Friday, January 28, 2011

Making Money Marketing

The solution to a cash flow problem is often right at your fingertips. Fear and concern can keep us from piecing together answers that can make a significant difference. When cash-strapped clients call for a session, we turn over a few stones that are damming up their cash flow and often resolve the immediate problem with a few simple changes or action steps.

Some common oversights and mistakes made by business owners are directly related to a lack of confidence or self worth. Some are related to a fear of looking at, and understanding, their numbers and some are simply due to lack of experience or knowledge. If you identify with any of these roadblocks reach out to someone who can help so you can put yourself firmly in the driver’s seat. Here are a few ideas that might just get the cash flowing and profits moving.

Review your accounts receivable (AR) – Who owes you money? How long have these outstanding invoices been on the books and what are you doing to collect them? The longer you allow these invoices to remain unpaid the less chance you have of collecting on them. Small business owners are often afraid to “get too pushy” for fear of jeopardizing future business. Ask yourself if you really want to do business with someone who doesn’t value your services enough to pay you on a timely basis. Ask yourself if YOU value your services and how these outstanding invoices reflect on your own values. Remember, the efforts that you put into collections could be put toward marketing instead. But meanwhile, make some phone calls, send letters and, if necessary, have an attorney draft a letter for you and nudge the late pays into action.

Review your terms - What are the terms that you apply to your sales? Do your clients pay you upfront? Do they pay a portion in advance and have 30, 60 or 90 days to pay the balance? I once worked with a client who provided a service in the wedding industry. She collected 30% at the time the order was placed and the remaining balance on the wedding day. We changed her collection terms to 1/3rd upon booking, 1/3rd 30 days prior to the event and the 1/3rd on the day of the event. This simple adjustment really loosened things up for her and gave her a safety net.

Charge your worth – Okay, here’s the real issue for many soloists. Wow! I can’t count the times that I have heard people say they haven’t raised their fees in 10 years or that they feel sorry for people who can’t afford their services. There is nothing wrong with a little pro bono work, for sure, but please don’t end up in the poor house to compensate for someone else’s financial concerns. If you do offer a reduction in fees or product cost communicate the terms clearly and make sure it’s not to your own detriment. Also, do a little competitive analysis by researching services and products similar to yours to see what the going rates are. Do you hear yourself making excuses to support your decision to charge lower rates? If so, talk to your accountant, coach, mentor or advisory board to gain perspective. Unless you are submitting RFP’s for government contracts the lowest bid doesn’t always win. Re-evaluate your pricing and make sure you are valuing your services and products as much as you hope that your clients will.

Evaluate your expenses – Another common cash flow issue is created by excess spending. For example, do you have contractors that you send jobs to because you want to keep them happy? We know that outsourcing is a priority so that your time is free to build your business, but if this is done to excess during a low revenue point it can backfire. I often hear concerns like, “Janie has been doing work for me for years and I can’t cut down on her hours.” Yes, it’s difficult when you feel responsible for a portion of someone else’s income, but in the long run these temporary cuts will keep you in the black long enough to rebuild and move forward in a stronger position so that you can resume sending work their way.

In this down economy, some soloists are holding on to office space that may no longer be necessary. If you need to make cuts like this, look for the advantages and give yourself a timeframe to work within. If you have a plan that you believe will turn things around, schedule a date to reevaluate your spending. It’s easy to get caught up in the “what if’s” when we are making decisions like letting go of an office. What if things turn around? What if my clients find out? Make a list of your pros and cons and understand your financial limits. Removing the stress of added expenses will help you to focus more clearly on solutions and growing your business.

Where have you found money in your business? Is there anything you are procrastinating on? What solutions have worked for you? Share them here on Successful Soloist!

Facebook DataMine: Sell your browsing data, make some cash.

There’s a new Chrome Extension that is allowing Facebook users to opt out of the Facebook data-mining. The extension is called Facebook DataMine, developed by Jim Haas, a Game Maker at MegaEpic. Facbook DataMine allows my data to be mined (great pun with the name Jim).

If you need a refresher on what data-mining means, here the definition from the Facebook Data Mining Page;

Data mining, a branch of computer science and artificial intelligence, is the process of extracting patterns from data. Data mining is seen as an increasingly important tool by modern business to transform data into business intelligence giving an informational advantage. It is currently used in a wide range of profiling practices, such as marketing, surveillance, fraud detection, and scientific discovery.

In the less complicated words of Jim Haas;

Every time you use Facebook or one of the thousands of web pages using Facebook Connect your personal information is being collected and then sold to marketers and mysterious 3rd parties without your consent. Facebook gets rich and you don’t make a dime.

