Home | TrendTracker | PowerBlog Reviews | The Experts | Newsletter
ABOUT
SMALL BUSINESS TRENDS brings you daily updates on trends that influence the global small business market.
Anita Campbell, Editor
Past life: CEO, corporate executive, tech entrepreneur, retailer, general counsel, marketer, HR ... (more)
email me
free business magazines
FREE BUSINESS MAGAZINES
Trade publications FREE to qualified professionals. No hidden offers and no purchase necessary.
On Wall Street
The Deal
Computing Canada
 CIO
Employee Benefit
Oracle Magazine
100+ additional titles. Click to browse.
ARCHIVES & SEARCH
Previous Small Business Trends articles can be found at the links below:
October 2003
November 2003
December 2003
January 2004
February 2004
March 2004
April 2004
May 2004
June 2004
July 2004
August 2004
September 2004
October 2004
November 2004
December 2004
January 2005
February 2005
March 2005
April 2005
May 2005
June 2005
July 2005
August 2005
September 2005
October 2005
November 2005
Or, use the search box below to find a
specific post:


NEWSLETTER
Sign up for our FREE Small Business Trends newsletter. (View Current)

We publish regularly and promise we won't share your email address with anyone. (Privacy Policy)
SMALL BIZ INFO & RESOURCES
BLOGS TO READ DAILY*
* Don’t have time to read several dozen blogs a day? Pick two or three. Your brain will thank you for it.
ONLINE COMMUNITIES
BLOG DIRECTORIES
THE BUZZ

SPECIAL RESOURCES
Small Business Trends Radio
Tuesdays, 1:00 PM Eastern U.S. time
on Voice America network
Click to listen

November 1st: Torsten Jacobi, CEO of Creative Weblogging, joins host Anita Campbell. Sponsored by Six Disciplines. Show details.
Friday, January 30, 2004
RFID for the Little Guys
This week Microsoft announced that it intends to become a player in RFID. Part of those plans include providing RFID-enabled software for midsize companies to manage their supply chains.

RFID stands for "radio frequency identification." It involves placing a chip on items, then transmitting radio frequency signals to track the items and provide information about them. Distributors, warehousers, retailers and transportation companies have jumped on board, implementing RFID at an increasing pace.

Large organizations are leading the way with RFID -- organizations like Wal-Mart, Metro Group, Proctor & Gamble, and the U.S. Department of Defense. That's because RFID is expensive to implement. Larger organizations have the most to gain through automating their supply chains and can therefore justify the expense and effort.

Microsoft aims to bring the power of RFID technology down to tier three and tier four companies. Part of its plan is to RFID-enable the enterprise business applications it owns through its acquisitions of Great Plains and Navision. RFID Journal has a detailed discussion of Microsoft's RFID strategy here.


Look for it to be years -- not months -- before small businesses adopt RFID. It will take standardization of RFID technology, reduced prices, and off-the-shelf implementation ease before small businesses can afford it and justify it. But midsize businesses will need to invest in RFID sooner if they want to stay competitive.



By Anita Campbell | Permalink | |
Thursday, January 29, 2004
TV Ad Effectiveness & Viewers Fall
Major TV networks are losing viewers, and they're in a panic about it. NBC plans to rollout the new shows this year following its coverage of the Summer Olympics instead of waiting for the traditional autumnal kickoff. Jeff Zucker, president of NBC Entertainment, News, and Cable said recently that he is also looking at a 52-week schedule in the future.

Such a move if adopted by the rest of the industry would lessen the importance of sweeps -- the concentrated time period that has determined advertising rates for local TV. Further change will come with Nielsen's new people-meter service, scheduled to roll out in Boston later this year and then move into other major markets. It could well be the death knell for sweeps. If so, local TV advertising rates will correlate more accurately with the number of viewers.

