Land of Opportunity

Regular readers may have noticed about a week has gone by without a post. The time has been well spent installing WordPress 1.5 on two Windows 2003 Servers running Internet Information Server 6 (IIS6) at the office. I now have the wisdom that only comes from performing and mastering a task. You, the reader, now gain the advantage of learning from my experience without the expense of time nor the frustration of troubleshooting.

If you are planning to install WordPress on Microsoft Server 2003 and/or IIS6, here’s the inside information:
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Bluebert G. Peabody of Peabody’s Cre8tive Flow pointed me to a long, but very high quality article on ad placement.

The post caught my attention due to some recent blogosphere discussion on placement of Google AdSense ads on blogs. I, for one, made several changes in the location of the Google ads on the Land of Oppoprtunity small business blog and saw an immediate (next day) improvement in click throughs. (more…)

Kevin Eikenberry’s leadership blog announces that Fortune magazine has released their list of the 75 smartest business books.

Rather than provide a single long list of 75 smartest business books, Fortune has the good sense to break the list into smaller topic areas, each with a handfull of smartest books.

I took a quick look at the leadership, power, and office categories. Interestingly, many of the smartest books are (more…)

This weeks Carnival of the Capitalists is up at Beyond the Brand. The CotC is a weekly roundup of some of the best business and economics blogging during the past week or so. (more…)

TechWeb’s messagingpipeline has an article on the recent Forrerster Research report Best And Worst Of E-Mail Customer Service, 2005.

The gist of the report is that 54% of consumers use email asking for customer service. The report points out that most government agencies and businesses are doing a poor job of “answering the mail.”

The article highlights 3 key problems and 5 recommendations by Forrester Research.

Among the problems are failure to deliver essential content, (more…)

B. Janell Grenier at Benefitsblog posts news at Faegre.com of a new HR requirement for all small businesses with employees. All employers, regardless of size, have to comply with this requirement. (more…)

Reuters is reporting that McDonald’s is actively testing the use of mid-western call centers for drive through orders. Apparently, there have been some long standing issues of order accuracy with the current system of having local teens with headsets enter the orders from cars into the fast-food chains computer system. While I seldom eat at any McDonald’s, I can vouch for similar problems at the walk up counter at my local Burger King.

The plan is to have professionally trained call center employees take your order and (more…)

CNN Money has reported that Ohio residents selling on eBay online auctions will require a state auctioneers license starting May 2, 2005.

In yet another case of well meaning legislators creating laws with unintended consequences, this error could cost eBay merchants based in Ohio a $200 license fee, a $50,000 bond, a one-year apprenticeship, attendance at auction school, and passing written and oral auction exams. Failure to comply may result in a $1,000 fine and a 90-day jail sentence. (more…)

Darryl Gehly has an excellent piece on shopping cart abandonment over at Darwin magazine, a companion site of CIO.com. Seldom is shopping cart abandonment written about except to complain. Darryl’s article is one of the best and is a definite must read if you have an online shopping cart.

Darryle states that, according to Forrester Research, conversion rates average about 2.4 percent. This is a large drop from the already low 2.9 percent average conversion rate of 2003. (more…)

Originally, I had planned this week’s grand post to be the long awaited Part 2 of Marketing a Business Blog. But, recent discoveries in the blogosphere demand immediate attention.

“There’s trouble in River City!” And, ala the famed musical, The Music Man, that’s trouble with a capital “T.”

The same idiots that spam the search engines, like Google, with worthless sites are now trashing Google’s new blog service, Blogger. (more…)

An article about a library that lends iPods with audio books got me to thinking. What are some possible business opportunities involving Apple iPods?

National iPod Rental Networks

There are least two markets for a national chain of iPod rental centers (more…)

A recent wave of scams involving eBay’s Buy It Now feature has many eBay sellers upset.

In the scam, unknown buyers have been closing eBay auctions early using the Buy It Now feature. The buyer sends an email to the seller offering to pay by Western Union money order. An official looking email arrives stating Western Union has received a money order. The seller ships the item and then discovers that there is no money order and that the email was spoofed.

Common items being scammed include (more…)

Vegrandis LLC, a Fayetteville, Arkansas based technology company has received a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award from the National Science Foundation for $500,000 to develop technology to rapidly detect pathogens in the water supply. There is also the potential to receive an additional $500,000 in Phase IIb funding for a total of up to $1 million. (more…)

Web site accessibility design is an after thought for most business blogs. And, that’s being generous, if you get my drift.

Few business bloggers, and even most conventional web masters with traditional websites, have given even scant attention to ensuring their sites are accessible to handicap visitors. Everyone assumes that all visitors will be able to see the flashy graphics, watch a video, hear an audio message, and then move a mouse to open additional eye and ear candy.

Test Your Blog

Here’s a quick test. Turn off the images in your browser, visit your blog or one listed in the blogrolls to your left, and navigate without using your mouse. (more…)

Computer World has a breaking story on the launch of a new wave of Bagle trojan-virus attacks that started early this morning.

Some highlights:

” Unlike earlier forms of Bagle, the new variant sends out e-mails with Trojan horse programs attached to them, as opposed to copies of the virus file.”

“The Trojan targets computers running Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating system and hides within (more…)