Four Winning Strategies To Business Marketing
By William King
Business marketing, the simple act of bringing together the buyers and the sellers has gained such importance in business today that there are specialized strategies for this purpose. Various marketing strategies that are a mixture of innovation and expertise are tried out every now and then. While some of them are winners and hit bull’s eye in the first attempt itself, there are others that fail. If you are a new entrepreneur and are looking for some winning marketing strategies then you have come to the right place indeed. Today, the consumer is more product savvy and hence you need to be more market savvy in order to get the marketing strategy right.
Direct Marketing
Of all the proven marketing strategies, none have gained as much reputation as direct marketing. A successful direct marketing campaign will give you amazing results and will propel your business to newer heights. If you can set up a database of the most probable and right customers and mail to the right customer all the time, then your direct marketing campaign will produce better results. The right customer will read your mail while the others will dismiss it as junk. You want more people in the right customer category than in the junk category. Boost your mail with the right information and dialogue. List the benefits of your product or program in small sweet paragraphs. Finally make an impact with it.
Online Marketing and lead generation
If there is anything in the last decade that has changed the way we live, then it is the internet. So you need to incorporate the internet into your business marketing program. There are several online marketing strategies that are proven winners. Lead generation, affiliate marketing, direct marketing and many more such marketing programs are available online. There was a time when lead generation on the internet was considered to be a dead end. But now there are more precise lead generation models that have put the earlier lead generation practices behind. Lesser number of fraudulent leads is being generated and the other online marketing strategies are also improving.
Guerilla Marketing
This relatively new low cost marketing strategy has created a huge impact on online marketing in the last few years. It relies on the principle that direct marketing is saturated and customers today are unaffected by these strategies. Hence guerilla marketing relies on getting you and your product in the places which customers are most likely to be present in the future. This has a great chance of giving your business the right kind of boost and a head start. There are many strategies that are used in guerilla marketing. The thank-you-take-away packet is one of the most used methods. This not only gives your customer a value added service by means of the packet, but it also thanks the customer for using your service. This keeps your company fresh in the minds of the customers.
Other methods
Besides these, there are many other marketing strategies that can be a part of your winning business plan. It all depends on what your target audience mainly comprises of. Put in the right amount of research and you will surely hit the right note with your marketing plan.
Friday, October 19, 2007
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Link Exchange Directory for the Professional SEO
Quality directory of webmasters actively seeking link exchange. Improve your search engine rankings and link popularity the easy way. Work clever not hard.
Quality directory of webmasters actively seeking link exchange. Improve your search engine rankings and link popularity the easy way. Work clever not hard.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Getting An Offshore Bank Account Via The Internet
Getting An Offshore Bank Account Via The Internet by: T. O' Donnell
There is no need to use the many middleman websites you will find via a search engine. In fact, most of these are *bogus*, even the slick-looking ones. More and more banks are offering offshore internet bank accounts direct. Just get a list of banks in the country you're interested in, and go to their web sites.
See the Google Open Directory here:
http://directory.google.com/Top/Business/Financial_Services
/Banking_Services/Banks_ and_Institutions/
and here:
http://directory.google.com/Top/Business/Financial_Services
/Banking_Services/Banks_ and_Institutions/Regional/
and the list at EscapeArtist.Com
http://www.escapeartist.com/offshore3/banks.htm.
Opening an offshore bank account is like opening one in your high street; meet their criteria, and you're in. The only difference is you're not there in person.
The first thing is to find out whether they will accept citizens or residents of your country. For example, Swiss banks tend not to want US customers; they don't want the hassle from the IRS.
You will need to prove your identity, and the legal existence of your company, if you wish to open an account for it.
If applying by mail, DO NOT PART WITH ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS. Get copies notarised by a notary public. Originals can be used for fraud or identity theft. Or they can get lost.
A Notary Public is a public officer commissioned by the State to perform notarial acts. A Notary is an impartial witness. The notary is empowered to issue an apostille.
Apostille - Is a method of certifying a document for use in another country pursuant to the 1961 Hague Convention. With this certification by apostille, a document is entitled to recognition in the country of intended use, and no certification or legalization by the embassy or consulate of the foreign country where the document is to be used is required.
In practice this means you provide evidence to this man that you are who you say you are, and/or that your company is what you say it is, and take an oath on the Bible. Oh yes, that's right, it's not a joke.
Due diligence: Banks need to show they have checked who their customers are, and how they came by their money.
Passport - If you apply by post a notarised copy is needed;
Proof of your economic background - documents showing how you earn your money (work contract, bank statement, tax return, company documents);
Proof of the origin of your deposits - documents showing how you earned your deposits. For example if you sell a house, proof of the sale, a copy of the estate agent's listing, etc.;
Information about yourself and your deposits - Name, date of birth, address, etc., as well as how much you plan to deposit on the account and what you plan to do with the money once it is in the account.
