Network Solutions - Small business conversations and working together for small business success » Steve Fisher http://blog.networksolutions.com Small Business tips, interviews and conversations that provide advice and discussion about small business. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:00:14 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.2 en hourly 1 Solutions Out Loud is a podcast from the Solutions Are Power blog team at Network Solutions. It offers tips, interviews and conversations that provide advice and discussion about small business. Network Solutions no Network Solutions smedia@networksolutions.com smedia@networksolutions.com (Network Solutions) 2007-2009 Solutions Out Loud Small Business, Technology, News, Management, Marketing Network Solutions - Small business conversations and working together for small business success » Steve Fisher http://blog.networksolutions.com/wp-content/themes/NetworkSolutions/images/NetSol-Logo-Sm.jpg http://blog.networksolutions.com Interview with the Product Manager – Mike Hollen of nsMail http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/interview-with-the-product-manager-mike-hollen-of-nsmail/ http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/interview-with-the-product-manager-mike-hollen-of-nsmail/#comments Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:00:03 +0000 Steve Fisher http://blog.networksolutions.com/?p=13061 Recently I had the opportunity to sit down with Mike Hollen and talk about nsMail, what it is and the changes that came with the improved Network Solutions brand. We talked about all areas of hosted email and some great improvements and new products coming in the future. The video of the interview is below:

To see more videos, check out the series section below or check out the interviews in advance, you can see them on our Solutions Are Power YouTube channel.

]]> http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/interview-with-the-product-manager-mike-hollen-of-nsmail/feed/ 0 Interview with the Product Manager – Lynne Brehmer of nsWebAddress http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/interview-with-the-product-manager-lynne-brehmer-of-nswebaddress/ http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/interview-with-the-product-manager-lynne-brehmer-of-nswebaddress/#comments Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:00:06 +0000 Steve Fisher http://blog.networksolutions.com/?p=13072 Recently I had the opportunity to sit down with Lynne Brehmer and talk about nsWebAddress, what it is and the changes that came with the improved Network Solutions brand. We talked about the reasons for the name change and how it still means your domain name, but it encompasses so much more, especially for being more small business friendly. The video of the interview is below:

To see more videos, check out the series section below or check out the interviews in advance, you can see them on our Solutions Are Power YouTube channel.

]]> http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/interview-with-the-product-manager-lynne-brehmer-of-nswebaddress/feed/ 0 Interview with the Product Manager – Warren Smith of nsSpace and nsBusinessSpace http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/interview-with-the-product-manager-warren-smith-of-nsspace-and-nsbusinessspace/ http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/interview-with-the-product-manager-warren-smith-of-nsspace-and-nsbusinessspace/#comments Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:00:43 +0000 Steve Fisher http://blog.networksolutions.com/?p=12991 Recently I had the opportunity to sit down with Warren Smith, Director of Product Management, and talk about nsSpace & nsBusinessSpace, what it is and the changes that came with the improved Network Solutions brand. We talked about all areas of hosted storage, especially the differences between the nsSpace and nsBusinessSpace solutions that Network Solutions offers. We also covered their new Statement of Work Builder, which we think is really cool. The video of the interview is below:

To see more videos, check out the series section below or check out the interviews in advance, you can see them on our Solutions Are Power YouTube channel.

]]> http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/interview-with-the-product-manager-warren-smith-of-nsspace-and-nsbusinessspace/feed/ 0 Meet the Network Solutions Product Managers http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/new-video-series-interview-with-the-product-manager/ http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/new-video-series-interview-with-the-product-manager/#comments Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:00:25 +0000 Steve Fisher http://blog.networksolutions.com/?p=10451 Network Solutions Products Explained – NSSpace & BusinessSpace
Network Solutions Products Explained – NSMarketing
Network Solutions Products Explained – NSMail
Network Solutions Products Explained – NSWebAddress
Network Solutions Products Explained – NSHosting

Starting this week, we begin a new video series that we call “Interview with the Product Manager”. In this video series we will highlight Network Solutions Products and their respective product managers. We will talk about the re-branding and what changes have occurred regarding new features, product mixes and discuss what is coming in the future.

