6 Internet-Ready Business Ideas

The Internet holds out the promise of untold wealth, at least that is perception some ads and articles may give to people when it comes to making money online. In reality, very few business models can successfully be run exclusively via the Internet. However, some people rely on the Internet for deriving at least a portion of their income, working with proven business models and enjoying profitable returns as a result.

To that end, we’ve identified six business models suitable for the internet. There is some overlap between some of the featured models; perhaps mixing and matching is the best way for you to derive a profit.

Web Communities

Message boards, forums and weblogs with a strong following can provide income for the owner of that site. According to Professor Michael Rapper of North Carolina State University, popular Internet sites can make money through the “…sale of ancillary products and services or voluntary contributions; or revenue may be tied to contextual advertising and subscriptions for premium services.”

Pay-per-click ads strategically placed on web pages can bring in some income.

Online Merchandising

eBay gave rise to the term “PowerSeller,” people whom the Internet merchandising giant describes as having “achieved eBay requirements for sales volume, customer satisfaction, policy compliance, and account standing.”

How much that sales volume is and what profit is made is rarely published by PowerSeller’s themselves. However, the size of some of these pages and related sites is a clear indication that the demand for online shopping remains strong.

more information :-http://www.sayeducate.com/2010/06/09/6-internet-ready-business-ideas/

Indian tablet market raring to take off

While the iPad was launched in the US and other select countries, developing countries such as India are yet to get a first glimpse of the iPad. Only some tech savvy upper class types have been able to lay their hands on the iPad, by buying from the US or Europe. But the developing countries are not to be left out of the tablet game all together, with many of them bringing out their own tablet PCs. Once the initial hype subsides the new devices will have to face challenges that are characteristic of individual markets. What factors will decide their success or failure in the Indian market?

Developing countries like India already have prototypes of tablet PCs designed and manufactured locally and more in the pipeline—tailored to suit the local market. Affordability will be a major concern in this price sensitive market.

The ‘Palaka’, meaning slate, by elLoka is due to come out in prototype form in September. It will have two choices for OS: the company’s patented operating system and Android. The tentative price is USD 150 (INR 7,000), which is quite affordable compared with brand name alternatives.

Some tablets that are popular in the West are being customized to suit other markets in developing countries. Meet the recently launched iProf! This is a customized version of the Archos tablet. This Android based tablet PC has a 7-inch touch screen and is aimed at students preparing for the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). In India, any device designed to help students would be attractive. Focus on content could be an interesting angle.

more information :-http://www.shanzai.com/index.php/market-mayhem/8-op-ed/1193-indian-tablet-market-raring-to-take-off

MVL, first Indian mobile handset to launch push mail feature

The feature which was earlier confined only to the high end models of the Global Mobile handset brands will now be available on MVL mobile phones, priced around 50% lower than these brands

MVL Telecom has become the first Indian Mobile Handset Company to launch the Push Mail feature in its mobile handsets. The feature which was earlier confined only to the high end models of the Global Mobile handset brands will now be available on MVL mobile phones, priced around 50% lower than these brands.


Creating a distinguished niche in this already cluttered space, Premadip Rishi, Chairman - MVL said, “the launch of push mail feature for the first time by an Indian mobile handset company reflects our Company’s philosophy of introducing technologically advanced products at competitive price points”.


With a legacy of over 30 years of expertise in the consumer electronics industry MVL is venturing into the Rs700bn mobile handset industry in India. The company plans to roll out its mobile handsets through brand ‘MVL’ under the newly formed separate entity named MVL Telecom Limited.


The product innovations are spread right from the product features to the operation integrations to service back-ups. MVL Telecom will be the first ever Indian mobile handset Co. to launch the PUSH MAIL feature, complemented with a track-pad, which were available only in the high-end handsets offered by global players.


Talking on who the competition is, Rishi said, “we don’t have any competition since we are offering high quality handsets with innovative technology at less than half the price of the other global players and in the entry-level category, we have smart handsets at unmatchable pricing.”


MVL Telecom intends to offer distinct products which will come pre-equipped with VAS complementing the overall brand positioning of High Quality products at smart prices.

The company has hugely invested in setting up an own international R&D Center by investing US$5mn, which will focus on introducing latest technology, consumer centric products at the most competitive price points.


This pledge further gets reinforced with the Company’s plans to set up an L4 Service center to cater to all service back-up need, right from basic servicing to component level repairing. MVL telecom will make significant initial investments and will set up its service centre in Gurgaon. Premadip Rishi, Chairman - MVL, says, “The commitment to the Indian subcontinent reflects in the history of our company and the fact that the investments made in the R&D and L4 centers shows that MVL Telecom will become one of the top 5 dominant handset player operating in the Indian market.”

more information :-http://www.indiainfoline.com/Markets/News/MVL-first-Indian-mobile-handset-to-launch-push-mail-feature/4855507734

Decor on retro themes helps restaurants carve a niche for themselves

What would you do if you were gifted a Fender Lead guitar used by Eric Clapton? Or a vintage Norton classic motorcycle that costs over Rs 3 lakh at current value? The owner of London’s Hard Rock Café, mounted the priceless guitar on the restaurant wall, setting a tradition that would eventually be followed in all his café’s across the globe.

Closer home, at the Bikes & Barrel bar in Chennai, the two-wheeler was hung mid-air over the service counter, stirring the thoughts of motor enthusiasts as they downed their beer and ale. The rationale is that such vintage items will draw steady customers and prove to be a goose that lays the golden egg over a period of time. And selling such period valuable for a one-time fortune would amount to killing the goose.

“The huge collection of music memorabilia has been one of our major USPs that draws crowds,” says Amit Keswani, VP sales of JSM Corp, which runs Hard Rock Café chain in India. “We even organise memorabilia tours around our cafes.”

It is no secret that with new restaurants and bars adding to the long list of existing ones, the diner today is spoilt for choice. Be it specialty cuisine, crisp service, pricing or the friendly/business surroundings, the alternatives abound in each group. It thus becomes incumbent upon a new restaurant to create a niche for itself.

“You have to be inventive,” says social commentator and marketer Santosh Desai. “With so many restaurants and pubs all around, your joint has to become a reference point to survive and do well.” Retro, or vintage ambience as one may term it, serves to be that reference point.

Take The All American Diner in Habitat World, Delhi for example. Designed around the culture of the 50s and 60s, the restaurant attempts to capture the original aspects of those times. Be it the classic cappuccino-maker, the juke box, or the walls in pastel shades with bright red seating—even the jar of maple syrup and strawberry toppings—the setting re-generates the gone-by era in a stylish manner. Adding to the ambience are the pictures of products used in the 1950s and 60s, consumables and durables that dot the walls.

more information :-http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/features/the-sunday-et/life--style/Decor-on-retro-themes-helps-restaurants-carve-a-niche-for-themselves/articleshow/6016071.cms

Laws of attraction: Store design

In today’s ultra-competitive market it’s more crucial than ever that retail jewellers make their shops as enticing as possible. Retail Jeweller considers how every shop - whatever its budget - can turn heads

Shopping is a bit like searching for the right partner. You want the place to look good, have some spark about it, a bit of personality and be dressed well - and finally it helps if it smells pretty nice too. Only after you’ve got over those initial impressions do you really start to look closely at the detail.

Get any one of those things wrong, and shoppers will high tail it away from your shopfront quicker than someone after their blind date rescue call.

We’ve gone from being what Napoleon called a nation of shopkeepers to a nation of shoppers, and shopping is now one of the top leisure activities in the UK. But consumers are so spoilt for choice with Bluewater, Westfield London and Lakeside et al that they have become fussy about where they buy, and the brands they choose to engage with. This makes it even tougher for shops to woo customers and maintain the excitement levels in their relationships with them.

But if shopping is like dating, then stylish jeweller Cottrills at Wilmslow in Cheshire is the perfect partner. It’s open and attractive from the outside, smart but welcoming, and has a central champagne bar that could entertain you in style for hours.

“It always amazes me that a restaurant can have the most fabulous décor and charge, say, £100 a cover, when a jeweller can be selling £10,000 items from an outdated, tatty and boring environment,” says Malcolm Rawle, managing director of Peter Dooley Design, which designed and fitted out Cottrills and Prestons of Bolton, as well as custom-making cabinetry for the new Stephen Webster store in Mayfair and interiors for Weirs in Dublin.

“A store should be able to attract customers into the shop without feeling intimidating,” says Leona Nicholas, director of retail design specialist Robert Nicholas.

Good looks definitely count high on the list of features that will attract a shopper into a store, but they have to be more than just style over substance, according to the experts. “Store design should accurately reflect the position of the retailer’s brand,” explains Rawle. “The design should state with confidence the proposition from the retailer to the consumer. Image is incredibly important and the materials used and the quality of manufacture are paramount. You often see shopfits that look like quality, but then on closer inspection you spot poor joinery or light fittings that are not flush. At whatever level you trade, this is important.”

more information :-http://www.retail-jeweller.com/news/laws-of-attraction-store-design/5013719.article

The iPad invasion will come

It happens that my laptop carked it this week just as I bought an iPad, so I can give Steve Jobs some feedback about his prediction on Wednesday in which he compared PCs to farm trucks.

