Small Business 101: How to Get Started

Small Business 101: How to Get Started From the New York Times, a quick and simple guide about how to start channeling your entrepreneurial urges, and why it's never been easier to start your own business.

How Starbucks boosts sales at mom and pop cafes

Why Starbucks actually helps mom and pop coffee shops
This article from Slate is explains how independent cafes and retail shops can piggyback on the research and marketing of the coffee giant to succeed, despite Starbucks' best attempts. This sounds like great strategy for small businesses.

How much is your NHL franchise worth? : Forbes magazine

Forbes Special Report: The Business of Hockey

How much is your city's NHL team worth?

Which NHL players deliver the most value to their teams?

For some people the business of sports is even more interesting than the games themselves. For these folks, Forbes has done a really good job of analyzing each NHL hockey team's value; based on their team, their market, their gate receipts, the broadcast revenue, their stadium contract, their brand and other financial factors.

FYI The Vancouver Canucks are the ninth most valuable team in the NHL at $211 Million.

From Corporate Responsibility to Backstory Management

WorldChanging: Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future: From Corporate Responsibility to Backstory Management

An article from World Changing, with the theory that in the 21st Century, corporations will succeed with consumers by moving from corporate responsibility to taking accountability for their entire operations and supply chain.
Bonus points for reference to Vancouver's SF writer, William Gibson.

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BusinessWeek Special Report on Mobile Phones

Business Week Special Report on Mobile Phones Killer Mobile Apps
iPhones
Touch screens
Google Phones

Top 25 Home-Based Business Ideas

The Top 25 Home-Based Business Ideas

This list comes from Yahoo! Business, which includes lots of great, but more traditional, home-based businesses. Some of the jobs include Caterer, Personal Trainer, Consultant Remodeler, and Interior Decorator. This list is a good reminder that just because a job is "home-based" doesn't necessarily mean that it is a stay-at-home job or an internet-based job. All of the businesses here are proven, and most of them are scalable.

Today's Link source: popurls.com

Bleeding edge advertising

Everybody Loves Free Stuff - epromos blog

Marketing effectiveness in the "real world" is decreasing as people become immune to advertising.
To be effective, marketing today needs to be constantly pushing the envelope, and challenging people's beliefs about what advertising is.
Epromos lists promotions that make people sit up and take notice, such as: free flickr lens cloths, real-life Kwik-E-Marts, Christmas Ham Ornaments, and tiny iPod movie posters.

Today's Link source: popurls.com

How the World Works: a globalization blog

How the World Works: Globalization, Globalization Blogs - Salon.com

Wow, a blog about globalization and economics? How exciting!!
Well, actually it is if you’re more concerned about trends in the global economy and jobs, rather than the latest on Brangelina or Paris.

There are some great entries about turning French wine into ethanol, what Jesus (actually Pope Benedict) would think about globalization, how the World Bank is trying to do Web 2.0, and a "bond investment superstar" comparing hedge funds to a prostitute.

Today's Link source: the wonderful Salon

How Swiss Bank Accounts Work

Howstuffworks "How Swiss Bank Accounts Work"

Today's link is from Howstuffworks , and explains what Swiss Banks are, and aren't. There is lots of explanation of the benefits, restrictions and limits of the laws governing the Swiss banking system. Of course the article also covers the privacy and stability that comes with the famous numbered Swiss Bank Accounts.

Today's Link source: Reddit

What does it take to run a successful business in NYC?

The Profit Calculator - New York Magazine

What does it take to make a profit in New York City?

It's tough to run a business in the world's most competitive city, New York. New York Magazine has 21 mini case studies on a wide range of successful businesses in NYC, where success is often measured by just having the resources to pay the rent. Some of the businesses are legit, some are illegal, but this information is intriguing.

Direct links to the case studies are posted here:

A Yellow-Cab Driver: Samuel Pekoh
A Four-Star Restaurant: Nobu
A Drug Dealer: 'Nick'
A Private School: Horace Mann School
A Private Investigator: Michael McKeever
A Department Store: Macy's Herald Square
A Diner: Silver Star
A Drug Company: Pfizer
A Soup Kitchen: Yorkville Common Pantry
A Financial Firm: Goldman Sachs
A Yoga Studio: Joschi Body Bodega
A Midtown Building: 666 Fifth Avenue
A Sex Shop: Babeland
A Baseball Team: New York Yankees
A Discount Store: Jack’s 99¢ Stores
A Museum: Museum of Modern Art
A Pizza Place: Nina’s Argentinian Pizzeria
A Clothing Store: H&M Flagship
A Copy Shop: Copyland
A Publishing Company: Random House
City Government: The City of New York

If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere!

Today's Link source: MetaFilter

The best source of Web 2.0 news

Mashable

Mashable is a comprehensive news site covering the events of Web 2.0.

In their own words, "Mashable is the world's largest blog focused exclusively on social networks." In practical terms, some of the news stories in the past couple of days have been about:
- a wine review site (Snooth Launches Basic Wine Reviews Site),
- new Facebook applications (SmartTravel, NewsCloud and Jaiku Facebook Apps),
- an online music collaboration site (JamNow Launches Music Collaboration Site),
- a new advertising medium for bloggers (Wize Launches Affiliate Widgets for Bloggers) and
- Web 2.0 finance and aquisitions news (ThisNext Raises Round of Venture Debt).

In true Web 2.0 fashion, you can create your own profile Mashable including friends, tags and messaging.

Today's Link source: I have no idea.