Our initial series will cover the following:

nsSpace & nsBusinessSpace – Warren Smith, Director of Product Management

Central Registry Solutions – David Morse, Senior Manager, Domain Product Team

nSMarketing – Matt Ho, Product Director

nsMail – Mike Hollen, Product Manager

nsWebAddress – Lynne Brehmer, Product Manager

nsHosting and VPS – Miguel Ramos, Product Manager

The series starts tomorrow but if you would like to check out the interviews in advance, you can see them on our Solutions Are Power YouTube channel.
]]> http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/new-video-series-interview-with-the-product-manager/feed/ 0 Trying to Understand Google Wave http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/trying-to-understand-google-wave/ http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/trying-to-understand-google-wave/#comments Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:00:25 +0000 Steve Fisher http://blog.networksolutions.com/?p=13782 Have you been one of the lucky ones to get an invite to Google Wave? Well if you didn’t and want to know more about it, I am here to share and guide to a great resource from Gina Trapani. Over on Web Worker Daily they cover Gina Trapani’s new e-book, the complete guide to Google Wave.

Web Worker Daily says “Tech writers Gina Trapani and Adam Pash have created an online e-book, “The Complete Guide to Google Wave,” which does an excellent job of explaining what Google Wave is and how it can be used. The book provides step-by-step instructions on how to get invited to the service, what to do when you get there, and how to make the most of it.”

From their web site, CompleteWaveGuide.com, they readily admit that it is a bit confusing to understand at first. “Google Wave is a new web-based collaboration tool that’s notoriously difficult to understand. This guide will help. Here you’ll learn how to use Google Wave to get things done with your group. Because Wave is such a new product that’s evolving quickly, this guidebook is a work in progress that will update in concert with Wave as it grows and changes. Read more about The Complete Guide to Google Wave.”

I am using Google Wave and I have to admit it is challenging at first but what I can say about the tool is it is like Twitter, IM and email had a baby. The real time collaboration and capture of the conversations or “Waves” make it a very interesting tool when working on a group email or a topic that needs the entire conversation captured.

The book on the web site is written in a clear, straightforward style, and is sprinkled with helpful and sometimes humorous quotes from Joss Whedon’s Firefly where on the show the communication method were called “Broadwaves” and people would say “Send me a Wave”. I am convinced that the whole Google Wave team are Browncoats (what fans of Firefly are called) and the error messages are very funny (do a google search on that one).

The Web Worker Daily site goes on to say “An electronic version of the book will be offered for sale beginning in November; it’s unclear whether the online version will continue to be available once the book comes out. So if you’re interested in Google Wave, this is an excellent time to learn more about it. But you may need some patience; the book’s web site has been very slow, as I suspect it’s getting more traffic than the authors expected.“

Check out the site and let us know what you think of Google Wave.

]]> http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/trying-to-understand-google-wave/feed/ 1 Smart Working: Leveraging the Emerging Trends of the Real Time Web http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/emerging-trends-of-real-time-web/ http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/emerging-trends-of-real-time-web/#comments Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:00:27 +0000 Steve Fisher http://blog.networksolutions.com/?p=13772 I was recently reading an article from Mashable about the trends of the Real Time Web and it got me thinking about how small business are going to be able to leverage these new trends and tools to stay competitive. Here are some trends I think will be coming for the real time web that might impact your small business:

Trend #1 – Advertising is shifting from Contextual Relevance to Temporal Relevance

I recently was chatting with a friend of mine who works with a large social networking company about online advertising and how we are going through a shift. For as long as web advertising has been around it has been about contextual relevance. What is written on the page drives the ad copy to increase the click through potential. This is how Google Adwords works and almost every web advertising system out there.

