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10 Reasons To Start an Online Business
March 9th, 2008 by hostbox
1: Anyone Can Do It.
It’s true; it has never been so easy to start a business. Think about it, in the past you were confined mostly to brick and mortar businesses. You would need retail premises or warehousing. Now you don’t need any of these. You don’t need experience. Everything you need to know is out there on the World Wide Web. Get yourself a notepad, put the coffee pot on and hit the search engines. Be methodical, visit message boards, user groups and article directories. Subscribe to ezines. (Online magazines). Ask lots of Questions.
2: Low cost.
This has to be one of the cheapest ways to start your own business. You’ve got a PC and an Internet connection, what more do you need? Web hosting? You can even get this for free! You may need to upgrade at a later stage, which will cost you money, but even then it won’t be really expensive. A web site? Maybe, it depends what type of business you start. But again you can do it yourself with Microsoft Frontpage, or similar software. Even free web hosting may come with a Wizard to help you build a site. Content for your Web page? Again it depends what sort of business you want but this could even be found for free. As above, hit the search engines!
3: Work from home.
Didn’t you always dream of working from home? No more daily commute, sitting in traffic wondering where you’re life is going. More time for yourself and your family. You can wear what you like, work when you like. If you want to get up at 5 am, and work while it’s quiet, go ahead. A word of caution! You must be disciplined when working from home. If you got a space to call an office, then use it. Tell you family and friends not to disturb you except in emergencies. (Running out of ice cream is not an emergency).
4: No Staff.
Can you imagine running a store without staff? Or a repair shop, or almost any ordinary business. In most cases it can’t be done. If you need three staff, ones on vacation and another calls in sick, you’ve got a real headache. But working from home you shouldn’t have these problems. If you need help with some tasks, like copy writing, or web page design, You can hire people’s services online at sites like elance.com
5: Part Time.
Not only can you work from home but you can work part time. It is possible to run a very successful online business in just a few hours a week. Maybe in the early stages of creating your business, you’ll burn the midnight oil. But with so many repetitive tasks being done by software packages, e.g.; autoresponders, once you’re set up you may need to do little more than regular maintenance. Or create new products.
6: A portable business.
One of the great things about your online business is that being run from a computer means it can be run from a computer anywhere. If you’ve got a laptop, you can work in the garden, or from bed. As long as you can get an Internet connection, you can go on vacation and still do some work.
7: No stock or Shipping.
If you choose a business selling information products; such as ebooks. They can be downloaded by your customer, which means you don’t have to carry stock, or deal with packing and shipping. If you want to sell a physical product, search the internet for drop shippers. These are companies who carry the stock and do the shipping for you. There are drop shippers carrying an amazing variety of goods.
8: 24/7 Income.
This has to be one of the best things about your online business. You don’t have to pull down the shutters at 6.00pm or any time at all for that matter. If you’ve set things up with lots of automation built in your web site can be pulling visitors night and day. And from around the world. You can earn money while you’re sleeping.
9: More fun than work.
It’s a good idea to base your business around an interest or hobby, something you’re intimately involved with and knowledgeable about. Whether it is Koi carp, computer games or wedding planning, if you are passionate about it, you won’t feel like you’re working. You will want to get up in the morning, and get on with it. No more Monday morning blues.
10: Control your own destiny.
There is nothing quite like taking charge of your own life. You may only start part time, but when you’re successful in your business, that extra income can be a real boost, and not just in spending power but in your self esteem. Maybe you like your job, but a little extra money every month will give you freedom from worrying about bills and the pleasure of spending more on your family. A few treats now and again can work wonders for your morale. If you hate your job, then looking forward to getting home to work on your own business, sure helps you get through the day. And looking forward to the day you quit, spurs you on to be successful.
I hope I’ve given you something positive to think about. If you’re inspired to start an online business, but still worried about the nuts and bolts of it, remember, the World Wide Web, is full of free advice. There are thousands of ebooks available, thousands of articles, thousands of products to help you, much of it low cost or free.
Start today.
