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Monday, April 13, 2009

An Exciting Opportunity To Buy Best Wholesale products Online

The product you buy at a whole sale price is called Wholesale Buy generally occurs when a person buys products in a larger quantity and at a lower price. The transaction is usually between the wholesaler and the manufacturer. It is not compulsory that one must be a wholesaler or purchased in large quantity. One can get the best products at wholesale prices with a little effort. Finding out which stores offers quality and wholesale prices will help.

You can earn some extra money by doing a wholesale buy which can be done in different ways. Few examples are as follows: look for phone directories that have the best wholesale shops that have price advantages. For instance if you are interested in buying dried flowers then you must contact them and find out if they offers any special hours for the general public.

There are some groups you can join and form a community with people who are interested in buying wholesale products. Browse the internet for such groups share your ideas and interest. Visit forums join email newsgroup that will keep you alerted on various wholesalers groups that offer discounts.

You can also check with family, friends or work associates to see if they can connect you to another friend who is a sub-contractor and can get discounted prices or wholesale prices on building supplies, flooring, landscaping, and furniture. If utilizing their service is included in the deal, take the time to compare labor costs to make certain you are getting the best price. High labor costs can quickly deplete the savings of buying wholesale.

If you live near or in a city that holds wholesale markets such as flowers, jewelry, fashion, or furniture markets, look online or call the market organizers for a calendar of when the events are being held. You can also ask if the markets are open at anytime to the general public. Many times jewelry markets will open to anyone wishing to buy. The prices will be slightly higher if you do not have a business license but you can still find exceptional savings.

Don’t fall to advertisements and buy something unnecessary Good product and price knowledge is the key to insuring that you pay the lowest possible price that is available.

Once you have made your wholesale contacts you can start to buy one or two lines from them in small numbers to start with and get selling. If you choose to sell on an auction website it is very straightforward and you will have to do little more than list your items and wait for people to bid on them. Once people do bid and win your items you collect payment and ship them out. It is always a good idea to buy wholesale goods that are cheap and that you can make a good profit on, and don’t buy anything that is too heavy as this can put off potential buyers as they won’t want to pay too much in package and posting. If after six months or so you can see that you have something and people are buying a lot from you, it is time to buy wholesale again and maybe add to your stock list. Then sit back and watch your business grow and grow.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Online Currency Exchange


What Does It Mean?
What Does Online Currency Exchange Mean?
An online system for exchanging one country's currency for another. There is no central exchange in the forex market because it is a network of computers that connect banks, brokers and traders together. Online currency exchanges are essentially forex brokers that allow for delivery of the currencies traded.
Investopedia Says
Investopedia explains Online Currency Exchange
Online forex currency exchanges will often provide the service of an online currency converter along with the option to actually convert the currencies for a nominal fee. This fee is similar to the spread quoted in pips.

A couple of advantages of exchanging currencies online include being able to do it from the comfort of your home or office, and/or being able to lock in a preferred exchange rate at the time you see it, rather than having to run to the brick-and-mortar currency exchange and risk missing the rate because of market movements.

Online Trading


What Does It Mean?
What Does Online Trading Mean?
The act of placing buy/sell orders for financial securities and/or currencies with the use of a brokerage's internet-based proprietary trading platforms. The use of online trading increased dramatically in the mid- to late-'90s with the introduction of affordable high-speed computers and internet connections.

Stocks, bonds, options, futures and currencies can all be traded online.
Investopedia Says
Investopedia explains Online Trading
The use of online trades has increased the number of discount brokerages because internet trading allows many brokers to further cut costs and part of the savings can be past on to customers in the form of lower commissions.

Another benefit of online trading is the improvement in the speed of which transactions can be executed and settled, because there is no need for paper-based documents to be copied, filed and entered into an electronic format.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

A compendium of online video research

Audience Size/Growth

  • Nearly 75 percent of U.S. Internet users watched an average of 158 minutes of online video per user during the month. (July 17, 2007 ComScore)
  • The research found that online video viewing is a common activity for many Internet users. More than half of those surveyed (51%) indicated that they watch video online at least once a month, 27% watch at least once a week and five percent watch video online daily. (Feb. 8, 2005 OPA)
  • A recent report from technology research firm In-Stat indicates that the potential market for online video content worldwide will grow from 13 million households in 2005 to 131 million households in 2010. (August 11, 2006, eMarketer)
  • Young adults (those ages 18-29) are among the most voracious video viewers. Three-in-four young adult internet users (76%) report online consumption of video, compared with 57% of online adults ages 30-49. Less than half (46%) of internet users ages 50-64 watch or download video. (July 25, 2007 Pew)
  • 44% of the overall US population age 12 or older having ever streamed a digital video file off of the Internet – or approximately 100 million Americans. (April 2, 2007 IPSOS)
  • Three in four of all teens age 12-17 and young adults age 18-24 in the US have streamed digital video content online. (April 2, 2007 IPSOS)