If opening a company account, you send an apostilled copy of the certificate of incorporation to the bank providing your account, along with evidence of your identity, an application form, and any other documents they ask for.
If you want to get an offshore bank account, *consider visiting the bank in person*. If you can, travel to the country in question, and open a bank account there. You probably live near one tax haven at least. This especially applies if you are planning to deposit large sums; find out who you're dealing with!
NOTES:
1. Don't pay a middleman to open a bank account for you. See above.
2. Do not use services which offer bank accounts in Eastern European countries.
You are likely to be cheated, possibly by the bank itself. Avoid Latvia!
3. Do not give anyone Power Of Attorney.
You can kiss your money goodbye. You may have legitimate reasons for not wishing to broadcast what you're doing. The problem is: *How can you obscure that you are the owner of the company, or bank account, without losing control of it?*
Don't get too clever, or too greedy.
4. Avoid web sites where:
The business address is a P.O. Box, or a 'Suite';
The site is on a free web host;
The site is badly translated into English;
You have the sense you are dealing with Africans or Eastern Europeans;
The site has not been updated recently e.g. the Copyright reads 2001;
They've only been running for a few years;
They offer a range of dubious products - second passports, citizenships, anonymous debit cards;
You cannot pay via credit card - it's much harder to get refunds on banker's drafts, Western Union and e-Gold etc;
They require you sign a confidentiality agreement, or you have the sense you are entering quasi-legal or illegal territory.
Bogus offshore banking sites can threaten to report you to your tax authority if you question their methods. It's an old con trick; get the mark involved in something illegal, then he can't go to the authorities.
How do I know all this? Well, dear reader, let me take you back to 1997, when ecommerce was a new word. Merchant accounts were not easily available to individuals in the UK, especially if you wanted to sell intangibles. So I found a website that offered one, with a Latvian bank account, and a company registration in Panama to go with it. The latter was necessary to open the account, or so I was told. This 'package' was on a 'discount', and cost about $400+.
All worked well, until the bank went bust in 2001. One sorry fellow reported on Usenet that he'd lost $10,000. I lost the sum of $232 (business was diabolical!). I decided in 2002 to shut down the company, as it cost $500 a year in fees to maintain, I was skint, and I had no real use for it. To de-register it cost another $500. Which I paid. Only to find out later that that the middleman website hadn't de-registered it, and that the yearly fees to the Panamanian registrar had not been passed on either.
Result: No merchant account, and a company in bad standing. Total loss: About £2000 GBP.
That Latvian bank is open for business again, with no mention of their previous collapse on their website (well, you wouldn't, would you?).
The moral of this story? Offshore bank accounts and company formations are just like their onshore equivalents; there's no big mystery about them. If you want a company formation, contact a local man, who speaks English, in the country of registration. Then use another local man to check what the first one's done.
Open your bank account yourself.
One last thing: don't think that because your bank account and company are offshore you can do business in your home country, and/or with fellow residents, and avoid taxes there. You'll find plenty of websites that'll purport to help you, right up until the time you get a small brown envelope from your country's tax inspectors, inviting you in for a little chat.
There is no need to use the many middleman websites you will find via a search engine. In fact, most of these are *bogus*, even the slick-looking ones. More and more banks are offering offshore internet bank accounts direct. Just get a list of banks in the country you're interested in, and go to their web sites.
See the Google Open Directory here:
http://directory.google.com/Top/Business/Financial_Services
/Banking_Services/Banks_ and_Institutions/
and here:
http://directory.google.com/Top/Business/Financial_Services
/Banking_Services/Banks_ and_Institutions/Regional/
and the list at EscapeArtist.Com
http://www.escapeartist.com/offshore3/banks.htm.
Opening an offshore bank account is like opening one in your high street; meet their criteria, and you're in. The only difference is you're not there in person.
The first thing is to find out whether they will accept citizens or residents of your country. For example, Swiss banks tend not to want US customers; they don't want the hassle from the IRS.
You will need to prove your identity, and the legal existence of your company, if you wish to open an account for it.
If applying by mail, DO NOT PART WITH ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS. Get copies notarised by a notary public. Originals can be used for fraud or identity theft. Or they can get lost.
A Notary Public is a public officer commissioned by the State to perform notarial acts. A Notary is an impartial witness. The notary is empowered to issue an apostille.
Apostille - Is a method of certifying a document for use in another country pursuant to the 1961 Hague Convention. With this certification by apostille, a document is entitled to recognition in the country of intended use, and no certification or legalization by the embassy or consulate of the foreign country where the document is to be used is required.
In practice this means you provide evidence to this man that you are who you say you are, and/or that your company is what you say it is, and take an oath on the Bible. Oh yes, that's right, it's not a joke.
