Beyond Buisness

What is recession?

This story is about a man who once upon a time was selling Hotdogs by the roadside. He was illiterate, so he never read newspapers. He was hard of hearing, so he never listened to the radio. His eyes were weak, so he never watched television. But enthusiastically, he sold lots of hotdogs.

He was smart enough to offer some attractive schemes to increase his sales. His sales and profit went up. He ordered more a more raw material and buns and sold more. He recruited more supporting staff to serve more customers. He started offering home deliveries. Eventually he got himself a bigger and better stove. As his business was growing, the son, who had recently graduated from college, joined his father.

Then something strange happened.

The son asked, "Dad, aren't you aware of the great recession that is coming our way?" The father replied, "No, but tell me about it." The son said, "The international situation is terrible. The domestic situation is even worse. We should be prepared for the coming bad times."

The man thought that since his son had been to college, read the papers, listened to the radio and watched TV. He ought to know and his advice should not be taken lightly. So the next day onwards, the father cut down the his raw material order and buns, took down the colourful signboard, removed all the special schemes he was offering to the customers and was no longer as enthusiastic. He reduced his staff strength by giving layoffs. Very soon, fewer and fewer people bothered to stop at his Hotdog stand. And his sales started coming down rapidly and so did the profit. The father said to his son, "Son, you were right”. “We are in the middle of a recession and crisis. I am glad you warned me ahead of time."

Moral of the Story: It’s all in your MIND! And we actually FUEL this recession much more than we think.

Creative Destruction Happens Quickly; Those Who Wait End Up In The Rubble

From the just-a-warning dept - Techdirt

When we talk about the economics of industries that are in transition, such as the newspaper industry or the entertainment industry, we often point out the need to adopt new business models that embrace the economic realities those industries face. Regularly, supporters of those industries respond that it's folly to jump to a new "unproven" business model without real proof that the new business model will succeed -- especially when the old business model is still going strong. There's this belief that the companies in those industries can just hang on while everyone else experiments, and when a new business model is clear, they can comfortably make the switch and everything will be fine. And, it is true, that even disintermediated businesses have a history of sticking around and throwing off cash for a long time after the disruptive technology disintegrates their foundations.

Yet, as this article in The Atlantic points out with regard to the newspaper industry, when "the end" comes, it comes amazingly fast. It is true that old industries can hang on for a while, but they reach a sort of tipping point where suddenly everyone realizes that the emperor has no clothes. And, at that point, there really isn't any time to make the necessary shift to the new business model. Instead, there's just bankruptcy. So, sure, the record labels and the newspapers can wait it out and hang on until there's "proof" that some new business model makes sense. But, by the time that proof is there, their old business might not be.

Latest Massive Fraud: Satyam Found To Be Swimming Naked

Warren Buffet's famous quote is that "It's only when the tide goes out that you learn who's been swimming naked." Over the past few months, the tide has been going out with a vengeance, and we're certainly discovering plenty of folks swimming naked. The latest, of course, is Satyam, the Indian tech company whose CEO admitted that he basically has been making up the company's financial reports for years. It turns out that about $1 billion in cash the company claimed it had... don't actually exist. That's a pretty big problem, because that $1 billion represented about 94% of all the cash the company claimed to have. Oops. It makes you wonder what, exactly, Satyam's auditors have been up to the past few years.

This might explain why the company attempted to do a highly controversial merger deal last month, where Satyam tried to buy construction firms Maytas (Satyam backwards), owned by the sons of Satyam's founders. The deal between companies in two obviously unrelated industries seemed like a pretty clear cash grab for the family -- except most people didn't realize that the cash grab was actually to cover up all the lies on the financial statements.

Of course, there are some amusing side notes to this whole thing. Just a few months ago, for example, Satyam was awarded the "prestigious" Golden Peacock award for (of all things) corporate governance. That award is now being stripped away, but it seems a little late for that. Then, of course, there was the stock analyst who claimed that Satyam was an obvious buy just after the original merger deal fell apart. Considering that the stock dropped 90% today, that seems like an awfully bad call.

Time to rethink governance - By TT Ram the IIM Professor in ET

I dont really know why they named their comp. as SATYAM. Contray to their real stature.

Why on earth would they want to do that? Over the past month, bewildered investors

and media analysts have been asking the question of
Satyam’s aborted attempt to use
about Rs 7,000 crore in cash to acquire equity in two property companies.

The lack of synergy between the companies, the conflicts of interest, the issue of valuation — all these were so glaring that it was a mystery why a businessman of the stature of B Ramalinga Raju would have attempted such a move.
Well, it’s all falling into place now.

There was no cash pile waiting to be transferred out. It was a fiction created through some incredibly creative accounting. Revenues, profits, reserves, cash were all cooked up over the years leading to an inflation of the balance sheet by around Rs 7,000 crore.

It was becoming difficult to keep up the fiction. That’s where the proposed investment in the two property companies belonging to Raju’s family came in handy. If Rs 7,000 crore could be shown as having been used to finance the acquisition, the gap at Satyam would cease to exist. Of course, Raju’s sons, who ran the property companies, would have received from Satyam a cheque that was worthless. But that’s all in the family, you know.

This is the merest sketch of a story that has the hallmarks of a thriller. It will take a while for investigators to fill out the details. A whole slew of questions will need to be answered. How did the auditors fail to discern any sign of wrongdoing? How did all of it escape the audit committee? If cash of around Rs 7,000 crore was not there, how was it corroborated by bank statements? And so on.