Broadband Penetration

  • Three-quarters of broadband users (74%) who enjoy high-speed connections at both home and work watch or download video online. (July 25, 2007 Pew)
  • An estimated 81 million people, or 63% of the 129 million people who access the Internet over broadband in the U.S., watch broadband video at home or at work. (July 17, 2007 Nielsen)
  • 47% of adults have high-speed internet connections at home as of early March 2007, up five percentage points from a year earlier. (July 3, 2007 Pew)
  • Among individuals who use the internet at home, 70% have a broadband connection while 23% use dialup. (July 3, 2007 Pew)
  • In-stat predicts that by 2010 there will be 413 million broadband households worldwide, up from 194 million in 2005. (August 11, 2006 eMarketer)

Audience Interests

  • News content captures the attention of users across all generations, and is the most popular genre with every age group except for those ages 18-29. (July 25, 2007 Pew)
  • News clips, viewed by 66% of those surveyed, are the most commonly watched type of online video, followed by movie clips and trailers at 49%. However, sports highlights are watched most frequently, with 48% watching at least once a week, and 11% watching daily. (Feb. 8, 2005 OPA)
  • Those with higher levels of income and education are more likely to report news video viewing. (July 25, 2007 Pew)
  • What are people watching? Short content pieces, according to the study. 77% watch movie trailers or clips, 75% watch clips of news, sports or commentary and 67% view user-generated clips/home movies. About 48% also click to view commercials that sponsor the clips. (April 16, 2007BizReport)
  • Three quarters of all digital video users have streamed short news or sports clips, (April 2, 2007IPSOS)
  • Overall, 62% of online video viewers say that their favorite videos are those that are "professionally produced," while 19% of online video viewers express a preference for content "produced by amateurs." (July 25, 2007 Pew)
  • Two thirds have downloaded amateur or homemade video clips. (April 2, 2007IPSOS)
  • Users who post video are a much smaller group than those who watch; about one in twelve (8%) adult users say they have uploaded a video file online where others can watch it. (July 25, 2007Pew)
  • Young adults also trump older users in their experience with posting video content; 15% of users ages 18-29 have uploaded videos, compared with 8% of those 30-49 and roughly 5% of users age 50 and older who have posted video for others to watch. (July 25, 2007 Pew)
  • Young adults are almost twice as likely to point to YouTube as a source for online video; 49% of video viewers ages 18-29 say they watch YouTube videos. (July 25, 2007 Pew)
  • Young adults are the most "contagious carriers" in the viral spread of online video. Two-in-three (67%) video viewers ages 18-29 send others links to videos they find online, compared with just half of video viewers ages 30 and older. (July 25, 2007 Pew)
  • Fully 57% of online video viewers share links to the videos they find online with others. (July 25, 2007 Pew)
  • Overall, 10% of video viewers say they share links with others by posting them to a website or blog. Again, younger users have a greater tendency to share what they find; while 22% of video viewers ages 18-29 post links to video online, just 7% of those ages 30-49 do so. (July 25, 2007 Pew)
  • 75% of video viewers say they have received links to online video content. (July 25, 2007 Pew)
  • Fully 57% of online video viewers share links to the videos they find online with others. (July 25, 2007 Pew)
  • 45 percent of people only view videos when they are recommended by a friend or colleague. (July 11, 2007 Kelton Research)
  • 60 percent of Americans feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of online videos and 46 percent of these people do not watch more online videos because they dread the task of weeding through too many search results. (July 11, 2007Kelton Research)
  • 43% of all digital video downloaders express some level of interest in downloading full length movies in the near future, while 38% express interest in full length TV show downloads. (April 2, 2007IPSOS)
  • Based on respondent feedback, widespread consumer use of broadband video seems to be contingent on Internet platform video content becoming more easily accessible via home television sets. (July 17, 2007 Nielsen)
  • Yet another sign of young adults’ mobile tech lifestyle, those ages 18-29 are more than twice as likely when compared with any other age group to watch online video from someplace other than home or work. (July 25, 2007 Pew)

