SMB

Today's consumer is smarter than yesterday's consumer, and with the technology available to make educated purchasing decisions efficiently and quickly, Web-savvy buyers are making the most of the tools they have at their disposal. Online reviews are permeating the Web in all shapes and sizes, from r...

Why sell somebody else's product line when you can do a better job offering your own? That was the question that ultimately pushed Jan Hichert, CEO of Astaro, and two other cofounders to develop their own Internet security solutions for a market they viewed as needy of attention -- the small- to med...

There's something both primal and communal about the beat of a drum, whether it's just one or 2,008 of them -- as the world experienced at Beijing's Opening Ceremony to kick off the Olympics -- which might be called the ultimate global social networking event. A drum's beat seems to capture people f...

eBay has instituted a fee schedule that allows sellers of fixed-price items to list a product for 30 days -- in many cases, multiple quantities of that product -- for just 35 cents. In the past, sellers had to pay up to $4 per item per week. As of mid-September, sellers able to maintain large invent...

Small business is under fire -- and increasingly, it is the small business' Web site strategy that is being relied upon to create an effective defense. What are the conditions facing Web site experts and multi-tasking entrepreneurs alike -- and what are the critical changes in the online e-commerce ...

Right now, the global business community at large is curious to discover the charm of Dubai and what it is about its business community that works so well. The outside world wants to know, who these people are, how they run their projects, and what they do exactly that is so grand and magical? While...

These days, when you hear about downloading music for free, it's usually bad news: a lawsuit from a label, a threat from an ISP, or a crackdown from the government. Now, though, a new startup is turning the tables and encouraging fans to grab all they want -- without paying a single dime. TrueAnthem...

A recent advertising campaign has eBay exhorting consumers to "Shop Victoriously," and, it's true, winning an online auction can be fun. My recent score -- vintage hand carders to process wool for spinning, won for a mere $15 -- was a hoot. I got solid tools for an obscure craft at less than one-thi...

The idea was simple: Build a large catalog of consumer items and make it accessible in a structured format, unlike what already exists in wide-open search engines like Google. Give users tools similar to what they get on financial Web sites. Give a unique online business experience to both the buyer...

If you told Rhett Frandsen 10 years ago he'd end up being a professional widget-maker, he probably would have called you crazy. "Back then, widgets were only something you read about in your economics book," Frandsen laughed. "Until Apple coined the phrase, everybody had sort of agreed upon the fact...

The world of online business communication has introduced two industry-changing elements for small business: more customers and more competitors. Circa 1999, you were ahead of the competition by simply having a Web site to preview your service or products. By 2004, Web transactions were the norm, an...

Small and medium-sized businesses are demanding the same level of quality and functionality for their IT Web infrastructure as larger enterprise IT organizations. Many SMB organizations are implementing their own application delivery optimization solutions; however, others prefer to outsource their...

The global business process outsourcing market continues to strengthen relative to the more mature IT outsourcing market and is forecast to reach $450 billion by 2012, according to a June report from BPO analyst firm NelsonHall. Within this massive outsourcing market exists a relatively small $500 m...

Today's savvy consumers want products from a business they can trust, learn from, relate to and "be friends" with. The two most popular social networking sites on the Internet -- MySpace and Facebook -- are potential springboards for friendly lead generation. These sites give online business owners ...

If you've ever wondered what goes on in the inner sanctum of a prospective employer or wondered how your salary compares with others in your field, a new Web site launched Tuesday could have the answer. The site, Glassdoor.com, allows current and recent former employees to anonymously report their s...