This extension blocks Facebook from tracking your movements on the web, which sounds great. The extension will block all data going to Facebook until it reaches 100,000 downloads. After 100,000 downloads this is where it gets strange. Facebook DataMine will then sell your information to third party websites and share the profits with you. This may excite you or in-my-case scare you. Users are able to opt out at any stage. My initial reaction was sweet, extra money, this extension is going to hit 100,000 installs fast. Then I pressed the install button and this popped up:

It made me think twice, “This extension can access: Your data on all websites…” I can’t just hand-over all that data to someone else. Then I thought some more, Facebook DataMine will let me own my data for a set time and then they will own it. Yes I will be reimbursed for selling my data. However if my data is to be sold by anyone, it should be Facebook. After all isn’t this another example of someone monetizing off the back of Facebook and leaving them out?

I trust Facebook. You’re all laughing at me right? But I do. It’s like the old saying, “better the devil you know”. Facebook launched in Feb 2004 and it took the site 5 years to become profitable. A part of me believes that Facebook should be making money for the amazing service that it is providing.

However if you want to make your data into money and have no issues with your data being sold, give Facebook DataMine a try.

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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

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KUSF In The News. Members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors yesterday condemned the sale of KUSF's 90.3 fm frequency to an out-of-town broadcaster. The SF Weekly covers the story at some length here. ...

Sleep Makes The Memory - Science News

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News Corp's The Daily iPad Newspaper Will Cost $1 a Week

Bludgeoned with delays and rumors of its demise before it even launched, The Daily's set to launch in two weeks according to News Corp's son-of-Rupert, James Murdoch. The app, which Steve Jobs supposedly helped develop, will cost 99c ...

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Monday, January 24, 2011

Most Businesses Can Use online reputation management

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Affiliate Making Money

Every day, more and more people go online to find a way to make money. Here are some ways you can exploit the power of the Internet.

Sign in with eBay – Despite the downturn in the economy, people are always very nice to the U.S. dollar on eBay. All you need do is to set up an account with them and with PayPal and both are free. Once you have done this take some time to gather all the things you already have, and no longer want or need, and begin to list them on eBay. Be sure to take good pictures and descriptions of your articles are great. Thereby significantly increasing your sales.

Learn Affiliate Marketing – Affiliate marketing is big and growing fast now. If you do not know anything about this strange way to make money, takes time to learn all this. Affiliate marketing is basically when a person is committed to promoting company products and / or services. For each sale generated from that person to receive the commission. There are many people making full time income and just affiliate marketing. Sounds crazy right? Well, actually there are millions of people around the world who earn their living in earnest with the powerful method of affiliate marketing. Could be one of them?

10 Exciting European Startups from 2010

Europe’s had a bumper year for interesting startup ideas. The Next Web’s Hermione Way and I put our heads together to come up with this list of ten small tech companies from across the continent that have excited us in 2010.

Brainient

London-based Brainient makes it easy to add interactive elements to existing web video. A ‘Magic Script’ lets publishers add a few lines of code into a website’s Body HTML, enabling pre-roll ads, overlays or any other type of Brainient layers on any embedded video in the page.

The company launched its developer tools at The Next Web Conference in April this year and announced the first of a fresh wave of commercial partnerships, allowing video site SeeSaw to transplant Hulu’s “Choose your own ads” format to the UK for the first time.

Tastebuds

If music be the food of love, the Tastebuds is on to a good thing. This Last.fm-powered dating site that we profiled earlier this year matches you with others who share your taste in music.

It’s a simple idea that the site carries off incredibly well and as a niche dating idea we love it. Music taste can often say a lot about a person’s outlook on life and if nothing else, it’s an excellent conversation starter. The service may be a little too reliant on Last.fm from a business point of view, but as a concept it’s beautifully realised.

Skimlinks

Affiliate links are a major revenue stream for some online publishers. Taking all the effort out of this type of marketing, Skimlinks gets rid of the long URLs that often put users off clicking links. The fact that the publisher is getting a cut from sales of the product they’re linking to is completely invisible, as a Skimlinks URL looks just like a normal non-affiliate link.

It’s a model that has won Skimlinks major worldwide publishing clients. This year the London-based startup launched Skimkit, a product that makes it easy for writers to add affiliate links to their articles, even suggesting items that might be suitable to link to.

Shutl

As satisfying as it is to conveniently order shopping online from home, the wait to get it delivered can sometimes make a trip to a bricks-and-mortar store seem like a better option. Shutl aims to improve on next-day delivery by offering products to your door as soon as 90 minutes after you place your order.

The service works by aggregating capacity across local courier companies into a single web-service that retailers can use to speed up deliveries. A GPS tracking facility in partnership with Bing Maps allows shoppers to track their deliveries in real-time via the Shutl website. The UK startup is currently trialling its service with certain Argos stores in the London area.

Paper.li

It was hard to ignore Swiss startup Paper.li this year. The “Twitter newspaper” startup saw rapid viral growth thanks to the automated tweets it sent out each time a user’s daily newspaper was published.

This annoyed some Twitter users, who found their reply stream filled with announcements that they featured in their followers’ Paper.li publications each day. Still, the service is still growing at a reported 1000 papers per day, with plans to expand beyond Twitter and Facebook and offer users the chance to make money from their newspapers in 2011.

