate and knowledgeable about their products — after all, these folks didn’t launch their businesses by accident. Many boutique owners are living their dream — they probably worked many years just toward the goal of launching this business. Instead of dealing with a high school senior working an after-class gig, you’re speaking to someone with a deep knowledge of most everything in the store, who’d probably love nothing more than to talk to you for hours about the ins and outs of their wares. Buying a home-brewing kit for my brother-in-law a few years ago, I thought the gabby owner would never let me leave.

Talking of which, small shops are often the only place to find that one-of-a-kind, special gift. Try finding a brewing kit at Target (NYSE: TGT)! My hunt led me to a laid-off IT guy and his hound dog, selling malt and hops out of a woodstove-warmed workshop in the country. That’s a slice of life much more rewarding than a trip to the mall.

Small businesses also have a vested interest in improving your community, since it’s their community too. Money spent locally is more prone to be reinvested locally, be it at another business or perhaps through a building and loan association (’tis the season of George Bailey, after all). If you’re supporting your neighbors, your neighbors are more apt to improve their homes and your neighborhood, which raises your own property values. If you’re shopping at a chain store, you’re sending money away to a corporation, which benefits you only if you’re a shareholder.

In the same vein, failed small businesses are also less of a risk to property values. Like most downtown districts I’ve found, the downtown in my North Carolina hometown has always been in an organic say of transition. Businesses launch, businesses shutter, but the vacancies are easily absorbed. What’s not so easily absorbed is the site of our first Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), which sat vacant for four years after a Wal-Mart Supercenter opened just down the highway (just this month finally, a Peebles (NYSE: SSI) moved in, and Tractor Supply Company (NASDAQ: TSCO) recently announced its plans for the space). In the interest of fairness, I should note that the new Supercenter anchors an aesthetically repulsive but undeniably booming shopping center just off Interstate 95, and has drawn in other businesses, both national franchises and local shops.

Sick of shoving your way through the seasonal mall crowds? Small businesses would probably love to have the headache of shoppers lined up out the door, but until that happens, stretch out in your favorite local shop and take advantage of the room to roam.

And if you’re one to complain about the loss of domestic jobs due to outsourcing, or the influx of shoddy lead-laden items from China, put your money where your mouth is and start devoting your dollars to the small businesses and local products around you, for all the reasons above. You might be detracting in an infinitesimally slight way from the common wealth of chain stores’ shareholders, but you’re adding value to your own surroundings, and the lives around you.

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Filed under: World wide web, Google (GOOG), Small business, Technology

In the consumer world, we are seeing a revolution in social technologies: blogs, wikis, video sharing, and so on. And some of the top properties, such as Facebook, YouTube, and MySpace, are becoming mega brands.

But there is another emerging trend: social media is making its way into the Corporate world.

I recently had a opportunity to speak to Reid Conrad, who is the cofounder and CEO of Near-Time. His company has a Web 2.0 platform geared mostly for corporate customers.

What are you hearing from business customers regarding Web 2.0? Is it becoming more of a priority? If so, why?

We are seeing businesses increasingly view Web 2.0 as their standard. They are swiftly realizing the advantage of Web 2.0 abilities over traditional, proprietary applications. I think the key to this has been the realization by businesses that they can deploy consumer platforms with unprecedented reach and flexibility.

A huge part of your software is based on a wiki platform. What are the advantages of this?

We see wikis becoming the foundation for corporate deployments of Web 2.0. Near-Time wikis represent a easy way for users to create, share and publish information privately or on the Web. Keep in mind that early wiki users were in technology groups.

We’re seeing interest in wikis broaden to line of business professionals. As an on-demand platform, Near-Time is ideally suited for the broader wiki market. Unlike many wikis, Near-Time includes management controls that businesses need to deploy.

An important trend for our wikis is pageview expansion. Our analysis indicates customers deploying Near-Time public wikis are experiencing increased pageviews per vist of 2x to 3x over traditional websites and even blogs. This analysis is early but over time we anticipate pageview/visit rates to grow. Needless to say, Near-Time can be a game changer for businesses looking to monetize their content on the Web.

A year ago, Google, Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG) purchased wiki operator, Jot. Yet, there hasn’t been any news on it since. Thoughts?

There have been plenty of rumors about Google launching the Jot wiki. Time will tell. It is important to note that Joe Krause who headed up Jot is heading up Google’s OpenSocial initiative. Perhaps the Google wiki will take shape with this important initiative. We presently integrate Google content through feeds. Our interoperability with Google’s wiki is ready when they are.

Finally, you were able to strike a deal with John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (NYSE: JW.A)?

