Using SecondLife to test ideas

Business, and Startups, in Second Life

"Virtual worlds, of which Second Life is the most populous, are becoming more than just a place where Web surfers socialize, play games, or sell nonexistent products to imaginary people. Increasingly, tech-savvy businesses are using virtual worlds to design, create, and even test product concepts before they make their debut in the real world."

Improving conversions

50 Ways Your Web Site Is Discouraging Conversions — and How to Fix It: "If your Web site gets great traffic but no sales or sign-ups to back it up, it's time to take a good, hard look at it. Chances are, your site is scaring off customers. Follow these tips to make your Web site more friendly to customers and encourage better conversion rates."

A startup story

Recounting the Launch of our First Startup

"Well, it has been nearly one month since the completion and launch of Spicy Elephant, our first one month startup. The launch went crazy, far exceeding the expectations of the team and myself. This success was channeled into our follow-up project, which is in semi-private beta and nearing completion..."

Building a huge audience on YouTube

The HotForWords channel on YouTube (and its creator) celebrated its 100 millionth view this week:



Here's the channel:

HotForWords channel

It's a very simple idea (explanations of word etymology) wrapped in a sexy package.

Lest you think that this sort of popularity is limited to attractive women, here is a channel that indicates otherwise:

What the Buck

And many other popular YouTube Channels:

Most popular YouTube channels

The point being, one way to develop a large audience is through a popular YouTube channel.

Dream to Reality: How I Quit My Day Job

Excellent article with step-by-step ideas:

Dream to Reality: How I Quit My Day Job

Ever since I learned about the concept of financial independence five years ago, the seed of a dream had been planted. My dream: Having the freedom to deliberately choose how I spend every day - to have complete freedom of time.

As of last week, my dream became a reality...

12 New Rules of Working

12 New Rules of Working You Should Embrace Today - "The traditional office work environment and tools are still around, but at a very rapid pace, they’re being supplanted by newer and better tools, newer and better ways of working. The old rules are being broken, and new ones are emerging...."

Interesting

Figure it out. Be sure to click on the ">" before leaving:

telescopictext.com

How to Earn Money from Blogging

The Clift notes version:

How to Earn Money from Blogging

"It's an appealing fantasy: Start a blog. Watch it take off. Then, quit office life, sit at home, and live off the advertising revenue."

Protecting sweat equity

So, you're gonna code the whole thing, do the servers and work for sweat equity. Well then, you better read this if you don't want to get screwed

10 Ways to Save Time While Building a Website

If you are building a web site, here are some time savers:

10 Ways to Save Time While Building a Website

If you have something that people like, you can charge money for it

The approach here is so direct...

The secret of the web

The secret of the web

Teen sells web site for $62,000

O.C. teen sells Zune Web site for $62,000

"Hansup Yoon (pictured right), 15, has sold ZuneBoards, an Internet forum devoted to Microsoft’s Zune media player, for $62,000.

The teen, who recently moved from Irvine to Fullerton, created the site months before Microsoft introduced its answer to Apple’s iPod in 2oo6."

Web site improvements

101 Five-Minute Fixes to Incrementally Improve Your Web Site