In an onstage interview at the Wall Street Journal’s D8 conference in California, Jobs was asked by WSJ’s Walt Mossberg: “Is the tablet going to replace the laptop? Tell me what you think about where it's going?”

Jobs: “You know... (long pause). I'm trying to think of a good analogy. When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks. But as people moved more towards urban centres, people started to get into cars. I think PCs are going to be like trucks. Less people will need them. And this is going to make some people uneasy.”

Yes, well, Apple still has some work to do before the iPad can replace a laptop for me, but I can see how it will eventually get there. That work is crucial because I’m not going to carry three devices – iPhone, laptop and iPad.

At least two of these, preferably three, need to merge into one, and if the iPad can’t operate in the same way as a laptop, then it will be the niche product, not the PC. (By the way laptops now represent 80 per cent of all PC sales, with desktops only 20 per cent. In 2003 it was the other way around.)

Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft (whose market capitalisation was surpassed by Apple for the first time last week) appeared at the same conference yesterday and blithely defined the issue away: “To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” he boomed.

That is, iPads are PCs too – PCs will come in multiple flavours, some with keyboards, some without; some that fit into your pocket, some you have to carry.

Maybe so, but at this stage they are very different. My immediate problem is I’m forced to use the new iPad as a laptop for a week or two while my beloved Macbook Air is in the hospital having its sick screen seen to. And when it comes home, arms out for a hug, will Air have lost her place to the interloper? Possibly.

I bought a keyboard dock so I wouldn’t have to write by tapping on the screen, but lugging that awkwardly shaped, heavy metal keyboard around with the iPad kind of defeats the portability purpose. So, yes, I will have to get used to typing on a touchscreen, and so will everyone.

But leaving aside keyboard issues, as a laptop the iPad is severely limited – so far. The main problem is that it only opens one application at a time, and for someone used to toggling between Word, PDFs, internet browser and email client while writing articles, that is infuriating.

I guess there will eventually be a bigger range of decent word processing applications available for the iPad, but the ones I can find so far fall short. The biggest problem I’ve found is that you can’t copy and paste between different applications, so long quotes have to be typed out.

I haven’t tried to use it for spreadsheets or PowerPoint, but those who have tell me it’s impossible.

more information :-http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/iPad-Steve-Jobs-Apple-Mac-PC-Microsoft-pd20100604-63T34?OpenDocument&src=sph

The value of 2-tier ERP for small and large businesses

There is no doubt that SAP is the world's largest provider of ERP software. According to the website www.erplists.com, it has about a third of the market. But that still leaves a lot of share for other vendors, many of which do not trip of the tongue. Understanding where the applications of some of the smaller players are being used can be tricky.

ERP is one of those categories where getting an accurate picture of market share is not that easy. The reason for this is twofold. First it depends on the size of companies; SAP and its closest rival Oracle are most closely focussed on larger businesses, other vendors such as Microsoft and Infor are more focussed on the mid-market—so overall market share does not tell you that much.

The second reason tying down ERP market share is tricky is that it turns out that large enterprises also buy mid-market ERP products. That is not to say they eschew the big players, but that they select other products to fit niches that SAP and Oracle do not serve well.

For example SearchManufacturingERP.com cites an example of the French company Areva using Infor SiteLine for site operations alongside SAP for its financials. It was felt that the Infor product was more cost effective and easier for its employees to learn to use for that particular purpose or group of users.

Such mixed use is referred to as 2-tier ERP and it is making a muddle of market share figures because many product usage surveys only ask questions like "what is the main ERP product that you use", or they only interview representatives from the finance department who forget about products used by other departments.

In fact the mid-market vendors actually see the 2-tier market as a significant opportunity for increasing their market share. Microsoft actually has a page dedicated to 2-tier on the Microsoft Dynamics area of it web site. It provides a number of case studies including the German company Wurth that uses Microsoft Dynamics' Navision in branches whilst maintaining SAP at its HQ.

However, it is not a one way street. SAP has been targeting the mid-market for many years with its Business All in One product. Quocirca spoke to a number of SAP's mid-market customers last year. A motivator for some of these organisations to use SAP, including Dishman, a UK based pharmaceutical components supplier, and Consol, a South Africa bottling company, was, they reported, the ease of participating in the business processes of larger organisations that also used SAP.

To enable this, larger organisations need to open their ERP applications to authorised outsiders and the degree to which they were doing so was examined in Quocirca research conducted a few years ago. 50% of the enterprises surveyed were allowing external users to access their ERP systems, putting it third behind supply chain management (SCM) and customer relationship management (CRM). In the past this may have been done using electronic data interchange (EDI) but it is now usually accomplished by web-enabling the application—that is, allowing secure external access via a web browser.

It is interesting that CRM is at the top of this list with over 60% of organisation allowing external access. Of all enterprise applications, CRM is the one that has been most successful in moving over to the software as a service (SaaS) delivery model as evidenced by the rise of salesforce.com and others in the last decade. So why isn't more ERP being delivered like this, as it seems an obvious way to enable the sharing of ERP functions between businesses?

The answer to that is that ERP is being web-enabled but on a more modest scale. Businesses have been slower to web-enable their own ERP applications ahead of other more obvious candidates such as portals, content management and CRM, but even when Quocirca's research was published, 25% had done so.

How to become a risk taking boss

Few things can rattle your world more than the loss of a job. But faced with the resultant soul-searching, some recent pink-slip recipients are refusing to be casualties of the latest recession. Instead of quietly joining the ranks of the unemployed, they're resolving to seize control over their career and become their own boss. They're pursuing an entrepreneurial dream.

Is launching a business today a high-stakes risk? Of course. But it's never been easy to build a successful business, in any era or in any economy.

The right business idea at the right time can overcome all manner of obstacles. An ordinary person today still has the potential to catapult a startup company into an industry leader. But reaching that goal requires tireless commitment and sound business strategies.

Here are 10 broad strategies that were used to build multimillion-dollar (in some cases, multibillion-dollar) businesses, taken from the entrepreneurs profiled in my book "The Risk Takers: 16 Women and Men Share Their Entrepreneurial Strategies for Success."

1. Go on a treasure hunt and find an underserved niche

Identify and then cater to the particular needs of a market niche that competitors have neglected or ignored. Develop a specialty in which your business clearly excels. Remember, even a huge multibillion-dollar corporation can't offer everything to everyone. Many niches are too small for them to consider.

2. Spot a new trend and pounce

Look for emerging consumer needs and desires arising from a shift in cultural, economic or technological trends that signal new market opportunities. Act quickly. Don't be tentative.

3. Just start!

Stop the excuses. The "perfect" time for a business launch will never present itself. Don't give would-be competitors the opportunity to beat you to the punch. Get moving. Set short-term goals and deadlines that bring you closer to opening for business.

more information :-http://edition.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/worklife/05/31/cb.have.takes.start.biz/?hpt=Sbin

Nail down niche marketing with social media, word of mouth

The age of generic is over. If the success of craft beers or gluten-free, high-protein, organic nutrition bars are any example, the name of the game is now niche products that are low-volume and high-margin, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The success of niche products has been encouraged by the growth of social media and customer reviews, which means that marketers of niche offerings need to develop a presence in these areas and truly listen to customers.

"All that information … eliminates much of consumers' uncertainty about new niche products, since they can easily find reviews, ratings and comments on everything that hits the market," the Journal reported. "For decades consumer uncertainty blocked the launch of new offerings that were too focused to be supported by national ad campaigns; today's empowered consumer is truly listening to word-of-mouth."

For this kind of marketing, campaigns should be highly targeted and focused on consumer-generated content, said the Journal, adding that "marketing executives should watch for the first online comments about their wares with the same excitement and apprehension as Broadway producers waiting for opening-night reviews."

One audience in particular that niche marketers may want to pay attention to is Generation Y, the Globe and Mail recently reported. This generation tends to research purchases more so than other generations, and values unique offerings instead of trends.

more information :-http://www.ricg.com/marketing_articles/creative_design/nail_down_niche_marketing_with_social_media_word_of_mouth/

Consultant Hired to Market the Flathead

In a series of meetings last week, Flathead County community and business leaders met with an economic development expert to develop a strategy on how to revive the county’s economy. The meetings come a year after economists called the Flathead the “epicenter of the recession” in Montana.

Montana West Economic Development, which is spearheading the project, hired Eric Canada, a partner of Blane, Canada Ltd., a Chicago-based consulting firm, to help create a county-wide marketing plan.

Canada’s services were funded by a $20,000 grant awarded to Montana West Economic Development by the Montana Department of Commerce. The funds were matched by the Flathead County Economic Development Authority, Montana West Economic Development, the cities of Columbia Falls, Kalispell, Whitefish, their local chambers of commerce and Glacier Park International Airport.