Nuji

When we covered Nuji‘s launch earlier this month, we described it as “Instagram meets Instapaper” for shopping. This social network sees you sharing things you like, be they items in shops or objects you spot online, as a way of demonstrating your taste. A mobile app lets you scan barcodes while you’re out shopping, making adding items to your profile easy.

As it builds a network of tastemakers, Nuji plans to monetize by offering relevant shopping deals to users based on their interests.

Flattr

This Swedish startup from Pirate Bay founder Peter Sunde offers publishers an “online tipjar” that can easily monetize any Web page.

After adding money to their Flattr account, users click the ‘Flattr’ button on pages that they like around the Web. At the end of the month, the money in their account is divvied up to the publishers of the content the user ‘Flattr-ed’. Thus far the service’s most high profile signup has been Wikileaks, which added the button to its Afghanistan war logs page as a way of accepting donations. The service remains one of the few income sources that hasn’t been closed off to the controversial whistleblowing website in recent weeks.

Moshi Monsters

Moshi Monsters from London’s Mind Candy became an online phenomenon for children this year. Youngsters can adopt a pet monster, and solve puzzles to earn virtual currency that can be spent on items to help kit out their monsters’ world with food, furniture treats and the like.

The virtual world has seen real-world spinoffs galore. A deal with Penguin Books was followed by toys, mobile apps and video games in what is set to be a highly profitable year.

Stupeflix

France’s Stupeflix offers a browser-based online video suite and this year launched a service to automate the creation of videos, for example, in the online retail sector where a video of a pair of trainers created from a bunch of photos might be more appealing to potential customers than static photos.

Stupeflix also offers an API to automate the processing and generation of video content for third parties.

Screach

Screach aims to make all sorts of screens interactive by way of a mobile app and a highly customisable development platform. TV shows could use it to allow real-time interaction from viewers, bars could use it to run quiz events with instant on-phone rewards for winners and it’s already being used to enhance a museum exhibit in the UK.

At present there’s little to try out Screach’s mobile app on, but that should change next year when the UK start-up is set to announce commercial partnerships.

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DETROIT -- Four Detroit police officers, including a commander, were shot Sunday afternoon inside a station in the department's Northwest District. Monday, January 24, 2011.

David Shuster Defends Keith Olbermann, Slams Fox News On 'Reliable ...

On Sunday's "Reliable Sources," former MSNBC host David Shuster fervently defended Keith Olbermann and criticized Fox News while clashing with a fellow guest who compared Olbermann to Joe McCarthy. Shuster--who frequently filled in for ...

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4 Detroit Police Officers Shot; Gunman Dead - Detroit Local News ...

DETROIT -- Four Detroit police officers, including a commander, were shot Sunday afternoon inside a station in the department's Northwest District. Monday, January 24, 2011.

David Shuster Defends Keith Olbermann, Slams Fox News On 'Reliable ...

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Probably Bad News: Headline FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and ...

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4 Detroit Police Officers Shot; Gunman Dead - Detroit Local News ...

DETROIT -- Four Detroit police officers, including a commander, were shot Sunday afternoon inside a station in the department's Northwest District. Monday, January 24, 2011.

David Shuster Defends Keith Olbermann, Slams Fox News On 'Reliable ...

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Probably Bad News: Headline FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and ...

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Headline FAIL.

4 Detroit Police Officers Shot; Gunman Dead - Detroit Local News ...

DETROIT -- Four Detroit police officers, including a commander, were shot Sunday afternoon inside a station in the department's Northwest District. Monday, January 24, 2011.

David Shuster Defends Keith Olbermann, Slams Fox News On 'Reliable ...

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Probably Bad News: Headline FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and ...

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Headline FAIL.

4 Detroit Police Officers Shot; Gunman Dead - Detroit Local News ...

DETROIT -- Four Detroit police officers, including a commander, were shot Sunday afternoon inside a station in the department's Northwest District. Monday, January 24, 2011.

David Shuster Defends Keith Olbermann, Slams Fox News On 'Reliable ...

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Probably Bad News: Headline FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and ...

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Headline FAIL.

4 Detroit Police Officers Shot; Gunman Dead - Detroit Local News ...

DETROIT -- Four Detroit police officers, including a commander, were shot Sunday afternoon inside a station in the department's Northwest District. Monday, January 24, 2011.

David Shuster Defends Keith Olbermann, Slams Fox News On 'Reliable ...

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Probably Bad News: Headline FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and ...

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Headline FAIL.

4 Detroit Police Officers Shot; Gunman Dead - Detroit Local News ...

DETROIT -- Four Detroit police officers, including a commander, were shot Sunday afternoon inside a station in the department's Northwest District. Monday, January 24, 2011.

David Shuster Defends Keith Olbermann, Slams Fox News On 'Reliable ...

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Probably Bad News: Headline FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and ...

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Headline FAIL.