Investor fury over Satyam’s failed attempt at diversification is now giving way to more universal shock and horror over a scandal that could turn out to be India’s own Enron. Following the terrorist attack in Mumbai last month, the incompetence of politicians was contrasted with the supposedly high standards of performance in corporate India. The Satyam affair has now dealt a severe blow to the pristine image of business in post-reform India. As the economic environment worsens, expect more skeletons to come tumbling out.

How to build Google like team

1. Teams size should be less than 5.

2. All leaders no followers.

3. Don’t hire spotless people, Look for spots in the people which matters the most.

4. Punish mediocre success and reward excellent failures.

5. Don’t award TOP 1% and create 99% people unhappy. Award TOP 99% and Fire rest 1%, create 100% happy employees.

6. Freedom to loose = Celebrate failures = Team which looses most wins on creativity.

7. Kill “Lick my ass” kinda managers.

8. Kill project meetings instead go for drink parties and fight over your creative opinion.

9. Don’t work on a project instead own project.

10. Bring design and creativity in all aspect of work.

11. Don’t work when your energies are low as your work requires the best times of the day.

12. Fire managers and buy Leaders.

13. Creativity is driven by stomach so don’t work with empty stomach instead eat best food you love.

14. Don’t earn money earn reputation.

15. First build the product than collect the requirement than do project planning than test it and if it sucks.

Repeat the above cycle.

I.T.'s turning point? and article in frontline by C.P. CHANDRASEKHAR

There are signs of foreign firms increasing their presence in an increasingly concentrated information technology sector.

MOHAMMED YOUSUF


The sprawling Cyberabad in the Andhra Pradesh capital offers high-end infrastructure for the I.T. industry. With the U.S. remaining India’s principal market, the growth slowdown in that country together with the long-run depreciation of the dollar has begun to tell on export performance.


TIMES are hard for the world economy, particularly the United States’ economy. This should make the period difficult for any industry that depends on global markets, especially the U.S. market, for much of its demand.

This, unfortunately, is true of India’s information technology (I.T.) industry, dominated by exports of software and IT-enabled services (ITeS). Yet there are signs of cautious optimism among some industry insiders and observers based on the premise that the cost-cutting encouraged by slow global and U.S. growth will increase outsourcing to low-cost locations such as India, which would be good for growth even if not necessarily for margins.

It is too early to empirically confirm this speculation, but the evidence permits some initial judgments. In July every year, Dataquest releases its data on the performance of the top 200 I.T. firms in India the previous financial year. The information, unlike that of NASSCOM, covers the whole of the I.T. sector, including hardware, software, software services and ITeS. It also provides detailed information on the top 20 firms in the composite industry.

This data set, especially more information on the ways in which data are collated in the case of firms whose performance indicators and financial accounts are not easily available in the public domain, leaves much to be desired. But with almost all the data on the Indian I.T. industry being collated by private organisations such as NASSCOM, MAIT, Dataquest and IDC India, this information, which covers both the hardware and software segments, has been an important basis for analysing industry trends in the country.

As yet, we have access only to the first round of data released by Dataquest (July 15), focussing on the top 20 firms in the industry, in the export sector and in the domestic market. The information on the top 20 is an adequate basis for analysing industry trends, not only because they account for an overwhelming share of the revenues of the top 200 (64 per cent in 2007-08) but also because these are the most dynamic firms and have remained industry leaders for a long time. The top 20 list includes industry veterans such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), WIPRO and Infosys, which epitomise India’s I.T. success.

On the surface, there is a sameness about the trends the data on the top 20 reveal. The top firms in the industry continue to grow at a scorching pace, with the trend rate of growth until 2007-08 amounting to 34 per cent per annum whether we take 1991-92 or 2001-02 as the base year to make our calculations. Services firms dominate the industry in terms of number and revenues, with 95 of the top 200 companies engaged in services delivery and another 20 in the production and sale of software products. And export revenues still constitute the mainstay of the industry, with the revenues of the top 20 exporters (at Rs.1,02,451 crore) far exceeding those of the top 20 revenue earners in the domestic market (Rs.74,843 crore).

These perennial positives notwithstanding, there is some cause for caution. With the U.S. remaining India’s principal market, the growth slowdown in that country together with the long-run depreciation of the dollar (despite fluctuations) has begun to tell on export performance. The top 20 exporters from the industry recorded a growth in export revenues of 30 per cent in 2007-08 as compared with 45 per cent in the previous year.

Since the growth of revenues of the top 20 firms catering to the domestic market was also slightly lower at 27 per cent in 2007-08 as compared with 31 per cent in the previous year, the performance of the top 20 firms in the industry was disappointing. Top 20 revenues rose by just 23 per cent in 2007-08 as compared with 42 per cent in 2006-07, pointing to the beginnings of a slowdown that could last for a long time. This could be the first sign that the software and ITeS boom is losing momentum.

This slowdown has been concealed by two factors. First, there have been individual companies that have recorded remarkably high rates of growth of revenues, albeit from small bases in the case of some. Thus, 13 of the top 200 companies covered by Dataquest registered triple-digit growth rates in 2007-08. Second, there have been a few companies that managed to expand their net revenues significantly in the financial year gone by. These trends have conveyed the impression that despite being dependent on the U.S. market, the Indian industry is decoupled from a growth slowdown in the U.S. market because the deceleration in growth is more than neutralised by enhanced outsourcing by firms in a recessionary environment.

Concentration of revenues

A. ROY CHOWDHURY


Inside a software company at Salt Lake, Sector-V, Kolkata’s I.T. corridor. Recent evidence shows that as the I.T. industy grows to maturity, the features that made it unique are losing their significance.

The slowdown in growth is not the only new, even if disconcerting, aspect of the figures for the last financial year. The numbers released thus far by Dataquest point to a consolidation of certain trends in the industry that have some troubling long-term implications. The first of these trends is a tendency towards increased concentration of revenues generated by firms in the industry. The top 200 firms account for an overwhelming share of the industry.

