Expect the Unexpected

An Autumn classic, an array of fall leaves expected and appreciated. But, look closer. A splash of delicate green stars bursting up through the fading red, orange, and yellow. The expected norm is greatly appreciated, but, the special delight is in the discovery of the new. Hopefully, discovery will be yours here on this site.

Revisited: CHINA SOON TO BE WORLDS LARGEST NET MARKET

Officially, China has now become the largest user of the World Wide Web a.k.a. the internet. This report I heard recently on one of my favorite techy shows, The Kim Komando Show and decided to dust off this blog from January of this year.

Career minded youngsters may consider the advantages of learning a second language with potentially a huge economic impact on America looming in the not so distant future... no, I don't mean Spanish, although, that may be a fairly solid second choice. But, clearly the biggest new language market to soon hit the globe will be Chinese.
In an article titled, 'China becomes world's 2nd biggest Internet user' from the Chinaknowledge.com site, it was reported on Jan. 18, 2008 (China Knowledge) that
"China is positioning to be the world's biggest user of the Internet, second only to the U.S, according to a report released by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) yesterday. The nation had 210 million Internet users on the mainland last year, just 5 million short of overtaking the United States for the No. 1 spot in December 2007" .
This is an interesting developement for those of us in the web marketing industry. Chinese does not seem to be a very easy language to master. Which, as I see it, is a severe dissadvantage for me and many others who only know English. Perhaps it is just a misperception of mine, but, isn't it true that most Chinese people have a working knowledge of English?
Chinese web marketing. What a huge market. HUGE!

Greed - Incompatable with Success

Greed cannot be measured on the eternal scale of success. The two are incompatible For one to pursue such a corrupted state of heart almost seems the workings of a madman, yet, far too many do. Greed is everywhere and invasive. Worse than the common cold, greed seems so easy a condition to catch and without a natural cure.

Amazingly, many of us become infected and are unawares of our ailment until far into it's destructive course. There is hope for the infected, if one desires. For as pathogenic as greed is to the eternal soul, it's addictive nature keeps many of the stricken from seeking help until they are caught up in a public outrage, a personal tragedy, or maybe even at the court of their eternal judgment - where, some believe, the time to repent has been already spent.

Do not glean the fields. Do not take your neighbor's only lamb. Do not take your neighbor's spouse. Do not take what is given as charity for the needy. Do not withhold your worker's wages. The 'do not' list is seemingly endless. Be aware of conviction. It is your conscience. It was put there for a reason. Yield to it and seek wise counsel.

Do Work At Home Programs Work?

While searching through the various work-at-home programs I came across an excellant article by Steven Gallagher, Senior Editor of Consumers Guides titled 'Work From Home Programs Exposed:Do They Really Pay Out?'
The Consumers Guides article I read illuminating the trouble with work-at-home programs read true to my own experiences - more hype and hypothesis than honesty.
Encouraging in the results of Steven Gallagher's research was that first off it was not me alone that seemed to be having some sort of disfunction in making a buck with these systems. And, second, was that he did actually find some programs that perform quite well. "We tested 34 of these programs for a period of approximately 2 weeks, following the instructions and techniques exactly as they were laid out. But after completing the trial tests, we found that 32 out of the 34 programs failed to make us any significant income. However, 2 programs did show promising results."
The impact such an article can have on an industry is remarkable. On his recommendation alone I decided to give one of the two "promising" programs a whirl. In fact, the one with his highest recommendation was the one I chose - Profit Lance™.
In his review, Steven Gallagher wrote "The program that produced the best results and performed extremely well was “Profit Lance”. This program provides a complete money making system and training course that includes instructional videos, tools and software. The system also includes lifetime membership to the Profit Lance support network, which has been set up to help newcomers succeed in their online businesses. The system provides a complete step-by-step guide to building your Internet home business and achieving financial success. What impressed us most about the Profit Lance system is how easy and quickly it helped us to start earning money without any prior Internet business knowledge."
He goes on further to detail the program and his research team's earnings following the Profit Lance™ step-by-step techniques. I am encouraged that this work-at-home plan is the 'real McCoy' for those who are serious about their income potential future. Get-rich-quick is not the Profit Lance™ focus. Understanding how to make an honest-to-goodness long term living in net marketing is my expected result from using the Profit Lance™ program... so far, so good!
The Profit Lance System

