The following is a good introduction and overview of Search Engine Optimisations - You will need to register to access but these guys run good webinars http://www.hubspot.com/archive/seo-101-webinar
 

An explanation of how Twitter works:

http://www.fotolia.com/ is a good alternative to istockphoto.com

Brisbane based firm Kestrel Solutions new website was launched yesterday, 19th February.

The firm helps struggling firms to improve business performance using proven tools and methodologies combined with years of expertise.

http://twitter.com/buaconsulting

You can now follow us on Twitter at the address above.

Bill Winter of Point North Consulting, a business partner of Bua Consulting, has launched his ebook, Essential Insights for Small To Medium Enterprises During Uncertain Times.

This ebook provides great advice to business owners and leaders, and is based on Bill's extensive experience running businesses and mentoring some of the best business owners in industry today.

The book is free and available for download from Bua Consulting or at  http://www.pointnorth.com.au/Essential_Insights_Ebook

I've just been tryin out www.lovelycharts.com , it looks like this could be a really useful application for managers, consultants and techies.

It is really easy to use and can be tried out and used for free.

I have had some trouble exporting the graphs as jpegs and pngs but this may be a temporary bug in the system

interesting article written by  Chris Poley at 

http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=705&doc_id=170113&


 
With a slumping economy and rising unemployment, consumers have dramatically cut back on discretionary spending, making it even clearer that some industries are just not accepting their business models as broken and in disrepair.

Indeed, revenues from Internet sales continue to grow, while those of some traditional brick-and-mortar companies continue to contract.

Who's most in denial? Let’s take a look at three industries for which the Internet has put the traditional way of doing business in particularly obvious jeopardy:

Apparel retailers became 2008’s poster child for insolvency. Clothing accounts for 8 percent of all retail bankruptcies, with a 50 percent rise in the July-through-October quarter, up from first-quarter figures, according to The Economic Times. In a poll released December 30, the Top 40 Retail Satisfaction Index showed further evidence of clothing retailers’ absence from the Internet jackpot. Only Victoria’s Secret (#14) and The Gap ( #35) made that list.

The evidence indicates that the faster clothing retailers move online, the better off they’ll be. Traditional stores have suffered with low inventories and shrinking profit margins. Brick-and-mortar companies must pay rent, employee wages, insurance, real estate taxes, and utilities, among other expenses.

Publishing is suffering from both cost and content issues. The newpaper business is in disarray, and book publishing giants are cutting jobs and costs to remain in business.

Is it possible that the publishing industry needs to be restructured for a completely new business model, or can online and offline publishing coexist?

Sort of, says Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody: How Digital Networks Transform Our Ability to Gather and Cooperate.

“I don't think there are completely new business models,” Shirky says. “The models are what they always were. One axis is ‘producer pays, reader pays, or third-party pays,’ and the other axis is ‘payment is mandatory, or payment is voluntary,’ and all six possible combinations will work for some pubs.”

The music industry has been challenged for years by peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing among networked computers. Pirating music for private consumption still hangs in the balance of a Supreme Court ruling. Digital downloading is at an all-time high but cannot offset the 20 percent annual decline in CD sales.

“The music industry has and will continue to become more dependent on revenues from downloadable content... and the industry has been scrambling to find new ways to capture revenues from the market,” says Alex Reese, an intellectual property attorney out of San Diego who has represented recording artists.

So far, traditional record firms haven’t found the balance of copyright, royalty, consumer payout, and quality that will make Internet downloading a true alternative to CDs. Like publishing, they continue to cling to old models.

But none of the above industries can afford to look back. Instead of longing wistfully for times before the Internet’s challenge, they must focus on their core businesses more than ever and avoid associating their products with the ways in which their products are delivered.

It can be a major challenge. Newspaper publishers, for example, may harbor visions of a resurgence in delivery methods that drove news delivery for over 200 years. For them, Clay Shirky warns: “Remember, all that's going away is newsprint, which is already a minority form relative to the Web. Don't let the nostalgists bend your ear.”

There is a common thread that seems pervasive among these struggling industries: the inability to adapt to the changing socio-economic environment. But they must embrace the Internet, instead of competing with it. There is a better mouse trap, plain and simple. Deal with it!

http://www.openx.org/ - this is an advertising service that will interest those who are growing their business and want to run their own advertising on their websites

A recent statistice was recently presented to me out of BRW (thanks Bill!) about small businesses with websites.

Of 774,000 small businesses with 10 or more people, 40% have no website. That is quite an astounding number in this daya age. One wonders of the other  60% what number are actually getting any value from them.

If a company doesn't have a website or has one that adds no value one can imagine how many other activities in their businesses are either on old software or are being performed manually. Clearly those that are embracing new internet technology in their business can gain enormous competitive advantage on over 40% of their industry.

Food for thought in the current climate where every advantage counts.