In 2005-06, for example, the revenues of the top 200 firms were placed at about 85 per cent of the total industry revenues. What is noticeable is the growing concentration within the top 200 segment. If we take the group of firms constituting the top 200, the top 20 firms (or 10 per cent of the number) accounted for 63 per cent of the revenues of the top 200. The next 30 (15 per cent) accounted for a near proportional 17 per cent of the revenues. And the remaining 150 (or 75 per cent in numerical terms) contributed just 20 per cent of the revenues.

Consolidation and concentration are part of the industry’s maturity. Underlying this concentration is a change in the nature of the firms that constitute the top 20 in the industry as a whole. Increasingly, firms with foreign parents populate the top 20 league tables. While 67 of the top 200 firms are foreign companies, 13 of the top 20 are known international companies. This is indeed a relatively new tendency. The number was as low as three out of the top 20 ten years ago and seven at the beginning of this decade.

What is interesting to note is the differential distribution of foreign companies among the top exporters and top suppliers to the domestic market. While 12 of the top 20 exporters of I.T. products and services from India are Indian firms, only four of the top 20 revenue earners in the domestic market are Indian. It has been known that foreign companies have been displacing Indian firms as major exporters, especially with the growth of the captive outsourcing facilities of foreign firms in the country. But this process has not yet displaced Indian companies such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro and Satyam, service providers that remain the top exporters.

The situation is different in the domestic market. Over the past two decades, an increasingly liberal hardware and software import regime and a liberal policy with regard to foreign presence in the domestic hardware and software market has substantially increased the foreign share in these markets. This did not matter when the size of the domestic market was small in both absolute terms and relative to export revenues. However, as the diffusion in the use of I.T. increases, this unusual distribution of target markets between foreign and Indian firms can become significant.

What is noteworthy is that as the use of I.T. in business and in government increases rapidly, with a limited effort to shift away from proprietary to open source software, the presence of international software product suppliers in the Indian market is increasing rapidly. At a time when the diffusion in the use of I.T. in the country is increasing rapidly, foreign firms have displaced domestic firms in the domestic market at a much faster rate.

At first this was predominantly in the hardware segments where a liberalised import regime and substantially lowered tariffs helped international firms out-compete not just Indian brands but the huge assembled personal computer industry in the country. But, more recently, software presence is becoming important. For example, two global software majors – Microsoft and SAP – registered revenue growth of 29 and 104 per cent respectively in the domestic market in 2007-08.

The emerging picture is clear. Even while India’s scorching pace of I.T. services export growth slows, there are signs that foreign firms are increasing their presence in an increasingly concentrated I.T. sector. This has two implications.

First, I.T. export revenues are increasingly being garnered by foreign firms. But more importantly, as the domestic market for I.T. hardware and software grows, fuelled by increased government expenditure aimed at increasing I.T. use, foreign firms are coming to dominate the rapidly growing domestic market for both hardware and software. This would mean that slowing revenue and employment growth would be accompanied by a shift in the net foreign exchange earned by the I.T. sector, even leading, perhaps, to a net outflow sometime in the foreseeable future.

India’s software and ITeS industry was seen as different from much else of modern business in India because it was a high-growth sector driven by huge net foreign exchange earnings. It was pampered with tax concessions for this reason, and the concessions that were to end in 2009 have now been extended to 2010. But more recent evidence shows that as the industry grows to maturity, the features that made it unique are losing their significance.

Bike Wars - Mahindra Acquires Kinetic...

well ever since my childhood i've always loved Kinetic the brand and i always think of it in par with Bajajas the brands that projects the true indian feeling. Somehow kinetic lost its track somewhere in the middlehad bajaj been devoid of pulsar it no doubt would've suffered a severe blow and conceded the whole 2wheeler market to the Giant Hero Honda... But somehow it had survived thanks to the bajaj brothers for restoring the pride now that it had scaled heights and is introducing newer products almost every quarter like Hero Honda who seems to be relaxing a bit, relinguishing its past glory. The new products are no more much attactive asif they only modify the body and chasis design by maintaining the same engine. Somethind which bajaj has started to follow lately...

However coming back to our Kinetic mania, i still remember the ads Kapil endorsed for Kinetic-Boss my favouritebike ad those time apart from Hamara Bajaj (Bharat Bala Fame) my hands are etching to divulge to write about bharat bala shomehow im refraining to reserve it for another post. Had kinetic been more agressive by not relyingon a single product (ofcourse the trend those times were release a design and start milking like TVS-50, Bajaj Chetak, M80, HH- CD100 and the likes) Kinetic surely had missed trains of opportunities which had been only discovered by HH and bajaj & TVS following them... Kinetic couldn't cope up with the rising market demands interms of new competitive products, exploring new demands, projecting their only brand Kinetic Honda...

And oflate when Motwani took charges in top gear i surely expected a lot of things to happen. To my surprise her efforts to bring itself up were hardly appreciative.. Meanwhile HH, Bajaj & TVS were exploring markets everynook and corner and entering into sport biking pioneered by Bajaj (the un-expected contender in that segment whichpreviously was only interested in home bikes) and Suzuki and Honda coming in with big bangs which ofcourse latermade suzuki to sell-off to TVS, and Honda though was turbulent at first somehow managed to hold its legs firm.

