With the Google PR update supposedly planned for later this month, it’s important to make sure you have all of your bases covered come home run time. I’m not a big believer in directory based backlinks, but, nobody is going to tell you that a directory based backlink will necessarily be bad for your time. Sure it’s important to watch out for directories that are spammy and generally not very reputable with Google, but, for the most part having a directory backlink is not going to be the downfall of your website.

That being said, there are much better ways to build backlinks. Post on forums with a signature link to your site. Leave comments in high traffic blogs with your name linking to your website. The possibilities are endless.

In a recent story on Bloomberg.com, it was reported that less than one out of every five users of Google Checkout is happy with the payment service. That sounds about right. PayPal has been dominating the online payment processing and transacting markets ever since it was first introduced to the internet in the late 90’s. Google may be Google, but, contrary to the popular belief not everything that Google makes is gold. Google Checkout is a perfect example of this. The service, while simple in many ways, is just too different from the payment giant PayPal for consumers to be able to make the jump effectively. It’s not like switching from Mastercard to Visa.

Another service that Google tried to start up was “Froogle”. Froogle was in a nutshell a Half.com clone. When it comes to the saying “If you can’t beat em, join em” Google has a different approach. “If you can’t beat em, pour money down the drain and refuse to admit that what you are doing is not working.” I can’t say that that theory is wrong all the time though. After all, Google did manage to turn YouTube into the 4th most popular website on the internet overall. When Google bought YouTube everybody was saying it was the worst thing they could do, due to all of the legal trouble YouTube was in. That’s not even taking into account the fact that YouTube was operating at a major loss at the time. Either way, as the #4 visited site on the internet, I doubt you will find many people with legitimate reasons to bash the YouTube business plan.

Jelsoft, the company behind the hugely successful forum software vBulletin has just been acquired by Internet Brands Inc. Internet Brands is a leading provider of automotive, travel and home related sites and communities according to vBulletin’s press release. The fact that they have nothing to do with the software industry raises some red flags for me and most likely others. I’m not sure what to think of this right off the bat. Jelsoft claims that business will continue as usual and that the fact that they are now part of a bigger organization means that things will function more smoothly than before. Apparently things will be better than ever now.

I sure hope so. vBulletin is by far the very best forum software on the market. With hundreds of thousands of web based communities using vBulletin it seems odd that a company that essentially runs forums would buy them out. As long as vBulletin continues to be made available to webmasters then I don’t think I have a problem with the acquisition.

Looking at the bright side though, Jelsoft will not have a much higher budget, products and new versions should roll out much faster than before, and in the end even if the company doesn’t improve at all they are still the #1 forum software provider on the internet. I would like to think that the only place to go from here is up. Let’s all keep our fingers crossed.

Source: vbulletin.com

There are a few types of new clients you will come across in business. Rerrals and cold leads are two important groups to take into consideration. Referrals can also be described as “warm leads” because by default you have more of a connection with them than with a total stranger. After all, somebody did send them your way. This means that these people will most likely order your product or services with a little bit of convincing, if that.

On the other hand, cold leads are more of a pickle to work with. They probably contacted you out of the blue, and you are now put into the salesman role. It’s up to you to close the deal. Often times this means you will want to lower your price to get the sale. In my experience this has always been something I have regretted later. I would rather not have the extra work than lower my standards, pricing, etc, and effectively showing clients that my prices are up for negotiation. I’ve learned this the hard way, but luckily I’ve learned it quickly. When offering new clients your prices, let them know that these are the prices. If you want to have a garage sale and negotiate nickles and dimes that is up to you, but in the end you will come across as more professional if your rates are as you state them.

Trivia games worldwide will need to be reprinting one of their cards soon. “Who is the richest man in the world?” For 13 years the answer has always been “Bill Gates“. Well, 13 is definitely not Mr. Gates’ lucky number. Today that answer changes. Carlos Slim, owner of Mexico based America Movil has just knocked Gates to #2.

America Movil enjoyed a 27% increase in stock price during Q2 2007, which pushed Slim to the #1 richest man in the world with a net worth of approximately $67.8 billion dollars. Gates is now sitting (still quite comfortably) with $59.2 billion in worth. He has been giving a lot of money to charity over the past several years so it would be interesting to see how much money he would have if he would have kept it all. I’m sure we don’t have to say an extra prayer for Bill and Melinda Gates. It’s unlikely that any of us will be greeted by Bill Gates when we go shopping at Walmart next…

This also means that my frequently blogged about Warren Buffet is now sitting on the bronze podiu with a whopping $52 billion. Forbes predicted that Slim could possibly pass Gates earlier this year. It turns out they were right. Any way you slice it, none of these guys should worry about where there next meal is coming from.