“When we wanted to do this project, we wanted to reach out to the person that had the expertise and who will give us a product that is constructed for our area,” Kellie Danielson, president and chief executive officer of Montana West Economic Development, said. “Eric is very seasoned and has had over 25 years of experience in niche marketing for economic development.”

Canada says he will help Flathead’s communities define their priorities and learn how to attract investment while retaining and expanding current industries.

“Tourism is a big important business, but we need other businesses that are bringing in capital from outside the communities,” he said. “We’re in the process of launching the effort to create a marketing plan.”

Canada says the development of a cohesive marketing plan will help direct the Flathead Valley toward economic recovery.

“It’s just like when you’re adrift at sea or you go out on a drive and don’t decide where you’re going,” he said. “You’ll end up somewhere, but it may or may not have anything with what you would like to do or what you would like to have as a community.”

However, Canada says little will come to fruition if the communities fail to band together.

“Time will pass and opportunities will come and go,” he said. “Everyone has limited resources, so the best way to succeed at this is for everyone working together.”

According to Canada, his firm’s primary responsibilities end at architecting the marketing plan. Implementation, meanwhile, rests on the shoulders of the communities, although Canada will return to over the next several years to monitor the progress.

“Our activity is fairly defined at the front end,” he said. “Once we deliver the plan, they’ll have everything they need to go forward without us, except maybe a shoulder to cry on and a little coaching.”

Danielson says that to help ensure implementation, Montana West Economic Development will oversee the formation of a task force.

“We asked the communities to select one or two people to represent their community on a task force and then we also asked some of our investors and board members of Montana West who specifically have something to contribute from a marketing perspective to economic development,” she said.

Prior to Canada’s arrival, Montana West Economic Development commissioned Brad Eldredge, Director of Institutional Research at Flathead Valley Community College, for a preliminary study of the region’s economical development. Eldredge’s report revealed a gamut of positive and negative factors in the valley.

“A lot of it confirmed what I had already suspected in terms of how many jobs the county lost,” he said. “I knew we weren’t doing very well, but it was a little bit shocking.”

As of April, the county’s unemployment rate stood at 12.2 percent, with the most jobs lost in the forestry, mining and woods product manufacturing sectors. While Eldredge feels the economy is turning the corner, he worries about a lack of diversification in the region’s businesses.

“The Flathead area was so dependent on home construction and wood products manufacturing that those are two industries that I don’t think are going to turn around very fast,” he said. “What I see as a threat is if other parts of the economy don’t grow to take up the slack, you’ll have this overhang of unemployed folks.”

On a brighter note, Eldredge found that the economic slump had failed to diminish the lure of Glacier National Park and Flathead Lake.

“I was surprised that tourism did so well last year, given the economic circumstances of the country,” he said.

Because tourism is such an important part of the region’s economy, Eldredge suggests the Flathead look at the development of places such as Skagway, Alaska, a town that has successfully marketed itself as a tourist destination.

“It was a community that had a real dependence on tourism, more so than us, and I thought that the way they were marketing themselves was really well done,” he said. “I’m not sure that we do that.”

Eldredge is encouraged both by Canada’s involvement in the county and by the formation of the business improvement district in Kalispell.

“That’s very positive because there’s a lot of small businesses or medium-sized businesses in this valley that benefit a lot from tourism but none of them have the resources to individually promote ‘Come to the Flathead,’” he said. “But if they do it as a group and pool their resources, they’ll all benefit.”

more information :-http://www.flatheadbeacon.com/articles/article/consultant_hired_to_market_the_flathead/17910/

Non-fade fabrics can take rigours of outdoor living

The same homeowners who drove the trend toward sophisticated outdoor living decor are now displaying an equally strong appetite for easy-care fabrics and materials,People want a great backyard but they also care about quality of life. They want to relax on the patio instead of spending six hours doing gardening and outdoor maintenance.

Fortunately, says Arthur, new technologies in exterior materials means that beautiful outdoor spaces don’t require massive amounts of time, money or attention. He points to advances in outdoor fabric as an example. “You used to have to bring cushions and fabrics in out of the weather. But now there are so many non-fade fabrics coated with fungicide that protects them from mildew, and they can live outside all summer long.”

Those advancements coincide with the emergence of bold florals in outdoor fabrics. Interestingly, Arthur, who consults on outdoor furniture design, says Canadians tend to gobble up outdoor items with hot, saturated colours early in the season, and then move to cooler blues and greens as summer progresses. “I think it’s because in the spring we are so starved for colour,” explains Arthur.

Among the prettiest examples of floral-themed prints are at Pottery Barn (www.potterybarn.ca) which is showing lovely, 24-square-inch vintage flower-patterned pillows. These sell for $45, while 20-inch squares go for $35. Both work really well with 18-square-inch washed basket-weave pillows in plain colours, which sell for $19.

Bouclair (www.bouclair.com) has very affordable outdoor cushions. I love the floral pattern in grey, green and blue that start at about $15.

The Martha Stewart line that’s available at Home Depot also includes easy-care pillows with colourful plant motifs. There’s a 15-square-inch ’60s-inspired jungle leaf design in hot reds and yellows designed to use with the design diva’s outdoor collection, or to refresh pieces a homeowner may already have. It sells for $15.

Outdoor fabric is also showing up in the form of curtains, which can be used as protection from the sun, for privacy, or to delineate outdoor “rooms.” inVu Drapery (www.invudraperyco.com), for example, is now selling ready-to-hang panels in Sunbrella fabric. These acrylic panels, which are 50 by 100 inches, sell for $190. (Check out too their new Hampton collection of Indonesian teak furniture with resin basket-weave panels).

more information :-http://www.yourhome.ca/homes/decor/exteriors/article/815244--non-fade-fabrics-can-take-rigours-of-outdoor-living

How to Increase Site Traffic Without Buying Advertising

In the competition for page views, some news sites use paid advertising to attract traffic. There are a few reasons paying for traffic is often a losing game for news, and I'll get to them in a moment. But first, where can you spend your money to get traffic to your site?

Your content is the big attraction
It's been proven time and again that giving users what they want, consistently over time, and getting links to it will be effective in building traffic. You want to fire on all cylinders -- great editorial, smart marketing that includes social media, and when it works, smartly optimized ad placements -- but if you can do only one thing, the most cost-effective thing to do is create great content and let the world know about it through every cost-effective tactic, from social networks like Facebook and Twitter (see below) to e-mails and search engine optimization.

Partnerships and mentions pay, too
Getting deals with other sites to cross-link (I'm talking about legitimate partnerships here, not the spammy link farms that don't deserve a thought and can hurt your search rankings), and getting mentions and links from other sites can be gold -- for both immediate traffic and longer term. If you can get a link on a big, well-visited, authoritative site like Wikipedia, that becomes a traffic annuity. Every month, you'll see referrals. Often those kinds of links will help your search engine rankings, as well.

Social media is powerful and cost-effective
If you gave me $10,000 to promote a local news or niche content website, I'd probably spend that money to construct and push a social media campaign rather than spend it on paid digital media.

For the amount it would take to have people refine and re-do our paid media, swap and change ad versions, test, reconfigure and refine, I can instead have someone who's probably less expensive and is tweeting and conversing on Facebook, and getting hundreds or thousands of views to the site. Plus, those viewers may turn out to be more loyal followers, and in many cases the social media trail that's left will help search engine rankings, lead to more traffic, and provide useful feedback and info from your social media community.

There are some reasons to advertise
A few atypical news sites attract higher-end advertising or have other ways of making money -- e-commerce, events, etc. -- and can get enough value from visitors that it's worth it to pay for them. The editor of one major financial news website told me of paying to attract traffic to an area of his site that he'd sold to a luxury advertiser at a very high fee. He paid a lot for traffic in order to make even more.

A caution: "unpaid" media Is not "free"
Even placements you don't pay for are not free of cost. The time spent on the above contains the opportunity cost of keeping you from doing something else to improve the site and its performance. There may be some hard costs associated, too, however minimal.

I do believe, though, that for digital media properties targeted to specific groups defined by geography, subject or other niches, being part of the "conversation" online is the best way to attract community cost-effectively, and to make sure that community stays engaged over time.

Doing all this should drive interested people to your compelling content. But if you need an extra push, why is paid advertising often a poor choice?

Display advertising and text ads are not cost-effective if you pay more to attract visitors than they are worth to you. Here's an explanation.

more information :-http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=183404

expressor software Secures $4.5 Million in Funding to Fuel Mid-market Expansion

Expressor software announced today that it has secured $4.5 million in funding from its existing investors, Commonwealth Capital Ventures, Globespan Capital Partners and Sigma Partners, to fuel further growth and company expansion.
ebizQ received the following:

Since the company launched in May 2008, expressor’s unique semantic metadata approach to data integration has proven a competitive differentiator in the Global 2000 and small-to-medium size business (SMB) markets. The company’s current customers include leading healthcare, telecommunications, financial services and database marketing organizations such as American Tower, Integrated DNA Technologies, Moffitt Cancer Center, Sybron Dental Specialties and Viverae.

expressor software was named a “Cool Vendor in Data Management and Integration” by Gartner in 2009: “Semantic integration techniques are enabling greater efficiency and reusability for services deployed for data migration, synchronization and access. They are also improving the management of business rules in data warehouses,” said Mark A. Beyer, co-author and vice president, Gartner.”