What is emerging is what he calls “temporal relevance” which is driven by advertising in a time sensitive manner. While this could be a spammers delight (see hashtag spamming on Twitter) it could be great to increase click throughs when the maximum amount of people are looking for something in a particular topic.

Trend #2: Google Wave is the New Era of Real Time Collaboration

I have been using Google Wave and the amazing real time collaboration available with this platform blows my mind. The potential for this tool is staggering. I always explain Google Wave is like Twitter, IM and email had a baby. Mashable talks about this topic as well:

“Real-time will play a major role in the future of online collaboration. We’ve seen all the hype around the new Google Wave platform, as well as the growth of Twitter and Twitter-like communications (such as Facebook status). On the business side, SAP’s Gravity, a prototype of real-time collaborative business process modeling within Google Wave, is a good example. But I see this as the tip of the iceberg.”

Trend #3: E-Commerce will transform to a shared and social experience

Similar to the trend of social commerce, imaging a shared shopping experience but take it a step further. What if you have prices change in real-time based on demand. This has been happening for years to a certain degree with the travel industry and its revenue management systems. But still, that was based on historical data and human modification of current trends. It is not truly real time. With real time data and real time e-commerce, Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving in the United States where everyone shops for Christmas) would never look the same. What about products that rely on a certain freshness or “cinderella packaging”. Mashable talk about it with this great example:

“For consumer facing applications, real-time pricing can be a competitive advantage for perishable goods. For example, the grocer with fresher fruit can theoretically charge or sell more by providing real-time freshness data. With the growth of smart energy grids, real-time pricing of solar energy and electric power provides tremendous cost-savings for consumers. Generally within e-commerce, real-time inventory information that is accessible through the web is valuable for both the consumer and company. What are the other areas of high impact? Travel? Off-season luxury goods? Event tickets? Let us know in the comments below.”

What else? Analytics? Job Contracting?

What else do you think will be impacted by this shift to the real time web? Leave us a comment and tell us your thoughts.

]]> http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/emerging-trends-of-real-time-web/feed/ 2 #140conf – Interview with Braxton Woodham of Tap11 http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/140conf-%e2%80%93-interview-with-braxton-woodham-of-tap11/ http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/140conf-%e2%80%93-interview-with-braxton-woodham-of-tap11/#comments Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:00:44 +0000 Steve Fisher http://blog.networksolutions.com/?p=14291 There were so many great people and companies at the 140 Conference in LA and one in particular that I found intriguing was Tap11 which is affectionately named after the famous Spinal Tap saying “Turn it up to 11″. The product is built around Twitter and helps small businesses understand their followers/audience to know when to tweet, what are they saying about your product and other brand awareness analytics. I sat down with him for a few minutes and shared some information about Tap11 and what is coming in the beta you can sign up for at Tap11. Here is the video of our quick interview:

]]> http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/140conf-%e2%80%93-interview-with-braxton-woodham-of-tap11/feed/ 0 #140conf – Interview with Dave Mathews of PeopleBrowsr http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/140conf-%e2%80%93-interview-with-dave-mathews-of-peoplebrowsr/ http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/140conf-%e2%80%93-interview-with-dave-mathews-of-peoplebrowsr/#comments Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:00:03 +0000 Steve Fisher http://blog.networksolutions.com/?p=14271 I have been using PeopleBrowsr since their beta and when I was at the 140Conf I was pleasantly surprised by two things: their upgraded platform and that Dave Mathews is involved in helping them become an even bigger success. I first met Dave at Gnomedex 2007 when he was working with this little company called Boxee and introduced it all to us on stage. It was a geek’s dream media machine. An open source set-top box system that could be put on almost any device. I was just waiting for Apple to buy them and make this their improved Apple TV platform. While that never happened, people have hacked their Apple TV to make it a reality.