4 Detroit Police Officers Shot; Gunman Dead - Detroit Local News ...

DETROIT -- Four Detroit police officers, including a commander, were shot Sunday afternoon inside a station in the department's Northwest District. Monday, January 24, 2011.

David Shuster Defends Keith Olbermann, Slams Fox News On 'Reliable ...

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Probably Bad News: Headline FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and ...

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Headline FAIL.

4 Detroit Police Officers Shot; Gunman Dead - Detroit Local News ...

DETROIT -- Four Detroit police officers, including a commander, were shot Sunday afternoon inside a station in the department's Northwest District. Monday, January 24, 2011.

David Shuster Defends Keith Olbermann, Slams Fox News On 'Reliable ...

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Probably Bad News: Headline FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and ...

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Headline FAIL.

4 Detroit Police Officers Shot; Gunman Dead - Detroit Local News ...

DETROIT -- Four Detroit police officers, including a commander, were shot Sunday afternoon inside a station in the department's Northwest District. Monday, January 24, 2011.

David Shuster Defends Keith Olbermann, Slams Fox News On 'Reliable ...

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Probably Bad News: Headline FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and ...

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Headline FAIL.

4 Detroit Police Officers Shot; Gunman Dead - Detroit Local News ...

DETROIT -- Four Detroit police officers, including a commander, were shot Sunday afternoon inside a station in the department's Northwest District. Monday, January 24, 2011.

David Shuster Defends Keith Olbermann, Slams Fox News On 'Reliable ...

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Probably Bad News: Headline FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and ...

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4 Detroit Police Officers Shot; Gunman Dead - Detroit Local News ...

DETROIT -- Four Detroit police officers, including a commander, were shot Sunday afternoon inside a station in the department's Northwest District. Monday, January 24, 2011.

David Shuster Defends Keith Olbermann, Slams Fox News On 'Reliable ...

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Probably Bad News: Headline FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and ...

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4 Detroit Police Officers Shot; Gunman Dead - Detroit Local News ...

DETROIT -- Four Detroit police officers, including a commander, were shot Sunday afternoon inside a station in the department's Northwest District. Monday, January 24, 2011.

David Shuster Defends Keith Olbermann, Slams Fox News On 'Reliable ...

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Probably Bad News: Headline FAIL - Epic Fail Funny Videos and ...

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4 Detroit Police Officers Shot; Gunman Dead - Detroit Local News ...

DETROIT -- Four Detroit police officers, including a commander, were shot Sunday afternoon inside a station in the department's Northwest District. Monday, January 24, 2011.

David Shuster Defends Keith Olbermann, Slams Fox News On 'Reliable ...

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Online Money Making Opportunities

Perfect Market Inc, a start-up that seeks to help news organizations make more money through online advertising, has won $9 million in new funding in a round led by Comcast Interactive Capital, the cable giant's venture arm.

This is the fourth capital infusion for the Pasadena company since it was seeded with $1 million by Pasadena start-up incubator Idealab in May 2007. Perfect Market has now raised $28.1 million from a variety of sources, including venture companies Trinity Ventures and Rustic Canyon Partners. In 2010, the Los Angeles Times' parent company, Tribune Co., led a $6-million investment round.

“The substantial support we’ve received from investors to date affirms Perfect Market’s mission," said Perfect Market Chief Executive Julie Schoenfeld in a statement. The company, she said, was looking to "satisfy a gap in finding new monetization opportunities for leading Web properties in the ever-expanding online advertising marketplace.”

Counting among its clients 30 national news sites -- including latimes.com -- Perfect Market evaluates the often voluminous archives of large news organizations to determine which pieces of its older content might be most profitably brought to the surface -- and paired with ads. The company works with Hearst Corp., the Orange County Register and an NBC-owned site, among others.

Ok Go Explains There Are Lots Of Ways To Make Money If You Can Get Fans

from the everything's-possible dept

Over the last few years, we've covered many of the moves by the band Ok Go -- to build up a fanbase often with the help of amazingly viral videos, ditch their major record label (EMI), and explore new business model opportunities. In the last few days, two different members of Ok Go explained a bit more of the band's thinking in two separate places, and both are worth reading. First up, we have Tim Nordwind, who did an interview with Hypebot, where he explained the band's general view on file sharing:

Obviously we'd love for anyone who has our music to buy a copy. But again, we're realistic enough to know that most music can be found online for free. And trying to block people's access to it isn't good for bands or music. If music is going to be free, then musicians will simply have to find alternative methods to make a living in the music business. People are spending money on music, but it's on the technology to play it. They spend hundreds of dollars on Ipods, but then fill it with 80 gigs of free music. That's ok, but it's just a different world now, and bands must learn to adjust.

Elsewhere in the interview, he talks about the importance of making fans happy and how the band realizes that there are lots of different ways to make money, rather than just selling music directly:

Our videos have opened up many more opportunities for us to make the things we want to make, and to chase our best and wildest ideas. Yes, we need to figure out how to make a living in a world where people don't buy music anymore. But really, we've been doing that for the last ten years. Things like licensing, touring, merch, and also now making videos through corporate sponsorship have all allowed us to keep the lights on and continue making music.

