Purely Business News

Unilever creates ads for its Sunsilk hair products that target southeast Asia. Check out this commercial, which the poster claims is intended for ten countries in Asia (India, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos and Myanmar):

The Chicago Journal of Consumer Research released an article entitled “Marketers Are Creating an Imaginary, Cross-Cultural, Asian World.” They describe how international advertisers meld cultural characteristics of major centers such as Tokyo, Shanghai and Seoul to create an all-encompassing–but anonymous–Asia:

“Cultural referents from cities of influence…are combined together to produce brand images that are clearly Asian, but not from a particular nation,” write the authors.The researchers analyzed marketing strategies and advertising campaigns of Asian brands such as…Zuji, a travel website.

In the case of…Zuji, the researchers found that the consortium of major airlines “has no home country, is designed to be clearly Asian and modern, uses a Hong Kong-born globally popular actor as the brand’s model, uses green and blue for the logo to appeal to the Thai, its name is derived from Mandarin, follows the spatial practices of feng shui, uses an East Asian style of calligraphy, and uses the tagline “Your Travel Guru,” which is most readily associated with India.”

It’s true. On a recent trip to India and Thailand, I noticed that actors in certain commercials had neutral appearances indicating a pan-Asiatic identity. For example, one lotion commercial featured a woman with Korean features in modern Indian dress.

Such cultural mixing, according to the authors, demonstrates that Asian corporations are redefining globalization. “Whereas Western Marketers still sell Asian brands through the idea of an exotic, feminine Asia, Asian marketers create campaigns with a more contemporary, modern, and urban vision of Asia,” write the authors.

Makes me wonder two things. One, as the global balance of power shifts more and more towards Asia, will Americans be seeing more contemporary Asian-style commercials on TV? And two, isn’t it part of advertisers’ jobs to create an imaginary setting? How is an imaginary Asia more pivotal to globalization than, say, an imaginary Latin America?

This may seem kinda crazy but is twitter replacing traditional RSS feeds? Someone who subscribes to your RSS feed just subscribes to posts from a blog. Someone subscribing to your twitter feed is subscribing essentially to YOU. They want to hear what you have to say or at least they want to hear most of it.

With the advent of TwitterFeed you can have it set so that any blog post you make on any blog you own is automatically tweeted into twitter. You may have 50 subscribers on your humor blog, 230 on your business blog and 35 on your health blog. Traditionally you’d send that info to your subscribers and that’s it. Realistically if someone likes the way you handle and write things in one domain they could enjoy your work from others.

Imagine you had 2,000 twitter followers. Each time you make a post it’s sent to them. Sure it’s not in a feed reader but many with feed readers have them jammed with other feeds or don’t necessarily check them each day. Also people on twitter are a different breed to some extent. It’s people that are actively interacting, sharing etc… Also if someone likes your post they will most likely retweet it by sending it off to their followers list. Write something great and it can go viral really fast thanks to social media; twitter in particular.

I will say use twitterfeed cautiously and only if your blogs are somewhat related. If you make 5-10 posts a day on all your blogs it will look like link spamming ESPECIALLY if you aren’t active. If you make 70 tweets a day and 8 are links to your blog who cares. If you make 12 a day and it’s basically just links to your blog I don’t think you’ll retain your new friends very long. How would you like to basically just get a stream of links from someone? I wouldn’t.

If you want to send lot’s of links be smart about it. Send links that aren’t yours but of substantial value to anyone in the online world and of course mix some of yours in there. People aren’t stupid and your twitter friends are just that; people. Send them useful things and engage in conversations. If something you wrote is helpful than by all means send it; if not don’t bother.

Ultimately I see twitter as an active RSS feed rather than a passive one. Passive could be compared to a 1 way communication channel such as a radio or television. Twitter is like a telephone; you send out info but each subscriber can answer back at their leisure.

With all this being said do you think that twitter and the similar services start sprouting up may lead the charge to eventually replace the traditional RSS? I’ll be posting something in the not to distant future about my experience with twitter after ~1 month of use. If you aren’t already on twitter; just do it.

