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Top 5 Web Mistakes Small Businesses Make

By Lauren Hobson in Featured

Today, most consumers check out a company’s web site first – way before they consider making a purchase or contacting a business for more information. It’s often the first encounter they have with the company, and can result in visitors making snap judgments about the company and whether it’s credible or desirable to do business with. These types of judgments are based solely on their impression of – and experience on – the company’s web site.

Ecommerce Websites – 3 Tips To Avoid Liability For Actions of Your Online Resellers

By Chip Cooper in Featured

Recent case law confirms once again: if online agreements are presented properly to end-users, they’re legally enforceable.

This continuing trend is good news for websites that contract with registered users though SaaS Agreements, Membership Agreements, Subscription Agreements, Terms of Sale, Content License Agreements, and the like.

Why? Among other things, this means that important legal disclaimers and limitations of liability are legally enforceable.

But what about liability exposure arising out of customer contracts entered into by your resellers? Are you liable for actions of your resellers?

The Direct Revenue Case

In the case of People v. Direct Revenue, the New York Attorney General in 2008 attempted to nail Direct Revenue for its distribution of software that served pop-up advertising software on consumers’ computers.

Direct Revenue is in the advertising business. It’s software client serves pop-up advertisements to consumer’s computer screens through the Internet. Direct Revenue does not charge fees to consumers. Instead, it charges fees to the companies whose products it advertises.

It’s interesting to note that one line of attack by the New York Attorney General focused on Direct Revenue’s “click-wrapped” (where the user clicks on “I ACCEPT”) end user license agreement (EULA) and Direct Revenue’s alleged deceptive and illegal practices. The court granted Direct Revenue’s motion to dismiss the claims noting that sufficient disclosure was given in the EULA, and the required elements for an enforceable agreement were followed.

Having failed with its first line of attack, New York’s additional line of attack focused on the customer agreements of Direct Revenue’s resellers in an attempt to hold Direct Revenue liable. The result was the same as with the EULA — Direct Revenue was held not liable.

New York conceded that Direct Revenue’s resellers were independent contractors rather than agents. Generally, a principal is not liable for acts of an independent contractor due to the lack of control over how the contractor’s work is performed. In addition, the court noted that Direct Revenue’s software distribution agreement required its distributors to obtain consent of consumers consistent with the EULA and prohibited distributors from holding themselves out as agents of Direct Revenue.

New York argued that Direct Revenue should be liable because it’s servers interacted with the consumers’ computers in the software installation process. The court pointed out that participation in installation was not enough for liability in the absence of participation in deceptive conduct that induced the installation.

Finally, New York argued that Direct Revenue should be held liable for the actions of its resellers on the ground that Direct Revenue ratified the conduct of its resellers. The court ruled that mere knowledge of consumer complaints was insufficient to impose liability on Direct Revenue, especially in light of the fact that when Direct Revenue had actual knowledge of a reseller misconduct, it took steps to remedy the problem.

3 Tips To Avoid Liability For Actions of Resellers

Potential liability for acts of online resellers is a major concern of ecommerce businesses which use reseller networks.

The Direct Revenue case teaches us that ecommerce sites may not be held liable for actions of their resellers if these 3 tips are followed:

1. if you transfer anything to a user’s computer, require your resellers to obtain consent of end-users consistent with your EULA – this means consent in clear and easy-to-understand (not deceptive) terms,
2. prohibit your resellers from holding themselves out as your agents, and
3. if a reseller does engage in misconduct, take affirmative steps to deal with the situation, including termination, if warranted (particularly if the reseller’s actions tend to indicate an agency relationship).

These 3 tips won’t guarantee that you have no exposure, but they’ll go a long way to protecting you from liability for actions of your resellers.

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Chip Cooper is a leading intellectual property, software, and Internet attorney who’s advised software and online businesses nationwide for 25+ years. Visit Chip’s http://www.digicontracts.com site and download his FREE newsletter and Special Reports: “Determine Which Legal Documents Your Website Really Needs”, “Draft Your Own Privacy Policy”, and “Write Your Own Website Marketing Copy — Legally”.

5 Secrets to Moving the Free Line With Your Client-Capturing Device

By Donna Gunter in Featured

Once upon a time, in the dark ages of Internet marketing (only about 10 years ago in Internet years), all an online business owner had to do was stick an email opt-in form on her site and request visitors to join her list. Simple, wasn’t it?