Separately, last Friday, Damian Kulash wrote a nice writeup in the Wall Street Journal all about how bands can, should and will make money going forward. In many ways the piece reminds me a bit of my future of music business models post from earlier this year -- and Kulash even uses many of the same examples in his article (Corey Smith, Amanda Palmer, Josh Freese, etc.). It's a really worthwhile read as well. He starts by pointing out that for a little over half a century, the record labels had the world convinced that the "music" industry really was just the "recorded music" industry:

For a decade, analysts have been hyperventilating about the demise of the music industry. But music isn't going away. We're just moving out of the brief period--a flash in history's pan--when an artist could expect to make a living selling records alone. Music is as old as humanity itself, and just as difficult to define. It's an ephemeral, temporal and subjective experience.

For several decades, though, from about World War II until sometime in the last 10 years, the recording industry managed to successfully and profitably pin it down to a stable, if circular, definition: Music was recordings of music. Records not only made it possible for musicians to connect with listeners anywhere, at any time, but offered a discrete package for commoditization. It was the perfect bottling of lightning: A powerful experience could be packaged in plastic and then bought and sold like any other commercial product.

But, he notes, that time is now gone, thanks in large part to the internet. But that doesn't mean the music business is in trouble. Just the business of selling recorded music. But there's lots of things musicians can sell. He highlights Corey Smith and Smith's ability to make millions by giving away his music for free, and then touring. But he also points out that touring isn't for everyone. He covers how corporate licensing has become a bigger and bigger opportunity for bands that are getting popular. While he doesn't highlight the specific economics of it, what he's really talking about is that if your band is big, you can sell your fan's attention -- which is something Ok Go has done successfully by getting corporate sponsorship of their videos. As he notes, the sponsors provide more money than the record labels with many fewer strings:

These days, money coming from a record label often comes with more embedded creative restrictions than the marketing dollars of other industries. A record label typically measures success in number of records sold. Outside sponsors, by contrast, tend to take a broader view of success. The measuring stick could be mentions in the press, traffic to a website, email addresses collected or views of online videos. Artists have meaningful, direct, and emotional access to our fans, and at a time when capturing the public's attention is increasingly difficult for the army of competing marketers, that access is a big asset.

...

Now when we need funding for a large project, we look for a sponsor. A couple weeks ago, my band held an eight-mile musical street parade through Los Angeles, courtesy of Range Rover. They brought no cars, signage or branding; they just asked that we credit them in the documentation of it. A few weeks earlier, we released a music video made in partnership with Samsung, and in February, one was underwritten by State Farm.

We had complete creative control in the productions. At the end of each clip we thanked the company involved, and genuinely, because we truly are thankful. We got the money we needed to make what we want, our fans enjoyed our videos for free, and our corporate Medicis got what their marketing departments were after: millions of eyes and goodwill from our fans. While most bands struggle to wrestle modest video budgets from labels that see videos as loss leaders, ours wind up making us a profit.

Of course, that only works if you have a big enough fanbase, but that doesn't mean there aren't things that less well known bands can use to make money as well. He talks about an up-and-coming band in LA that doesn't even have a manager that was able make money:

The unsigned and unmanaged Los Angeles band Killola toured last summer and offered deluxe USB packages that included full albums, live recordings and access to two future private online concerts for $40 per piece. Killola grossed $18,000 and wound up in the black for their tour. Mr. Donnelly says, "I can't imagine they'll be ordering their yacht anytime soon, but traditionally bands at that point in their careers aren't even breaking even on tour."

The point, Kulash, notes, is that there's a lot of things a band can sell, focusing on "selling themselves." And, the thing he doesn't mention is that, when you're focusing on selling the overall experience that is "you" as a musician or a band, it's something that can't be freely copied. People can copy the music all they want, but they can't copy you. "You" are a scarce good that can't be "pirated." That's exactly what more and more musicians are figuring out these days, and it's helping to make many more artists profitable. And, no, it doesn't mean that any artist can make money. But it certainly looks like any artist that understands this can do a hell of a lot better than they would have otherwise, if they just relied on the old way of making money in the music business.

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Movie News Quick Hits: First 'Spider-Man' Action Shots and More ...

Darth Vader's other son from another mother [via GeekTyrant]-- A simple post on the official Tumblr for Rian Johnson's time travel movie 'Looper'

Small Business News: Social Entrepreneurship on the Rise

In recognition of Martin Luther King Day, we present a roundup about an important new trend, the rise of social entrepreneurship. Instead of profit, the.

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Perfect Market Inc, a start-up that seeks to help news organizations make more money through online advertising, has won $9 million in new funding in a round led by Comcast Interactive Capital, the cable giant's venture arm.