Due diligence: Banks need to show they have checked who their customers are, and how they came by their money.
Passport - If you apply by post a notarised copy is needed;
Proof of your economic background - documents showing how you earn your money (work contract, bank statement, tax return, company documents);
Proof of the origin of your deposits - documents showing how you earned your deposits. For example if you sell a house, proof of the sale, a copy of the estate agent's listing, etc.;
Information about yourself and your deposits - Name, date of birth, address, etc., as well as how much you plan to deposit on the account and what you plan to do with the money once it is in the account.
If opening a company account, you send an apostilled copy of the certificate of incorporation to the bank providing your account, along with evidence of your identity, an application form, and any other documents they ask for.
If you want to get an offshore bank account, *consider visiting the bank in person*. If you can, travel to the country in question, and open a bank account there. You probably live near one tax haven at least. This especially applies if you are planning to deposit large sums; find out who you're dealing with!
NOTES:
1. Don't pay a middleman to open a bank account for you. See above.
2. Do not use services which offer bank accounts in Eastern European countries.
You are likely to be cheated, possibly by the bank itself. Avoid Latvia!
3. Do not give anyone Power Of Attorney.
You can kiss your money goodbye. You may have legitimate reasons for not wishing to broadcast what you're doing. The problem is: *How can you obscure that you are the owner of the company, or bank account, without losing control of it?*
Don't get too clever, or too greedy.
4. Avoid web sites where:
The business address is a P.O. Box, or a 'Suite';
The site is on a free web host;
The site is badly translated into English;
You have the sense you are dealing with Africans or Eastern Europeans;
The site has not been updated recently e.g. the Copyright reads 2001;
They've only been running for a few years;
They offer a range of dubious products - second passports, citizenships, anonymous debit cards;
You cannot pay via credit card - it's much harder to get refunds on banker's drafts, Western Union and e-Gold etc;
They require you sign a confidentiality agreement, or you have the sense you are entering quasi-legal or illegal territory.
Bogus offshore banking sites can threaten to report you to your tax authority if you question their methods. It's an old con trick; get the mark involved in something illegal, then he can't go to the authorities.
How do I know all this? Well, dear reader, let me take you back to 1997, when ecommerce was a new word. Merchant accounts were not easily available to individuals in the UK, especially if you wanted to sell intangibles. So I found a website that offered one, with a Latvian bank account, and a company registration in Panama to go with it. The latter was necessary to open the account, or so I was told. This 'package' was on a 'discount', and cost about $400+.
All worked well, until the bank went bust in 2001. One sorry fellow reported on Usenet that he'd lost $10,000. I lost the sum of $232 (business was diabolical!). I decided in 2002 to shut down the company, as it cost $500 a year in fees to maintain, I was skint, and I had no real use for it. To de-register it cost another $500. Which I paid. Only to find out later that that the middleman website hadn't de-registered it, and that the yearly fees to the Panamanian registrar had not been passed on either.
Result: No merchant account, and a company in bad standing. Total loss: About £2000 GBP.
That Latvian bank is open for business again, with no mention of their previous collapse on their website (well, you wouldn't, would you?).
The moral of this story? Offshore bank accounts and company formations are just like their onshore equivalents; there's no big mystery about them. If you want a company formation, contact a local man, who speaks English, in the country of registration. Then use another local man to check what the first one's done.
Open your bank account yourself.
One last thing: don't think that because your bank account and company are offshore you can do business in your home country, and/or with fellow residents, and avoid taxes there. You'll find plenty of websites that'll purport to help you, right up until the time you get a small brown envelope from your country's tax inspectors, inviting you in for a little chat.
5 Things About Offshore Asset Protection Every Internet Marketer Should Know
5 Things About Offshore Asset Protection Every Internet Marketer Should Know by: James Allen
Offshore instruments of asset protection no longer belong in the realm of the wealthiest individuals with high paid financial advisors. Thanks to the internet and globalization of financial markets, there are plenty of firms that can help just about anyone "go offshore". What follows is a brief introduction to some of the most popular tools of offshore asset protection and how they can be used by online business people and internet marketers like yourself to protect and grow your business.
1. Offshore Trusts
An offshore trust is a very simple agreement that helps put some distance between you and your hard earned assets. A trust is simply a legally binding agreement between two parties - the grantor and the trustee. The grantor "grants" control over specified assest and property to the trustee, who is then responsible for them. Beneficiaries are listed in the trust, who will "benefit" from the assests being entrusted. Often this is in the form of receiving the assets upon the death of the grantor, or by receiving the profits generated by the assets listed.
The main point is that this agreement helps separate the grantor - you - from these assets in a legal sense, making it more difficult for someone to take them from you. By moving the trust offshore, there is an added layer of protection. If you've ever worried about a frivolous lawsuit destroying all you've worked for in your internet business, this is certainly a form of asset protection you'll want to look into.
