Oh, if I had a nickel for every time I heard “you’re too old for MySpace”. If I did, I wouldn’t have to try and grow my business at all, I would be retired. Problem is, people are quick to judge and I am short on nickels. In today’s online world, you either promote yourself and your business online in some capacity – or you fade away. Period.

Social media is not a fad. It is here to stay and it brings a profound change to your potential client’s experiences. Now, not tomorrow, is the right time to implement features that will make you and your business social media friendly and will allow you to implement networking and marketing techniques that will realize increases in traffic to your website, and your bottom line.

Step 1. In the immortal worlds of Pete Townsend – Who Are You?

Ever realized you needed a document that was on a different computer
from the one you were on? With FolderShare, you can access your files
from anywhere.

• Keep all your files in sync
• Use
  FolderShare to create a mirrored image of your most important folders -
  like your Favorites, Pictures, and Documents – so they’re the same on
  all your computers.

• Sharing files is easier than ever
• Sharing
  with friends, co-workers, and family is easy when you add and update
  files in a shared library. Large files? Not a problem – FolderShare can
  sync files up to 2 GBs in size. And it works on both Mac and PC.

• Get to your files instantly when you’re away from home
• Install FolderShare on all your computers, and you can access all your files from any computer on the Internet.

Microsoft Foldershare is what we finally settled on after months of trial and error. Hopefully, in us sharing this with you and your business, you can get to syncing with a bit less effort then us. Best of all, unlike many of the other apps we tried, this one is completely free. The only draw back we can find is that there is a 10,00 file limit on a single sync point, but you can get around that by syncing the underlying folders separately. If you need help, as always, feel free to contact us @ 1.866.516.1576 for all your online consulting needs.

A brand spanking new release came out April 22nd and you can Install Foldershare for Windows by following this link.

Please let us know what you think…

The inspiring design, llc. PageRank Tool

PageRank is a numeric value that represents how important a page is on the web. When one page links to another page, it is effectively casting a vote for the other page. The more votes , the more important the page must be. But, it is also important to realize that Google also measures the importance of the page that is casting the vote, so one vote can be of more “significance” then another. Google then uses all of this information to calcualte a PageRank or PR. A very technical analysis can be found at Wikipedia, Google, and WebWork Shop.

Whats Your Google Juice? Check out Our Page Rank Tool at inspiring design, llc.

Why is it important? Read about Online Marketing – why its important, why you need to do it, and how you can do it now.

In previous articles I combed over Google Gadgets for your iGoogle homepage. Now, I move into looking into Google Gadgets for your website. How can you male it that a user of your site doesn’t need to leave? Simply give them all of what they need online in one place – your place. The following are a few of the google gadgets we have been experimenting with. Leave us a comment if you use one on your website and have received positive feedback on it. Most of these gadgets lend themselves well to blogs, but can work on a website if incorporated ina tasteful and thoughtful way. Not like we have here…

Contact Us if you would like help setting these or any other gadget on your blog or website.

General Modules

Real Estate Specific Modules

Its that time of year again, and I am not talking about Groundhog Day, even thought it is an undervalued national holiday (and a equally undervalued and spectacular Bill Murray movie.)

Nope, its tax season. And if you are like me, and run a small business, that’s great for your accountant, and not so great for you, your free time, or you wallet. I wanted to pass on a small tool that made my life just a touch more manageable this year. I work a lot with contractors and consultants, which means a bevy of 1099 activity. There are several avenues you can travel down for your employee W2’s or 1099’s. You can let your accountant take care of it, you can do it yourself, or you can let the magic of the world wide web help you along. Since I am a believer in magic (an an online solutions company), I opted to explore my options on the web.

Most services out there will do your 1099’s, but for a price, and most only make sense if you are doing bulk submissions (20-30+). However, I found a little site, with a very apt name: FileTaxes.com

I searched and searched, and stumbled across this one. One can file single 1099’s or multiple 1099’s for a flat rate of $3.49, a great price for the small business that don’t need a ton of them filed. It also efiles with the IRS, mails them to the recipient, provides you with hard-copies, and emails a conformation upon delivery. You can read more at http://www.filetaxes.com

Read more at inspiring design, llc.

This is an article in a monthly series – how to run a business using online tools.

I try not to blog too much about what has already been talked about, but could only find one article on gizmoz.com, and since I have been playing with it extensively this morning, thought I would share a bit, and hopefully solicit some feedback.

So to start, what is gizmoz? In short – it is a service that will allow you to generate a talking avatar. You can upload a picture of your face and it will build a 3-D image. It also allows you to put voice to your digital communications. Personal service to the comical extreme. For most of us, once you complete the easy process of building your first (what they call) character-based visual expression, it may come out looking like a dysfunctional mini-clone; eerily reminiscent of the 80’s pop culture icon Max Headroom. So can their be a legitimate business application to this?

I have decided to experiment.

I have produced a short 20 second video clip (see the sidebar to the right) that can be played upon entering my website. From this point on, for the next month or so, I will monitor my analytics account to see if I can keeping more people on my site for longer. Take a look:

Now – I didn’t use myself, since I was trying to give this a hint of professionalism and no matter how many different pictures I used, I couldn’t get it to a point that didn’t make me want to reconsider this experiment. Maybe I am just digitally self conscious, but I’d rather use one of the provided (and admittedly better looking) provided pictures.

Does does this work? We shall see. I will have statistics next month, but in the mean time, take a look, let me know what you think, and if you could ever see using this as an application in your business.

Justin

inspiring design, llc.

202-552-1825