The increasingly fragmented TV viewing audience is spread thin by an abundance of cable and satellite offerings. The Internet has taken ownership of a large chunk of what previously had been viewing time as growing broadband access makes Web surfing easier and more responsive.

An example of the problems facing TV advertising revenues can be found in Cap Gemini Ernst & Young's research on agents of influence in the car-buying process. Car advertising is TVs largest category, but only 17% of US consumers said TV advertising influenced their decisions. On the other hand 26% cited ads on Internet search engines, and 48% pointed to direct mail from a dealer. The largest influencer was word-of-mouth at 71%.

When advertising agency heads and other such gurus start touting TV's value because it shows pictures of the cars or talk about it as a "thought-starter" watch out. Such statements are apologies for a medium that isn't delivering numbers or results equal to its cost. Look for network and local TV advertising rates to drop as the number of viewers continues to decline and more accurate audience measurement tells the truth. Companies trying to reach business owners and other purchasing decision-makers, should be better able to bargain for lower TV ad rates. But the real payoff will be for those who find more directed media early.

By Dave Patterson | Permalink | |
Wireless LAN Primer for Small Business
As a companion to our previous post on Wireless LAN trends, we also offer this link to Wireless Local Area Networks for Small Businesses: A Primer.

For many small businesses, wireless computer networks can be extremely confusing. With terms like "WiFi" and "802.11g" bandied about, a small business owner can find it a challenge to sort it all out.

The Primer takes this complicated, jargon-filled subject and makes it easy to understand for small businesses contemplating a wireless network. It explains wireless LANs in everyday language.

Acknowledgement goes to the authors, Paramjit Kahai, Assistant Professor at the University of Akron, and Simran Kahai, Assistant Professor at John Carroll University, who are our guest writers. With wireless networks being a sizzling hot topic in the small business market today, we thank them for making the Primer available to Small Business Trends readers.


This is the first in a series of articles the Kahai's will be publishing. This first article starts by simply explaining the basics in a readable fashion. Subsequent articles will address advantages of wireless LANs for small businesses, and how security vulnerabilities have been overcome.


By Anita Campbell | Permalink | |
Wednesday, January 28, 2004
SMB Wireless LAN Spending Soars
Small business in the United States spent 50% more during 2003 on wireless LAN solutions, compared to 2002. Total expenditures in 2003 were $.53 Billion (USD). That's according to a study by AMI Partners, a market research firm focusing on the small and medium business market in the IT and telecommunications industries.

A key driver of this growth is that small businesses want to implement solutions to enhance the scalability of their networks, and keep pace with emerging technologies. In particular, small businesses are using wireless LANs to enhance and extend the functionality of their regular office LANs. Falling equipment prices have also helped drive wireless LAN adoption.


This dramatic increase in wireless LAN expenditures by small businesses came even as the weak economy took its toll, with 25% of small businesses reporting declining revenues last year. Small businesses are very optimistic for 2004, though, with 74% expecting increased revenues this year. That sense of optimism will keep wireless network implementations a hot trend among small businesses in 2004.



By Anita Campbell | Permalink | |
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
BitPass Micropayments User Survey
This post is a slight departure from our usual format here at Small Business Trends. I’m taking a few moments to describe our experience using the BitPass micropayments system.

From time to time we post photographs on this site to relieve some of the visual monotony that comes from having so many words on a page. Most of the images come from istockphoto.com. They were purchased using a BitPass micropayments account.

Our survey sample is admittedly tiny -- one person, me. But I can report that using BitPass on 8 or 10 different occasions, the experience has been uniformly positive each time.
  • BitPass is a Web-based system, so all I need is a browser -- no software to download. The BitPass user interface is streamlined. Screens don't get much simpler to use.


  • Setting up my account initially was quick and easy. Just the bare minimum of information is requested. I was not required to provide age, gender, household income, hobbies, mother's maiden name, or even number of pets.