2. Offshore Incorporation
There are many benefits for the internet marketer who chooses to incorporate offshore. Protecting your privacy from the prying eyes of an ever more invasive government - especially in the area of online information, legally limiting the amount of taxes you pay on your online income, and protecting your business against lawsuits are just a few of the ways an offshore corporation or IBC can benefit the internet marketer.
Properly planned and executed, forming an offshore corporation need not be any more expensive or time consuming than forming a corporation within your own borders. Be sure to deal with a legitimate and established firm when establishing your IBC, make sure your asset protection needs are being met and that all of your questions are answered.
3. Offshore Bank Accounts
Again, keeping with the theme of protecting the internet marketer's wealth from both lawsuits and privacy invasion, the offshore bank account will also help address these issues.
Most companies that offer offshore incorporation will also help you set up an offshore bank account. Choose a country where information privacy laws are respected and enforced, and preferably keep the account in non-US funds. The acccounts are usually offered with an international debit card, so you can access your funds from ATMs around the globe.
4. Offshore Merchant Accounts
Of particular interest to those who create their income online is the option of establishing an offshore merchant account for handling all of your credit card transactions.
Besides addressing privacy issues, an offshore merchant account may be more suitable for those offering items, information, or subscriptions for sale online that are more difficult to procure a domestic merchant account for. These include higher risk services such as you might find in the adult website or online gambling arenas.
5. Offshore Webhosting
Although often considered home to the worst internet has to offer, such as spammers and hackers, offshore webhosting certainly has its place for legitimate online marketers and should not be dismissed outright.
Few would disagree that new internet laws, especially those related to spam are having an adverse affect on those it should least be harming. On top of that, the privacy invasion allowed by legislation such as the Patriot Act further increase the need for protecting your online information outside the borders of the USA.
Yes there are plenty of scam artists in the offshore webhosting arena. Do your research though, and you will find secure, well-staffed offshore webhosting operations with high-uptime, fast connections, good support and reasonable prices to suit your needs.
With all the new laws that allow for invasion of your privacy, including your financial information, combined with the fact that the USA is one of the most lawsuit prone countries in the world, every internet marketer and individual doing business online owes it to themselves to at least consider how going offshore can benefit you and your business.
Offshore instruments of asset protection no longer belong in the realm of the wealthiest individuals with high paid financial advisors. Thanks to the internet and globalization of financial markets, there are plenty of firms that can help just about anyone "go offshore". What follows is a brief introduction to some of the most popular tools of offshore asset protection and how they can be used by online business people and internet marketers like yourself to protect and grow your business.
1. Offshore Trusts
An offshore trust is a very simple agreement that helps put some distance between you and your hard earned assets. A trust is simply a legally binding agreement between two parties - the grantor and the trustee. The grantor "grants" control over specified assest and property to the trustee, who is then responsible for them. Beneficiaries are listed in the trust, who will "benefit" from the assests being entrusted. Often this is in the form of receiving the assets upon the death of the grantor, or by receiving the profits generated by the assets listed.
The main point is that this agreement helps separate the grantor - you - from these assets in a legal sense, making it more difficult for someone to take them from you. By moving the trust offshore, there is an added layer of protection. If you've ever worried about a frivolous lawsuit destroying all you've worked for in your internet business, this is certainly a form of asset protection you'll want to look into.
2. Offshore Incorporation
There are many benefits for the internet marketer who chooses to incorporate offshore. Protecting your privacy from the prying eyes of an ever more invasive government - especially in the area of online information, legally limiting the amount of taxes you pay on your online income, and protecting your business against lawsuits are just a few of the ways an offshore corporation or IBC can benefit the internet marketer.
Properly planned and executed, forming an offshore corporation need not be any more expensive or time consuming than forming a corporation within your own borders. Be sure to deal with a legitimate and established firm when establishing your IBC, make sure your asset protection needs are being met and that all of your questions are answered.
3. Offshore Bank Accounts
Again, keeping with the theme of protecting the internet marketer's wealth from both lawsuits and privacy invasion, the offshore bank account will also help address these issues.
Most companies that offer offshore incorporation will also help you set up an offshore bank account. Choose a country where information privacy laws are respected and enforced, and preferably keep the account in non-US funds. The acccounts are usually offered with an international debit card, so you can access your funds from ATMs around the globe.
4. Offshore Merchant Accounts
Of particular interest to those who create their income online is the option of establishing an offshore merchant account for handling all of your credit card transactions.
Besides addressing privacy issues, an offshore merchant account may be more suitable for those offering items, information, or subscriptions for sale online that are more difficult to procure a domestic merchant account for. These include higher risk services such as you might find in the adult website or online gambling arenas.