Kinetic couldn't help but wish if it could turn its fortune which ofcourse seemed to be answered by the Kinetic-Mahindramerger for 110 Cr. (20-80). Having created waves in the Automobiles (Cars segment) M&M is surely on a roll to ventrue itself in the Hot market... Though a bit late it has a lot to catch-up with. If only Kinetic lacks in the sting, M&M isthe right customer who can provide u that who inturn having outdone in its mother product got up and went on firing on all its cylinders to outsmart others, something which Kinetic needs now and should be gladly looking forward to...

now i cannot help but wish kinetic a greater fortune with M&M and hopefully we shall see the merger helps themcreate innovative products to mark the era of the future biking in a two-wheeler dependent country like ours.Maybe the could be even looking for alternative biking technologies like electric bike (which ofcours is environmentalfriendly would not attract probikers ) .

However having said all these what exactly the future has for Kinetic and its admirers is left to be seen.

PS: M&M has alo acquired PTL (Punjab tractors ltd.,) and if u are having the shares of PTL dont panic for you'llbe exchanged with three 10rs shares of PTL to one 10rs share of M&M. And now The Managing Director of the KineticMotors, Sulajja Firodia Motwani will now also be the non-Executive director in the new company. Lets hope her athleticefforts and passion towards adventure sports would guide her to a better fortune in their new endavours..

15 Ads That Prove Sex Sells ...Best?

Sex sells. Advertising and sex have been tied together since advertising became a big business. The use of sexually suggestive images to sell just about everything really emphasizes the point that sex is a merchandiser's best friend.

Here are some recent ads where sex is used to sell all sorts of products. Looking at these ads, would you agree that sex really sells... best?

1) Lingerie

Let's start with one of the most popular example of so called "sexy" (and after reading this, you may think one of the classiest of suggestive) advertising campaigns.

The Victoria's Secret Angels.

For the consumer, it makes sense to use sex to sell lingerie, men's cologne, even liquor, but what about using sex to sell some of these other products?

2) I will let you guess what product this print ad is for...

A vacuum.

That's right. A company in Germany sells their household appliances, including vacuums, using images of women in fishnets and men tied up.

Maybe S and M does something for those looking to purchase a new vacuum? Who knew?

Do you see the vacuum in the bottom left corner? Look carefully, or you may miss the point of the ad.

Moving on...

3) Renova Toilet Paper

What about this print ad for Renova, a toilet paper brand? What's sexy about toilet paper?

4) Volvo Cars

Even automobile companies seem to believe sex sells best.

This suggestive advertising is from Volvo, and its titled "We Are Just As Excited As You Are."

Nice parking brake...

5) Coffee

What about this ad for an Italian coffee company? Coffee makes everyone think of sex, doesn't it?

6) Lynx Body Wash

And of course, what better way is there to sell men's body wash then with a sexy woman, slick and wet, in the shower? This print ad is for Lynx body wash.

Talk about gettin' dirty....

7) Carl's Jr. Hamburgers

Who could forget the infamous Paris Hilton ad? Remember Paris in a bikini washing a Bentley while eating a Carl's Jr. famous burger?

Doesn't everyone eat grease dripping burgers while washing their cars?

8) Milk

What about this Milk Gives ad that was displayed all over Canada to inform the public of the health benefits of drinking milk?

It's an eye-catching way to show the "benefits" of drinking milk.

9) PETA Fruits

Even PETA seems to believe that sex sells. This television commercial promotes the purchase of fruits and veggies. Who knew that buying produce could be such a turn on?

Along with saving animals, one fur coat at a time, PETA is apparently a good judge of melons too.

Or what about the newest PETA campaign.

And who better to promote the cause than America's favorite Playboy bunny...naked?

10) PUMA Clothing

There is really nothing to say that can add to this ad. Well, personally, I think they took "Sex Sells" just a little too far.

11) Herald Towers Condominiums

This is a print ad for the Herald Towers Condominiums in New York. What does sex have to do with real estate?

12) Che Magazine

This suggestive ad campaign was used in Belgium to promote a new men's magazine, Che. (OK, so maybe for a men's magazine, using sex to sell is an obvious marketing choice.)

13) Playstation 2

What better way to sell one of the hottest video game machines around then sex?

14) iPod

Take one of the best selling electronics products in the world. Combine it with sex and create something with even more heat? How much hotter can you get?

15) Aprilia Scooters

"On my scooter everything has to be perfect. " This newspaper ad is for an Italian scooter company targeting men.

What do you think of these advertisements? Do you think that they were effective in selling their product?

Do you think sex sell best or is it a lazy way to sell a product? Is there anything sex would not be good for selling?

What do you think of these ads? Know of any other that are particularly funny , hot or noteworthy that I missed?

Amy Gifford - Featured Blogger
InventorSpot.com

How Google Has Screwed Up the MySpace Deal

Lots of smart people are trying to figure out how to monetize socialnetworks. It's no easy feat: Even if millions of people log on toFacebook twice a day, they aren't there to buy sneakers, they're thereto connect with friends.

"I don't think wehave the killer, best way to advertise and monetize the social networksyet," said Google co-founder Sergey Brin, on a conference call inJanuary. "Some of the things we worked on in fourth-quarter didn'treally pan out and there were some disappointments there."

Brinought to know. Google has an agreement with MySpace, which has proven mostly disappointing. Under the deal, Google will serve ads on MySpace through the second quarter 2010. In return for the privilege, it will cumulatively pay the social network $900 million as part of a revenue-share agreement. Here's the problem: If Google doesn't make enough money over MySpace to meet the minimum revenue-share requirements, it has dig deep and make those payments, anyway. And thus far, the deal has shaved roughly 1.5 percent off the company's gross margins, according to estimates from Bernstein Research analyst Jeffrey Lindsay.

So if Google can't make a buck off social networks, who can?