Blogging, Uncategorized

When it comes to the all to elusive goal of financial freedom; information is key!

Some of you may be scratching your head and saying I thought income and spending less than you brought in was the key? It’s a large part of the puzzle but if you aren’t managing your funds and tracking where they are going how will you ever patch up some leaks in your financial “ship”?

Knowing where your money is going, not going and how much you have at any given time are all key to being financially successful. It’s easy to spend like an idiot but still think you’re doing ok until that credit card bill or unexpected car repair smacks you into the poor house if you haven’t planned. Even if you have a huge nest egg if you spend without recourse you won’t keep it for long as chances are you had a different mental attitude when you amassed the funds compared to when you depleted them.

In 2001 I used to track all my income, expenses everything to the dollar almost. Whenever I’d receive change I’d write it off as rest in change. Change was the only thing I did not account. At anytime I could have a graph / pie chart showing me where my money was, how much was coming in, out, what my major expenses were etc. Since building a good cushion I stopped using the same techniques I had originally and what should not be to my surprise my funds have depleted.

It’s easy to spend $5, $10-$20 here and there and if you don’t keep track you really have no clue how much you’ve wasted. I’m starting to track all my income/expenditures again. A huge bonus of doing this is that since you have to mark it down you’re less likely to spend impulsively and by following you will only have 1 month of total shock. You add up your lunches for the month and boom $200+ or other expenses that are draining your account; you may have 5-10 that equal $50-$125 a month… That’s a lot of money when you add it all up.

Point of this post is track your funds if you wish to be in charge of them. A fool and his / her money shall soon part is true. If accumulating money and holding onto it was the path of least resistance in this world we’d all be rich on beach somewhere wouldn’t we?

You should keep money to one side for insurance incase of unforseen bills, but you can still be wise even in these occasions, does the bill need to be paid now? Can you change suppliers to lessen the bill etc, finding new ways of saving money is just as important as knowing where the money goes.

So the latest rumor from the never ending rumor mill that is Silicon Valley is that Microsoft is trying to buy the search only component of Yahoo for $20 Billion than take the additional $25,000,000,000 to buy out Facebook which would give them quite the arsenal to begin reclaiming eyeballs from the Google empire.

Click here for the full article.  How did I find out about this?

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Technology

You have to accept in life that not everything is easy. You have to accept in life that if you take the path of least resistance you’ll end up in the largest pool at the end with the least options. You have to realize and accept in life that anything worth doing takes effort.

It’s sad that so many people take the “effort” to go to work everyday but don’t go that extra 2% and make a lunch or cook a dinner. I mean if you buy a coffee or two a day, buy lunch out ~5-8$+ and then when you get home have nothing in the fridge because you were too lazy the night before so tonight you’re lazy and order in or go do pickup. Does this sound familiar?

I think many people go through phases in their life; one phase is that of the beaten down path to nowhere of least resistance. It’s so easy all you have to do is NOTHING and go for the ride. The sad part is this easy do nothing ride always has an abrupt ending usually saddling the voyager with financial stress, problems or even ruin.

Life is about being better everyday; it’s about putting your energy into productive things that make you money and having the mindset of preserving the funds you receive for your energy. Why waste your energy all day at work just to throw the output around like it’s abundant? We’re a society living with unlimited wants and scarce resources. Read that again if you hasn’t sunk in because it’s true.

Energy via physical or mental labor is all we really have on this planet to earn for us until we’ve gotten to a position where you hire others inputs or your own outputs have amounted to such a substantial sum of money that it will work for itself and you.

It’s been a while since I was studying Economics but I do remember that Labor + Capital are the only real inputs we have control over in our lives to create outputs. It’s funny how we can be too lazy to cook dinner yet immediately forget that the $ we spent on takeout was earned earlier that day via physical or mental labor that predominantly is not of our choosing. You can like your job but if you made substantial income or had enough capital chances are you would spend your time differently wouldn’t you?

Take the challenge today. Make today the start of the rest of your life. Make today worth it. Make today the first day that you get home and lie your head on the pillow and say I played the game of life the smart way.