Friday, January 14, 2011

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Exclusive: Huckabee Working With Scam Artist Notorious For Targeting Foreclosure Victims

Fox News personality and former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR) recently began appearing in television commercials calling for viewers to dial a 1-800 number to sign a repeal petition against health reform called “Repeal It Now.” The ad, a “project of Restore America’s Voice” (RAV), a political action committee run by Huckabee’s friend Ken Hoagland, also directs viewers to a website that solicits donations. “Well now, we’ll do our spanking on the Congress,” says a cheerful Huckabee before claiming that Americans will “rule” again if the petitioned is signed.

Huckabee, who has a history of using his ubiquitous media presence to fundraise for political groups benefiting himself and his family, is again associating with a shady political venture. ThinkProgress has learned that Huckabee is working with a firm notorious for defrauding families facing foreclosure with false promises and predatory fees.

According to disclosures filed with the FEC, RAV’s campaign is managed by a firm called the 949 Media Group. 949 has been paid tens of thousands of dollars to set up RAV’s website and Google search optimization, and receives a regular commission of $10,000 for related media work from RAV. ThinkProgress spoke to a representative from RAV, who told us that 949 is run by an individual named Derek Oberholtzer. According to the representative, Oberholtzer has worked with RAV since the PAC formed in October.

Oberholtzer is well known as a scam artist who has used a myriad of tricks to defraud people out of their money. In addition to 949 Media Group, he started a number of companies, including “Apply 2 Save” (A2S) and Giant Media Works. Consumer report websites are rife with complaints about Oberholtzer’s odious business practices. In one scheme, Oberholtzer paid for radio and other advertisements telling distressed homeowners to contact his company A2S to pay a flat $595 fee to receive assistance in renegotiating their loans or to block a bank foreclosure. The Federal Trade Commission has prosecuted Oberholtzer for deceptive practices. In numerous cases, Oberholtzer took the $595 payment, and never did anything to stop a foreclosure or even contact the mortgage company in question. In many instances he continued billing his customers further fees totaling nearly $1,000 without lifting a finger to actually renegotiate their mortgage or halt a foreclosure, as his “Apply 2 Save” company promised.

On message boards discussing mortgage fraud, story after story details A2S’s trickery. There are heartbreaking tales of families spending their last savings on a lifeline promised by Oberholtzer’s company — only to be defrauded and forced out of their homes.

After receiving over 150 complaints about Oberholtzer’s companies charging up-front fees of over $1,500 without delivering on any foreclosure assistance, the Idaho attorney general banned Oberholtzer from engaging in the home loan business in his state. “Apply 2 Save operated for less than a year, signed up hundreds of clients, and took in millions of dollars,” said Lawrence Wasden, Idaho’s attorney general. “Yet few consumers ever received the mortgage modification services they purchased.” After a successful lawsuit, Wasden was able to win $45,000 from A2S to distribute to Oberholtzer’s victims. In Maryland, Oberholtzer has been served an order to cease and desist after the state commissioner of financial regulation received multiple complaints about Apply 2 Save’s fraudulent scheme. Eventually, A2S was forced into bankruptcy and a wave of legal action in Idaho spurred Oberholtzer to move to California. Oberholtzer also agreed to pay $4 million to settle a civil suit filed by the Federal Trade Commission.

Once he was driven out of the business of defrauding already desperate people facing foreclosure, Oberholtzer became active in Republican politics. The “Repeal It Now” campaign set up by Restore America’s Voice and 949 Media Group claims endorsements from Huckabee, Joe “The Plumber” Wurzelbacher, and somehow from deceased president Ronald Reagan. Olberholtzer also owns inactive domains called electmichele.org (presumably for Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), repeality.biz, electme2012.com, and ravpac.info. The “Repeal It Now” campaign Huckabee stars in does nothing to accurately discuss health reform or address the health care crisis. It only exists to rake in donations and spread right-wing hysteria.

As ThinkProgress has reported, there are a number of right-wing consultants who appear to orchestrate campaigns simply to enrich themselves. For example, one of the well-paid leaders of the Tea Party Patriots made a career before the Tea Party movement concocting pyramid schemes with herbal nutrient products and the Tea Party Express is run by an infamous Republican consulting firm known for starting front groups to funnel donations back to themselves. Similarly, people like Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich seem to be willing to say or do anything to earn a quick buck. However, Huckabee’s central role in legitimizing fraudsters like Oberholtzer might be a new low, even for the radical right.

Oberholtzer is well known as scam artist who has used a myriad of tricks to defraud people out of their money. In addition to 949 Media Group, he started a number of companies, including “Apply 2 Save” (A2S) and Giant Media Works. Consumer report websites are rife with complaints about Oberholtzer’s odious business practices. In one scheme, Oberholtzer paid for radio and other advertisements telling distressed homeowners to contact his company A2S to pay a flat $595 fee to receive assistance in renegotiating their loans or to block a bank foreclosure. The Federal Trade Commission has prosecuted Oberholtzer for deceptive practices. In numerous cases, Oberholtzer took the $595 payment, and never did anything to stop a foreclosure or even contact the mortgage company in question. In many instances he continued billing his customers further fees totaling nearly $1,000 without lifting a finger to actually renegotiate their mortgage or halt a foreclosure, as his “Apply 2 Save” company promised.