Kevin Cooper is an information publisher specialising in helping people start their own home based business. You can read up on how to create your own info products without writing them yourself by going to http://www.keytofreedom.net/lightningcash.htm
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Taking Better Ebay Photos
March 9th, 2008 by hostbox
One of the most vital elements in an online auction is the photography of the item being auctioned. People want to see pictures of things they are contemplating buying. Approximately 90% of all auctions on eBay have images. More than 80% of buyers will skip over an auction without photos.
A photograph may be worth well more than 1000 words when the item being sold is for example, a rare coin. Potential bidders can view the coin in close up detail, and verify the seller’s stated description of the item, as well as any certificates of authenticity. Even less tangible items like software sell much better in auctions where a photograph of the box is provided. If the item you are selling has any damage or flaws, make sure to document this with a picture.
If you will just be an occasional seller, and you don’t own a digital camera, it is very easy and inexpensive to have your 35mm photos digitized. If you will be holding regular auctions with photographs of your items, you may want to purchase a digital camera. An inexpensive digital camera will work fine; 3 megapixels will be more than adequate for most auction photos.
For taking online auction photos, you should choose a medium resolution, (for example 1024×768 pixels). This should allow you to get a good sharp image without a long upload time. When photographing smaller items, use the macro setting on your digital camera which allows you to get closer to the item. This will create a narrow depth of field, bringing your item into sharp focus, and minimizing background distractions. If your camera will not take extreme close up photos, don’t worry; you can always crop and enlarge your pictures later. Your goal is for the featured item to take up as much of the photograph as possible.
Choosing the right background for your auction photographs can turn average pictures into powerful selling tools. Most importantly, the background should not distract attention from the item being photographed. Your background should be plain and contrast with your item. Using too light a background color with a light colored item can cause the picture to appear “washed out”. Remove any clutter from view of the camera, and smooth out any wrinkles in a fabric backdrop if using one. Hardwood floors can be excellent backgrounds for a variety of auction photos, as they create a warm, natural glow in your pictures, yet do not draw attention away from the item for sale. A background that complements your item will make your photographs look professional and could influence potential bidders to favor your item over other similar offerings.
If possible, experiment with taking some of your auction photos outdoors on an overcast day, or indoors near a window. The natural soft lighting will show more detail in your pictures. If you must work indoors, consider using a tripod, allowing you to get good pictures without using a flash. A flash can cause an unwanted glare when photographing a reflective item. When using an artificial light source, try different light positioning until you get the best possible illumination.
If you are photographing something two dimensional like postage stamps or baseball cards, you will get the most revealing photographs shooting your item straight on. For other more three dimensional subjects, shooting at an angle will let you maximize the perception of depth. Experiment with varying angles until you find the one you prefer.
When photographing large items for auction like vehicles, many of the previously mentioned rules apply. The car should be photographed from a variety of angles, and there should be as little clutter as possible in the background; especially trash, or anything else that could give a negative impression of the value of the vehicle. If you are like most of us, you probably don’t have a suitable place to photograph an automobile indoors. Since you will be shooting outdoors, choose either a cloudy day or the hours of dusk or twilight for the best clarity and the most attractive photos. You will have to stand back a bit to get an entire vehicle in frame, so try to pick a place where you won’t have people walking through your background.
Now you have some fantastic photos of your item or items for sale, and you have them saved on your computer in either JPG or GIF format using a descriptive name (e.g., painting_2.JPG). Ebay offers basic and enhanced picture services. Enhanced picture services allow you to crop, rotate, and adjust the brightness and contrast of your photos before uploading. You can also upload them to your own web service if you prefer; however, eBay requires that you use HTML in your listing to display more than one externally hosted picture. There are several good websites that offer free image hosting service for remote hosting of pictures for auction sites such as Ebay and Yahoo.
The number of pictures you show in your auction will vary, depending on the type of item being sold, and what your competition is doing. Search some auction listings to see what competitors are doing with their photographs, and how many they are using. Put yourself in the place of a potential buyer; is your listing providing enough detail both visual and written to make your buyer feel comfortable bidding? Will the winning bidder be satisfied that the item they received was accurately portrayed in your listing, and therefore leave better feedback? In highly competitive markets, detailed, professional-looking photographs can give you the edge you need to be successful in online auctions.