5. Offshore Webhosting
Although often considered home to the worst internet has to offer, such as spammers and hackers, offshore webhosting certainly has its place for legitimate online marketers and should not be dismissed outright.
Few would disagree that new internet laws, especially those related to spam are having an adverse affect on those it should least be harming. On top of that, the privacy invasion allowed by legislation such as the Patriot Act further increase the need for protecting your online information outside the borders of the USA.
Yes there are plenty of scam artists in the offshore webhosting arena. Do your research though, and you will find secure, well-staffed offshore webhosting operations with high-uptime, fast connections, good support and reasonable prices to suit your needs.
With all the new laws that allow for invasion of your privacy, including your financial information, combined with the fact that the USA is one of the most lawsuit prone countries in the world, every internet marketer and individual doing business online owes it to themselves to at least consider how going offshore can benefit you and your business.
Why Offshore Google Software Development For Your Business ??
Why Offshore Google Software Development For Your Business ?? by: Chris Palau
Google has become more than just a search engine as the result of their release of the Google API. Now developers can have seamless access many of Google's functionality directly from within their applications to retrieve and integrate data which was formerly either unavailable or not readily accessible.
We recently had a client who is a multi-national retailer with both a physical and Internet presence. The client needed a way to acquire certain business intelligence (BI) data from the Internet on a daily basis. After several unsuccessful attempts to create this functionality themselves, they came to us for a solution.
On the surface the requirements seemed to be difficult and it was easy to see why their own IT team had failed to find a solution. They were thinking "inside the box", however, and hadn't considered third-party alternatives. The specifications required that the application perform all of these tasks:
Retrieve new product listings on competitor's web sites.
Retrieve current pricing for all products listed on competitor's web sites.
Retrieve full text of competitor's Press Releases and public financial reports.
Track all inbound links pointing to competitor's web sites from other web sites.
Once the data was acquired it needed to be processed for reporting purposes and then stored in the data warehouse for future access.
After reviewing current web-based data acquisition technology, including "spiders" which crawled the Internet and returned data which then had to be processed through HTML filters, we determined that the Google API and Web Services offered the best solution.
The Google API provides remote access to all of the search engine's exposed functionality and provides a communication layer which is accessed via the "Simple Object Access Protocol" (SOAP), a web services standard. Since SOAP is an XML-based technology it is easily integrated into legacy web-enabled applications.
The API met all of the requirements of the application in that it:
Provided a methodology for querying the Web using non-HTML interfaces
Enabled us to schedule regular search requests designed to harvest new and updated information on the target subjects.
It provided data in a format which was able to be easily integrated with the client's legacy systems.
Using the Google API, SOAP and WSDL, our developers were able to define messages that fetched cached pages, searched the Google document index and retrieve the responses without having to filter out HTML or reformat the data. The resulting data was then handed off to the client's legacy systems for validation, reporting and further processing before reaching the data warehouse.
During the Proof of Concept phase we ran tests where we were able to reliably identify and retrieve updated public relations and investor relations information that exceeded the client's expectations.
In our next test we retrieved the most currently available product pages which were listed in Google and then ran another query to retrieve the Google "cached page" versions. We ran these two data sets through difference filters and were able to produce accurate price increase and decrease reports as well as identify new products.
For our final test we used the Google API's ability to access the "link:" feature to rapidly build lists of inbound links.
These limited tests demonstrated that the Google API was capable of producing the BI data that the client requested as well as demonstrating that the data could be returned in a pre-defined format which eliminated the need to apply post retrieval filters.
The client was pleased with the results of our Proof of Concept phase and authorized us to proceed with building the solution. The application is now in daily use and is exceeding the client's performance expectations by a wide margin.
Any developer who is familiar with coding WSDL will have no problem using the Google API. Using the Google API requires a developer's key which is available at no charge. Go to http://www.google.com/apis/ for an overview and to register for your own key.
The Google API is destined to change the way that developers retrieve data and it opens a whole new level of data mining that has never been available in the past.
Google has become more than just a search engine as the result of their release of the Google API. Now developers can have seamless access many of Google's functionality directly from within their applications to retrieve and integrate data which was formerly either unavailable or not readily accessible.
We recently had a client who is a multi-national retailer with both a physical and Internet presence. The client needed a way to acquire certain business intelligence (BI) data from the Internet on a daily basis. After several unsuccessful attempts to create this functionality themselves, they came to us for a solution.
On the surface the requirements seemed to be difficult and it was easy to see why their own IT team had failed to find a solution. They were thinking "inside the box", however, and hadn't considered third-party alternatives. The specifications required that the application perform all of these tasks:
Retrieve new product listings on competitor's web sites.
Retrieve current pricing for all products listed on competitor's web sites.
Retrieve full text of competitor's Press Releases and public financial reports.
