Tech watch
Craigslist is being sued by eBay because it claims it’s management team “unfairly diluting” its holdings in Craigslist.
The online auction site has had a nearly 30 percent stake in the classifed-ad Web site since 2004.
The two companies are essentially competitors, but EBay, with thousands of employees, dwarfs Craigslist, which only has about 20.
And it’s a whole different mentality over at Craigslist.
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If you are a small business owner who wants to land a government contract, you are not allowed to have venture capital dollars pumping into your company.
For some reason, that’s the way it’s been. Perhaps it was supposed to be a way to level the playing field, so small companies weren’t really deep-pocketed big companies in disguise.
But a bill that would eliminate the restriction, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., who chairs the House Small Business Committee, was passed by the House this week. And that has some small business advocates up in arms.
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When blogs first came on the scene, they were basically online diaries.
I remember this freaky guy I worked with about nine years ago at a newspaper in Florida was writing this new thing called a blog. His posts were mainly about his sex life, or lack of it. And he also blogged about how he hated journalism and really wanted to be a musician.
What got me thinking about the origins of blogs was a story in the New York Times Friday about how blogs are now being used to air dirty laundry.
Duh! That’s why blogs were created. But recently, blogs have turned into little more than advertising sites for businesses and places where journalist can write shorter stories that are infused with a bit of opinion, and sometimes humor.
But alas, the best-read blogs are filled with personal musings, sex, and the more dirty laundry the better.
So what’s a small business owner to do if they want a blog that’s well read? Should they start writing about their escapades in the bedroom?
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It’s like we’re watching a scene from that dumb reality show, “The Bachelor,” and in this case the bachelor is Yahoo.
Who will walk down the aisle with Yahoo? Microsoft? Google? Time Warner’s AOL? Even News Corp. is getting into the act, considering a plan to team up with Microsoft in its bid for Yahoo.
(Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)
The Bachelor, aka Yahoo, has a lot of hot, crazy babes to choose from. If you’re a small business that wants to place ads on search engines to get people to click over to your Web site, you just may want to tune in.
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Does your small business really need a cell phone with James Bond type surveillance capabilities?
Sometimes all you need to do is call someone.
Cell phones are becoming so complicated these days, just calling a business contact takes a bunch of strokes, beyond just dialing the number. And I keep hitting the stupid speaker button on my iPhone with my cheek, allowing everyone near me at the supermarket to hear my conversation while I’m ordering cold cuts.
Small business owners must be at their wits end when it comes to all the options cell phones offer these days. What’s right for your business? Is it worth getting 3-D maps, or voice controls, or GPS?
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Beware all you cheating small business tax filers out there.
The IRS has ramped up its technological capabilities and is using it’s gigantic data base to sniff out businesses and individuals trying to pull a fast one on the federal government.
There’s a great story in InfoWorld last week that talks about how the IRS is using its uber data warehouse and is “able to discover areas where tax cheating had become rampant, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, or small-business tax shelters.”
This at a time when IRS audits of small firms that make under $10 million annually is on the rise, up to 20,020 in 2007 from 17,871 the previous year.
So what’s an entrepreneur to do?
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I’m feeling pretty lonely.
Lately I’ve noticed my emails are going unanswered for longer and longer periods of time.
I check my email every few seconds, and I can’t imagine not getting back to people in a flash.
But maybe I’ve bought into this crazy way of life.
Maybe I should take a page from the owner of a tea lounge in San Francisco who has taken a machete to email.
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I got a call last week from a source at the national Better Business Bureau and she wanted to get the word out about how some small firms are getting scammed by Internet loan companies.
With banks tightening credit, small business owners are scrambling to find other sources for loans to build their business or just to keep their heads above water.
The Internet, as usual, is where a lot of you have turned.
Even the Wall Street Journal did a story last week on how entrepreneurs are turning to online networks to get loans. I don’t blame you all. You have to find other sources, and it makes sense to turn to the Web.
But that doesn’t mean you throw all your common sense out of the window and turn into a cyber-space cadet.
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There are far too many small business owners out there without a Web site.
Why? It’s too expensive. It takes too much time.
These are pretty lame excuses in today’s here’s-a-free-website marketplace.
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Just because companies shell out millions of dollars to advertise during the Super Bowl doesn’t mean you have to buy the products or services they hawk.
A Pepsi, okay.
But business owners should be doing their due diligence when it comes to deciding whether to plop down their hard-earned cash on something that’s going to cost more than a can of soda.
Take the Salesgenie.com ads. I’m sure many small business owners out there had never heard of the sales lead Internet company until the firm’s slick ads appeared during the battle between the Giants and Patriots.
The ads probably got a lot of people surfing over to their site. How could they resist a cartoon panda with a bad Asian accent?
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