AndyMonfried thinks he can help publishers do it. Monfried, a formerAdvertising.com executive and current CEO and founder of Lotame, sayshe's discovered the secret sauce for monetizing social networks -- andhe says Google's going about it all wrong.

"Youcan't put up contextual ads against user-generated content," Monfriedsays. "It's irrelevant, and advertisers don't want to risk their brandson user-generated content."

Lotame doesn't work with the big social networks (MySpace, Friendsteror Facebook), but it has partnered with 16 smaller social networks, from whichit has aggregated data on 30 million users. Monfried says Lotamedramatically improves targeting for advertisers by doing things such as identifying the "influencers."

Monfriedwas reluctant to disclose too many details on how Lotame's solutionvaries from Google's ad-targeting platform, but says his company isfocused on "verbs and actions." So instead of serving ads based on the text in users' profiles, Lotame focuses onusers' actions and demographic data -- such as when a 28-year-oldwoman in Southern California downloads a video on a social network.

"Googledoes a great job of monetizing intent," says Ray Valdes, an analyst atGartner Research. "It knows what I'm searching for and it can show merelevant ads. But social networks are not about intent."

Valdes argues that its unfair to slam Google's approach-- after all, the company's core business is search, not social media. And to be fair, Google said on yesterday's earnings conference call thatthey're trying new things -- including demographic targeting -- and that they've seen some progress.

Photo: Flickr/Kyle Jones

No One Wants To Be An Entrepreneur

Statistic: 90 percent of new businesses fail after 5 years.

This is not a new statistic. In fact, you've probably heard about this before. Naysayers (which often include everyone from your spouse to the convenience store cashier) have probably cited this to you millions of times.

Psychologically, it is difficult for people to become an entrepreneur because no one really likes risk--especially if they believe that they have high chances of failing. Sigmund Freud called the concept the "pleasure principle," which states that a person always drives to seek pleasure and avoid pain.

This is why most people perceive leaving your job to start your own business as not just inviting failure, but literally standing on its doorstep and banging down the door. The entrepreneur's worst nightmare is waking up and realizing that he's lost everything except the shirt on his back.

It's risky, scary, and you've heard so many horror stories about it. And it's not just that, everyone around you is saying, "No, don't do it."

And yet, some people do it anyway. Some win the first time. Others fail and fail repeatedly until about fifth time when they suddenly understand the magic formula.

A friend of mine thought her husband was crazy when he used up their entire life-savings to buy old antique bottles. He later made a killing on eBay, but for a while, she was worried that she was going to feed her kids some fried glass for dinner.

90% percent of businesses fail? The good news is that it's just probably just an urban legend like those safety signs in gas stations forbidding you to use your phone. No one really knows if it's true, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

The true picture in small businesses is that 50 percent of small business survive in the first five years. That's your half-full glass right there, if you ask me. And what's more startling is that most companies don't fold because they were failing, the close because the owners have lost interest in it already.

However, given the challenging year in store for America, what do you think? In the middle of the entire hullabaloo of the political fever, subprime meltdown, and the current recession, is now the best time to be an entrepreneur?

Or should you still keep your day job? Only you can answer that question.

They don’t know cricket, but know their business

Geoffrey Hampson doesn’t know much of the rules of cricket. But, as the CEO of the Vancouver-based Live Current Media group, he pulled off a major coup by upstaging many mainstream media companies and bagging a $50 million (Rs 200 crore) contract to host the IPL’s online content.
“I don’t understand the sport completely but I do have some good tutors,” the 50-year old Hampson said on a lighter note when asked how he got interested in his company's biggest ever single deal.
“I’m picking up the basics of the game and have some people of Indian descent in the company to help me understand the nuances,” he told the Hindustan Times in a phone interview. Until Thursday, the 22-employee company was unknown in India. It was quite a surprise when the IPL and the LCM announced they had inked a 10-year-deal on online content.

The LCM will manage and run two websites to generate revenue, IPLT20.com and BCCI.tv. The IPLT20.com was launched on Friday.

According to the LCM, now fans from around the world can have complete access to the 44-day long season. The site offers access to official league content including audio-visual content, photographs, live scoreboards and summaries, match results, Fantasy Cricket, player interviews, profiles, schedules, statistics, ticketing and fan interaction through polls, contests and newsletters.

As per the terms of the deal, LCM will make a guaranteed payment of $5m a year — $3m for the BCCI and a separate $2m for the IPL — for the online rights. After that, revenue will be shared between the partners based on advertising, sponsorship and merchandise sales through the two websites.

It will be a social networking site revolving around the cricket sport. It would also have a fantasy cricket application for Facebook. The video footage and pictures of the IPL fixtures will be for sale on the website, however no live streaming of games will be offered.

Hampson said that the big numbers of $5 million a year made business sense. “We are very confident of the commerce part of the deal.” He added that there was a tough bidding process involved in clinching the deal but LCM's ownership of cricket.com definitely played a positive role. The LCM thrives on its assets — some of the most sought after web addresses online. The company owns about 800 web addresses, of which 30 are premium names, including cricket.com, boxing.com, karate.com, brazil.com, indonesia.com, greatbritain.com, malaysia.com, vietnam.com, body.com, number.com, leisure.com, call.com, electronic.com and one of the largest e-commerce sites, called perfume.com, which alone generates $10 million revenue a year.

Hampson said that the LCM's major focus is “building destination hubs for passionate people. When we were expanding our horizons, the passion in India about cricket led us to the country. It was at a time IPL was shaping up. We approached them and the rest is history.”

This is the company's first foray into the Indian market and it hopes to bring the North American model of e-commerce — by which online shoppers pay a premium to buy memorabilia and autographed items through a licensed vendor, to India.