We become bored and tired with life through working sometimes so it’s so easy to slip away and just waste the money you worked so hard to obtain. The powers at be WANT this to happen to some extent. Imagine if everyone had an empowered mental attitude / perception? Imagine a world where the majority of people managed their financial lives similar to a way that some of the largest corporations do; cutting costs and finding cheap sources for the products and services they need.

We’re lazy and that is the problem. We love conveniences and most of us waste our money day in day out then complain about how working life isn’t so hot or envy someone who has discipline. Statistically more people reasearch their products online then purchase them at a retail store. What the heck!? Why not try them on at retail store then order them online and wait a week… Did you go to the store naked? Of course you didn’t and chances are unless you’re leaving on a trip tomorrow you don’t need that consumer product that you just bought and paid not only the store owners rent, profit, fees etc…

I’m rambling now but you get the gist of what I’m saying. We’re our own sovereign society inside us. We can complain how the powers at be waste their money and spend aimlessly but why do we have to follow the same path of least resistance? Some of you may be doing a good job but I assure you; you could be doing better.

Ever wondered where your life would be if you became the person you are inside instead of just a mold of what other people around you are doing or who you’ve been led to believe you are through years of education destroying your ambition and training you to push paper in someone else’s dream?

Are you living your dream or are you just a cog in someone else’s. I’m working on an uber niche project which is going to be fun and hopefully profitable. I’m done taking the easy route.

Want a quick example of how these concepts affect everything in life from your finances, relationships, health you name it? Look at this blog I didn’t post for a few days; sure I was on business but I still could of made quick posts and I did spend time online. Looks what’s happened; about a week ago we had 240 subscribers; now it’s down to 197 of you loyal ones(thanks). In life everything is growing or wilting; sadly many of us go to work then throw it away so we’re just spinning our tires and wondering why we don’t have more.

Make today the best day you’ve ever had. No more tomorrow because remember that all you ever have now or ever will is the moment of NOW. If you don’t feel like doing X now you won’t feel like doing it in another “NOW” moment further down the road as you’ll probably also have the regret of if I had done this where would I be. Stop wondering.

Sorry to burst your bubble but moving forward and growing takes some work. You know when you’re in the path of least resistance and you know when you have that special edge working. When you lay your head on the pillow tonight I want you to say “wow; I moved forward today in many ways”. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m done taking the path of least resistance; it never did bring happiness and wealth and you know what; it never will.

It’s your day; your life; your destiny. Make it everything it can be because there are no second takes. Furthermore forget your past as there are no such thing as failures. Everything is a success as it’s a successive step towards who you want to be. Believe you me regardless of how bad you have it success breeds success and small steps quickly turn into giant leaps.

Have an awesome day and if you can relate to this leave a comment or subscribe to our feed or share this with the social media bookmarks below.

Business Advice

I love my mom and I hope you do as well. Today is a special day to honor and spend time with the special woman in our lives who not only brought us into this world; but also was responsible for introducing us to so many great things in it.

Here are my Top 5 Reasons to Celebrate Mother’s Day.

1) She’s your mom you only have one and she loves you.

2) Let me restate that she’s your mom; without her you’d never of had an introduction into this world.

3) Unconditional love is something rare and special and your mother is an endless source.

4) Life is about relationships at the end of the day; why not let your biggest supporter and best friend know they matter to you?

5) Great way to build more memorable experiences together to be remembered forever. You can do things any day but anything on Mother’s Day is just that much extra special.

There you have it; those are my top 5 reasons to go all out for Mother’s Day. I wish all mother’s an absolutely wonderful day.

What I am Doing

Whether your blog sells something or not you still always have an objective of turning a first time reader into an interested subscriber. If that’s not even remotely your subconscious goal then you’d might as well just write your thoughts on a pad of paper or in note pad and save the trouble of publishing them.

I found the image in the link below. They have a plethora of RSS Feed Buttons. Arguably the best I’ve seen in one place online.

