Small Business Labs

New Online Marketplaces Target Small Businesses

While a lot of folks seem unhappy with eBay these days, online global marketplaces targeting small business continue to grow in popularity.  Several new ones have recently been announced:

1.  crowdSPRING is a new online marketplace connecting buyers and sellers of design and graphic arts services.  From their website:

"Now small businesses, one-man shops and individuals anywhere can tap into a global pool of creatives."

2.  IBM has announced the Blue Business Platform.  From their website:

"...the Blue Business Platform is a marketplace where IBM partners and software developers can market and sell their solutions online to small and mid-size companies across the globe."

The globalization of small business is a trend that continues to gain momentum. 

Pearse Street Design - Myspace Design Specialists

Pearse Street Design is a specialty agency focused on helping companies with their social network design efforts.  They have a particular focus on Myspace designs.  Key quote from their website:

"Since 2005, Pearse Street has completed more than 100 professionally designed, custom MySpace designs."

I know nothing of the firm - I ran across them due to a comment posted on this blog.  But looking at their site I was struck by the growing importance of a Myspace presence for many businesses.  Also interesting is the emergence of companies focused on the design and development of social network web presence. 

They have a blog showing examples of their design work. 

eBay Sellers Express Their Unhappiness

eBay Live was last week and eBay sellers used the event to express their discontent - even to the extent of booing eBay executives.  This is quite a shift from just a few years ago when eBay execs were were treated like heroes.  Attendance was also way down from prior years, in part due to a boycott by eBay sellers. 

There are many reasons why eBay sellers are upset, with a big one being changes in eBay's reputation system.  For more on this topic see Kevin's Harmon's StartupNation blog post on this topic, which includes entertaining YouTubes of angry participants.  The UK's Online Times also has a good summary called eBay's Small Sellers Rebel.

It is a tough time for eBay.  Search engines have made it much easier to find good deals online and consumers prefer the simplicity and ease of buying fixed cost products over participating in auctions.  Because of these changes, auctions are a shrinking percentage of eBay's business and many eBay sellers are choosing to sell from their own websites or other online malls and marketplaces. 

Obviously it's never good to reach the point where your business partners are upset enough to boo you in public.  But anyone who shops on eBay knows they have to change to continue to thrive.  If anything the changes are overdue, and I hope they haven't waited too long. 

Enterprise Software & Small Business Globalization

Good interview on the future of enterprise software with SAP's Americas CEO Bill McDemmott at Knowledge at Wharton.  I found several points related to small business globalization and innovation quite interesting. 

1.  The view that businesses of all sizes are rapidly globalizing.  Key quote:

"Any customer, whether small, mid-size or large, is thinking beyond their geographic boundaries, beyond their current markets. They have to innovate."

2.  The role of global and cross border small businesses innovation:

"...some of the best business practices that we have now for small and mid-size customers actually came from our Asia Pacific operation... And then we brought those ideas and syndicated them in places like the U.S. where you could better serve the small and mid-sized customer over here.

So, innovation is fascinating, because it comes from every part of the world. The big idea is [that] the best ideas exist somewhere in the world at all times. The art form is aggregating them and scaling them across the world at all times."

Traditionally small businesses were somewhat protected from potential competitors and disruptive innovation by geography.  But today's highly networked world is in many ways border less.  Innovation and good ideas can come from anywhere.  So can new opportunities and competitive threats. 

The Importance of Deep Linking

The BBC has an article on changes in web site usage as described by user interface guru Jakob Nielsen.  Interesting statistics on how online users are bypassing web site home pages and going directly to pages deep inside the website.  This is due to the increased use of search engines.  Key quote:

"In 2004, about 40% of people visited a homepage and then drilled down to where they wanted to go and 60% use a deep link that took them directly to a page or destination inside a site. In 2008, said Dr Nielsen, only 25% of people travel via a homepage. The rest search and get straight there. "Basically search engines rule the web," he said.

When we ask small businesses about their websites the focus is clearly on the homepage and driving traffic to the homepage.  As these stats point out, the rest of the site is increasingly important and also the first stop for many online users.