Airport: Skybus Airlines Shutting Down

Another News reflects slowing US Economy...

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Low-cost carrier Skybus Airlines is shutting down Saturday and plans to file for bankruptcy protection next week, becoming the latest of the nation's airlines to fall because of rising fuel costs and a slowing economy.

The financial situation of the airline, which announced the shutdown late Friday, has worsened in recent weeks, said Skybus spokesman Bob Tenenbaum.

"We deeply regret this decision, and the impact this will have on our employees and their families, our customers, our vendors and other partners, and the communities in which we have been operating," Michael Hodge, chief executive of Columbus-based Skybus, said in a statement.
"Skybus struggled to overcome the combination of rising jet fuel costs and a slowing economic environment," he said. "These two issues proved to be insurmountable for a new carrier."

The airline makes 74 daily flights to 15 U.S. cities, Tenenbaum said. It has about 450 employees.
Tenenbaum did not know how many passengers would be affected but said the company has flights scheduled through Sept. 2. All passengers affected by the shutdown are eligible for a full refund.

The airline said that all flights were to be completed Friday and that it plans to file Monday for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Skybus is pulling the plug less than two weeks after CEO Bill Diffenderffer resigned to pursue a book-writing career. He was succeeded by Hodge, the company's chief financial officer for the past year.

Skybus has endured some bumps since it began flying May 22, 2007. Over two days during Christmas week, the airline canceled as many as a quarter of its flights because of problems with two of its planes. Recently, it has been dropping flights and destinations because of high fuel costs.

The announcement adds to a string of bad news for airlines, which have been hurt by a slowing economy, high fuel prices and maintenance concerns.

ATA and Aloha Airlines both stopped flying this week after filing for bankruptcy protection. American, Southwest and Delta airlines have all had to cancel flights recently to address safety concerns about some of their aircraft.

On the Net: http://www.skybus.com/

Avoid Daily Investment Checking to Prevent Big Mistakes

Does watching cable or checking business news sites give you cold sweats as you ponder how your investments are doing? Are you logging into your financial site every day but still feel your money slipping away? Just ignore your money, J.D. at Get Rich Slowly says—stocks pay off in the long term, not day-to-day, and worrying about it is the easiest way to make a money-losing mistake:

' In Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes, the authors note that it's dangerous to watch your investments every day. When you pay close attention, you tend to become emotionally invested in even small movements. You lose sight of the long-term and make decisions based on short-term events. Peek in every month or so, but don't constantly check your investments.'

Sound advice, and a good way to avoid letting money stress spill over into other areas of your life as well. For more reassurance that you can make money when the market sky looks grim, see what our readers recommend as recession-safe investments. How to Conquer Your Fear of Investing [Get Rich Slowly]

Money making from home through designs all over the world - Tip of the Day...

Tell me, do you know what is Zazzle, Printfection, Artsnow, Spreadshirt, and Cafepress? ..Don't know?? Well, these are web companies where you can go RIGHT NOW and open an AMAZING free store, then you can start uploading all your images, graphics, designs, photos, or illustrations, for what? So they can PAY YOU from $1 dollar to $100 dollars (you choose how much you want to earn) in royalties for EVERY SINGLE TIME they sell a product (t-shirt, mouse pad, mug, sweater, poster, key chain, USB item, PSP cover, etc.) with your graphics printed on it! ..Incredible, isn't it? And, you know what is the best part of all this? Well, the best part of all this is that you DO NOT have to invest any money at all, NOT A SINGLE DOLLAR EVER, that's what make these companies so special, and that's why they have millions of members from all over the U.S. and around the world. Right Now this is the fastest and easiest way to make money Online, and right from home! The only investment you have to put up front is your artwork, that's it! ..Don't have designs to offer? ..No problem, keep reading!

These companies call this system, set it and forget it, why? Because, "literally" you don't have to do anything, they handle all the process for you. From making sure that all your designs get exposed globally through Google, to taking orders and shipping the products world wide, all they ask you is to submit a nice design so YOU and THEM can make money from it, understand?

The process is really simple, you open a free store, you submit your designs, then you choose how much money you want to earn in royalties for the use of your graphics on their products, and that's basically it (from your part), they do the rest! Now, as soon as they make a sale with your design printed on it they will immediately send you an Email letting you know of this transaction, so then you can go to your account and withdraw the payment, that's how it works! ..Simple isn't it? Most of these companies pay once a month, some pay via check (by regular mail) while others pay Online through PayPal.

Now, let me be honest with you, if you set up a store with just 1 or 2 designs probably you won't make any money at all, UNLESS you have super incredible designs, a never seen before designs, understand? But now, if you set up a store with 15-20 designs, then you are talking business, you are about to make good money! Believe it or not but your potential visitors will consider you as a full time designer (seller), understand? Now, if you set up a store with 50 or more designs then let me tell you that your success on ANY of these companies is 100% ALREADY GUARANTEED!!! Now, if you don't own 15, 20, or 50 designs then I suggest you to visit the address (link) below. This veteran Cafepress member has multiple stores with hundreds of designs, he has like 17 different stores and today is selling one of them and for only $125, well in reality what he's selling are all the designs that are in his store, 89 in total. Now tell me, do you know how many products you can put out for sale using these 89 designs? ..Any idea? ..Believe it or not but with 89 designs you could have RIGHT NOW over 9,700 products, that's a SUPER ULTRA MEGA MALL, and that's only through Cafepress, understand? The good thing about his designs is that all of them are in 300dpi of resolution which is the highest resolution that it can be produced for these print on demand web companies. Also, these images are already with Alpha 32bit Transparency which means that they can be used on ANY background color tshirt or material. I personally believe that $125 is a total steal, that's not even $2 dollars for each design, and considering that most graphic designers charge $55 dollars per hour then you can image, this is a great bargain. Another good thing about these designs is that all of them are related to one theme which is very crucial, VERY IMPORTANT to look professional in what you are offering to the public.

