Thursday, September 28, 2006

Bonus Episode: More online tools

If our show on online tools just made you want more, you are in luck! Following up on Episode 7, we have a bonus episode with even more resources and tools to help you with your small business.

Colleen Wainwright - Books & bookmarks!
Colleen Wainwright brings together online and offline business resources. It’s all about Books and Bookmarks.

If you live in a major metro area, check to see if your library provides an online database. If so, you might be able to place holds on items you’re interested in or even have them shipped for free to your branch.

Library ELF is a free service that emails you updates on your library holds and checked-out items, letting you know what you have checked out and when it’s due (or overdue, if you ignore your alerts!). Great for avid readers who are less than perfectly organized. There’s a huge list of libraries whose systems are compatible, and if you can’t find your library but can ascertain that it employs one of two major proprietary systems, you can have it added. While you can’t renew your materials directly via ELF, the emails provide a link that will take you to your library’s page, where you can.

Half.com a division of eBay, offers many books at dramatically reduced prices from individual users. Best of all, they have a wish list you can create where you specify the minimum condition and maximum price you are willing to pay. When an item comes up at your price (if you don’t find it at the price you’re willing to pay), half.com will automatically email you an alert.

del.icio.us is a social bookmarking system that utilizes tags that I use to keep track of stuff I want to come back to. I also use it to maintain lists of stuff I need or want to do: toRead, toBuy, toListen, etc. Bonus nerdery: there’s a Java applet you can drag to your toolbar to make posting pages easy, although I recommend the Firefox extension del.icio.us Complete (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2354/) if you’re a Firefox user.

Ben Yoskovitz - Online advertising for Small Business

Benjamin Yoskovitz talks about how to advertise your small business with Google, and how to find the best keywords with WordTracker and target your advertising for maximum results.

Becky McCray - How to make the most of online directories
Becky McCray explains how your participation makes a difference in creating better online directories. So get out there and leave comments, reviews, and ratings! She mentions these podcast directories:


Music for today's show from http://music.podshow.com.



this is an audio post - click to play

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