Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Web Resources: Godaddy.com

Having a website is a great resource for any new or existing business. It offers a bit of legitimacy to your business, and can also serve as a way to spur customer traffic. Likewise, when you are able to use an email address associated with your domain, it moves you a step up in credibility from the free email services such as hotmail or google. But, where do you start?

About a year ago, I was watching TV and saw an ad for GoDaddy.com. Although I didn't necessarily care for their name, I was impressed when I heard that they were the world's largest domain registar. (It is true - according to their website, they manage over 27.1 million domain names!) As my husband and I had been contemplating hiring out the building of a webpage for the real estate business he had started, I decided to give it a try myself and save us a few bucks. For less than $60, I was able to purchase our domain name, have email addresses related to the domain and use their program to build and host our website for the next 12 months. (what a deal, huh?) Since then, I have built two other websites for family related businesses. In addition to their affordability, another benefit of GoDaddy.com is their customer service. Their support is available 24/7 and whenever I have used it (which has been a few times), they have been great. One of the negatives is that although their web software is easy to use, there is a learning curve associated with it and you do need to work within their templates (although they have quite a variety). If anyone out there has used GoDaddy.com or a different web hosting/building site, I welcome your comments.

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Small World Phenomenon

Back in 1994, three college students in Pennsylvania came up with the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" game. To give you a little background, there was a play out at the time called "Six Degrees of Separation" where it is presumed that you are at most only six steps (or people) away from meeting anyone in the world. So, for example, if you wanted to meet the President, it is likely that your mother works with someone who has a cousin that has a friend that works at the White House and knows the president. These particular students (after a bottle of Southern Comfort it is rumored) decided that Kevin Bacon rhymed nicely with 'separation' and decided to try this small world phenomenon out with applying it to the Hollywood scene. Thus, they examined all the Hollywood players to see if they were all connected to Kevin Bacon in 6 links or less. The game is now kept up by the University of Virginia and I encourage you if you haven't yet, to check it out: The Oracle of Bacon at Virginia. Or, if you are a baseball fan, you can check out how the small world phenomenon has been similarly applied at the Oracle of Baseball.

What relevance does this small world phenomenon have for entrepreneurs? Well, if you think about the concept that we are all connected to everyone else in the world by six people or less -- just think about the resources that are surrounding us - it just requires networking! So, if you have a great business idea, but just need some financing, start networking. If you need to find a good accountant, a business partner, an insider at the company you want to sell at, a technology expert or WHATEVER your need, start networking.