In addition to funding ongoing operations, expressor will use its new financing to advance four strategic initiatives:

* extending its sales and marketing reach into mid-market accounts, with a focus on healthcare informatics,

* completing the development of expressor 3.0, designed to deliver game-changing usability by the end of 2010,

* building out a vibrant and growing developer and business user community, and

* continuing to grow its global partner network required to support the company’s low-touch business model.

“Globespan’s due diligence for this investment involved more than 15 extensive interviews with industry analysts, customers, competitors and other market participants, and showed that the data integration market is ripe for disruption,” said Dave Fachetti, managing director, Globespan Capital Partners. “Organizations are looking for alternatives to the expensive and complex offerings from traditional data integration vendors such as Informatica and IBM on the high end, and to niche products such as Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services and Pervasive on the low end. expressor has the opportunity to expand the overall data integration market with its enterprise-class DI solution that is both affordable for mid-market organizations and designed to offer the usability required to engage business users.”

“Securing additional funding from such experienced and successful investors in today’s economic climate is a meaningful vote of confidence in expressor software’s goal to redefine data integration and in our ability to execute on that vision,” said Bob Potter, president and CEO, expressor software. “Everyone at expressor is excited and deeply committed to completing our transition to a low-touch business model by building out an active community of developers and business users, supported by premium content and a frictionless sales process that starts with the high-quality download experience expressor 3.0 will provide.”

“Sybron Dental Specialties chose the expressor semantic data integration system to improve the quality of information feeding its customer data warehouse and customer relationship management applications,” said Ron Malerstein, VP of Sales, Sybron Dental Specialties (SDS). “We were impressed by expressor’s ability to quickly integrate the wide variety of customer data we need to consolidate from our distributors around the world. expressor’s affordable pricing model also made it possible for us to get started today – with a lower total cost of ownership than any other data integration solution we considered.”

more information :-http://www.ebizq.net/news/12677.html?grss

Consumer Reports rolling out paid content mobile strategy, taps potential users to set prices

The journalism world is still grappling with to-charge-or-not-to-charge, but it’s clear charging has the momentum — particularly on mobile devices. The New York Times is moving ahead with its January paywall plans and has put only a limited selection of stories in its iPad app. The Wall Street Journal is hunkering down with its paid-content model. The Washington Post waded in a few months ago with a 99-cent iPhone app. But the decision to charge is really two decisions: whether to charge and, if so, how much to charge.

One longstanding news outlet — Consumer Reports — made the first decision long ago and, true to its roots, keeps doing tests on the second. It accepts no advertising and is funded almost entirely by the sales of its publications and donations. Those funds support a staff of more than 600 people and runs a compound with multiple labs testing everything from cereal to toilets, plus a separate track and offroad track where it tests cars and SUVs. “‘Free’ is something we don’t like to use around here very often,” Jerry Steinbrink, its vice president of publishing, told me. Readers have to cover the cost of producing the content, and no project can operate at a loss, he said.
Strategic pricing

The magazine is strategic about setting prices, often borrowing from its own editorial practices. In determining how to charge for its new mobile website, for example, it ran tests with potential users. The magazine is in the process of testing out pricing plans for its “next-generation” iPhone app, which is still in development. (Their current app provides only limited access to CR content.) One group of app testers will be asked how much they’d pay for the tool; another group will be asked to react to some suggested prices.

“Because we are Consumer Reports, we test everything,” Steinbrink told me. “We depend a lot on focus groups. We’re trying to determine, with user input, what an acceptable price point would be.” Steinbrink wasn’t prepared to give a likely figure for the Consumer Reports iPhone app, but considering its functionality — it allows you to take a picture of any barcode, which will pull up all data Consumer Reports has on the product — and CR’s business model, don’t expect it to be a run-of-the-mill 99-cent app. Steinbrink thinks it might require a subscription fee that is renewed a few times a year, perhaps putting it in the range of their website which costs $26 per year.

more information :-http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/05/consumer-reports-rolling-out-paid-content-mobile-strategy-taps-potential-users-to-set-prices/

ANALYSIS-Small industrial, luxury stocks gain from euro, BRICs

Small engineering and luxury products companies in Europe could outperform larger competitors in the current market squeeze as the falling euro accentuates the benefits of emerging market demand.

Small-cap stocks tend to underperform larger peers during downturns and outperform during economic recoveries and since the Greek sovereign debt crisis has hit markets, small companies in Europe have lost almost twice as much as their bigger rivals.

Since April 26, when the stock market began to decline, the MSCI European Union Small Cap Index has slid 14 percent, compared with the FTSEurofirst 300 which has lost about 7 percent.

But data from Thomson Reuters' StarMine suggests that some sectors in the European small-cap universe have fallen by less than their bigger counterparts, giving investors the chance of relative safety during market ructions.

"The sectors that have worked well are travel and leisure, industrials, and technology, the three sectors which are heavily weighted towards mid-caps and linked to consumption," said Florian Castel, mid-cap fund manager at Exane BNP Paribas.

He said that smaller companies were benefiting from this emerging markets consumption trend specifically because they make niche products.

"There is more discretionary consumption in small and mid caps," he said.

The euro hit a four-year low against the U.S. dollar this week, impacted by concerns over market regulation and sovereign debt.

Over the past few days, the euro has reached a 17-month low against the Russian ruble, a seven-and-a-half year low against the Chinese yuan, a two-and-a-half year low against the Indian rupee, and an eight-year low against the Brazilian Real.

Exane's Castel pointed out that since April 26, when the sell-off started, some companies have declined by much less than the general smallcap index.

Luxottica has fallen by around 6 percent, Swatch has fallen by about 7 percent and Burberry has fallen by about 4 percent.

more information:-http://news.alibaba.com/article/detail/apparel/100308686-1-analysis-small-industrial%252C-luxury-stocks-gain.html

How the enterprise came to Apple

Over the years, Apple has taken aim at business computing a number of times. Its last such foray was in 2002 when it rolled out its Xserve rackmount server.

That move was partly precipitated by Apple's introduction of the BSD Unix-based OS X operating system, which adhered to far more standards, interoperated with other systems far better, and was just less unique than previous Apple operating systems. The move could also be seen as Apple trying to do something, anything, that would let it break out of its declining niche on the desktop.

The Xserve still exists in a corner of Apple's Web site, but you wouldn't exactly call it a prominent part of Apple's product line. That's hardly surprising really. As I wrote at the time:

To really break through in the server arena and go beyond customers who already favor Apple would take a full-blown corporate commitment to expanding product horizons beyond the desktop, beyond cool consumer technology, and into the mundane-but-critical environment of the data center. So far, Apple has released a sweet product but hasn't demonstrated any substantial shift in server thinking and commitment.

To the degree that Apple ever seriously viewed the Xserve and other data center components as an important part of its future, that potential strategic thrust was largely mooted by another product line introduced by Apple the year before. On its second generation in 2002, the consumer products in that line were still widely viewed as overpriced and only of real interest to the Mac faithful. But that would change. I'm talking of course about the iPod.

So Apple effectively became a consumer electronics company. Even when it made its move into phones, features that were mostly of interest to businesses came slowly. For example, Exchange ActiveSync didn't come to the iPhone until version 2 of its operating system. Various security features required to connect to many corporate networks were similarly belated.

But, even though Apple remained mostly on the consumer side of the fence, that fence started to fall down. Citrix CEO Mark Templeton, among others, calls it the consumerization of IT. Whatever the name, it means that we're seeing something of a shift away from rigidly prescribed, IT-supplied client devices and towards an environment where many employees can choose what to use within a fairly broad set of parameters.

There are many reasons for this. The ubiquity of cell phones and even the widespread use of personal smartphones with data plans starts to make separate dedicated business devices seem a bit anachronistic for many situations. More and more corporate applications have Web front-ends that can be accessed from any securely-connected browser. The workforce is more mobile; employees don't just do business from a desktop system in the office. In short, for many people, there's a blurring of the personal and the professional that makes a clean separation of personal devices and professional ones difficult at best.

more information :-http://news.cnet.com/8301-13556_3-20005634-61.html

Pricing hinders e-reader spread

Electronic book readers and tablet PCs, known to be niche products for technology geeks, are set to become mass-market devices in this decade, a survey by the Boston Consulting Group has said.

According to the online survey of nearly 13,000 consumers spanning 14 countries, including India and China, e-readers and tablet PCs could become established consumer products alongside televisions, personal computers and mobile phones such as the BlackBerry and the iPhone, but only if their prices drop dramatically.