Then, the legion of spammers began to grow and started to make marketing by email more difficult. So, then to encourage someone to opt into your list, you had to give something away, typically a very short assessment, checklist or special report.

As more and more online business owners implemented this strategy, website visitors started to become more skeptical. The giveaway then had to be more substantial, like a free ebook or transcript or recording, to get a visitor to part with his contact information.

And, today, the free bar is raised yet again. Ongoing difficulties with spammers and email marketing has caused online business owners to almost give away the store, it seems at times, to interest visitors in parting with their name and email address. If you’ve been in business awhile, you probably have some valuable content that you can easily add to enhance your giveaway. If you’re newer in business, the first pieces of content you create should be used as your free giveway rather than creating them in hopes of selling them. Remember, your primary call to action on your website or blog should always be to grow your list and a great giveaway does just that.

How can you be more competitive in a landscape full of marketers with free client-capturing devices? Here are 5 secrets to moving the free line with your website giveaway:

1. Content Rich. If your giveaway isn’t chock full of useful content that helps solve some immediate problems of your target market, you shouldn’t waste your time. Sure, your client-capturing device needs to have info in it about you and your products/services and an upsell to purchase from you. However, if your giveaway is nothing but an extended infomercial about how wonderful you are and why the reader should buy from you, you won’t create a trustworthy relationship with your reader. Visitors conduct Internet searches because they’re seeking free info to help them solve their problems. If they get valuable and credible content from you that they can immediately begin to use, they are much more likely to pay attention to what else you have to say and begin to like and trust you, which, of course, leads to their eventual purchase from you.
2. Multiple Offerings. A lone ebook, recording, or checklist is no longer enough. Now, multiple offerings in your free giveaway are necessary to lure the visitors onto your list. Creating some type of kit or package that includes three or so items, like a free ebook or report, an audio file, a video, etc. all focused on a similar topic is now what is required as an effective client-capturing device. Your graphical representation of this giveaway needs to reflect that you are offering multiple items in the giveaway, as well.
3. Monetary Value. Because you’re including valuable content in your giveaway, you need to determine the monetary value of this content. Determine a reasonable price in line with your other offerings, and don’t do what so many other marketers do by creating ridiculously inflated prices for their free information. Place a value on each piece of info that you provide in your client-capturing device, and then a total price on the entire giveaway.
4. Sales Page Required. Just like a fee-based product, the free giveaway also now needs its on sales page to let the visitor know why the giveaway is useful and wonderful and how their lives will change (or problems will be solved) by requesting the giveaway. I don’t think it has to follow the long sales letter format (the one that seems to go on forever and ever) but follows a shorter, more succinct sales page that clearly outlines the benefits and features of your offering to the visitor.
5. Audio and Video Help. Almost everyone to whom I’ve spoken agrees that their opt-in rates have increased when they add audio to the giveaway sales page, and have skyrocketed when video is added. Typically all the audio or video does is welcome the visitor to the page, run through why the visitor would want to get the giveaway, and then walk the visitor through the process of requesting the information. The audio and video component is simply a smart marketing strategy because it lets the visitor know that they’re dealing with a real, live, human being and if they can now see you in video, it hastens their feeling of connection to you.

Email marketing continues to be a viable marketing strategy. However, in order to convince savvy Internet searchers that they should do business with you, you need to up the ante and create more offerings and greater content in your website giveaway. Follow these 5 secrets to enhance your offerings and watch your list grow!

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Internet Marketing Strategist & Boomer Biz Coach Donna Gunter helps baby boomers create profitable online retirement businesses that they love by demystifying the tools & strategies needed to market and grow their businesses online. To claim your FR*EE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at OnlineBizU.com. Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at AskDonnaGunter.com

Is Affiliate Marketing Right For You?

By Titus Hoskins in Featured

Thousands, if not millions, of online webmasters and marketers are turning to affiliate marketing to earn extra money from the web. Affiliate marketing offers the perfect way for the ordinary person to cash in on the billions of sales made online each year. But is Affiliate Marketing right for you?

Is it something that you should investigate and pursue further if you truly want to monetize your site or content? As a way of an answer and to get you thinking about affiliate marketing; I would like to offer some of my own experiences as a full-time online affiliate marketer. I would also like to give you some marketing tips and a few pit-falls you should try to avoid.