Source: SeattlePI.com

The iPhone launch on Friday didn’t go quite as well as Apple had hoped. Several users had trouble activating their phones including a handful of users who were not able to transfer their phone numbers when activating their iPhone. It seems that the iPhone hype may have been short lived. The device costs just over $600 with tax (for the 8GB version). You would think that for $600 Apple could have worked out a few more of these bugs before taking the iPhone to consumers.

Regardless, the phone has been under a great deal of scrutiny for several months now. Many people doubt it’s additional functions will be worth the additional pricetag required. Launch errors aren’t anything new though. With a little work Apple should be able to sort out the inconsistancies and activation bugs. After that is taken care of, it will be easier to decide if the iPhone is really worth the praise it has been given by the press.

Would you pay $650,100 for a buffet lunch? How about a “Buffett” lunch? Mohnish Pabrai, an investor from California won the bidding for the annual charity lunch with investing legend Warren Buffett. The $650,100 will be donated to charity. As for what’s for lunch I’m not sure, but, hopefully Mr. Buffett is a slow eater. I’m sure Pabrai won’t mind if the lunch takes some time.

I’ve been following this annual lunch for a few years. Last year’s lunch sold for $620,100 and was the highest lunch sold to date. Obviously this year raises the bar a bit. Maybe there will be a few extra courses this time around.

100% of the winning bid will be donated to the charity Glide.

Source: CNN

I have nothing against college, and I think it’s definitely a good experience, let alone a good way to get into your choice career, however, there are a few industries that I don’t think are worth going to college for. Lately it seems that a lot of the technical jobs that are available can and ARE being done just as efficiently by overseas workers. The fact of the matter is companies are starting to go where they can get the best deal. Why pay somebody in the US when in many cases you can find somebody to do the work much cheaper overseas? Personally I see both sides of this. Sure it’s nice to save some money, but, my question is why aren’t people being made more aware of the limited job market here in the US for certain technical jobs?

Colleges are passing out degrees for all sorts of technical jobs but unfortunately not all of these people are able to find jobs in their field. It’s sad that even though some people go through years of college, the jobs aren’t here in the US anymore by the time they graduate. And with so many people flooding the tech market here, jobs here have been able to hire people for much less than they could a few years ago. Entry level tech jobs are a dime a dozen, and it’s not exactly easy to even get one of those. Everybody wants to get their foot in the door somehow. Entry level jobs don’t pay much, but, people are taking them regardless.

I don’t think there is a way to stop the movement of tech jobs to overseas markets. Luckily there are some jobs that are best handled on-site. I think server admin and on-site technicians and networking engineers don’t have anything to look out for. Many companies prefer the benefits of an on-site technician who can take care of any situation immediately over saving money and using remote administration software.

You can now make money with more than just AdSense signups and Google Toolbar/Firefox downloads. With Google Referrals 2.0 you now have access to a huge selection of products and services that you can promote and earn extra money with CPA payouts.

I’ve checked out some of  the offers so far and it looks like there will be a very nice selection of ongoing products and offers in pretty much any category. All you need to do is create custom buttons for each offer and place them on your site in the same way you would a normal AdSense javascript code. Yet ANOTHER reason Google continues to be the #1 provider of relevant text based advertising.

Who wins with a design contest? Sites such as SitePoint, DigitalPoint, NamePros, DNF, etc all seem to be full of people who enjoy holding “design contests”. A design contest is when somebody posts a description or idea of a logo or graphic of some sort and then states a price they are willing to pay to whoever comes up with the best design. Hence the term contest. I’m not a fan of these at all. I wouldn’t host one, nor would I generally participate in one. Here’s why:

9 times out of 10 the “prize” amount is around $20-40. Many times I see people looking to get by with just $10 out of pocket. Somehow hundreds if not thousands of web designers pour into such threads on these forums day after day scrambling to come up with the best design. I’ve visited these threads often to see what types of graphics people come up with. I am usually shocked to see that in many cases what I consider the best looking graphic is not always the winner.