Within the next year, as many as 28 per cent of all respondents and 51 per cent of those familiar with these devices plan to purchase an electronic book-reader or a tablet PC, claims the survey. E-readers, or electronic book readers, have been around for several years, but gained critical mass only in the late 2007 when Amazon introduced the Kindle, which has gone onto become an instant hit.

This March, the technology major Apple countered with the iPad tablet recently, which is able to perform many tasks besides reading, such as Web browsing, video viewing, photo-sharing, and e-mail. Within three years, a whopping 49 per cent of all respondents and 73 per cent of those familiar with the devices plan a purchase, the survey revealed.

“The survey suggests that e-readers and tablets are not a niche product for early adopters but could become the MP3 players of this decade. Grandmothers will soon be carrying them around,” BCG’s media practice global leader John Rose said while releasing the survey findings.

Consumers clearly want to do more than just read with these devices as 66 per cent of the respondents globally would prefer to buy a multipurpose device, as against a minority 24 per cent who prefer a single-function device, said the survey, adding, however, acceptance of e-readers and tablets is not guaranteed unless prices drop dramatically.

more information :-http://www.hindustantimes.com/Pricing-hinders-e-reader-spread/Article1-544830.aspx

Finding Top-rated Teeth Whitening Products Made Easy With Teethwhitening.org.uk

Many people spend a lot of time and money on finding the right products and methods for whitening their teeth. Sparkling white teeth make people attractive and this makes everyone want bright white teeth. This has resulted in a niche of its own in the dental health industry. There are many teeth whitening products and several teeth whitening methods. People try these products and methods hoping to get those white teeth they see on commercials. Unfortunately not all teeth whitening London products are as effective as we want them to be. This frustrates users because the tooth whitening product or method that they hoped will bring bright white teeth only drained their money.

To help people find the right teeth whitening products, Teethwhitening.org.uk provides highly helpful information. This website is dedicated to providing detailed information on all the top teeth whitening products that actually work. After careful review of several teeth whitening products and methods, this website picks the most effective teeth whitening products. Users will be able to find everything they would like to know about each product and method featured on this website.

Some of the top products featured on the website include Britesmile, Enlighten, Home Whitening, Laser Whitening, Zoom Whitening, Opalscence and more. Teethwhitening.org.uk provides information such as how each product is to be used, how effective they are and who should avoid using those products.

As Teethwhitening.org.uk brings the most effective products in one place, users will be able to save a lot of time as they do not have to waste their time in just searching for the best tooth whitening products. Moreover, as all the products listed on this website are highly effective, users will also save a lot of money because they need not have to waste any money in trying products that are not effective. Moreover, the products used should also be safe and should not have any side effects. By choosing the products featured at Teethwhitening.org.uk, users will be able to save themselves from all such hassles.

more information :-http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/finding-top-rated-teeth-whitening-products-made-easy-with-teethwhiteningorguk,1304022.shtml

Norway : Europe's most diversified maritime nation

Norway is Europe's most diversified maritime nation and commands worldwide respect for its shipping expertise, equipment and ability to exploit new market niches. Norway's overall maritime economy - an expanding cluster of industries linked to shipping and the aquaculture industry - encompasses an increasingly wide variety of products and services.

Specialized Shipyards
Norway's shipbuilding industry comprises more than 50 internationally competitive, technically advanced small and medium-sized shipyards. The industry focuses largely on ship repair and the construction of specialized vessels including ro-ros, chemical tankers, advanced fishing vessels, reefers, offshore supply ships, high-speed catamarans, cable-laying ships and seismic exploration vessels.

State-of-the-art Ship's & Fishing Gear
Norway's ship's gear industry has developed alongside the steady growth of the Norwegian fleet. Ship's gear manufacturers offer a vast range of state-of-the-art products - from deck winches and vessel lighting solutions to the most advanced electronic cargo handling and stability systems. Specialized equipment for coastal and deep-sea fishing vessels represents another important niche. Durable, modern fishing gear such as purse seine nets, gill nets, motors, winches, cranes and fish-handling gear, as well as advanced navigational, thruster and manoeuvring systems, make it possible for fishermen to locate, harvest and transport their catch as efficiently as possible.

Aquaculture Equipment
For the past three decades, the Norwegian aquaculture industry has been at the forefront of global developments. Norway's aquaculture outfitters have developed and are producing a wide array of fish farming equipment, including breeding, caging and feeding systems, monitoring equipment and fish processing technology.

more information :-http://www.dailymirror.lk/print/index.php/business/127-local/10727.html

New York Times Paywall Goes Up January 2011

The New York Times will start charging for some of its content in January 2011, according to the Wall Street Journal. Bill Keller, executive editor of the New York Times, made the announcement at the Foreign Press Association dinner Thursday night.

The New York Times already announced that it would be implementing a paywall for at least some of its content earlier this year, but now it has a concrete date. The publication is actually reversing course in this area; it previously charged for access to archived and editorial content on its site, a practice that didn’t stop until August 2007.

Joe Strupp from Media Matters for America reached out to Keller about the plans for The New York Times website and how it will impact customers.

“Those who mainly come to the website via search engines or links from blogs, and those who only come sporadically — in short, the bulk of our traffic — may never be asked to pay at all. People who have print subscriptions will get full website access without charge. So we do not anticipate a major impact on overall traffic, which is important to maintain advertising.”

The plan, it seems, will not be dissimilar to what Variety is doing — offering non-subscribers access to a certain number of articles for free each week or each month.

The change in policy, according to Keller, is just a reality of the business at this point in time. Keller tells Media Matters: “It costs money to do the kind of deeply reported journalism our readers expect, and it’s well worth paying for. We assume there will be some impact on readership, aka traffic, but not as much as with a conventional pay model.”

This metered approach is certainly likely to perform better than, say, the all-or-nothing approach (like what Newsday implemented, or rather, tried to implement), but its success may ultimately depend on how much content is protected and what additional incentives The New York Times can offer subscribers.

more information :-http://mashable.com/2010/05/14/nyt-paywall-january-2011/

E-commerce Evolution

Chinese consumers seem to have fully embraced the idea of online shopping, and, if figures released by market analyst firm iResearch are accurate, over 105 million of them now make regular purchases over the Internet. Some analysts are predicting that this number will double by 2011.

Chinese consumers spent RMB 190 billion shopping online in 2009, the majority of which was channeled through the e-commerce platform Taobao, which holds an approximate 82% market share. Paipai, Tencent's e-commerce offering, and Eachnet, eBay's Chinese site, are second and third respectively, with less than 10% of the market each.

By mid 2009, Taobao was claiming 143 million registered users, roughly 43% of the Chinese Internet population, with thousands of new sellers, whether large brands or one-man operations, signing up every month.

"Taobao has clearly found the right mix," wrote Duncan Clark, chairman of research firm BDA, in a recent report entitled "2010: Taobao & China's 'Me-Commerce' Revolution."

While Taobao has been among the main benefactors to date of changing Chinese shopping habits, it is an industry-wide revolution, benefiting heavily from China's vast geography, the country's more price-sensitive consumers, and Internet-embracing youth open to experimenting.
"Innovative entrepreneurs have built ventures in a range of niches and business models which are now having the transformative effect on China's economy that was predicted a decade ago," Clark continued in his report.

E-commerce's success in China was not guaranteed, however. In fact, until recently many analysts and experts felt that the lack of credit card users in China would handicap the spread of online shopping and stifle growth before it had even begun.

"For ten years we have been hearing that e-commerce won't work in China because there are no credit cards," says Chris Reitermann, president of OgilvyOne China, Ogilvy & Mather Group's digital and one-to-one marketing network. "Then overnight it is the hot topic."
Online retailers now sell everything from books, clothing and electronics, to phone cards, cosmetics and fake goods. Many of these retailers remain small operations, earning just a few thousand RMB a month, with their owners experimenting with various ways to gain more business - like paying for Taobao marketing add-ons in an effort to boost visitor numbers - while juggling a full time job on the side.

There are inherent benefits for online stores versus the traditional bricks-and-mortar approach. "You don't need cash or loans, it fits the entrepreneurial spirit of China," says Ogilvy's Reitermann. "You leapfrog huge expenses and can have an immediate nationwide reach."
That being said, it is an increasingly competitive environment, with many rival stores fighting for the same consumers. CIB spoke with several smaller Taobao store owners to get a better understanding of the online shopping ecosystem, and the trials and tribulations of trying to make money from an online store.

more information :-http://www.cibmagazine.com.cn/Features/Focus.asp?id=1298&e-commerce_evolution.html

JAMPRO to Focus on Marketing Niche Products and Penetrating new Markets

The Jamaica Promotions Corporation (JAMPRO) will this year be focusing its export promotion efforts on marketing niche products and on penetrating new markets.