So, if you consider to get in this business, then I definitely recommend you to get this collection, even if you are not ready yet, why? Because he will be offering it only to a limited number of people, I believe it's no more than 10. Also, another good reason why you should get these designs is "because" every single year Americans spend billions of dollars in products related the Red, White and Blue flag, and these designs are related to it but in a very CLEAN, CLASSIC, and UNIQUE WAY that everybody loves, if you like Jeans then you will love his work! ..Ooh! Did I mention that 78% of the people who buy from these web companies are located in the US?

Well my friends, that was my tip of the day, I hope you like it and make good money with these companies! If you have a great info-tip please send it to me so I can publish it :-) Thanks for reading.

Bye.

That day of the year, again

Chennai, April 1 How will you feel if you can get tomorrow’s news today? Of course, with some technical help.

Google has introduced a new feature, enabling you to search content on the Internet before it is created ( http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/gday/index.html) .

It is called gDay and apparently is powered by MATE (Machine Automated Temporal Extrapolation) technology.

Says Google, “Using MATE’s machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques developed in Google’s Sydney offices, we can construct elements of the future..

“Google spiders crawl publicly available web information and our index of historic, cached web content. Using a mashup of numerous factors such as recurrence plots, fuzzy measure analysis, online betting odds and the weather forecast from the iGoogle weather gadget, we can create a sophisticated model of what the internet will look like 24 hours from now.”

Which means you “can use this technique to predict almost anything on the Web – tomorrow’s share price movements, sports results or news events. Plus, using language regression analysis, Google can even predict the actual wording of blogs and newspaper columns, 24 hours before they’re written!”

Another of Google’s plans is “Virgle”, a tie-up between Google and Richard Branson’s Virgin group. ( http://www.google.com/virgle/index.html)

This is Google’s Plan B for us, because we are going to run out of space in our ancient Earth. So, Google says, starting in 2014, Virgin founder Richard Branson and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin “will be leading hundreds of users on one of the grandest adventures in human history: Project Virgle, the first permanent human colony on Mars.” The “plan” is called ‘VirGle’ : a combination of ’Vir’gin and Goo’gle’.

There are links to help you learn how to become a VirGle pioneer and to test your “pioneering potential”.

And if you use Google’s excellent calendar application, it has more for you. It is called “Google Wake Up Kit”. Google has launched this because “this problem became so serious at times that it sometimes resulted in lacklustre attendance at team meetings.” ( http://www.google.com/googlecalendar/new_wakeup.html)

“In combination with the kit, you can receive a new type of notification from Google Calendar, called the “wake up” notification. This notification is relentless in ensuring your timely awakening from restful slumber.

“The ‘wake up’ notification uses several progressively more annoying alerts to wake you up.”
And for the ever-popular Gmail, it has a ‘Gmail Custom Time’ feature, where you can send email “to the past”. (http://mail.google.com/mail/help/customtime/index.html)

Interesting features, no doubt. But the only point here is that despite “coming from Google”, none of them will work. Because they are just April Fool pranks from the Internet giant.
The gDay page looks authentic with links to jobs in Google, press releases and a FAQ.

The FAQ “answers” all your “queries”. The only time you realise you have been conned is when you click the “Try gDay” link.

In Virgle, Google’s questionnaire has questions like what would you do if “I was unexpectedly confronted with the emergence of a bewilderingly alien and frighteningly advanced Martian life form which appeared bent on killing me if I failed to quickly and effectively communicate my peaceful intentions and potential value to its civilization”.

Clicking some of the links will lead you to a page where Google admits it’s an April Fool prank. But with the custom time ‘feature’, it gives no such indication. You will have to go to Gmail and search frantically till you realise it’s just one more April Fool prank from Google.

April Fooled by Google and Virgin?

If you don't buy this joke, we'll kill this billionaire. Now, that's satire!

Now that Google has effectively conquered Earth, the all-powerful Web giant is setting its sites on a new frontier: Mars.

Calling it "The Adventure of Many Lifetimes," Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin just announced a joint venture with Virgin CEO Sir Richard Branson to colonize the Red Planet because, as the press release states, "Earth has issues, and it's time humanity got started on a Plan B."

Uhhhh, right. Happy April Fool's Day, folks.

There's nothing funnier than billion-dollar corporations taking time out of their busy multinational money-making days for a little light humor.

Here's what's been announced on the Google blog:

"For thousands of years, the human race has spread out across the Earth, scaling mountains and plying the oceans, planting crops and building highways, raising skyscrapers and atmospheric CO2 levels, and observing, with tremendous and unflagging enthusiasm, the Biblical injunction to be fruitful and multiply across our world's every last nook, cranny and subdivision ... So, starting in 2014, Virgin founder Richard Branson and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will be leading hundreds of users on one of the grandest adventures in human history: Project Virgle, the first permanent human colony on Mars."

Why Mars? Google representative Andrew Peterson cleverly dodged the question, explaining, "Because software engineering isn't rocket science, producing truly stellar products requires us to boldly innovate where no technology company has innovated before."

Ah, corporate branding still going strong in the midst of April 1st tomfoolery.

The blogosphere buzzed Tuesday morning with reactions ranging from amusement to confusion to irritation. Blame the economic turmoil, the Iraq war or the increasingly bitter presidential campaign for the less-than-warm reception: "I mean, hohoho, some of the richest men on Earth have done something to benefit humanity," one commenter writes. From another: "If this were real, China would beat us to it." Others scoffed that Google actually pays employees to produce these pranks. "A joke should have an element of humor. This one seems very sad. It's a shame they wouldn't contribute to something that monumental."