New to YouTube - The Queen of England

From an article in Forbes .com I've learned that "Queen Elizabeth II has launched her own YouTube website,"The Royal Channel", complete with old news clips and speeches, glimpses inside Buckingham Palace and a day in the life of several members of the royal family. Buckingham Palace said the 81-year-old queen, who became Britain's oldest ever monarch last week after more than a century on the throne, was hoping to reach a wider, and younger, audience by creating a permanent presence for herself on the the popular video-sharing network, owned by Google.
The significance here is... well, if it is a note worthy development reportable by Forbes.com it is, indeed, noteworthy if you are interested in market trends and financial opportunities. Money is in the making with YouTube's increasing popularity and cultural/business significance. Where people go goes marketing opportunities. YouTube is forging a whole new marketing arena where the seemingly insignificant have an equal stage with the most significant of significants.

Noted from this article is that there are seemingly no rules or rulers dictating to the masses what is going to be watched and from that what will shape the minds of the viewers. "According to data on YouTube the (Queens's) website has now become the second-most-subscribed-to in December, with more than 17,000 users. That achievement loses a bit of its glamour, however, when you consider the winner was "Household Hacker" a web page that demonstrates how to create "quality items with little to no money and just a bit of imagination." ...outstanding! Household Hacker sounds like my kind of entrepreneur.

There is money to be made in media and e-marketing. But, not the way it used to be. The rules are changing fast, fast, fast. The boundaries are not as set as they used to be. The Queen is now even e-mingling with her royal subjects... and, yet, being upstaged by the 'Household Hacker'. How entrepreneurs get their lassos on this new wild market is going to be an exciting thing to watch. Even more exciting, get your lasso on and ride that market!

Small Businesses Get Free Help with Internet Marketing

Telecentrex LLC, a leading provider of hosted telecommunications services for small business, has launched a new blog aimed to help small business owners grow their business in today's competitive online marketplace. Though lacking any affiliate opportunities unless one wants to become an agent/customer of Telecentrex LLC, the blog is a good read for marketing ideas.
The Internet Marketing for Small Business blog, located at Marketme.com, is authored by two of Telecentrex's Co-founders, Tim Paulino, CEO and Brandi Cummings, Chief Content Officer. Together Paulino and Cummings are responsible for generating over $1.9 million in recurring revenues by marketing their services online using various Internet marketing techniques.
"The field of Internet marketing is constantly evolving and requires a commitment to staying educated", said Paulino. "The rules, trends and strategies are changing so quickly that what's relevant today may not be as relevant a few months from now."
The idea for the blog came about from the many requests made by friends, family and colleagues who were interested in their online success and wanted to know more about how they did it.
Cummings stated, "We decided to create a blog so we could share our knowledge about marketing a small business in today's online marketplace. This way we can offer current information as things change and we're not just sharing our knowledge with a select few who asked us personally, but with anyone who has the same desire to grow their business online."
"We certainly don't claim to be know-it-alls in the field of Internet Marketing and this is partially the reason for our success", added Paulino. "Sometimes it just takes diving in and getting involved when you don't know much at all."
About Telecentrex, LLC -
Telecentrex markets a suite of advanced hosted telephony services that provide both front- and back-end services to existing telephone infrastructures. Services include virtual PBX phone systems, which allow small businesses to sound bigger and more professional, call capture hotlines, which provide real estate professionals with the ability to automatically generate leads 24/7, Internet fax services which enables anyone with a computer to send, receive and manage fax traffic without a fax machine, and televerification fraud protection solutions for online merchants.
Marketme.com

Internet Marketing Company Strikes Gold - PushTraffic, Inc. Expands and is Predicted to Quadruple Growth in 2008

Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) January 19, 2008 -- Last year a Los Angeles-based internet marketing consultant called PushTraffic took the Internet community by storm, offering serious businesses the opportunity to learn how to generate traffic and thousands of targeted leads.
PushTraffic specializes in search engine optimization, aiding clients in acquiring some of the highest page ranks on the web.
"If you are a new company setting up your business Web site, it will be only a matter of time before you start wondering how on earth you could possibly reach as many visitors as you'd like," explains PushTraffic CEO and founder John Raygoza.
Immediately you will realize the reason only a handful of successful online businesses exist in the world today: supervising an entire company and mastering the language of the web can be rather tricky tasks to juggle! And doing both alone isn't any easier.
This is where PushTraffic can help.
The better a site's position when searched for online, the more likely an Internet user is to find the site and consequently visit it. Typically Internet users opt not to sift through pages and pages of search results and instead tend to settle on only the first few results they see, making where a site sits in the rank essential for attracting more traffic.
PushTraffic has well over 4,000 clients who pay anywhere from $1,000 to $10,000 for the company's services. These clients have learned the ways of the web, with the majority receiving a return of investment (ROI) within 30 days of working with PushTraffic.
"We want to teach like-minded people how to become successful from home," says Raygoza.
The company's targeted audience tend to be mostly domestic businesses.
Some home-based clients are now paying an upward of $20,000 for 3 day one-on-one consultations with the 27-year old CEO, during which he maps out marketing plans that are executed within 24 hours.
Raygoza has an accomplished background in website development and online business management. No more than a year ago he was working as an Internet marketing director at a prestigious web-hosting company that later sold for $100 million.
All the same, he is also no stranger to the modern concept of working from home.
It all started when Raygoza's began working out of his home apartment in Phoenix, Arizona on March 2007. Back then Raygoza was operating PushTraffic with only one other employee who was also working out of the apartment.
When the two men generated $14,000 in less than a week, "That's when I realized that this was big!" John reveals. "We moved to California immediately."
After only one month in California, PushTraffic was able to expand -- and generate another $100,000.
PushTraffic has made over 1.4 million in sales all together and has done so in as little as eight months, with a total of seven employees. At the rate PushTraffic is growing, a revenue of $5 million is easily expected for 2008.
The most exciting new development for PushTraffic is an upcoming series of international internet marketing seminars. The first three-day interactive workshop is taking place at the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore on January 25 - January 27, 2008.
The workshop offers a money-back guarantee that everyone who attends either makes money or generate leads by the third day, at which time sales associate John Richard Rocha plans to demonstrate a live, $5,000 up-sell before the entire audience!
In the meantime, PushTraffic has recently relocated once more to a larger office building in the heart of downtown Los Angeles -- quite a change from a small Phoenix apartment.
If you'd like for information about this topic, go to PushTraffic

Reaching out to teens on streets

UNION-TRIBUNE
January 13, 2008
Every year, San Diego County turns loose – emancipates is the legal word – about 200 foster kids.
Most of the 18-year-olds have received help in making the transition to adult life. Counseling. Housing assistance. Planning for the future.
It's not mom and dad, but it's something.
A percentage, a few dozen maybe, are too angry at the foster system to bother, according to county records. Typically, they just disappear.
Some drift into Oceanside, North County's de facto sanctuary city for dead-end youth.
Artful dodgers on the loose, they often end up hustling drugs or their bodies. They prey – and are preyed upon. Either way, they don't appear to have a prayer.
On the street, they hook up with homeless kids of all ages, refugees from dysfunctional homes. Before long, they find their way to StandUp for Kids, located behind a nondescript storefront on Coast Highway.
When you've got nothing, nothing beats free.
Three evenings a week, they'll get a meal, shower, TV and Internet access. They clean up after themselves and then take stuff donated by good people with a bad feeling about what happens to street kids.
Before they leave at 8:30 p.m., the teenagers receive clothes, food packs, hygiene kits, condoms.
And tents.
It's the tents that blew me away.
The portable jobs from Target bring home how vulnerable this subculture is, camped out in the same danger zones as homeless adults.
How do you give teenagers tents and wish them good night as they wander off to the beach, canyons or riverbed?
How do you keep from crying?