60 Great RSS Icons for Your Blog

RSS Subscription buttons play a large role in the number of subscribers you have. The easier and more visible the ability to subscribe; the higher the likely hood of any one visitor subscribing.  It should go without saying that you have to write stuff worth reading and be someone others think are worth listening to. Once that’s out of the way make it as easy as possible.

Since this blog is a side project which I basically just do for fun / place to ramble / rant I never really spent much time playing with it. Previously I had a tiny button in the top left. Props to those of you who found it and subscribe; it sure was well hidden. I’m sure many of you noticed I now have a large cup of java with the feed simple in it; hopefully this will make it easier and remind people that if they like it they can always subscribe in their favorite reader.

Spice up your blog today; try another rss feed icon and put it in a prominent place; converting should never be a difficult task for a visitor.

Blogging

Was driving home from morning coffee run and saw garage sales everywhere as it’s that time of year. Then I saw a garage sale in front of a house for sale.

If you’re selling your home you should consider having a garage sale as it brings more people to your home and makes them aware that it’s for sale. You only need to make 1 sale when it comes to selling your home so why can’t it be from the garage sale? Also if you’re smart you probably are selling it privately so advertisement where you turn a profit probably isn’t a bad idea.

That’s it really the thought came to me and I figured I should pass it on before it’s gone forever.

Business Advice

Missed 2 days of bloggeries; where does time go? Oh I have an idea maybe it was spent sending ~60 140 character messages a day to people whom for the most part I had never met before.

First off if you wan to network online I can think of NO WAY better than twitter. Follow someone @ reply to them a connection is made. Also the more mainstream it becomes the less likely you will be able to add lot’s of search marketing, public relations, seo, web development, stay at home business runners etc… Eventually it will be filled with people talking about what club they are going to. That’s a long way away I think but moving faster. The point of saying that is now the pool is good. About 15,000,0000 people or more who are into technology.

The tools I want to share today are… Drum roll please…

TweetStats: This cool tool gives you details on your account; what times, days, hours you send the most messages, to whom etc etc… Definitely worth a look.

TwitterLocal: A program that will show you within 20 miles the latest tweets from any part of the world. Great way to build your local twitter base. In fact I used it and added many people from my area and became aware of a tweetup where people are going to meet up in the city I live. You know I’m going now.

I have a few others but made posts for them because the tool was down when I was trying to access it. I’ll fill you in with more as time goes on but seriously jump on twitter and say hi.

Blogging

Please, New York. Say you didn’t just invade one of our last bastions of unregulated commerce.

Businessweek has an article on how New York has decided to tax online transactions through e-tailers like Amazon.com. Amazon filed suit against the state, but recently lost.

While the debate over collecting sales tax has simmered between state governments and e-tailers for years, the slumping economy could help push the fracas to its boiling point. Twenty-nine states, including New York, have predicted revenue shortfalls in 2009. Tax lawyers say that could prompt states to follow New York’s lead. “There may be a ripple effect,” says Jon Zefi, a principal at accounting firm BDO Seidman, “which attacks the e-commerce business model.”

New York amended its law to say that having a New York-based affiliate or associate—such as bloggers or other Web sites that link to an e-tailer and are paid a percentage of the sale—is tantamount to having a presence in the state. The law affects dozens of other online players such as diamond retailer Blue Nile (NILE) and electronics site NewEgg. While Amazon is collecting the tax, Overstock has taken a different route, choosing to drop its 3,400 New York affiliates instead.

Yikes. If this ruling indeed opens the floodgates for other cash-hungry states to tax virtual transactions, companies may react like Overstock did and drop innumerable affiliates. Affiliate withdrawal, in turn, will cut into online ad revenue–the main source of profits–for Google and Yahoo.

So everyone loses: affiliates lose business, Google and Yahoo lose advertising income, big e-tailers lose the minions of affiliates who draw in users with their online ads.

The government wins, but by how much? It skims sales tax from consumer transactions, but dampens business for major online corporations in return. And it pushes small business owners out of a niche in order to support an inefficient state system.

There’s gotta be a better way.