Wiley has a number of initiatives to extend their reach on the Web. Near-Time integrates wikis, weblogs and file sharing (forums will soon be available). We give Wiley best of class Web 2.0 interactive communities and a standards based way to deliver books. All you need is a browser on a personal or cellphone to access Near-Time - no need to purchase an eBook reader. Our turnkey advertising and subscription services enable Wiley to monetize their communities and content. We have great expectations from this partnership.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar On the internet Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

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Filed under: World wide web, Competitive strategy, Marketing and advertising, Market matters, Small business, Technology

After my post of last week lambasting NebuAd for using information obtained from internet service providers in order to serve ads to web browsers based on users’ browsing behavior, I was contacted by the CEO of NebuAd, Robert Dykes. He agreed to speak with me about his company and the internet advertising world.

I started by asking Dykes what steps NebuAD has taken to maintain the privacy of the customers of the ISPs with which they work. Dykes told me his company realized early on the security implications of its processes.

“In formulating the structure of how our equipment would work, (at this time) the government was subpoenaing AT&T and Verizon for their data… (and) AOL’s search data had become public. We realized that…we had to be extremely careful in the way we structured our equipment and what we did on the internet… so that we would never be the subject of a subpoena from the government. So our structure is such that we never have any information that would be of use to the government. (There) never would be any information there of a personal nature.

“(We) built our system such that, as we map a user over and over again… that mapping is reflected only as a hash number, not as any personally identifiable information, not even an IP address… All we track is that somebody qualified for certain interest categories…(we) don’t keep the raw data about what searches they did.”

He went on to explain that, as the information about an ISP customer is sent to NebuAd, it is put through a one-way encryption so that NebuAd receives and retains only that hash string, unidentifiable as a specific person. The browsing history of that person is used to define categories of interest of that person, but the history of pages visited isn’t retained.

To further diminish the possibility of misuse of sensitive information, NebuAD also doesn’t carry advertising for sex-related or sensitive drug products, and therefore has no categories for these.

Dykes went on to explain NebuAD’s business advantage. Most behavior marketing depends on cookie drops to track customer visits and interests, which limit this profiling to few instances and few interests. By using ISP information, NebuAD is able to better define the tastes and interests of those ISP customers, so that when they browse to an ad-supported page, NebuAD can serve up a more tailored marketing message.

For example, according to Dykes, advertising on the huge automotive sites for 2008 is already sold out, because advertisers know that they can reach hardcore auto fans there. NebuAD is able to find those people and follow them to other sites, such as BloggingStocks.com, and serve up the same car-related ads to them there. And since, according to him, three-fourths of world wide web ads this day are untargeted, there is a large market for NebuAd’s ISP-based targeting.

Dykes also told me that, since NebuAD cuts the ISPs in on the revenue stream, this becomes a new source of income for them. This is good news for the ISPs, because they have the ability to see the way the web is evolving to an ad-supported model, much like television. Since they’re, at present, in the business of selling the same internet connectivity that Google and others are busy preparing to offer for free via wide-ranging Wi-Fi and WiMAX networks, the long term viability of their business may depend on finding revenue beyond connection fees.

Most sobering, though, was Dykes’ caution that my concern that his company was capturing information that could be misused missed the big picture. He reminded me that packets are traversing the equipment of many massive companies all day each day. The potential leaks in the data stream are voluminous, and one would have to be very na

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Filed under: International Business Machines (IBM), Oracle Corp (ORCL), Entrepreneurs, salesforce.com inc (CRM), Small business

It was a tough time in 1977. There was inflation, unemployment and political turmoil because of Watergate.

But such things didn’t mean much for a group of programmers — Bob Miner, Ed Oates, and Larry Ellison. They started a database software company called Structured Development Laboratories. Of course, the company would eventually be renamed Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ: ORCL) and grow into a multi-billion dollar powerhouse.

Well, this week at the popular Oracle OpenWorld conference, Larry devoted his keynote to the early days of the company (the picture on the upper right is the original 900-square foot office location).

What lessons were entrepreneurs able to carry away from his speak? Several solid concepts:

Study your market and competition: Larry spent much time reading journals and talking to experts. What were the hot technologies? Who were the key companies?

For example, Larry read an interesting article in the IBM Journal of Research and Development, which talked about relational databases. He thought it could be a killer technology. Besides, wouldn’t the support of IBM (NYSE: IBM) make it legit?

“Smoke and mirrors” can be a good thing: As a small company, it’s not simple selling complex technology to large organizations. So in those early days, Oracle needed to find clever ways to make it seem larger than it really was.Think about that the company called its first product version 2.0. Hey, who would purchase version 1.0?