Gregg Pennington owns the website http://www.photography.easy-lookup.com, providing information and tips for those wishing to get started in photography, or become a better photographer.
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What is Cyberstalking?
March 8th, 2008 by hostbox
Protection from Cyberstalking
Computers and the Internet are becoming indispensable parts of America’s culture, and cyberstalking is a growing threat.
What is Cyberstalking? Cyberstalking can be defined as threatening behavior or unwanted advances directed at another using the Internet and other forms of online and computer communications. Cyberstalking occurs when electronic mediums such as the Internet are used to pursue, harass or contact another in an unsolicited fashion. Internet CyberStalking is used to slander and endanger victims, taking on a public rather than private dimension.
Cyberstalking is the term used to describe stalking behavior undertaken by way of computer. Although no universal definition exists, cyberstalking occurs when an individual or group uses the Internet to stalk or harass another. Essentially cyberstalking is the act of stalking using the Internet, e-mail, or other electronic communication devices. Everyone who receives e-mail or uses the Internet is susceptible to cyberstalking.
In order to address cyberstalking, it is critical to understand stalking in general. The fact that cyberstalking does not involve physical contact may create the misperception that it is less threatening or dangerous than physical stalking. In many cases, cyberstalking is simply another phase in an overall stalking pattern, or it is regular stalking behavior using new technological tools. Essentially, cyberstalking is an extension of the physical form of stalking.
The anonymity of online interaction reduces the chance of identification and makes cyberstalking more common than physical stalking. The ease of use and non-confrontational, impersonal, and sometimes anonymous nature of Internet communications may remove disincentives to cyberstalking. Although cyberstalking might seem relatively harmless, it can cause victims psychological and emotional harm, and occasionally leads to actual stalking. More disturbingly, pornographers and pedophiles have begun to use cyberstalking as a way of locating new victims.
It is commonly assumed that cyberstalking is not as serious or harmful as real world stalking. It is true that cyberstalking bears little physical resemblance to traditional stalking methods such as following and loitering.
Cyberstalking is a relatively new phenomenon. The stream of data is sketchy, but some insights into cyberstalking trends are emerging. As with regular stalking, cyberstalking often begins when you attempt to break off a relationship. Anecdotal evidence from law enforcement agencies indicates that cyberstalking is a serious, and growing problem.
While cyberstalking has become a worldwide problem, most cases originate in the United States, making Americans the most vulnerable group of targets. It is estimated that there may potentially be tens or even hundreds of thousands of cyberstalking victims in the United States. A common area regarding cyberstalking is at the “edu” sites, which are educational institutes, such as colleges and universities. While, historically, cyberstalking has mostly been men stalking women, the reverse is happening more often as well.
In many instances, cyberstalking is simply another phase in an overall stalking pattern, or it is regular stalking behavior using new, high-technology tools. Keep a record of contact made (in relation to the cyberstalking event) with website administrators, victim support organizations and law enforcement personnel. Often, cyberstalking ventures offline and the cyberstalker may attempt to track down the victim physically. These things are important because online cyberstalking and bullying is increasing, and further, is grossly underreported.
By the use of new technology and equipment which cannot be policed by traditional methods, cyberstalking has replaced traditional methods of stalking and harassment. The investigation of cyberstalking and other computer crimes can be complex. The lack of adequate statutory authority also can limit law enforcement’s response to cyberstalking incidents. Out-of-date and missing account, subscriber, and user information, as well as anonymizing tools, presented problems for law enforcement during cyberstalking investigations.
Copyright 2006 Francesca Black
Francesca Black develops educational material for http://www.security-port.com and http://www.security-protection.net a top resource for locating security related RSS feeds.
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Hannover Germany Tour
March 7th, 2008 by hostbox
With its historical monuments and rich cultural heritage, Hannover is one of the beautiful and charming cities in the north. The city was a former royal capital even having its prince until these days. It’s also widely famous for hosting international exhibitions, having here the Expo in 2000. Many facilities and attractions were added, restored and renovated before that year as preparations for the big event.