  • The way micropayments work is that you purchase credits for your account (similar to buying a gift card). That process was very easy, too. I was given several ways to pay, including PayPal and credit cards such as Visa and Mastercard. I chose PayPal, and the interfaces with the PayPal system worked without a glitch. My initial $3 (USD) was transferred from my bank account to my BitPass account instantly.


  • Once I had a few dollars in my account, I went shopping. Off to istockphoto.com, where I downloaded photographs for $1(USD) each. Here again, using BitPass was fast and easy.
As a user, I saw only two issues: First, photographs are twice as expensive using BitPass versus istockphoto.com's own in-house version of micropayments ($1 versus $.50). Somehow BitPass is going to have to close that price gap. Second, outside of stock photographs, today there is very little content I would want to purchase using micropayments. Until there are more vendors offering desirable content who accept BitPass, usage will be limited.


All signs suggest the market might be ready for micropayments to take off. The last time around, before the Internet bubble burst, micropayments never got much traction. Most of the original micropayments providers went under. But we are now in a different era, with paid Internet content gaining greater acceptance and music download services going mainstream and creating demand for micropayments.

That said, a major issue looming on the horizon for BitPass and other micropayments providers is competition from PayPal. A representative of PayPal has said "we think the stars are coming into alignment" on micropayments. PayPal recently kicked off its own micropayments rate. Backed by its parent, eBay, a cash-rich and well-run powerhouse of a company, PayPal could be a formidable competitor.


By Anita Campbell | Permalink | |
Monday, January 26, 2004
New Zealand Looks to California



Auckland, New Zealand


New Zealand, one of the world's most entrepreneurial countries, is creating business connections within the State of California.

Among the initiatives:

  • Today Air New Zealand inaugurated new direct service between Auckland and San Francisco. According to the New Zealand Consul General, Darryl Dunn, it will mean an expansion in trade and business between the United States and New Zealand.


  • Last week New Zealand launched a "beachhead" for information and communications technology (ICT) companies in Redwood Shores, California. The beachhead will provide an office base for New Zealand companies looking to participate in the ICT sector in San Francisco and Silicon Valley.


  • Partnerships between New Zealand and the California film industry have produced recent box-office successes like The Lord of the Rings trilogy.


    • Though small in population (4 million), New Zealand is a world leader for entrepreneurial innovation according to the Kauffman Foundation's Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. New Zealand has particular strengths in information technology, biotechnology and advanced manufacturing (e.g., superyachts).


    One of the reasons New Zealand gave for these moves is its recognition that the United States -- California specifically -- leads the world in the information technology, communications technology, and movie industries. Another reason, no doubt, is that the United States is a major source of investment capital in all three industries. Indeed, 80% of venture funding worldwide happens in the United States, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor.



    By Anita Campbell | Permalink | |
    Sunday, January 25, 2004
    New SBA Status for IT Resellers and Testing Labs
    The U. S. Small Business Administration announced two new rule changes which will help more U.S. small businesses in the information technology and testing lab industries qualify for Federal contracts and SBA loans. The changes become effective January 28, 2004.

  • IT Value Added Resellers: The SBA created a new classification just for IT Value Added Resellers. Under their own category, Resellers now can have up to 150 employees and still be considered a "small business." The SBA says the change will allow smaller IT firms to better compete for Federal contracts. It will also result in some 1,700 small firms being eligible for SBA loans.


  • Testing Laboratories: Testing laboratories can now have up to $10 Million in average annual receipts and still qualify as a "small business," up from $6 Million previously. The testing lab rule change came as a result of requests from testing laboratories to review the size standard because of upgraded capacities and skills that federal agencies have recently required of laboratories. The SBA estimates that 120 additional firms in this industry will obtain small business status.



    • The current changes affect only IT Resellers and Testing Labs. Each industry group is subject to separate size standards. For more on size standards, click here. Hat tip to Chris Seper at Cleveland.com Chatroom Live for alerting me to this change.



    By Anita Campbell | Permalink | |