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... McMurry, Schreiner, Sul Ross , Texas Lutheran, and HSU. The winner of the East Division is LeTourneau University of Longview, Texas. For more information, go to: http://www.ascsports.org/news/2010/12/16/GEN_1216105636.aspx ...

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UPDATE: That's the word from UK news media. It's just one of a number of options being considered by Shine, one of the UK's and America's biggest independent production companies -- it bought Ben Silverman's Reveille -- and thought to ...

Thursday, January 13, 2011

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The quality of the iPhone 4 has been significantly improved by Apple, as the retina display features a 640x960 pixel resolution inside the TFT capacitive 3.5 inch buy discount online reputation management touch-screen. The "retina display" name comes from the fact that the pixel resolution of the screen is actually higher than the human eye can recognize. Consequently, the resulted image is incredible clear and crisp with up to 16 million colours. Thus, users can enjoy their photos and videos in stunning quality and its full splendour.
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Headless body and pipe bomb near school rattle Evanston - Chicago ...

A bomb specialist enters Fitzsimons Park near Nichols Middle School in Evanston on Tuesday. (José M. Osorio/ Chicago Tribune) In the dead of night, an explosion ripped through Evanston's Fitzsimmons Park, shaking houses and waking ...

Sarah Palin Appearing On Sean Hannity's Fox News Show Monday (VIDEO)

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Small Business News: Twitter Tycoons

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Monday, January 10, 2011

manage personal finances

We are mere days away from 2011, and still happily ensconced in the holiday madness of 2010. This jolly season, which usually kicks off at Halloween, is a fast-moving fog of candy, cookies, cards and frenzy at the malls. It is also hopefully full of joy, laughter and quality time with family.

After the season’s last hurrah on New Year’s, what emerges is a renewed sense of spirit for the coming year –- and sometimes a desire to undo everything that has just been done. This is precisely why most people hit the ground running on January 1 with a resolve to lose weight, get in shape, walk the dog more, and so on.

The following roundup contains apps that can serve as trusty sidekicks to help you keep those resolutions you swear you’ll actually follow through on this year. In addition to personal health, other common resolutions include managing finances more efficiently, quitting smoking, finding a better job and finding love. There are obviously many more apps out there for each category, but I’ve hand-picked twelve to help you get 2011 off to a good start. Happy New Year!

Losing Weight/>

Lose It!/>

Lose It is a great, easy-to-use app that provides users with features for managing and tracking their weight loss and fitness goals. With an extensive database of foods and nutritional information available, you can simply scroll through the options and log what you have consumed for the day to get a total calorie count. The app also tracks calories burned through fitness and shows where you’ve gone over or under your caloric requirements for weight loss each day.

Cost: FREE

Go Meals/>

A dieter’s dilemma: You’re eating out at a restaurant and have no idea what the best choices are that are still suitable for your dieting needs. Go Meals is a helpful app for those moments when you’re out at P.F. Chang’s and want to know if the Mongolian Beef is less caloric than the Orange Peel Beef (it’s not). This app also includes thousands of listings for grocery store foods and provides full nutritional information for foods you eat on a daily basis. When an item has been chosen, you can save them to “Today’s Plate” and keep a log of your caloric, fat and protein intake. A very handy tool.

Cost: FREE

Getting in Shape/>

Fitness Free/>

This is a great free app that provides photographs and detailed steps for each of its more than 320 exercises. Essentially every major muscle group is reflected and you can use this app to get good ideas for triceps, quads or any other body part that you want to improve. There is also a section offering a small selection of pre-bundled, three-day workouts, or you can select exercises of your choosing and create your own customized workout.

Cost: FREE

iPersonalTrainer/>

iPersonalTrainer prompts users to create a workout and select which muscle groups they want to work by pointing to them on a (very buff) illustrated man. The app then takes you to a page with instructional videos for each exercise along with tips for good technique. The app also includes a Body Mass Index (BMI) calculator, weight tracker and progress log so you can keep track of your workouts while you get that hard body.

Cost: $.99

Organizing Finances/>

Pay Off Debt/>

Pay Off Debt provides a good template for users to track and manage all current balances and debts. Using an intuitive interface and the debt snowball method, this app lets you prioritize debts and see estimated times left to pay off each one. You can plan monthly payments for each and view progress bars as you begin chipping away at what’s owed. Based on your payment schedule, the app will also provide you with a date for when you are completely debt-free.

Cost: $3.99

Mintclass="blippr-nobr">Mint/>

Mint is a free app that automatically syncs all of your financial information directly from your online banking accounts, eliminating the need to manually enter all information. You can set up budgets and categories with spending limits on each; track your incoming and outgoing income; track investment accounts and more. The app also alerts you to things like large purchases, when a check clears, or if you go over budget. In addition, security measures are in place to lock iPhoneclass="blippr-nobr">iPhone access if lost or stolen.