The attractions…
Inner city
One can start in the Kroepcke, where you can find the famous Kroepcke clock. From there, there are a lot of ways to go - shopping, shopping and more shopping. The area is obviously the center for shopping. You can go into the direction of the Main Train Station by going under a very nice shopping promenade, Niki-de-Saint-Phalle. Most shops here are open till late in the evening.
If you see a church or something which belongs to the old city, go there and you should find a red line on the ground. This red line is used as a guide for tours. It should bring you to the famous attractions of the inner city. Like for example the beautiful old timbered houses in the old town, the Leibniz house, the old and new city hall or the opera.
Activities
Hannover Zoo
For families, the Hannover zoo is an ideal destination. The zoo was very well designed and landscaped, giving you the feeling (and probably the animals too) that you’re in the wild.
Maschsee
It’s a beautiful and relaxing place to stroll, but not just that, you can also rent sailing or paddling boats to enjoy more of the lake’s calm water. If you’re lazy to paddle, then you can take boat tours. This lake hosts to numerous big parties of the city.
Herrenhausergaerten - Royal Gardens
This is a huge collection of gardens. You probably need one day to walk around the area. Aside from being huge, it’s also very impressive so something to see and experience definitely. The garden design is a copy of the Versailles. When this was made, that was the time when the Versailles garden got really famous and everyone wanted to have a copy of it.
Have fun and enjoy your stay in Hannover!
Manfred Richter has a passion for traveling and photography. He’s an occassional contributor of the site http://www.capturedplaces.com/. View his Hannover picture gallery at http://www.capturedplaces.com/hannover/index.php
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Choosing Good Domain Names and Web Host
March 4th, 2008 by hostbox
A Domain name is the unique name of a website, just like sitecritic.net. There are many registrars around and the cost to register a new domain name can range anywhere from 4 to 30 USD per year. Domain name Registration and Web hosting is a different thing. You can register your domain name from company A and host it in company B. In simple terms, a domain name service provider stores your domain name and points it to the web host which stores all your web pages.
Choosing A Good Domain Name
Choosing a domain name is a serious business. A good domain name is easy to remember and contains the keyword that you want. You can choose to buy a new domain name or an expired one. Some expired domain names are well established and worth buying (They have many websites linking to it and possibly a good Google PR). You can find many websites selling expired domains by googling “expired domain name”.
If you buy a new domain name, basically you start everything from scratch. Google tends to prevent new websites from appearing in its search engine for a few months or even longer. You have to build up your reputation in the web, get people to link to you and so on (Getting good inbound links is the key to search engine optimisation). However, having said that, building a successful website from scratch often gives you great sense of satisfaction. You do not have to worry about the history of the website, anything about the previous owner and the transfer procedures. There are cheaters around, so you have to becareful.
After reading the keyword selection guide, you should have a better understanding of how to select keywords. The same rule applies for domain names. If you want to create a website teaching people “how to design a web page”, ideally, your url should be something like this: “how-to-design-a-web-page.com”. Noticed that I put a dash “-” to separate the keywords. Though longer to type, the url will be stronger than a url like this “howtodesignawebsitepage.com”. The later url is shorter but harder for the search engines to decipher. However, it is known that search engines are able to decode the urls and extract the keywords. We personally do not like to use the “dash” because it makes the url looks unprofessional. Therefore, short and clean urls with easy to understand terms are good. Google, Yahoo and MSN have no problems with sitecritic.net.
There are other things that you might also consider when choosing domain names. Factors such as company’s prestige and whether the url is easy to remember are important as well. Take the previous url “how-to-design-a-web-page” case for example, we could also take the first letter of each keyword and call it htdawp.com. In this case, the url becomes totally meaningless. If my company is already quite popular, I dont need to stuff keywords in my url because it will make my company look unprofessional. Take BMW for example, they just need to register for bmw.com instead of something like prestigecars.com.
Does the extension matters?