Track all inbound links pointing to competitor's web sites from other web sites.
Once the data was acquired it needed to be processed for reporting purposes and then stored in the data warehouse for future access.
After reviewing current web-based data acquisition technology, including "spiders" which crawled the Internet and returned data which then had to be processed through HTML filters, we determined that the Google API and Web Services offered the best solution.
The Google API provides remote access to all of the search engine's exposed functionality and provides a communication layer which is accessed via the "Simple Object Access Protocol" (SOAP), a web services standard. Since SOAP is an XML-based technology it is easily integrated into legacy web-enabled applications.
The API met all of the requirements of the application in that it:
Provided a methodology for querying the Web using non-HTML interfaces
Enabled us to schedule regular search requests designed to harvest new and updated information on the target subjects.
It provided data in a format which was able to be easily integrated with the client's legacy systems.
Using the Google API, SOAP and WSDL, our developers were able to define messages that fetched cached pages, searched the Google document index and retrieve the responses without having to filter out HTML or reformat the data. The resulting data was then handed off to the client's legacy systems for validation, reporting and further processing before reaching the data warehouse.
During the Proof of Concept phase we ran tests where we were able to reliably identify and retrieve updated public relations and investor relations information that exceeded the client's expectations.
In our next test we retrieved the most currently available product pages which were listed in Google and then ran another query to retrieve the Google "cached page" versions. We ran these two data sets through difference filters and were able to produce accurate price increase and decrease reports as well as identify new products.
For our final test we used the Google API's ability to access the "link:" feature to rapidly build lists of inbound links.
These limited tests demonstrated that the Google API was capable of producing the BI data that the client requested as well as demonstrating that the data could be returned in a pre-defined format which eliminated the need to apply post retrieval filters.
The client was pleased with the results of our Proof of Concept phase and authorized us to proceed with building the solution. The application is now in daily use and is exceeding the client's performance expectations by a wide margin.
Any developer who is familiar with coding WSDL will have no problem using the Google API. Using the Google API requires a developer's key which is available at no charge. Go to http://www.google.com/apis/ for an overview and to register for your own key.
The Google API is destined to change the way that developers retrieve data and it opens a whole new level of data mining that has never been available in the past.
Offshore Investing
Offshore Investing by: Murray Priestley
Offshore investing: spreading risk helps sleep
The world’s economies still dance to different tunes and have different boom and bust cycles that tend to offset each other, even though the differences are getting smaller. As a result, international stocks can provide diversification for a portfolio heavy in U.S. stocks.
Between June 1997 and October 1998, for example, Japan’s Nikkei index lost almost 40%, but European markets did well due to continental economic union. U.S.-style corporate restructurings also began to pay off. One region’s success balanced the other’s failure to get its financial house in order.
There has been less divergence between regions more recently. Even so, we suggest the prudent investor cannot afford to ignore overseas markets. They now represent some 44% of world market capitalization, up from 25% about 30 years ago. International stocks can provide solid diversification for a portfolio heavily invested in U.S. equities.
Exchange rates add an extra flavor to foreign investments. Fluctuations can add to or detract from profits or losses. Institutional investors and others pay significant attention to this factor. When the U.S. dollar was appreciating against the Japanese yen, billions of dollars flowed out of that country and into U.S. stocks and bonds, worsening the economic crisis in Japan. That money started to flow back out when the currency valuation began to reverse. Americans saw their investments in Japan appreciate then, even when the stocks remained in neutral.
Funds that invest overseas fall into four basic categories: world, international, emerging market and country specific. Diversification is the key to containing risk. And, yes, a good fund manager helps, too. Research is scarce and foreign companies, other than some in Canada, are difficult for individual investors to track on their own.
World funds are the most diverse of the four categories. They are, as the name suggests, able to invest anywhere in the world, including the U.S. As a result, they don’t offer as much diversification as a good international fund. Some have 60% or more of their holdings in the U.S.
World funds tend to be the safest foreign stock investments, but only because they typically lean on better-known U.S. stocks. Just examine the portfolio carefully to make sure they don’t mimic your U.S. holdings. Funds invested in small- to medium-sized companies are unlikely to duplicate the foreign investment component of domestic funds.
Foreign funds, on the other hand, invest mostly outside the U.S. Whether they are relatively safe or risky depends on the countries in which they invest.
Advice: choose a fund with the best balance between countries and regions, or be very sure the manager has a good record of moving in and out of regions profitably.
Country-specific funds invest in a single country or region. This type of concentration makes them particularly volatile – especially those that invest in emerging markets. If you pick the right country at the right time, the returns can be substantial. Get it wrong and look for your head to be handed to you on a plate. These funds are for the most sophisticate investors only.