Cost: FREE

Quitting Smoking/>

MyQuit Coach/>

MyQuit Coach is a highly-personalizable plan to help smokers quit. Users can set the parameters for the plan and upload personal photos and inspirational motivators to stay on track, and the app awards users with achievement badges when quitting goals have been reached. The app also connects to Facebookclass="blippr-nobr">Facebook, Twitterclass="blippr-nobr">Twitter and LIVESTRONG for additional moral support and information for users.

Cost: $.99

Quitter/>

Quitter is an app that takes a slightly different approach. This lets users track progress by reminding them how long they’ve been smoke-free and how much money they have saved thus far. Users can refer to the app on a daily basis and keep track of how long they’ve gone without smoking and what they would have spent if they had continued.

Cost: FREE

Getting a Better Job/>

Monster.com Jobs/>

As one of the largest job search sites available, the Monster.com app is a great complement for anyone with a Monster account (which is free to register) and gives users access to the same listings they’d find online. The app automatically syncs with your web-based account and enables you to access saved job listings, resumes, saved searches and more from your iPhone. You can also use the iPhone’s built-in GPS system to locate jobs near you.

Cost: FREE

What Color is Your Parachute?/>

You’ve found the job you want, but the next step is the interview. The expression, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression,” couldn’t be truer when it comes to this opportunity, which is likely the only time you have to sell yourself and demonstrate why you are a fit for the job. The What Color is Your Parachute? app is a complement to the eponymous job-seekers’ “bible” and walks users through the job interview process and how to nail it. Tips on interview questions and questions to ask are featured, as well as top 10 mistakes to avoid. It’s a good read for anyone who is preparing for a big interview.

Cost: FREE

Finding Love/>

Dating DNA/>

Unlike other dating apps that require you to have an existing subscription to its web-based site, or are sketchier and only use GPS-navigation to track “singles near you,” Dating DNA is a free app and service that matches people based on compatibility scores. When you are deemed compatible by the app, based on both your ratings, you are then able to view each other’s profiles and connect. The app also provides “at-a-glance” compatibility scoring and dating potential indicators to help you determine if your potential mate is worth pursuing.

Cost: FREE

Love Survival Kit/>

If you need help in the love department and are looking for advice on what to do in certain situations, wikiHow’s Love Survival Kit is a good resource to have. There is plenty of information and dating advice for categories like “Awkward Situations” (ex. Escape Cuddling in Bed); “Breaking Up” (ex. Keep a Friendship After a Breakup) or “Relationship Skills” (ex. Stop Being Needy). Some of articles can be more funny than useful, but then again, sometimes with dating, people need all the help they can get.

Cost: FREE

Which apps did you find most useful? How do you plan to jumpstart your New Year’s resolutions? Let us know in the comments below.

More iPhone Resources from Mashable:

- 10 iPhone Apps for the Global Foodie/> - 10 Useful iPhone Keyboard Shortcuts, Tips and Tricks/> - 10 Incredible iPhone Portrait Photographs/> - 10 Incredible iPhone Photographs/> - 10 Ridiculous iPhone Accessories [PICS]

Image courtesy of spapax

For more Apple coverage:

class="f-el">class="cov-twit">Follow Mashable Appleclass="s-el">class="cov-rss">Subscribe to the Apple channelclass="f-el">class="cov-fb">Become a Fan on Facebookclass="s-el">class="cov-apple">Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad

The theory is simple: "If you don't have the money, don't charge it. Try to leave your credit card at home and only use it to pay bills," advises April Lewis, director of education for Consolidated Credit Counseling Services. Then immediately pay off your credit-card balance. As for old credit-card debt, sit down and commit to paper a plan for paying them off. Go for a quick hit, like paying off the smallest balance first, or decide to take on the highest rate card first. Get the job done.

Here's a second tip: Be proactive about managing your credit. Call up your lender and ask it to lower your interest rate. Usually, lenders will lower callers' rates by 2% to 3%, says Scott Gamm, founder of HelpSaveMyDollars.com. Also check your credit report. You can check your credit for free at annualcreditreport.com, for example. If you see mistakes, contact the credit agencies and get those mistakes corrected. If errors are dragging down your score, eliminating them can boost it to where it belongs and make you eligible for better rates.

2. Think automation

Free online banking tools can make it easier to manage your finances with less work. To help grow your savings, for example, you can schedule regular transfers from your checking account. Manisha Thakor, author of Get Financially Naked: How to Talk Money With Your Honey, suggests setting up the transfer of a set amount of money into your savings account every pay day.

Also automate recurring bill payments so you never miss a due date or pay a late fee, which sends money down the drain. Even without late fees, timely payments are key: 35% of your credit score is based on your ability to make payments on time. If you sign up for automatic payments, however, make sure to check your monthly bills for errors. One other caveat: "Make sure you have enough cushion in your checking account to avoid any overdrafts" before setting up auto-payments, money coach Lora Sasiela says.
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