Hashem Bajwa, digital planning director at the San Francisco-based ad agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, itself part of a satirical moon-based ad campaign for Rolling Rock, notes the irony of this year's Google gag: "It's not a total disconnect from what Google does. So many people are asking, what will Google do next? If anyone would do it, it would be Google."

Google's brand is known for both its ambition and its quirkiness, and the company's logo "Do No Evil" seems to allude to the power it wields. In fact, Google has teamed up with the world's top astronomers to create "Google Sky," a new feature that allows anyone with a computer and Internet connection to "to browse and explore the universe" through the Hubble Space Telescope; Googlers will even be able to see the universe at x-ray or infrared wavelengths.

That one's not a joke. And if nothing else, it's a good jumping-off point for Mars.

How Google News was created ...

This is a story of how breakthrough new products can emerge from the most unlikely of places.

‘After September 11th, one of our researchers, Krishna Bharat would go to 10-15 news sites everyday looking for information about the case. And he thought, why don’t I write a program to do this? So Krishna, who’s an expert in artificial intelligence, used a web crawler to cluster articles. He later emailed it around the company. My office mate and I got it, and we were like, this isn’t just a cool idea for Krishna. We could add more sources and build this into a great product.

That’s how Google News came about.’

Marissa Mayer, VP of Search Products & User Experience (as quoted in Fast Company, March, Page 79).

I like this story for a number of reasons:

1. Breakthrough ideas, insights and products often come about by accident. This is not to say that many stage-gate, formal processes are not useful but their importance is over-rated. What is more important is to have creative, passionate people that are willing to try new things.

2. Creative organisations like Google (rated the world’s most innovative company) are places and spaces where not only great ideas are produced but there is a culture of idea receptivity. In my work with leaders I constantly stress the need to encourage idea production at the same time as idea openness. An open door policy does not always translate to an open mind policy.

3. Google also has a policy of encouraging its engineers to spend 20% of their time on working on things that interest them. The actual percentage is not important nor is how it is implemented of much more value is the notion that people work at their creative best when they are passionate about what they do.

What are you passionate about?

4. Creativity is also found at the most unexpected of places, people and times. The lesson? Don’t make any assumptions about who you should invite to a meeting for example. Have the experts mix with the newcomers and see what happens.

Microsoft's Bid for Yahoo Is All About Big-Budget Brand Advertising

Sure, there's bad news out there, what with the panicky Fed and people whispering the R-word. But somehow, the wired world continues to churn out smart, useful, occasionally game-changing ideas.
From the rise in instant manufacturing to the growth of open-source business models, these trends show that innovation can bloom even in a grim economic climate.
Here's a look at nine trends driving business in 2008 — and a deeper explanation of the surprising secrets to Apple's success.

The search wars are over, and Google has won. Despite years of effort, Microsoft and Yahoo together account for just a third of US Internet searches and even less of the $8 billion market for search-related advertising. But the good news for all of Google's rivals is that online advertising is about much more than search. The new battleground is display — the kind of graphics-intensive spots that were left for dead after the Internet bust — and the emerging category of video. And the latest salvo in that war was Microsoft's $45 billion bid for Yahoo.

There are other reasons to buy Yahoo — its wealth of top-notch Web services, for example — but ultimately it comes down to advertising. Web advertising is in the midst of a metamorphosis. As television implodes, marketing chiefs are turning to the Net to create branding initiatives. They know you can't build a brand with little text ads that pop up next to search results. But you can with video and display, especially now that display has moved beyond static banner ads to include Flash animation and sound. Web advertising, which passed $20 billion last year in the US, is expected to surpass $60 billion in four years, and display and video ads will account for more than a third of the total. That means there's an opportunity to make money by dominating those categories the same way Google dominates the search market. "The race is on," says Mark Kingdon, CEO of digital ad agency Organic.

Google is already off and running. In February it rolled out AdSense for Video — an early attempt to bring video advertising to the thousands of sites it now delivers text ads to. What Yahoo brings to the table is numbers: It is the world's most popular Internet publisher, delivering Web pages to nearly 140 million people a month in the US alone. Yahoo also delivers ads to a vast network of independent sites, increasing its advertising reach to 85 percent of US Internet users, according to comScore. Microsoft reaches 56 percent of the US Internet population through MSN and Windows Live, but it still lacks credibility with Madison Avenue. Put it together with Yahoo, however, and you have a scale that even Google can't match.

Even if the Yahoo purchase goes through, a company like Microsoft needs more than reach. It also needs the technology to deliver the right ads to the right eyeballs at the right time and come back with a precise measurement of the results. But as Tim Hanlon of digital consultancy Denuo observes, "The best stuff is not coming from the leviathan players." One of the biggest advances in advertising technology, behavioral targeting, was pioneered by little firms like Tacoda (before it was bought by AOL) and the Drivepm unit of aQuantive (before it was bought by Microsoft). Behavioral targeting tracks surfers as they traverse the Web, making it feasible to deliver automobile ads, say, not just on auto-related homepages but on other sites visited by someone who's shown an interest in buying a car. That has opened up vast new quantities of inventory — Web pages that previously would have been a tough sell to advertisers but now make sense. "There's a lot more innovation to come," Hanlon says. The irony is that it probably won't be delivered by Yahoo, whether or not it's acquired by Microsoft. After all, this is a company that fumbled every opportunity in search. "It's a classic case," Hanlon adds. "Do two wrongs make a right?"