Yes, it matters alot. Whether you choose a .com (general), com.au (Australia), or a .co.uk (United Kingdom)…etc depends alot on the location of the audience you are targeting. If you own a web design firm in UK and your domain is a .com and hosted in US, it is harder for people in UK to find you because search engines know where people are searching from and tends to give priority to websites that are hosted in their location. This is call this geo-targeting. In short, a well optimised .com.au website can rank well both in google.com (Google General) and google.com.au (Google Australia). A .com website may loose out to a .com.au website in google.com.au. Furthermore, many companies bought large number of good .com, .net …etc doman names in order to sell them at a higher price - which makes it hard for you to get a good domain name. Though a country specific domain name can be more expensive, you often get better chances to choose a good domain name.
Depending on your budget, a .info, .biz or some funny extensions might be cheaper to register but harder to remember. A .com, .net or .org domain name seems to be more popular and easily remembered. If you are targeting at the international level or in United States and do not want to spend alot, go for .com, .net .org, .biz, .us or .info.
What To Look For In A Good Host
With strong competition in the web hosting industry, most web host will provide many features at an affordable price. With price ranging from 5 to 10 dollars a month, you can get a decent host for your website. To us, the most important thing is uptime and support. You don’t want your email or server to be down. You want someone who knows their stuff when you have questions. Unless your website requires special needs, the features provided by most hosting companies are good enough.
Our Recommendation
Instead of registering a domain name with company A and buying a hosting plan with company B, we recommend you to do both at the same time with the same company. Many hosting providers provide hosting packages that includes domain registration and web hosting. By doing that, you let them do all the backend work and save yourself some trouble of configuring the Domain Name Servers. You combine the bills as well and have lesser things to remember.
Which hosting and domain registration company to go for? Most of us would recommend bluehost - http://www.bluehost.com/track/sitecrit/. They are not the cheapest around but their support is definitely the best. Their engineers are all in-housed (your problems get fixed up really quickly) and they know their work very well.
Sitecritic.net is formed by a group of web addicts, mainly volunteers from all over the world. Our goal is to create a community of web designers and developers who share the common interest in bringing out the best in creatiing effective web sites.
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Nine Important Factors in Choosing a Web Hosting Company
March 3rd, 2008 by hostbox
Many clients have talked to us about their online business and they would like to have some suggestion in choosing a web hosting company. There are so many companies and packages for them to choose. Here we will listed out some factors that need to be considered.
#1 Disk Space
Disk space is depends on the size of your web site. So, have a look on your web site folder and see how much disk space it takes up on your computer. You should always get more space than what is taken up on your computer. For example, if your web folder is 200MB, you should probably get 250-300MB of disc space. This extra space allowed you to further expand your web site and put more materials there. Remember that you need to think about what kind of materials you planned to add later. If what you plan to add is some flash animation or some audio/video file, you’d better to get some more buffer.
#2 Bandwidth
Bandwidth is the amount of data transfer that your web site can use. If you plan on having a massively popular site with a large amount of files, then you should have a high bandwidth. For casual web sites, bandwidth is not as big a factor. Again, consider cost and try to have more bandwidth than you need, not less. It is also important to check the bandwidth for local and overseas.
#3 Web site speed
Web site speed is seldom taken into consideration. Web site speed is a really important factor. If your web host has a very slow speed for all of its web sites, then you may not want to go with that host. People won’t stay around at a page forever. If you want many people to visit your site, having a fast speed is very helpful. You should check with the web hosting company and ask them to provide a list of their sites. You can then try to access to see the response of these sites.
#4 Database / Programming Language support
Database and Programming Language support are important if you plan to have a dynamic website and interact with your customers. Currently, most web hosting provides support for database and programming language, but there are great variety on database and programming language. You should check and pick the one you plan to use.
Of course the above factors are depend on how much you want to spend on it. It’s always difficult to take all the best. You should think about your own case and find out the best fit. For example, you have a text-centric site with little photos and target in local market only, you may find a hosting with little disk space, enough bandwidth for local (overseas is not important in this case) and normal web site speed.
#5 Technical Support
Technical support is one of the important factor you need to consider. But how to know their services level? You can test by sending them an email with some questions or just make a phone to their support hotlines. If they respond quickly, this is a good sign. If they cannot provides you answers, you’d better find another one.
#6 UpTime
The more uptime they guarantee, the better. 99% uptime is the minimum acceptable standard. You’d should Look for 99% plus guaranteed uptime.