Hire super-smart people: Larry believes that his most important job was finding top-notch people. Interestingly enough, he would rather having empty desks if he couldn’t find the right people.

Little wonder that former Oracle employees have created such companies as PeopleSoft, Quest Software (NASDAQ: QSFT), Siebel Systems and Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM).

Be the eternal optimist: Larry never had any doubts. He was convinced of the market opportunity.

After all, when he started the company, he almost had to foreclose on his home. But how could something like this be a problem for a true entrepreneur?

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar On the web Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

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Filed under: Getting started, International Business Machines (IBM), Oracle Corp (ORCL), salesforce.com inc (CRM), Small business

In light of the mega deals from Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL), IBM (NYSE: IBM), and SAP (NYSE: SAP), the buzz is that business software is dead. How can small- and mid-sized players compete?

Well, I think there’s still life in the sector. Take a look at the on-demand operators, such as Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) and NetSuite. They’re disrupting existing markets - and growing at break-neck speeds.

We’re also seeing some new-fangled Web 2.0 players enter the market. Take Huddle.net, which announced a venture capital round of $4 million (the investor is Eden Ventures).

Basically, the company realizes that the MySpace/Facebook generations want a different approach to software. As a result, Huddle.net has a cool system that allows for on the internet workspaces, which even allow for social networking.

True, I know many think that this is a fad. Ironically enough, that’s probably good news for Huddle.net. It grants the company to build out its offerings and learn form customer interactions.

In fact, for the past six months, Huddle.net has seen 25% growth in new users per month.

If you want to check out other cool venture capital deals, visit DealProfiles.com.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar On the web Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

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Filed under: Microsoft (MSFT), Adobe Systems (ADBE), Small business

Over the years, I’ve been an adviser and director of various early stage companies. It’s been a lot of fun and always educational.

But, the process can be hit-or-miss, especially in terms of communications. Simply put, it’s often hard to gauge the status of a company.

So, that’s why I instantly liked the idea of PlanHQ. Basically, the company grants for a Web 2.0 platform for employees, advisers and investors to get updates on the business plan and projects.

“With PlanHQ, you can help set goals and track them,” said founder Tim Norton, the CEO, in a BloggingStocks.com interview. “We also have ways to measure the value of different market opportunities, which can be very helpful in planning.”

PlanHQ has an online spreadsheet as well as helpful templates. You can also export documents in Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Adobe Systems (NASDAQ: ADBE) documents.

Interestingly enough, there is actually a viral aspect to PlanHQ. For example, if a venture capitalist uses the system, there’s a good chance that he or she will think about using it for other portfolio companies.

Unlike many other Web 2.0 companies, PlanHQ has a solid business model. That’s, it charges monthly fees, which range from $9 to $49.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

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Filed under: Microsoft (MSFT), Wal-Mart (WMT), Starbucks (SBUX), Small business

If you take a look at the stories of great entrepreneurs - such as Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT)’s Sam Walton, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT)’s Bill Gates, and Howard Schultz of Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) - you’ll see that they’d the help of mentors and advisors.

After all, being an entrepreneur can be lonely, stressful and challenging. And it’s often difficult to get solid advice.

“I can’t overstate the importance of mentors in my life,” stated Ben Casnocha. Ben started his first business at 14 years old, and even wrote a book on his experiences, My Start-Up Life: What a (Very) Young CEO Learned on His Journey Through Silicon Valley.

So where do you find mentors? Ben advocates lots of networking. In fact, he thinks about the Small Business Administration’s SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives) a great resource (and it’s free).

But be wary. Make sure you do lots of background research on the people you like. You might realize that they really aren’t a good fit.

What’s more, another good starting point is social networks, such as LinkedIn and Facebook. You’ll find many people who are interested in helping out.

“But social networks are only the beginning,” stated Ben. “The actual building of the relationship usually has to happen on the phone or in person. And you never want to cold call someone and say, ‘Will you be
my mentor?’ A relationship must grow to that point.”

Finally, you might want to check out an interesting website, IdeaBlob.com, which is part of Advanta (NASDAQ: ADVNB). IdeaBlob is an innovative place where you can post your business ideas - and get feedback.

“When we started IdeaBlob.com,” said Ami Kassar, the chief innovation officer at Advanta, “People thought we were crazy. Would people really share their business ideas?”

So far, people are sharing quite a bit, as the site has grown. “What we’re seeing is the community providing lots of useful advice and recommendations,” said Ami. “It’s still in the early stages, but it does look like entrepreneurs like to help each other out.”

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar On the internet Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

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