Who reads the fine print? Everybody, right? Sure. Like you read the EULA for every piece of software you install or the terms of service on every web site you visit.
But, others on the web are looking out for you by spending time actually reading those legal contracts which you are inadvertently agreeing to.
I just came across a post that compares the Terms of Service of 7 different cloud services. The blurb that got my attention is something like the following
a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services
That’s in Google’s version, the post (7 cloud services compared: How much control do you give up?) compare’s seven cloud services and in my humble opinion (I’m not a lawyer) Amazon Web Services (which I use) and SugarSynch (which I don’t) have the most favorable (to you) terms of service.
Most large companies have lawyers on staff who write this stuff and who, in the best interests of the company that pays their paycheck, try to make it as legally broad as possible.
Of course, in the U.S. with its Patriot Act, the government can demand access to all your files online, without a warrant, and the company storing your files not only can’t ask your permission, they can’t even tell you what the government is doing with your private property. But that’s a story for another day…
In the meantime, it’s still your responsibility to read the fine print..
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Do politicians never learn? California, like many other states, just passed a law mandating online companies (like Amazon.com) collect state sales tax if their “presence” in the state includes affiliate marketers.
The Supreme Court has already ruled that a state can’t mandate collection of sales tax unless a company is physically within its boundaries. So, whenever a state passes some silly law that says an online affiliate constitutes a corporation’s physical presence, Amazon tells all those poor affiliates that they can’t be affiliates anymore.
So what happens to the state? NO MORE INCOME TAXES FROM THE REVENUE ON AFFILIATE SALES!
California, which has about the worst budget deficit in the country, just shut down 25,000 sources of income tax. Why do you think so many companies are leaving California? Why have California and other liberal states lost population over the last few decades?
Because you can’t do business in California without the government as an unwanted partner. An overbearing, micromanaging, ignorant partner to boot. (A State Board of Equalization? Really? I’m just saying.)
I’ve written about this often, but the stupidity of politicians is truly mind-boggling.
It’s like when the federal government passed a special 10% surtax on any recreational boats over $100,000. What happened? The boat manufacturing business lost 20,000 jobs. With that loss of income tax, the government ended up losing money.
When a government gets too greedy, the economy goes underground. Look at Greece. 30% of its economy is “off the books”. When taxes get too high people find some way around them or just move somewhere else.
So why do governments do it? Because of the way government does accounting. Say that in your state 10 million cartons of cigarettes are sold per month. If you raise taxes by $1.00 a carton, the state gets an extra $10 million a month, right? WRONG!
People quit smoking. The politicians even say that’s why they’re doing it, to make people quit smoking (for their own good, of course, that’s why they’re called sin taxes). Or people start smoking pipes, or buy their cigarettes in the next state, or on the black market. The government KNOWS that will happen.
If that’s the case, why do they figure on collecting $10 million/month? It’s called “static accounting”. They don’t take human nature into account.
As a small business person, you know if you triple your prices you’re NOT going to triple your revenue. Why? Because people quit buying if the price is too high. If you start counting on that income you are going to be in for a rude awakening. It’s called the law of diminishing returns.
It’s the same thing with taxes only politicians are just too damn stupid to figure it out. They all just pat each other on the back and start spending the money they think they’re going to get.
This week President Obama stated that businesses don’t like added regulations “because it eats into their profits”. Well, duh! How does the government think it makes money? Through JOBS. Through BUSINESS. And the government is doing everything it can to ruin both while complaining of those ‘greedy businessmen” and companies “hoarding” cash.
Let me ask you something, would you go to Las Vegas and gamble your money if the pit boss changed the rules every 10 minutes? I don’t think so.
I don’t know about you, but I am so tired of hearing about greedy businessmen during the last 2 years. How about a few news stories on greedy governments?
Further reading:
The silly California law (PDF)
Amazon ends deal with 25,000 California websites
[Update Oct. 7, 2011]
Amazon has worked out a deal with the California legislature to hold off for a year while Amazon tries to prod the federal government to come up with a nationwide solution regarding online sales taxes (yeah, good luck with that). Amazon then sent emails to former California affiliates asking them to re-up..
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First, let’s look at our definition of marketing:
Marketing is having the right product in front of the right person at the right time and at the right price.
The rest is strategies, projects and tactics to accomplish all four of the above. Using Internet marketing makes some of these objectives easier.
“Marketing to the masses” is becoming obsolete. Internet marketing specializes in one-on-one relationships. The objective is to maintain that one-on-one feel even as your business grows.
Before the Internet there were two types of marketing. The first was to be in the right place at the right time, meaning when someone was ready to buy a product that you were selling. That meant advertising all of the time through newspapers, radio and television so that when a person thinks “I need this now” they will have seen your ad and buy from you.
The second method was the Yellow Pages. The Yellow Pages were great for businesses because people who use the Yellow Pages are looking to buy something now. But, the market is limited to people in your local area.
Internet Marketing has opened up a whole new world. Continue reading .
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Google recently rolled out its new “Google Instant” in the U.S. with more countries to come. How will this affect small businesses, especially those advertising online?
First, what is Instant Search? For awhile now, when you start a search at google.com they will add suggestions as you type in your search query. With Instant Search Google will actually start producing results as you type, supposedly saving 2-5 seconds on your search.
One of the main reasons for this launch may be because Google is expanding into mobile search. Any saving of time or typing can be a big advantage there.
But for small businesses, it appears that the first results that Google posts are for mostly major brands. Of course, they may show up at the top of the list after a complete entry, but Google Instant may be changing the behavior of the searchers.
iCrossing came up with a list of single letter results, like I for Ikea, J for Jet Blue, L for Lowes, etc. Your results may be different depending on your location and past search behavior, but here’s what I mean…
While Google says its final results will be the same, I’m worried that searchers will be clicking on major brands before the whole search phrase is completed. Why? Because Google is “predicting” what the user wants.
So, if you are doing business online, you may see some lessening in your organic click-throughs and even variations in your impressions if you are using Adwords, which Google talks about in more detail here.
Try Google Instant yourself and see what results you get. Keep an eye on your stats and see if I’m right..
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“I need a web site.” How many times have we heard those words?
We try to explain – you need more than a web site, you need an online strategy. It includes a web site, probably a blog, a mail list, SEM/PPC/Local marketing strategy and more. Web design is just a small part of it.
However, if you are going to outsource your web design, it pays to know the difference between a web designer, print designer, graphics designer and online marketing firm.
A true web designer concentrates on many things:
- Clean code (e.g. layout using CSS instead of tables)
- Browser compatibility
- User interface (easy navigation, most important content where the viewers eyes go first, set the viewer on a predetermined path)
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Landing page design – which can be different from overall site design
Depending on their ability in graphics, they should at least be able to tell you the header goes here, a picture goes here, and leave it up to a graphics designer to fill in the blanks.
We constantly tell our clients that you don’t need a web design that wins awards, you need a web design that converts traffic. Continue reading .
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The results of their yearly Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Survey have just been released by MarketingSherpa with some interesting findings. This year, the SEM field was getting so big that they broke their survey down into two parts, SEO and PPC. This survey report deals with SEO.
In the results of over 2,000 responses from B2B and B2C marketers, the first thing that hit me was only a third of businesses use a formal SEO process. Almost half use what they call ‘informal processes’ and 20% have no SEO plan at all!
Also, two twists in modern search engine marketing are ‘personalized’ search (which means different people get different search results depending on their search history) which screws up the metrics of your SEO program, and the advent of social media results showing up on search engine results pages (SERPS). Continue reading .
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