Emerging-markets funds are the most volatile, invested as they are in undeveloped regions subject to political upheaval, currency risk and corruption. These economies, such as Argentina’s in 2002, can collapse; governments can fall or be overthrown. On the other hand, these regions have enormous growth potential. Adding a small sprinkling of emerging markets exposure to your portfolio could serve to lessen downturns in U.S. markets – but they are for long-term investors only, those who can wait for fallen markets to recover.
As always, of course, the biggest risks carry the greatest potential for outstanding rewards; you simply require nerves of steel. The best course is to diversify well and sleep soundly at night.
Offshore investing: spreading risk helps sleep
The world’s economies still dance to different tunes and have different boom and bust cycles that tend to offset each other, even though the differences are getting smaller. As a result, international stocks can provide diversification for a portfolio heavy in U.S. stocks.
Between June 1997 and October 1998, for example, Japan’s Nikkei index lost almost 40%, but European markets did well due to continental economic union. U.S.-style corporate restructurings also began to pay off. One region’s success balanced the other’s failure to get its financial house in order.
There has been less divergence between regions more recently. Even so, we suggest the prudent investor cannot afford to ignore overseas markets. They now represent some 44% of world market capitalization, up from 25% about 30 years ago. International stocks can provide solid diversification for a portfolio heavily invested in U.S. equities.
Exchange rates add an extra flavor to foreign investments. Fluctuations can add to or detract from profits or losses. Institutional investors and others pay significant attention to this factor. When the U.S. dollar was appreciating against the Japanese yen, billions of dollars flowed out of that country and into U.S. stocks and bonds, worsening the economic crisis in Japan. That money started to flow back out when the currency valuation began to reverse. Americans saw their investments in Japan appreciate then, even when the stocks remained in neutral.
Funds that invest overseas fall into four basic categories: world, international, emerging market and country specific. Diversification is the key to containing risk. And, yes, a good fund manager helps, too. Research is scarce and foreign companies, other than some in Canada, are difficult for individual investors to track on their own.
World funds are the most diverse of the four categories. They are, as the name suggests, able to invest anywhere in the world, including the U.S. As a result, they don’t offer as much diversification as a good international fund. Some have 60% or more of their holdings in the U.S.
World funds tend to be the safest foreign stock investments, but only because they typically lean on better-known U.S. stocks. Just examine the portfolio carefully to make sure they don’t mimic your U.S. holdings. Funds invested in small- to medium-sized companies are unlikely to duplicate the foreign investment component of domestic funds.
Foreign funds, on the other hand, invest mostly outside the U.S. Whether they are relatively safe or risky depends on the countries in which they invest.
Advice: choose a fund with the best balance between countries and regions, or be very sure the manager has a good record of moving in and out of regions profitably.
Country-specific funds invest in a single country or region. This type of concentration makes them particularly volatile – especially those that invest in emerging markets. If you pick the right country at the right time, the returns can be substantial. Get it wrong and look for your head to be handed to you on a plate. These funds are for the most sophisticate investors only.
Emerging-markets funds are the most volatile, invested as they are in undeveloped regions subject to political upheaval, currency risk and corruption. These economies, such as Argentina’s in 2002, can collapse; governments can fall or be overthrown. On the other hand, these regions have enormous growth potential. Adding a small sprinkling of emerging markets exposure to your portfolio could serve to lessen downturns in U.S. markets – but they are for long-term investors only, those who can wait for fallen markets to recover.
As always, of course, the biggest risks carry the greatest potential for outstanding rewards; you simply require nerves of steel. The best course is to diversify well and sleep soundly at night.
Earn On Offshore Web Design and Development
Earn On Offshore Web Design and Development
by: Julia Ramyalg
If you have some experience in web site design and want to make good money you can try acting as IT-outsourcing partner. Learn more what you should know and how to start.
Why offshore web design and development
Offshore web site design and development help to keep prices at least 3-5 times less, for example, average hourly rate of web development services in USA is $35-75; in UK - $25-50, in Ukraine - $5-20.
How it works?
Typical plan:
You find a client who needs a web site, ask his/her requirements for the project and send to your offshore partner company.
The partner makes a proposal and gives you the project estimation basing on his hourly rate, for example, $10.
You mark up the rate $10/hour as high as you wish (and can - taking into consideration competition in your region, level of demand for web design services, and other marketing factors), for example to $30/hour, and sends the proposal to the client. So if the web design project is estimated on 50 man-hours of work, you charge the customer $1500, from which $500 you pay to your offshore partner company, and $1000 is your profit.
The partner company works on the project and delivers it to you along with copyright for the work.
You deliver the site to the customer.
Result - you have a satisfied client and good profit from the marked up price.
How to start?
The first and most important step is to analyze market in your region and decide if it’s worth to start this business.
If you already have your own web design company it is easier for you because you already know situation in the market, gain certain reputation, have clients list, etc.