Opening the 2010/11 Sectoral Debate in Gordon House, today (May 11), Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce, Hon, Karl Samuda, noted that during the last financial year, the economic downturn adversely affected demand for goods and services, resulting in a 30 per cent decline in global trade.

However, he said that despite a 40 per cent decrease in Jamaica's non-traditional exports, there was an increase in the export of niche products.

The export of non-traditional food items increased in 2009, from US$118.7 million to US$119.5 million. In particular, cakes rose to US$13.6 million; baked products increased to US$10.8 million; and other fruits and fruit preparations grew to US$6.2 million. In addition, beverages and tobacco (excluding rum) increased by US$3.5 million, relative to 2008.

"JAMPRO's clientele has primarily been comprised of exporters of these 'recession-proof' non-traditional exports. It is, therefore, no surprise that export sales facilitated by JAMPRO was $3.43 billion as at March 2010, or 98 per cent of the fiscal year target," he said.

Mr. Samuda said based on the performance of these products, JAMPRO will continue to focus attention on the export of these and other niche products, many of which have been outlined in the National Export Strategy (NES).

"While traditional countries or regions will continue to be the focus of significant promotional efforts going forward, JAMPRO will build on the work of the NES by conducting ongoing market research to identify the specific local segments within international markets that have the greatest potential for Jamaican niche products," he explained.

He said as part of the strategy to provide support for exporters in global markets, the Government has decided to establish a North American Regional Office, staffed by two investment and export promotions officers, operating out of Toronto, Canada.

Mr. Samuda said Toronto was chosen as JAMPRO's North American base to make use of opportunities that might arise out of the upcoming CARICOM/Canada Free Trade and Development Agreement and the wealth of opportunities related to the Information and Communications Technology/Business Process Outsourcing (ICT/BPO) sector.

The government has also decided to re-establish the Jamaica Marketing Company Limited (JAMCO). It will facilitate and assist small Jamaican exporters to penetrate non-traditional export markets abroad, beginning with the United Kingdom (UK).

If successful, the company could expand its operations into other European countries, in order to take advantage of the opportunities afforded under the CARIFORUM/EU Economic Partnership Agreement.

more information :-http://www.jis.gov.jm/commerce_science/html/20100512T170000-0500_23911_JIS_JAMPRO_TO_FOCUS_ON_MARKETING_NICHE_PRODUCTS_AND_PENETRATING_NEW_MARKETS.asp

The best eMarketing techniques for project services

As part of this series on industry-oriented eMarketing techniques, this week we look at project services – those services that are delivered on a pre-determined estimate of time and materials.

This category is extremely diverse – from creative types in advertising and architecture, techos like programmers and physics consultants, to those with far bluer collars in plumbing and panel beating.

Many in this services sector contend that the web is less useful for them because they don't 'sell' their products online.

While there's no question that the web is less intrinsic to their business than their reservation style services examined last week, the online world still plays a critical part in not only providing qualified leads but moving them a long way through the sales pipeline via detailed estimate forms and selling service packages and/or vouchers.

Search engines are now the very first port of call when prospective customers are looking for a project services supplier.

To those providers in less traditional or niche categories the benefit is even greater as web users are more likely to use search engines for these providers than use the more laborious and less informative (but often more relevant) Yellow Pages.

Either way, a prominent and professional online presence should now be the biggest priority on the project service provider's promotional wishlist.

Listed below are the key eMarketing techniques with a rating of how effective the technique is likely to be to operators of these project services. High = High effectiveness, Low = Low effectiveness and so on.

Selling online: MEDIUM

As outlined above, selling online is a less obvious online objective for project service providers, however they might well be surprised at just what an effective new revenue stream selling online can be. Many have achieved brilliant results by packaging their services into fixed-deal bundles, where you receive a pre-determined set of benefits such as the construction of a pool, house or website.

Vouchers are another way of selling your services online. One of the exciting growth areas is in subscription, where service providers can tap into ongoing and often passive income streams in return for regular provision of services and resources.

Search engine optimisation: HIGH

Project services have been the bread and butter of Yellow Pages for decades and have now become a major source of traffic for search engines. Recent research data suggests that search engines have even surpassed word-of-mouth as the first port of call when in the market for services such as these.

The goal of every project service provider should be to become and stay prominent on Google et al for their line of business – at the very least within the localities they service. If that goal is too difficult or expensive to achieve, next best is to command a given niche.

For example, my own firm does not have the time or budget to compete for the keywords 'web design' in this country (yielding 5.5 million search results). Web design firms are now a dime a dozen and many have far deeper pockets than ourselves. However, we are number one for 'independent web services' – a niche we dominate.

Search engine advertising: HIGH

If a prominent 'organic' position is difficult to achieve, this 'pay per click' advertising is a brilliant way to fill the breach. There are now service providers that receive the bulk of their qualified leads from this technique.

Again if highly competitive, look for locality or speciality niches which are less expensive to maintain.

more information :-http://www.smartcompany.com.au/internet-secrets/20100512-the-best-emarketing-techniques-for-project-services.html

Investors still find products appealing

Europe, home to the most developed market for structured retail products, is expected to stage a modest recovery in 2010, but sales will still not match the 2007 peak. The underlying securities markets remain volatile while regulators are taking a closer interest in industry practices.

Gross sales are expected to rise by about 8 per cent this year from the 2009 figure of $228bn (£150bn, €173bn) compared with increases of 14 per cent in the Americas and 9 per cent in the Asia-Pacific region, according to data compiled by Structured RetailProducts.com. Last year European sales fell 21 per cent.

The Europe-wide trend concealed very different developments in different national markets. In the two largest markets, Germany and Italy, sales fell 17 per cent and 20 per cent respectively, to $59bn and $49bn. Spain was the biggest loser with sales down 44 per cent to $23bn while the UK was the most buoyant, recording an increase of 50 per cent to $21bn, according to the website.

“There were substantial differences across the different market segments,” says Jean-Eric Pacini, head of equity derivatives sales at BNP Paribas, London. “Products that declined most in volume were those that did not offer capital guarantees or were short volatility; those in markets that faced regulatory changes such as the Italian index-linked life insurance business; and those from issuers that had credit spread issues at the time of the crisis.”

Investors were unsettled by the Lehman Brothers default and the realisation that they had been unwittingly exposed to unknown counterparties in the transactions they had entered into. The quality of advice to retail investors also left much to be desired.

In the UK, a review by the Financial Services Authority of advice given to investors in structured investment products found that in 46 per cent of cases in its sample the advice given was unsuitable. In a further 23 per cent of cases it was unclear whether the advice had been suitable, often because customer records were inadequate.

Yet the appeal of structured products to investors remains strong. “When interest rates are very low investors are looking for alternatives,” says Robert Benson, managing director of Arete Consulting. “Structured products are seen as a way of getting a potentially better return while still protecting your capital. Investors are cautious and are attracted to the capital-protected element of the products.”

more information :-http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2c7c93dc-5934-11df-adc3-00144feab49a.html

Huge Israeli Companies Liable to Awaken Political Boycott throughout World

Since its establishment, Israel has been under attack regarding the legitimacy of its very existence. This attack has tremendous economic implications. In the past they were due primarily to Arab countries that created the infamous Arab boycott, which cost Israel, according to various estimates and during its first 50 years (and even prior to establishment of the state), a loss of product of between US$ 50-75 billion. The negative impact of the boycott was expressed by more than the inability of Israel to export to Arab and Muslim countries, but included also the fear of multinational companies from trading with Israel, investing in Israel and developing in Israel centres and representatives (this phenomenon was particularly prominent amongst Japanese companies, McDonald’s did not agree to open branches in Israel and others). This direct and indirect boycott was further expressed in difficulties of Israeli companies to develop international contacts, to make trading partners, import more cheaply, export to certain markets and attain real investments in the Israeli market, amongst others.

In the wake of Israel’s moves toward peace already in the days of Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, via the peace agreement with Jordan, the long negotiations with the Palestinians and the opening of Israeli embassies, consulates and representative offices in several Arab states, large parts of the Arab boycott were weakened and even grounded, primarily in the past 15 years. International companies, apart from a very few exceptions, no longer desist from trading and investing in Israel. As a result, today in Israel we do not fear and do not devote sufficient attention and awareness as Israelis to this strategic problem.

In order to emphasis the extent of the problem, it is sufficient to note that even more severe phenomena of economic boycott were experienced in the past by South Africans as a result of the Apartheid policies. In our time this international economic boycott transformed South Africa into a leper state and severely harmed its economy. A more severe boycott, which critically harms its economy, is experienced today by North Korea due to its nuclear policy, and we all hope that this is what will eventually happen to the Iranians.