Webstock 09 – Tom Coates of Yahoo

By Kalena Jordan in Featured

Live blogging Instrumenting Your Life presentation at Webstock 09 by Tom Coates of the Yahoo Developer Network and Plasticbag.org.

Yahoo has developed FireEagle. It gives people control over their location data to use across various social networks. It’s location-based data to help people discover cool stuff near their locations.

Data is driving the creation of new products, not technology. We’ve never had this situation in previous history where so much data is being scraped, gathered, developed, twisted, reworked, collated, produced and republished for people to use. There is no greater potential source of data than people. But how do we give people access to this data? How do we help people understand the data? Unique challenges are involved. All is predicated on a new contract with users.

People instrument their lives in certain categories of data:

1) Direct reporting

E.g. Flickr, del.icio.us, Dopplr, LastFM

This is real life instrumentation.

2) Attention Data

E.g. Amazon, your search history, iTunes

3) Bureaucratic Sources

E.g. Mint.com – money management tool to help you budget. Also Skydeck manages your phone bills and suggests better phone plans etc. A bureaupersonal example is Google Health.

4) Personal sensors

E.g. 23andMe – you take a swab of your saliva and send it to them and they will give you clinical reports of your potential health risks etc. Nike + iPod is a real time jogging tracking app. Also GoWearfit.com – gives you an idea of how healthy you are based on your activitie and personal stats. The Intelligent Toilet measures your urinary health!! The Satellite shoe. It has a GPS in it and can help the uber-rich who have to worry about being kidnapped.

5) Sensors in your environment

The Wattson measures the environment in your house – temperature, light, etc. Could work with Google Power Meter.

6) Possessions that report to the network

It’s all about invisible wires between things e.g. gadgets that talk to each other. Like Botanicalls plants that let you know they need watering (on Twitter @botanicalls). Motion detectors, alarm systems, remote controls for e.g. the Andy House (on Twitter @andy_house which is a house that twitters it’s owner).

Data is meant to be shared.  Data is often captured, but rarely shared. Should be captured, reviewed and recombined. That’s what FireEagle is attempting to do in terms of geodata.  Pachube.com is trying to do this – attempting to capture all kinds of data streams from around the world and mapping it for collective use.

Too much data? Use a social lens to make sense of it. E.g. TweetDeck to tone down the noise on Twitter.  All apps that are really big right now are datasets that are hybridized with the rest of world e.g. Flickr, Facebook, Bebo, Twitter etc. Use location lenses to turn data into cool, exciting apps.

The possibilities of real time are exciting. FireEagle has an XMPP API to explore this. Twitter used to do this . There are all kinds of things to think about. What kind of products could be done or made with this data?

Think of privacy as a competitive advantage with such apps. There’s a big difference between Anxiety vs. Reality.  It’s your job to fix both. E.g. some people feel anxious sharing their location data on FireEagle. But this doesn’t make sense as it’s all available via phone books anyway.

Big difference between Personal vs. Private.  This decision belongs to users, it’s not up to you. Using simple, clear language with your users is more important than anything. In general terms, everything is predicated on a new contract with users.

This is the beginning of a golden age of privacy. Privacy shouldn’t be scary to tackle. It should be thought of as an inspiration for new exciting apps. It’s your responsibility to tackle the challenge.

Google Is Now Following You On Twitter

By Titus-Hoskins in Featured

Google Is Now Following You On Twitter

Imagine getting that message in your email box. What kind
of reaction would you have?

Would you sing for joy or hit the Twitter Block button
faster than Tom Cruise can jump upon a couch?

Well, for a very select few people, that email from Twitter
arrived this week… Google has opened a Twitter account and
made its first entry on “8:34 PM Feb 25th from web”.

“I’m 01100110 01100101 01100101 01101100 01101001 01101110
01100111 00100000 01101100 01110101 01100011 01101011
01111001 00001010″

Roughly translated means “I’m Feeling Lucky.”

And Google already has 35,000 followers – bet that number
will reach a million soon.

You can follow Google on Twitter Here:

http://twitter.com/google

Who’s Google following you’re asking? Mostly Googlers and
big-wigs… Biz Stone and Evan Williams – founders of Twitter.
Search engine experts… keep watching that inbox, you never
know, Google could have you in its cross-hairs!

© Copyright 2012 All rights reserved. Jayde Online, Inc.

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