#7 FTP Access
You need an FTP program to transfer files to the server. You should seek for an unlimited and unrestricted FTP access, otherwise it will troublesome to maintain your website.
#8 Control Panel
Most web hosting company will provides a web based control panel for you to maintain your web site. You should looking for one with a easy-to-use interface.
#9 Statistics Program
A good stats program is handy if you want to keep an eye on how many visitors you are getting, where they are coming from, referrers, top entry and exit pages and so on. Some companies offer excellent stats programs as standard while others offer basic stats but you have to pay extra for advanced statistics. You should ask the company what kind of statistics information they can provide.
Isaac Chu is Project Director of Evinco Solutions Limited. Evinco provides innovative business software, include emarketing web solutions, email marketing software, e-catalog publishing software, invoicing software, and electronic cheque writer. Visit: http://www.evinco.com.hk
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Benefit From 50 Books Each Year… Without Creating Any Extra Time To Read
March 3rd, 2008 by hostbox
I didn’t believe it the first time I heard a friend of mine say -
“I benefit from the reading of 50 books each year… in my spare time”.
Knowing how demanding her time was because of her top position in her job and being a single mom, I was certain she was lying and I told her so.
Smiling, she insisted that it was the truth. I would have continued arguing with her until she pointed out to me that she didn’t have to physically “read” them, but they were “read” to her while she listened… in her spare time.
Not giving me any opportunity to argue, she went ahead and played an audio book on her CD player for my perusal.
She explained that this was how she had almost any book she wanted read to her as audio books while she prepared for work in the morning, while she prepared her daughter for school, while she did her exercises each day, while she commuted to and from work and any free time she had on hands that didn’t involve using her mind.
I was surprised, to say the least, that I could have been doing the same thing in my spare time.
From what this friend of mine explained to me, I knew I had to give audio books a try.
I did and was very impressed.
Now, I can proudly say I also benefit from the reading of up to 50 books each year.
Still don’t think it’s possible?
Fine, let’s do the math:
For an audio book that takes 4 hours, you can have it read to you in just two days - 1 hour each day while preparing for work in the morning and 1 hour each day while commuting to and from work. That’s 4 hours in 2 days.
So, if it takes you 2 days to have one audio book read to you, that will be 365 days in a year divided by 2. That will equal about 133 books each year!
That’s over double the original 50 audio books we were targeting, right?
Audio books are indeed the secret formula that many people use to get the value from the best books they want to read. With audio books, you can forget the frustration you always had whenever you force yourself to read any book.
For the bookworms back in college that want to continue reading but can’t afford the time anymore, you now have a solution in audio books.
Whether you want to use your PC, CD player, MP3, it is now possible and within your reach for peanuts.
Juliette Lee is the editor and CEO of http://www.MyAudioCompanion.com. To find the best audio book titles, please visit http://www.MyAudioCompanion.com
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Comprehensive Web Design Checklist
March 2nd, 2008 by hostbox
Your Web site needs to do more than make your company look good. It has to support your overall business operations - customer service, sales and marketing and collaboration. Whether you’re planning an intranet or Internet site, don’t start before you check your strategy against this comprehensive checklist.
The following checklist and the associated answers will facilitate the analysis process ofr designing and building the website that allows your company to turn the corner.
GENERAL
1. Where did you hear about us?
2. Do you have a domain name? If not, do you have ideas on one? If so, what is it?
3. What is your company name? Do you want to use the entire name on the site, logo, and graphics?
4. Do you have special features in mind like ECommerce shopping cart, BLOG, RSS, Forms with emails, EZine, Newsletter signup, autoresponders, advertising landing/call-to-action pages, etc.?
MARKETING
5. Who is your intended audience? Are they regional, industry specific, company size specific, etc.?
6. Do you intend to provide a call to action - make a sale, call in to your office, fill out a form, etc?
7. Describe your ideal client and the specific attributes that we’ll be targeting in the website.
8. What are your website expectations, main emphasis and primary goals - increased sales, increased leads, etc.? Please prioritize.