International consumers’ boycott as a strategic danger hovering over Israeli companies
Clear examples, which are not widely discussed, are the consumers’ boycott existing today against Israeli security companies. There exist Muslim countries very far from us and not in the heart of the conflict, countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia, to which Israeli security companies would be happy to sell if only they could. If the problem ended with Muslim countries, so be it. However, the phenomenon is substantially wider and exists amongst countries belonging to the “non-aligned bloc,” many of which do not purchase weapons from Israel. Harsher examples can be found amongst countries which maintain full relations with Israel, import its products but regardless, often tend not to buy Israeli security products. This problem is of course known to the security industry and the strategic danger hovering over them is much larger than that threatening security companies in other countries, which benefit from larger target audiences for their products.

As noted, the Arab boycott partially dissipated, primarily in the last 15 years, and dulled our senses regarding this danger. However, in the future we are likely, as a state and primarily as Israeli companies, to encounter the danger of an international consumers’ boycott, not only due to our conflict with the Palestinians but also due to our nuclear capabilities, for which there are already signs from those calling on us to get rid of them (recently the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan).

Granted, the world is most cynical in everything concerning financial profit and a majority of companies in the world tend to ignore moral issues, from employing children, human rights violations and international conflicts. This phenomenon of ignoring violations due to cold financial considerations should reduce our fear as Israelis that a renewed and radical escalation with the Palestinians or a demand for supervision of our nuclear facilities or even a renunciation of our nuclear capability will drag us to most unpleasant places. The British High Commissioner for Palestine, Sir Harold McMichael, who hated Jews, coined already in the 1930s the concept of “fighting the Jews through their pockets.” Already today it is possible to feel in these or other international bodies which raise this idea. We are witness to calls for consumers’ boycott of Israel not necessarily from Arab states, but amongst public opinion makers in certain circles (leftists and neo-liberals, radical right wing and neo-Nazi groups), on certain university campuses and in western European states (primarily Britain, Norway and Sweden) and even in the United States, primarily in California.

It should be noted that the international consumers’ boycott has heavy implications not only for Israeli exports, but can negatively impact Israeli import.

The future lies with niche companies and behind the scenes production. Israeli companies must not ignore this danger. In our opinion, Israeli companies must focus on niche activities, create services and products that accompany primary products and services and must be behind the scenes and not on the main stage. This conclusion has implications for the unsuccessful idea, in our opinion, which is bandied about occasionally for the establishment of an “Israeli Nokia” and so on.

In our opinion, there exist three strategic solutions for taking care of this danger. It should be noted that numerous Israeli companies have already implemented one or more of these solutions, for reasons generally unrelated to fear from the aforementioned danger.
1. Israeli companies must aspire to exist and act within niche areas and be original equipment manufacturers (OEM)
2. Israeli companies in certain fields must be under the umbrella of strong multinational companies.
3. Israeli companies do not need to highlight their Israeliness but the opposite, to downplay it.

Israeli companies must aspire to exist and act within niche areas and be original equipment manufacturers (OEM):
Looking long-term and apart from lessening exposure to the aforementioned geopolitical danger, niche areas have numerous advantages in global competition, the most important of which may be not being in the firing line of the huge, heavy handed international companies. In niche products and services, the level of competition is generally lower, there exist more possibilities to propose a variety of products and services of limited extent. Although market potential is small and there exists a need for specialization, the primary advantage is that in certain cases it is possible to even attain global leadership (there are no few Israeli companies that indeed accomplished this in certain niches).

Original equipment manufacturer (OEM) means that the Israeli manufacturer produces parts that are sold abroad under the name of a distributor or retailed under the purchasing company’s brand name, and the Israeli product that is fully integrated cannot be identified with the Israeli manufacturer.

Israeli companies in certain fields must be under the umbrella of strong multinational companies from the perspective that cooperation with international companies is good, when the Israeli company is under the wing of a strong multinational company. In this way, a consumers’ boycott will encounter difficulties as the products of the Israeli company are an integral part of the products/services that the international company sells and there will be great difficulty in implementing the boycott. It is clear that this solution is appropriate for companies in specific fields and that each case must be examined individually.

It should be noted that from a market perspective, this possibility of foreign control of Israeli companies has undesirable implications for the Israeli market as foreign management, regardless of how sympathetic, will have lesser sentiments for workers in Israel than Israeli management. Additionally, the location of the company’s management abroad lessens the demand for Israeli services connected to accounting, banking and financial and legal services, amongst others. However, in the search for a reduction in future strategic dangers for Israeli companies, the ruling trend in Israeli hi-tech, in which foreign companies acquire technologies from numerous Israeli companies, is not necessarily bad.

Israeli companies should not highlight their Israeliness but downplay it. Granted, there exist certain Israeli fields that are known throughout the world and emphasizing the producer as Israeli can only enhance the ability to sell the product/service. This, of course, refers primarily to the Israeli security industries, part of the high-tech industry and Israeli water and agricultural products. With this, it is fitting to consider even in these fields a downplaying of us being the manufacturers/service supplies, if this is possible.
In summary, the geopolitical and strategic danger of a consumers’ boycott on Israel may worsen in the coming years, and as such it requires at the very least some forethought by every organization involved in export or import.

Coca-Cola to take energy drink 'Burn' to top cities

Beverages maker Coca-Cola India on Wednesday said it plans to take its premium niche energy drink 'Burn' to other top cities of the country beyond Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore in the next few months.

"Challenge for 'Burn' is different. I cannot say it is a product for the masses. It is a product that is getting popular with youngsters, music lovers and DJs in night clubs. It is a niche product. It is special and different from the regular brands like Fanta and Limca," said Ricardo Fort, the company's vice president, marketing.

At present, the brand is available in 250 ml cans, priced at Rs.75, through pubs, night clubs, restaurants and premium hotels in Mumbai, Delhi-NCR and Bangalore.

"Our aim right now is to create awareness about 'Burn'. We are present in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. Even in Goa, you can sip the energy drink in night clubs, though we have not entered there directly... over the next few months, when we are through with the awareness programme, we will take it to other top cities of India," Fort said.

The company is eyeing a significant share of the country's Rs.200-crore energy drink market which is growing around 50-55 percent annually.

"We want to grow and we want the energy market to grow with us," said Fort.

Burn has a presence in 76 countries and in India, the company is following a unique marketing strategy, including promotions through fashion shows and musical concerts.

Coca-Cola has invested $1.2 billion in India till now and will soon come out with fresh investment figures for the next few years.

more information :-http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/cons-products/food/Coca-Cola-to-take-energy-drink-Burn-to-top-cities/articleshow/5894128.cms

NZ export focus must be on niche products

The New Zealand meat industry will have to centre around niche products if it is to survive in the global meat trade, Canterbury Meat Packers chief executive Mark Clarkson says.

Niche products will become important because the industry has changed enormously over the past three years, he says.

Brazil has emerged as the dominant player in the world processing of meat and is set to dominate the global exporting of meat in future years, Mr Clarkson told farmers at Meat & Wool New Zealand's launch of its Central South Island sheep and beef council at Benmore Station.

"Our position's got to be exploiting niche opportunities and high value positions with meat products."

New Zealand was well positioned to take advantage of meat supply to the world because of its abundance of water and renewable energy.

Consumers were not just going to be in traditional markets but also in new markets, he said.

Taste, location, production methods, variates and breeds would all be important determinants for price in those diversified markets.

Livestock systems for high-end food would have to provide safe food with ethical, environmental and animal welfare considerations.

"They will have to really deliver on a pleasurable eating experience," Mr Clarkson said.

Future consumers would fall into those wishing for convenience food where cost, safety and healthiness were important, and those demanding providence and taste.

"The connection with who we are supplying will be essential."

The world was demanding more protein as a result of more population and income. Projections for world population growth have it at eight billion by 2030. Much of that growth was in Asia.

Piggy-backing on this was the increase in income. As wealth grows, so does meat consumption, he said.

Beef consumption in Indonesia, China and the Philippines had grown substantially. From 1995 to 2009 Indonesia beef consumption increased 140,000 tonnes, and by 1.9 million tonnes of product in China.

There was a view down the world that everybody would be paying more for food.

"Protein is part of that food supply and the expectations are that this must increase as a result of this."

Livestock returns must increase because of that. What was happening at the moment was that livestock costs of production were increasing at a faster rate than what was being returned.

This trend had to change. Demand was there and this would change the pricing situation, he said.

Food security would be important, as would supply.

New Zealand could not afford to turn its back on developing countries because as they developed, they would be asked to pay more too.

more information :-http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/news/3657773/NZ-export-focus-must-be-on-niche-products

Algeria Sports Nutrition Market Analysis

Sports nutrition products remained niche products in Algeria in 2009. It was characterised by many brands exiting and entering the market at the whim of importers. However, 2009 saw the increased visibility of specialised distributors such as Best Form Algérie, which imports and distributes sports nutrition products throughout Algeria. Additionally, brands distributed by Ultimate Nutrition, Optimum Nutrition Inc and ABB

Group all imported from the US became increasingly visible starting in...

Our Sports Nutrition Products in Algeria report offers a comprehensive guide to the size and shape of the market at a national level. It provides the latest retail sales data 2005-2009, allowing you to identify the sectors driving growth. Forecasts to 2014 illustrate how the market is set to change.