The person to ask is Kim Green, a former Imperial Beach street kid with 30 grinning mug shots pinned to the bulletin board above her Oceanside desk.
The 36-year-old former meth addict sees much of herself in those who cruise into StandUp for Kids, a haven for the young and the extremely restless.
Green was one of them. Pierced, wired on meth and seemingly hopeless. She was 11 when her dad, an Army officer, died.
“It was like a baby's mobile,” she said. “Pull off one piece and everything is out of balance.”
Advertisement
document.write('');

A good student who skipped two elementary grades, Green started using at 12, left home and came up for air at 18 when she realized it was clean up or die.
She moved to Orange County, went to continuation school to make up three years of high school, then business college, earned a paralegal credential, got a job in banking and then the building industry. Along the way, she lost the Goth style, prospered, married.
Today, the tall, slender woman lives in San Marcos.
“We were trying to have kids,” Green told me, “and the doctor said my job was too stressful, take time off. But then I was bored.”
So three years ago, she started volunteering at StandUp for Kids, a branch of a national nonprofit organization. Today she's the center director, a grown-up street kid with a maternal role in the lives of about 30 kids.
With the help of 40 volunteers – the youngest is 13, and the oldest is 65 – Green leads a crusade for the children she won't give up on.
To do so would be like giving up on herself, the 18-year-old she was 18 years ago.
As she talks about the teens who look older than their years, her eyes can well up like glistening pools.
“I'm a big crybaby,” she admitted.

If you're looking for the address of StandUp for Kids, no help here. By design, the center wants a low profile.
First, predators flock to the street kids like horseflies to honey. Some of the creeps may know where StandUp is, but why advertise?
Green knows how a street kid could be tempted by the twisted transaction: “If you have nowhere to sleep, 'Sure, I'll do a video. What do I care? I don't care about myself. Obviously, no one else does. Give me the 250 bucks.' ”
Second, Green doesn't want well-meaning looky-loos checking out the kids as if they're freaks. No matter how fleeting, StandUp is their home, not a stage.
No, the only outsiders welcome are volunteers who want to help kids turn their lives around as she did, Green said. Her dream is to serve meals five days a week and open a thrift shop next door where her kids can work for wages. For more information, go to standupforkids.org.
For four years, an anonymous angel has been paying the rent on the shoestring operation where kids, some of them troubled and addicted, receive counseling, sympathy and the means of survival as adulthood stares them in the face.
“This is a crucial point,” Green said. “Now you're 18.”
Logan Jenkins: (760) 737-7555; logan.jenkins@uniontrib.com

Certificate shows career readiness

BENTONVILLE - A new certification program will help employers know if an applicant is qualified for a position, a group of business community leaders learned Wednesday afternoon.
"The Arkansas Career Readiness Certificate designates that an individual has core employability skills required across multiple industries and occupations. The CRC will give job seekers a competitive edge, assist them with creating a skill-enhancement road map and assure employers that they can perform the duties required for 21 st-century jobs," according to a press release issued by Kimberly Friedman, communications director for the Arkansas Department of Workforce Services. "The CRC is portable, meaning it is not tied to any specific job or business."
The idea of issuing careerreadiness certificates started several years ago but is just now taking hold, the audience learned. The state was seeing a high turnover rate because many employees were getting jobs that they weren't properly trained for, Arkansas Economic Development Commission representative Steve Sparks said.
The certificates will be issued to rate the employees' skills in three areas - reading for information, applied math and locating information. Each skill area will have its own rating, using a bronze, silver and gold designation system. In other words, the employee will receive one of the color ratings for each of the three areas. An employee could rate as only a bronze in math but have gold-level reading for information skills, Derek Crews agreed. Crews is vice president for corporate learning at Northwest Arkansas Community College in Bentonville, which will serve as the northwest-region testing center for the certificate. NWACC's Corporate Learning Department hosted Wednesday's forum.
The test that employees can take to receive the certification is free and comes from the WorkKeys comprehensive skills assessment. If the potential employee does not score as well as preferred in a given category, that person can essentially study materials provided by the testing company and test in the area again.
Employers won't be required to expect the certificate, but it could prove to be a useful tool in knowing that a job candidate is truly qualified for a job. The certificates also streamline the training process because an employer can immediately identify areas in which their current or future employees have deficiencies, Crews said.

Expect the Unexpected

An Autumn classic, an array of fall leaves expected and appreciated. But, look closer. A splash of delicate green stars bursting up through the fading red, orange, and yellow. The expected norm is greatly appreciated, but, the special delight is in the discovery of the new. Hopefully, discovery will be yours here on this site.