Revenue/Advertising

  • At the moment, few online video viewers are paying for any of the video they watch; just 7% say they have paid to access or download video online. (July 25, 2007 Pew)
  • The most common barriers to downloading (longer form video) are users’ unwillingness to pay for this content, as well as a perceived difficulty or inability to burn these files onto DVD (April 2, 2007 IPSOS)
  • When asked if they ever use the internet to watch or download commercials or advertisements, 13% of internet users say “yes.” (July 25, 2007 Pew)
  • Young adults are twice as likely as users age 50 and older to say they watch or download commercial videos online; 22% of those 18-29, 13% of users ages 30-49, 7% of users age 50-64 and 8% of those ages 65 and older say they consume commercial video content online. (July 25, 2007 Pew)
  • More than half (56.3%) of online video viewers recall seeing advertisem content they have watched. Among respondents, one out of two (52.7%) say they typically continue watching video content once they encounter an advertising unit; 40.4% say they typically stop watching. Interestingly, one-quarter (27.9%) of respondents who stop watching video content once they encounter an advertisement also say they immediately leave the website (Dec. 1, 2006BurstMedia)
  • The data revealed that consumers have a strong positive reaction to online video ads. Seventy percent of respondents said they had seen a video advertisement online, and 44% said they had taken some action as a result of seeing that ad. Specifically, 34% checked out a Web site, 15% requested information and 14% went to a store to check out a product. Most significantly, 9% said they made a purchase and 3% said they bought a subscription as a result of viewing an online video ad. (Feb. 8, 2005 OPA)
  • At 0.32 percent, consumers are roughly twice as likely to play (or replay if a video starts automatically) an online video ad unit, as they are to click through on a standard JPG or GIF ad (March 20, 2007 DoubleClick)
  • Online video ads experience click-through rates ranging from 0.4 percent to 0.74 percent depending on the online video format. By comparison, the click-through rate for plain GIF or JPG image ads ranges between 0.1 and 0.2 percent, based on DoubleClick data. (March 20, 2007 DoubleClick)
  • Last year rich media and video advertising accounted for roughly $1.5 billion in spending, for 9 percent of total online ad spending. It's projected to grow to $6.2 billion, or 17 percent of online advertising spending, by 2011. In other words, online video advertising will quadruple in five years. (March 29, 2007 ClickZ)
  • Online video advertising outperforms other online formats for branding. Based on 106 campaigns, Dynamic Logic's Q3 2006 MarketNorms data shows online video ads delivered a 6.1 percentage point improvement in aided brand awareness; a 18.1 percentage point improvement in online ad awareness; and a 9.3 percentage point improvement in message association. (March 29, 2007ClickZ)
  • About 8 percent of the video ads, on average, generated some form of user interaction with the ad unit, including expansion, video control buttons, custom interactions, and clicks. The most frequent action was ad replay (0.32 percent), which occurred more often than clicking through a standard JPG or GIF ad (0.10 percent). (March 29, 2007 ClickZ)
  • Online video ads had higher CTRs (define) (0.40-0.74 percent), about four times the rate for image ads (0.10-0.15 percent). (March 29, 2007 ClickZ)
  • Pre-roll advertising is annoying to users, according to Forrester Research (Forrester Research)
  • Borrell Associates is releasing a new report today that reveals that newspaper sites grossed $81 million in local video advertising in 2006, compared to $32 million for local TV sites. (Feb. 12, 2007Lost Remote)
  • The value of the total online-video market — both pay and ad supported — will be worth $15.6 billion by 2012. (July 12, 2007 Direct Marketing News)

Online-video market will be worth $15.6B by 2012

Internet video will become an increasingly important piece of the entertainment pie for consumers, and content owners and distributors will find online distribution a significant incremental and competitive method of monetizing content, according to a new study by ABI Research.

The Long Island-based research firm suggests that the value of the total online-video market - both pay and ad supported - will be worth $15.6 billion by 2012.

"The implication for marketers is that they will need to increasingly diversify their ad spends to online, especially if they are heavily reliant on traditional broadcast advertising," said Michael Wolf, director of digital home research at ABI Research.

"The good thing for marketers," he added, "is they will have much more information about their audiences, as video advertising online brings all the advantages of Internet advertising [in that] they can ultimately get strong click-through response data to track response rates much more closely than through broadcast TV advertising."

The expanding reach of new syndication networks and video "super-portals" such as Joost, alongside established sites like MySpace, will rapidly grow the total user base for ad-supported video.

Wolf believes that, in the near term, the challenge is getting access to good video advertising inventory because demand currently exceeds supply. In the long term, the challenge will lie in creating cohesive marketing plans among the explosion of options across the different premium and user-generated video opportunities.

Pay-video adoption will grow through sites such as iTunes, the study found. The growth of Internet-connected hardware platforms will make direct download of Internet video to the TV a viable model in coming years.

ABI Research's study also suggests significant growth for enabling backend services such as content management, publishing and CDN services. Emerging broadband video ASPs are offering comprehensive hosted software solutions and tie-ins to their own ad and syndication networks.

As to how this predicted trend will affect video search, Wolf said, "Video search is only in its infancy. The search players are right now investing significantly in trying to best find ways to create well-optimized search capabilities for video as it is more challenging than for text. Video search is the new focus for all the large search players."

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Should You Start Up An Online Business?