9. What separates your company from your competition and what do you expect will draw clients to the website?
10. How do you plan to market the website?
11. What company properties do you want to emphasize on the website? Please prioritize.
IDENTITY
12. Do you already have a logo and other graphics to be used? If not, do you want to have one created?
13. Have you identified a tagline? That would be something like “Just do it”, “Reach out and touch someone”, etc. Here is some information on the subject http://advertising.about.com/od/copywriting/a/guesttagline.htm.
14. What keywords do you want to be found by in the search engines?
LAYOUT
15. Please provide a list of websites that you like and don’t like. Why do you or do you not like these sites?
16. Please provide a list of competitors websites.
17. Do you have ideas of the colors to be used, and colors you don’t like? Please provide example sites.
18. Do you have an intended website screen size - 1024×768, 800×600, or stretch to the entire width of the screen?
19. If the site isn’t the entire width of the screen do you have a preference for left or center alignment?
20. Do you have a horizontal or left-side vertical preference for the main navigation?
21. Please provide the main pages you need in the website.
22. Have you created the copy text for any of your pages?
23. Do you have existing business cards or other printed material we need to match?
24. Are you leaning towards custom drawn artwork or photographs?
POST-CONTRACT
25. Once we start designing the website we’ll need the following (Note that this information will be kept in strict confidence):
a. FTP access information - username and password
b. Hosting company and their tech support phone number
Michael A. Cordova is the President of 21st Century Technologies, Inc. Contact him at:
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Personal Websites For Journalists
March 2nd, 2008 by hostbox
Traditionally, journalists have more or less worked alone. Journalists in both the news business and feature writers for magazines typically will develop their stories, dig up their leads, conduct their interviews and draft the final product themselves. In the newspaper business, major stories will sometimes become collaborative efforts where several reporters are working on aspects of a story and their work is edited into a single piece, published under multiple bylines.
Communicating with a journalist was generally a haphazard affair, placing a call to a switchboard or desk and leaving a message. Today, major newspapers all have websites and provide email addresses for most of their journalists and nearly all of their columnists. People who write columns and opinion pieces are generally more open to communicating with the public because their work is often designed to generate controversy and feedback is important. Occasionally columnists will find ideas for new topics in the email traffic they receive, or will write about the heavy response they received on a particular piece.
A journalist with some initiative can take this communications process one step further by setting up a personal website. That site can serve several purposes: all of them require some work. The function of the site depends, to some degree, on the amount of time the journalist is willing to devote to it. A working reporter may also have to negotiate permission to engage in some online publishing of his own with the editorial staff of the paper or magazine that employs him.
Internet blogs have made some opinionated people in this country powerful and well known, just by virtue of their daily journaling. A working journalist could set up a blog for which he could provide occasional entries, relating to his work or to other news stories or totally unrelated subjects. The value of a blog is that it provides the opportunity for open dialogue among all who wish to log on and participate. Name recognition can be meaningful to some journalists and blogging is one way to develop “viral” recognition by inviting communication. Many people will be attracted to the opportunity to communicate with someone who gets paid to publish.
Blogs can develop story lines for topics for journalists, particularly columnists and feature writers. They can help a professional writer build a persona that doesn’t enter into the straight journalism he produces on the job. A personal blog is a way to build a public and well rounded profile that the constraints of a traditional journalism job don’t usually allow.
A personal website can also provide the journalist an opportunity to showcase a “profile” of work that is unrelated to the job, or at least has gone unpublished by the employer. Here again, there is a fine line between what the journalist can do online - which is essentially public exposure - and what the requirements of exclusivity on the job may be. But if a journalist has ventured into fiction, a personal website is a great way to put it out there for exposure.
If the goal is a publishing opportunity for fictional work, the website may be a way to short circuit the formal submission rules for fictional work that magazines and book publishers maintain. An established journalist is already a professional writer. Asking a book publishing editor or potential agent to look at product posted on a website is much easier than engaging in the formal process.
Madison Lockwood is a customer relations associate for http://www.apollohosting.com. She helps clients understand how a website may benefit them both personally and professionally. Apollo Hosting provides website hosting, ecommerce hosting, & VPS hosting to a wide range of customers.
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