Robotic Squirrels and Lizards

We tend to focus on trends and technologies that will impact small business over the next 3-5 years.  But we also follow longer term trends, and robotics is a trend that is increasingly showing up on our radar screens.  The last couple of weeks there have been several interesting robotics stories in the press.

The Associated Press has an article on robotic animals being used by scientists in animal behavior studies.  From the article :

"Rocky (the robotic squirrel) is among many robotic critters worldwide helping researchers observe animals in their natural environments rather than in labs. The research could let scientists better understand how animals work in groups, court, intimidate rivals and warn allies of danger."

I'm no expert on animal behavior, but it seems to me that if the other squirrels are willing to court Rocky the robotic squirrel they are pretty dumb.

Ecommerce News has an article on broader uses of robotic technology called Ready for the Robot Revolution.  The article focuses on using robotic assistants to help care for senior citizens:

"Robots can remind us to take our medication. Robots can carry things for us. Robots can keep us better connected with our families and caregivers. Robots can even entertain us," said Trower. "And the cost of the robots to do this will be far cheaper than human assisted care."

Robots are increasingly being used to carry out dangerous tasks or missions.  The folks at iRobot, who make the well known Roomba robotic vacum cleaner, also make a line of warfighting and first responder robots. 

Robots are already popular with hobbyists and kids.  Over 1500 teams and 20,000 kids and coaches competed at the recent First Robotics Championships.   Lego Mindstorms robotic kits and products are driving a lot of interest in this space.

And, of course, the book Love+Sex with Robots got a lot of attention earlier this year with its prediction that within 50 years people will be falling in love and having sex with robots.  Hmmm... maybe squirrels aren't so dumb.  Maybe they are just ahead of their time. 

 

Small Business Digital Divide and Ramon Ray's Technology Guidelines

Ramon Ray's Small Biz Technology blog has an excellent post on technology guidelines for small business.  The post combines his six guidelines with guidelines from a Computer World article.  Ramon's guidelines are:

1. Email is Not CRM
2. Don't Technologize a Bad Business Process
3. Outsource
4. Technology Is An Investment - Not A Cost
5. Mobility is Critical
6. Web 2.0 Is No Joke

Computer World's guidelines are:

1. Put IT in your budget
2. Plan your IT future
3. Make It part of management
4. Take care of basics
5. Choose vendors wisely
6. Keep learning

Both lists make a lot of sense.  In our research we are seeing an emerging small business digital divide.  There are a growing number of small businesses who are gaining substantial market advantage through the use of technology.  We are also seeing firms fall behind because of their unwillingness or inability to take advantage of technology.

Both of these lists are excellent starting points for thinking about technology.  While few small businesses need to be on the leading edge of technology, all small businesses should be thinking about how technology can make them more productive, competitive and profitable. 

Slight Name Change - An SEO Experiment

We've made a slight name change.  We're now Small Business Labs instead of Small Biz Labs.  We also slightly adjusted our tag line and we doing some other low level SEO work.  The objective of these changes is to see if these changes have an impact on our natural search results. 

We are also trying to understand why our natural search results are so much stronger with Google than Yahoo or MSFT.  We're getting advice from several SEO specialists, but since we aren't ad based we don't want to bother making lots of changes at this time.

We will report back and let you know what, if anything, these changes do.

CNBC Coverage of Microsoft/Yahoo

CNBC has a full page with a number of article on this topic, including summarized coverage.  Much easier than trying to follow all the coverage.

Telecommuting Continues to Grow; Not Everyone Happy

Reuters has a story, which I read on CNET, called "Telecommuting not so great for those left in office."  The article is about a study showing that people in companies with a lot of telecommuters who are not telecommuting are dissatisfied.  Key quote:

"When a number of their co-workers toil away from the office by using computers, cell phones, or other electronic equipment, those who do not telecommute are more likely to be dissatisfied with their job and leave the company, said Timothy Golden, a management professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute."

The article also points out that telecommuting continues to grow:

"Telecommuting has been a growing trend in the United States since about 2000. About 37 percent of U.S.-based and international companies now offer flexible work arrangements, with the number of those programs growing at a rate of 11 percent per year, according to the Society of Human Resource Management."