Fast forward a year later and I signed up for this new product still in beta called PeopleBrowsr (spelling is correct here) and was intrigued by its approach to monitoring your life stream. I used it a little bit over the last year and when I was in LA last week for the 140 conference I saw that PeopleBrowsr was sponsoring and Dave was there with the PeopleBrowsr team to promote its new release and demo the product.

According to their site “PeopleBrowsr is a data mine and social search engine for real time conversations. We’ve built a set of applications sitting on the data mine to monitor your brand, identify your audience, analyze tweets sentiment, filter the buzz, manage feedback, share accounts, run campaigns, track keywords, build widgets and engage across multiple social networks simultaneously.”

I find it is great for personal brand and corporate brand monitoring but I will let Dave tell you himself. Here is the interview with him and the demo in the video below:

]]> http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/140conf-%e2%80%93-interview-with-dave-mathews-of-peoplebrowsr/feed/ 0 #140conf – Interview with John Yamasaki of Seesmic http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/140conf-%e2%80%93-interview-with-john-yamasaki-of-seesmic/ http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/140conf-%e2%80%93-interview-with-john-yamasaki-of-seesmic/#comments Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:00:18 +0000 Steve Fisher http://blog.networksolutions.com/?p=14352 I first met John Yamasaki, or as his friends call him, Yama, at the Gnomedex conference last August. He is an evangelist at Seesmic, maker of the Twitter console tool of the same name. He has an extremely high enthusiasm for the Seesmic platform as you would expect of any product evangelist. I caught up with John at the 140 Conference in Los Angeles last week and he shared some great information about the Seesmic product and gave a live demo of some really cool and new features. To see the interview and demo, check out the video below:

]]> http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/140conf-%e2%80%93-interview-with-john-yamasaki-of-seesmic/feed/ 0 Social Media Workshop for Small Business – Richmond, VA on 11/20 http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/social-media-workshop-for-small-business-richmond-va-on-1120/ http://blog.networksolutions.com/2009/social-media-workshop-for-small-business-richmond-va-on-1120/#comments Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:00:49 +0000 Steve Fisher http://blog.networksolutions.com/?p=14541 In today’s market where everything revolves around Google, how do you ensure that your prospective customers are finding YOU online among millions of other brands? The main reason why social media marketing is such a phenomena is its ability to transform an unknown name into a popular brand online. So how do you get started? What are some simple steps you could take to start leveraging the power of social media? Why should you care about Search Engine Optimization?

Find out answers to all of the above and more at the Social Media Workshop sponsored by Network Solutions in Richmond, VA. Key learning points from this half-day FREE workshop include:

  • Advantages of social media marketing over traditional tactics
  • How to start blogging with WordPress?
  • How to turn Twitter into a customer service tool?
  • How to increase your Google ranking with Search Engine Optimization tricks?

Speakers to include:

  • Doug Meacham Managing Consultant – Retail Delivery at IBM
  • Shashi Bellamkonda, Social Media Strategist, Network Solutions
  • Randall Windsor, Web Marketing Manager, Network Solutions
  • Priya Ramesh, Director, Social Media Strategy, CRT-tanaka

Event Details:

  • DATE: Friday, Nov 20th, 2009.
  • VENUE: CRT-tanaka, 101 W Commerce Rd, Richmond, VA 23224
  • TIME: 8:30AM – 12PM

Agenda:

  • 8:30AM – 9:30AM: Light breakfast and Networking
  • 9:30AM – 10:00AM: Intro to Social Media Best Practices (Doug Meacham)
  • 10:00AM – 11:00AM: Maximize Customer Satisfaction Via Blogs and Twitter
  • 11:00AM – 11:30AM: Importance of Search Engine Optimization
  • 11:30AM – 12:00PM: Q&A

Sign up today! Limited seating available. Don’t forget to bring you laptops to take your first steps in blogging. Attendees will learn how to use the Network Solutions WordPress Hosting package for free!

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