50 Tutorials for Logo Design

Top 50 Logo Design Tutorials E Logo Design

I'm always fascinated by good graphic design, and logos are one of the most compact forms of design. If you're at all interested in branding or becoming a better designer, today's link aggregates 50 different tutorials for logo design.

If you're looking for some logo-design practice, Linkjockey would LOVE a new logo. Design a Linkjockey logo in the next couple weeks, and email me your results. If I get a submission I like, I'll reward you with some kind of prize to make it worth your while.

Today's Link source: Furl

Top 100 chart for indie cds

RIAA Radar Charts: RIAA Radar Indie 100

RIAA Radar Indie 100 is the music chart of the top 100 most popular, non-RIAA cds on amazon.com, and it's updated daily.

Regular readers of Linkjockey (Hi Jake!) might know that I love music, but I'm not a fan of the Record Labels' mega consortium. I've made a personal choice not to purchase any music this year from the major labels because of their dirty tactics. Instead, I'm downloading music legally for free on the net, and supporting independent musicians and labels wherever I can. Today's link will help me in this quest.

Today's Link source: Reddit

Web 2.0 masses tackle English Football ownership

My Football Club – Own the club and pick the team

My Football Club is an online effort to sign-up 50,000 soccer (oops, I mean football) fans with the aims of buying an English football club.

When you sign up on the website for free, you will be asked to vote for the club that the group should attempt to purchase. After 50,000 people sign-up, everyone will be asked to pay £35 each (for a total of £1,375,000), and the organizers will start negotiations with the club at the top of the list.
Instead of having a manager, all decisions will be made by the 50,000 owners online, including the selection of the head coach, player transfers, player selection, team strategy and more. Of course, £1,375,000 will not be able to purchase a top tier team, but it's hoped that within 5 years, the myfootballclub.co.uk team could get promoted to the Premiership.

This is a really unique idea in professional sports, and I’m sure a lot of people will be watching on both sides of the Atlantic. If it works, co-operative ownership could be used by community leaders to acquire and resurrect struggling local sports franchises.

I'll do the free sign up, and we’ll see what happens. It’s hard to imagine a League Two team with 50,000 attentive owner/fans not succeeding. Because of the attention, it's easy to imagine that the club would at least be able to attract much larger sponsors than its peers.

Today’s Link source: Springwise newsletter

Annoying business jargon that won't die

Get It In Writing: Copywriting - Business Jargon
It's shocking how many words are on this list that I've only ever heard in the workplace, normally by people that are trying to impress everyone. What's even more amazing is that I've heard people using over 90% of these words.Whomever put this list together, they certainly leveraged their human capital and hammered out this scalable list, instead of just going after the low-hanging fruit. I could blather on, and try to use more of these words to describe it, but I won't. It's how many there are.

Alternately, this list could be valuable for ESL teachers/ students that wanted to cover more "Business English" vocabulary on the cheap.

Enough cyberslacking, already! Get back to work!!!

Today's Link source: Reddit

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How much money does every current NBA Player make?

Who earned their salary and who was overpaid?
HoopsHype ranks the top 30 players, team payrolls, and salaries for every player on every team, including contracts through 2010/11 season.

I wonder if there are sites listing salary information for the other sports?

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Education wants to be free

Self-Made Scholar

Self-Made Scholar has combed the web for audio, video, email, and text-based courses – all of which are available for free. If there's a field you'd like to study, they probably have it: languages, business, the arts, social sciences, cooking, world religions, etc. Sure you can search for information on the net, but there's a lot to be gained by going through a structured course with a learning plan.

Maybe you don't need to spend all that money on a university education after all.

How to make it BIG with your Band

Beatnik Turtle's Indie Band Survival Guide
AKA: How to make a living with your band, How to survive as a musician, or Being successful in music isn't what you think

This Guide is a bible for musicians that want to make money with their skills, and it's not as easy or romantic as it is in the movies. Going independent, they argue, is the way to go.
Many of the issues surrounding the music industry have changed in recent years, and Beatnik Turtle's Guide reflects these changes. Really important topics that they cover include: Putting on Great Shows, Recording an Album, Copyright, Promoting Your Music, Your Website and File Sharing: An Independent Band's Perspective.

For convenient and portable offline-reading, download the Indie Band Survival Guide in pdf.

What is outstanding customer service?

Seven steps to remarkable customer service - Joel on Software

Wow!
From the title, it might not seem like a very exciting article, but it is.

This guy, Joel Spasky, has a software company, and these are his tips based on years of experience. Yes, they're most applicable to software and tech companies, but it would be absolutely incredible if more companies were able to provide service like this.

Want some examples?

You have a problem? Our company will fix your problem, and then fix the problem overall to make sure that no one else ever has the same problem.
If the customer did indeed make a mistake, let them save face and don't make them feel like an idiot.
Apologize to the customer. Never get into a fight with them.
Make the customers amazingly happy.

Wow! It seems so straightforward. What's wrong with companies?

Free ecommerce hosting - Shopify.com

Shopify - A shop in minutes, a business for life.

Want to start your own business selling homemade widgets online? Bust out your inner entrepreneur.

Shopify will let you set up your own ecommerce store on their servers for free. It looks really easy to use, but professional! You can control the design, track orders and organize your inventory. Your customers can even pay you over email using Paypal. Shopify makes money with a commision off of your sales. Soon, you'll have customers shopping all over your site, and you'll be a millionaire in no time.

Sorry about the marketing hype-speak. While the Linkjockey hasn't tried it yet and can't vouch for the implementation, this idea is great! I've been thinking about setting up some kind of ecommerce website, and it's pretty encouraging that I don't have to use ebay or pay a web developer to set up just a basic shopping site.