But don’t be afraid if you are new to web design business. Believe in yourself and work hard and finally you will be rewarded for all your efforts.
As in any type of business, starting the one in web design area, you must ask yourself general marketing questions:
Who will be your customers?
Why they will order the web design services exactly form you?
Where and how they will get to know about you?
Without having clear answers to these questions you shouldn’t try to start anything.
The second step is to find trustful and reliable partner – offshore web design company – that will work as “development center” for your business. This company must have good experience in web design and development area, good reputation, top level of customer care and communication. There are many resources in the Internet where you can find necessary information – search engines, web design directories, outsourcing portals.
For example, you can try searching in search engines for appropriate key phrases “offshore web design”, “offshore web site design”, “offshore web development” and analyze sites of your potential partners.
Also here are several sites where you can find lists of offshore web design companies sorted by country.
http://web-designers.bluegeckonetwork.com/
http://www.theoutsourceguide.com/
http://www.1234-find-web-designers.org/
How to choose the right offshore web design partner company?
There are 2 main factors that determine your choice – cost and quality of web design work.
Cost
Basing on the average web design prices in your local market and your competitive abilities you set prices that you will charge to your customers. There are several methods of web design price calculation, most used are flat price for fixed web site packages, and price based on man-hour rate. Most web design companies operate with both and choose one depending on each project type and requirements.
Then you decide which profit you want to have and narrow down your search choosing companies with appropriate price range.
Quality
Consider the company reputation, portfolio of previous works, testimonials of previous customers, level of communication. Pay attention to payment policy and method, conditions of ready projects delivery, warranties, post-development support and maintenance.
If all details are agreed you may start partnership. Sometimes the first project is quite simple to test abilities of both parties and if everything is going well the partnership will bring mutual benefits.
by: Julia Ramyalg
If you have some experience in web site design and want to make good money you can try acting as IT-outsourcing partner. Learn more what you should know and how to start.
Why offshore web design and development
Offshore web site design and development help to keep prices at least 3-5 times less, for example, average hourly rate of web development services in USA is $35-75; in UK - $25-50, in Ukraine - $5-20.
How it works?
Typical plan:
You find a client who needs a web site, ask his/her requirements for the project and send to your offshore partner company.
The partner makes a proposal and gives you the project estimation basing on his hourly rate, for example, $10.
You mark up the rate $10/hour as high as you wish (and can - taking into consideration competition in your region, level of demand for web design services, and other marketing factors), for example to $30/hour, and sends the proposal to the client. So if the web design project is estimated on 50 man-hours of work, you charge the customer $1500, from which $500 you pay to your offshore partner company, and $1000 is your profit.
The partner company works on the project and delivers it to you along with copyright for the work.
You deliver the site to the customer.
Result - you have a satisfied client and good profit from the marked up price.
How to start?
The first and most important step is to analyze market in your region and decide if it’s worth to start this business.
If you already have your own web design company it is easier for you because you already know situation in the market, gain certain reputation, have clients list, etc.
But don’t be afraid if you are new to web design business. Believe in yourself and work hard and finally you will be rewarded for all your efforts.
As in any type of business, starting the one in web design area, you must ask yourself general marketing questions:
Who will be your customers?
Why they will order the web design services exactly form you?
Where and how they will get to know about you?
Without having clear answers to these questions you shouldn’t try to start anything.
The second step is to find trustful and reliable partner – offshore web design company – that will work as “development center” for your business. This company must have good experience in web design and development area, good reputation, top level of customer care and communication. There are many resources in the Internet where you can find necessary information – search engines, web design directories, outsourcing portals.
For example, you can try searching in search engines for appropriate key phrases “offshore web design”, “offshore web site design”, “offshore web development” and analyze sites of your potential partners.
Also here are several sites where you can find lists of offshore web design companies sorted by country.
http://web-designers.bluegeckonetwork.com/
http://www.theoutsourceguide.com/
http://www.1234-find-web-designers.org/
How to choose the right offshore web design partner company?
There are 2 main factors that determine your choice – cost and quality of web design work.
Cost
Basing on the average web design prices in your local market and your competitive abilities you set prices that you will charge to your customers. There are several methods of web design price calculation, most used are flat price for fixed web site packages, and price based on man-hour rate. Most web design companies operate with both and choose one depending on each project type and requirements.
Then you decide which profit you want to have and narrow down your search choosing companies with appropriate price range.
Quality
Consider the company reputation, portfolio of previous works, testimonials of previous customers, level of communication. Pay attention to payment policy and method, conditions of ready projects delivery, warranties, post-development support and maintenance.
If all details are agreed you may start partnership. Sometimes the first project is quite simple to test abilities of both parties and if everything is going well the partnership will bring mutual benefits.
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