Internet marketing is a great way to generate for an extra income. The timeframe is dependent on what you choose to market and the method in which you decide to handle the tasks. But before embarking upon starting a business online you need to ask yourself these 4 questions:

Do I have the time necessary to succeed?
Merely because the business concern is online doesn't mean it will operate itself. Some businesses will look after themselves and continue to make money when you have them set up and functioning; but you must take time to get them up and functioning. Whenever your schedule is already jammed you'll need to determine what can be neglected to make way for your business.
Most Internet businesses require more time in the early stages. Make a goal of working a set number of hours/days per week. Flexibility of work hours is a reward of owning your personal business. Nonetheless, it's easy to postpone doing work during the week intending to catch up on the weekends. What can happen is that all of a sudden another full week has passed by and you haven't completed much of anything.

Are you disciplined enough to succeed?
Maintaining productivity is not easy in the home office setting. There’s no boss watching over you. No set time to begin or end work. And there are many ways to become distracted, such as watching TV, reading magazines, surfing the Internet, or interruptions from other members of the household. The comfortable factor at home can present problems. You can work in your pajamas if you want, but I've found it more productive to go through the same routine (eating, showering, etc.) as I would if I was going to a normal job. Try to establish a disciplined routine. Start work at the same time every day, plan out the number of hours you want to put in but put in more if necessary. Schedule break times, where you allow yourself to "decompress". Then get back to giving your business complete focus. Treat your home based job with all the seriousness you would if you had a corporate job.

Do I have the expedable resources necessary to succeed?
It doesn't demand a lot of resources to start a flourishing online business. It's safer if you do have some start-up cash available. You may need to buy a URL and web hosting services, have artwork designed or maybe even do some promoting.
You'll also require a computer and an Internet connection. Although most homes these days have both, there are usually other household members who need access to the computer and the World Wide Web. It may be more productive for you to get a computer specifically for your business.
Besides cash, consider the resources inside yourself. If you've decided to start a graphic design firm you'll need artistic talent and naturally a favorable graphics design program.

Do I have that burning desire to succeed?
Starting up any business offline or online calls for the determination to win. There will be setbacks, you'll make mistakes, you might even lose a little money before you achieve success. Can you keep on going and learn from your mistakes?
A lot of folks want the rewards of their own business: the additional money, flexibility, freedom from other people ordering you what to do, but don't have the desire to put in the elbow grease essential for success.

Tweens Online: Do You Know What Yours is Doing?

Recently, a highly-anticipated survey on tween (children ages 8 to 12) Internet safety was released. You can Google the survey online and find detailed results but there are a few results that I want to address here:

Of the roughly 500 11-12 year-olds that participated, 34 of 500 participants across the US and you get a LOT of underage kids on social networks.

Why is this important to know…?

Because another statistic from the survey shows that 29 of them keep the messages to themselves, and 11 percent of 8-10 year-olds tell Mom and Dad a lot/everything, versus only 69% of 11-12 year-olds.

More Internet time broods more confidence in Internet savvy… and thus the personal firewall comes down. This is the start of the whole "teens think they have all the answers" phase… and it's the start of kids engaging in risky and potentially dangerous behavior.

The results of the survey show that kids are signing up for social networks in droves, even when they are too young. They are indeed being approached by strangers and in some cases chatting back. And as they get older, have more online time put in, and start joining social networks, they stop telling their parents about their online activity.

These are reasons why parents need to be monitoring their child's Internet activity. What surprises me is that this simple action is the easiest and most effective answer to the Internet safety dilemma. I have yet to come across a parent that took advantage of parental control tools or monitoring software and found themselves in a dire situation concerning their child and the Internet.

The answer is right there: monitor Internet activity. Use parental control tools and monitoring software like PC Pandora. Programs like PC Pandora will record all user activity and give parents the knowledge they need to be an effective 21st century parent. Snapshots of screen activity are recorded, as well as emails, IM chats, and usernames and passwords to social networking sites. You can even use it to block websites you don't want your child spending time on. That's just the start; PC Pandora can do so much more… It truly is Internet-parenting made easy.

With full knowledge of your child's activity comes the power to keep them safe, and the chance to teach them about proper behavior in the fantastic world known as the Internet. If your child is talking to strangers or involved in cyberbullying, visiting sites you don't approve of or illegally downloading music or movies, you will know - if you are using parental control and monitoring software like PC Pandora that is…

Monitoring Internet activity is not "spying," as some critics would like to make you think. There is a big difference between being a well-informed and involved parent and thinking you know what's going on in your child's Internet life, when really you have no clue. It's not snooping; it's being an effective and responsible 21st century parent. If you're not using parental control monitoring software or monitoring the Internet activity of your child in some way - How can you really know what they are doing online? Do you really know if they are safe or not?