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more information :-http://www.pr-inside.com/algeria-sports-nutrition-market-analysis-r1871130.htm

Niches make the beverage world go round

Pepsi, Coca Cola, Snapple, Dr Pepper, Gatorade. Big beverage brands are household names, but while they may make up the lion’s share of revenues niche products are where the growth potential and innovation lies.

Last month market researcher Euromonitor International observed that the battle for new business in the saturated European and North American beverage market has turned to niche brands. It sees low overall growth as a long term reality.

Richard Haffner, the Euromonitor head of non-alcoholic beverages research, told BeveragDaily.com that the packaged drinks market in Europe and North America is now strictly share game.

Relying on brand awareness is no longer enough. To achieve sales growth companies have to segment markets in new ways and blend across categories creating products like fizzy milk. They need to be in touch with changing consumer tastes more than ever before in order to think of new product concepts and ideas to persuade customers to buy their products.

Other industry experts have made similar observations. Last year the Beverage Trends: Culinary Trend Mapping Report, put together by the Center for Culinary Development in the US and Packaged Facts, found significant market potential in niche products tailored to certain demographics – be they teens, savvy parents, or active baby boomers.

Testing innovation

No right minded beverage brand owner would take a chance by changing the recipe of its major money spinners these days.

Rather, they are more likely to try new spins on old favourites as brand extensions. Like Vanilla Coke before it, Black Cherry Coke, for instance, can stimulate sales by catering to Coke users’ quest for novelty; Coke Zero, meanwhile, leverages a well-known brand to reel in consumers with a specific need or demand.

In markets where stevia-derived sweeteners are already permitted, such as the US, Australia and New Zealand, and France, brand-owners are not taking chances with their major brands. Since stevia, although sweet, has a taste profile all of its own, the industry realises there is a need for consumers to get to know – and accept – the taste. This means they have been dipping their toes with niche brands, rather than taking the plunge with major brands and risking mass rejection.

One taste does not fit all

Frequent travellers will be more than aware that a familiar brand may not be the same in every country of the world, as formulations are tweaked to appeal to taste preferences of a given population.

Fanta is a prime example of this – and its tendency to take on a local spin has an intriguing history. During World War II, trading bans meant Coca Cola in Nazi Germany could not get hold of the syrup needed to make regular Coke, so they developed a whole new drink using locally available ingredients. The name sprang from a brainstorming session, where boss Max Keith asked his team to use their imagination, or ‘Fantasie’ in German.

more information :http://www.nutraingredients.com/Industry/Niches-make-the-beverage-world-go-round

BASF China expansions focus on niche products

BASF IS investing in new capacity in China as part of its strategy to locate production closer to customers. But to stay ahead of the competition, it needs to focus on niche products, says Bernd Blumenberg, president of the its BASF-YPC Co. (BYC) joint venture (JV) in Nanjing in China's Jiangsu province.
Germany-headquartered BASF is facing strong competition from low-cost production in the Middle East, "But we can compete by exploiting all options which extend the value chain," he remarks.

The BYC cracker complex, now being expanded, is BASF's largest in China. BASF and partner Sinopec are investing $1.4bn in the expansion, which involves raising the ethylene capacity from 600,000 to 740,000 tonnes/year and building 10 new plants downstream. New products will include 2-propylheptanol, nonionic surfactants, amines and super-absorbent polymers (SAP).

"We believe we have to be close to our customers," says Blumenberg. "There will always be an export business from Ludwigshafen. But we want 70% of business in Asia to be based on products made in Asia."

BYC, which is owned 50:50 by BASF and China's state-owned Sinopec, is broadening its product offering to supply China's widening array of industries, from construction and pharmaceuticals to automotive and chemical manufacturing.

For example, the JV will expand ethylene oxide (EO) and build new plants for EO derivatives, including nonionic surfactants, which are used in detergents, and solvents such as butyl glycol ether.

BYC will also extend its EO value chain by building a new amines complex for the production of ethanolamines, ethylene amines and dimethylethanolamine, used in the agriculture, pharmaceutical and surfactant sectors.

Simply converting all the EO to ethylene glycol (EG) would provide minimal competitive advantage compared with Saudi production, says Blumenberg. By producing additional derivatives, such as nonionic surfactants, it is possible to compete, he adds.

BYC will also develop the cracker's C4 chain with the manufacture of butadiene (BD) and isobutene, with derivatives including the plasticizer alcohol 2-propylheptanol and highly reactive polyisobutylene (HR-PIB), which is used in the manufacture of fuels and lubricants.

With a delay, the company intends to extend its acrylics chain with the production of dimethylaminoethyl acrylate (DMA3), used to produce flocculants for water treatment, and SAP, for hygiene and industrial applications.

more info :-http://www.icis.com/Articles/2010/05/03/9353920/basf-china-expansions-focus-on-niche-products.html

Book stores cover niches

Although the Galesburg Public Library was — and is — still available for book lovers, it was a sad day in January 2004 when Dave’s Book & Card Shop closed, leaving downtown Galesburg without a traditional bookstore. In September 2005, Inner Wisdom, 31 N. Kellogg St., a new age bookstore, opened, joining Casey’s Party Creations, 220 E. Main St., as places to buy books in the central business district.

Flip the pages of the book forward to 2009 and there was good news and bad news for bookworms, although the good outnumbered the bad.

The year began with the late January closing of Waldenbooks in Sandburg Mall. The Waldenbooks store here was just one of hundreds closed as parent company Borders tried to fight through the recession.

In May, Brighter Life Bookshoppe Ltd., a Christian bookstore that was a staple on North Henderson Street for many years, moved downtown to the old Illinois Power building, 292 E. Simmons St. That was followed in August by the opening of Stone Alley Books & Collectibles, 53 S. Seminary St. Five years after Dave’s closed, there suddenly were four places to buy books downtown in addition to the library, which also sells books and magazines in addition to loaning out books and DVDs.

What was temporarily a wasteland for book lovers suddenly became a part of town where one could find volumes to satisfy almost every taste.

Despite the four stores and the library, there is little overlap in the types of books each store caries. Dennis Case, owner of Casey’s Party Creations, said the other stores have had little effect on his business.

“I would say it’s basically steady,” Case said of the book portion of his store.

Casey’s may not be the first place that comes to mind for books, but Case carries about 40,000 used paperbacks. The books run the gamut from mystery, thrillers, westerns and science fiction to three different kinds of romance novels and more. They are arranged according to genres.

“The only thing we don’t have is children’s books,” Case said.

Lianna Ita owns Inner Wisdom along with her husband, Chris Ita. Their new age bookstore carries an eclectic selection of books, including self-help, spirituality and alternative healing methods.

“We have some fiction, too,” Lianna Ita said. “Children’s books, metaphysical.”

Because Inner Wisdom also offers yoga and meditation classes, massage, even classes for those who want to learn belly dancing, Ita was asked if she considers the business a bookstore.

“I guess I do consider it a bookstore,” she said after pausing to give the question some thought. “We have the gifts and other things.”

She agreed that having so many bookstores downtown has not been a problem.

“I don’t really think it has affected us that much,” Ita said. “Mostly what has affected us is people being able to order online. We do have a website, but we don’t do online ordering.”

She added that the store carries a small selection of Christian books but not enough to be in serious competition with Brighter Life.

Brighter Life will celebrate its first anniversary downtown on Saturday. Told that Stone Alley and Alternate Realities, a comic book shop, also are having special days May 1, Brighter Life owner Mary Spring said, “It could be like bookstore day downtown.”

Stone Alley also carries new and used books, as well as vinyl records. Owner Ben “Stone” Stomberg has been pleased with the community support his store has received.

Spring said Brighter Life will offer a free lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday. There will be door prizes and a sale with 20 percent off all books. A flower, to be planted, will be handed out to the first 100 people in the store.

Business has been good downtown, Spring said, but “last weekend, we had more people going to the old place looking for us.”

She said business was bad this past winter, but it has picked up as the weather has improved.

“The winter was hard, but it was hard for everybody. There’s no doubt in our minds we were supposed to move downtown,” Spring said.

She agreed there is little direct competition with the other stores.

“We thought we were going to carry more secular books, but when Stone Alley opened up, it made sense for him to carry them,” she said. “We do carry a few.”

Spring added that although readers cannot order off the store’s website, orders can be placed in the store for books not in stock.

“We can order just about anything,” she said.

Brighter Life also carries some Christian CDs, but fewer than when the store was on Henderson Street. Spring said they can burn music onto CDs.

“I think there are about 11,000 CDs we can use,” she said.

Meanwhile, the Galesburg Public Library’s board is looking for a site to build a larger building. Depending on finding an acceptable site and securing the financing, construction could begin in five to 10 years. Board members have consistently said a downtown location is preferred. During a number of board meetings, reports have been made that use of audio books and DVDs have been brisk.

more info :-http://www.galesburg.com/features/x749216507/Book-stores-cover-niches