GlobalBusinessNetworking.com blog

RSS has been a buzz-word for some time, but to many people it still remains just that – a word. This article explains what RSS is, what it can do for you, its pitfalls and its advantages.

What is RSS: The letters RSS have several different meanings depending on who you ask, but the most popular and widely used meaning for the abbreviation is Really Simple Syndication. RSS is a simple way for a website to send out information to other websites, blogs, RSS feed-readers etc so that they can read the information the website is sending out and can then reproduce it in a manner they see fit.

How is RSS used if I’m a home or business user: Let’s say you want to keep up with the latest news from several different websites, but you don’t want to have to go visit them each day. You can subscribe to each website’s RSS feed, and then read those feeds in a piece of software of your choice. For example, Windows Vista comes with an RSS feed-reader as one of its standard sidebar widgets. You can add the feed from the website(s) you’re interested in and the latest news from each of those sites will automatically be updated by the widget when new news comes along – you don’t have to do anything!

Today’s most popular browsers, Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 3, both come with built-in RSS feed-readers as well. When you go to a website that has an RSS feed you’ll see the small orange RSS feed icon appear in the browser bar. When you click on that you’ll be taken to a page that looks like this:

http://blog.globalbusinessnetworking.com/?feed=rss2

with a subscribe button near the top of the page. Click the button to add the feed from this page to your browser so you can see when new content is added to the page without having to go back and manually check.

How can I use RSS on my website: This is perhaps one of the most interesting uses of RSS as it allows you to show content from another website on your own site. Let’s say you would like to show the latest posts from a popular blog or news site on your own website. To do this you can either custom-make your own code, or use a piece of code (frequently JavaScript is used for this purpose) to read from the RSS feed and show that information on your site. A website called Dynamic Drive has a lot of excellent ready-made scripts for just this purpose.

Many open-source content management system projects, such as Joomla, have extensions or plugins that allow you to show external RSS feeds on your site as well. Open source CMS’s are becoming more and more popular and provide an excellent way of building a cost-effective website with minimal knowledge.

It is very important to note that you should always check the Terms of Service or publisher guidelines before using anyone’s RSS content on your own website. If in doubt always contact the website owner first.

In most cases an RSS feed will contain the title of the article, a brief description of it and a link back to the originating website of the article where you can view the article in full. Sometimes, such as Google’s RSS feed for its news service, it will also contain an image. This lack of in-depth content is one of the pitfalls of RSS – in almost all cases to view the whole story your visitor will have to leave your site and go to the originating website. In most cases you will also have to give credit on your own site to the source of the RSS feed. Even if it is not requested by the originating website, it is often a pleasant courtesy to place some form of credit on your site.

Conclusion: Really Simple Syndication is a boon for both users and publishers. It gives individuals the ability to keep tabs on fast-flowing information without having to trawl through multiple websites to find it. It also gives publishers - particularly webmasters - the ability to display fresh, constantly updated content.

(c) Copyright – Paul J. Allen. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

This error has occured several times on the site recently, and we apologise for any inconvinience it has caused. We’re currently looking into the cause and will fix it ASAP.

Thanks,

Paul.

We’ve added a new, rather hard to miss button to the site, simply called the Post button. It contains the most commonly-used links members use when posting on the site, and gives a quick-access to them.

We’re going to be updating the user interface on the site over the next few weeks and months - this is the first step.

Feedback welcome!

We noticed a problem with the email server a few hours ago - it had sent out a number of repetitive emails to a small number of members. We’ve fixed it and would like to apologise to those members who did receive more emails than they bargained for.

We’re keeping a close eye on the server at the moment to make sure this does not happen again.

PJ.

Feb 1st is the kick-off date for upgraded memberships in www.GlobalBusinessNetworking.com and we’re announcing an early bird discount for anyone who signs up for an annual subscription before that date.

The normal price for an annual subsription is USD 200 - we’ve reduced this to USD 125 for any member who signs up before Feb 1st. To take advantage of this offer please go here:

Subscribe using the early bird discount

If you would like to learn more about the advantages of an upgraded membership, please click here:

View advantages of an upgraded membership

PJ.

First of all a Happy New Year to all GBN members! I hope you had a great time and didn’t get up to too much mischief

We spent a lot of the Eid, Christmas and New Year period working on several new features for GlobalBusinessNetworking.com so we could introduce them in January. I’ve listed the major new features below along with their status as of the time of writing:

1. Added video to the News and Events, Buyers and Sellers and Recruitment sections. We now have video utilising Microsoft’s Silverlight technology across the site.
2. Added the “alerts” section to the member profile page. This allows members to setup email notifications for several things, such as when a new member joins who might make a good contact.
3. Changed the layout for the News & Events, Buyers & Sellers and Recruitment pages so the listings are easier to understand and browse.
4. Added the ability to have 3 types of network: Public (can be read by anyone even if not logged in), Members (can only be read by logged in members) and Private (can only be read by members of the network).
5. Added the ability for two contacts to chat privately one-to-one. This is still undergoing testing and will be released in a few weeks.
6. Added the backend and frontend sections to handle memberships and payments. This will go live later in Jan as we’ll be offering an early bird discount to existing members.

There were also several other minor additions that are not listed here.

As always, if you have any feedback please do let us know.

PJ.

(This article is guest posted by Jonathan from FreelanceFolder.com)

Most, if not all of the largest corporations including Google have an ‘official blog‘. No matter the size of your business, a blog can be a really nice addition to your existing (or future) website.

There are many things you should know before you go ahead and start a business blog though. No doubt it can help your business, but it can also hurt it if you don’t know what you are doing and what you are getting into.

Here are 7 things you should consider before you launch your business blog:

1. Branding is not just a pretty logo. Even if yours is the most gorgeous ever created it doesn’t matter much. It’s about building a relationship with your existing and potential customers and business partners. A blog can help you do just that.
2. You can test new products and ideas without having to spend a dime. Simply ask your readers to give you feedback. Chances are many of your customers will read your blog and make suggestions. It removes the barrier that may exist between the ‘company’ and the ‘customer’, it makes things more personal and friendly.
3. Be aware that maintaining a blog can be really time consuming, so in order to remain sane you have to schedule time for blogging. You are certainly busy dealing with all the other aspects of your business, don’t let blogging take you away from these tasks. You can, for example, tell your readers you will be writing on your blog once or twice a week.
4. Search engines love blogs. While a static website may be ok for your business, a blog will most likely increase your chances of getting good rankings on search engines because of the frequently updated content. Good search engine rankings means more traffic, more exposure and more potential customers.
5. Do not go for a free hosted blogging platform like Blogger or WordPress.com. Instead get a good but cheap hosting account, download WordPress and install it on your own server. There are thousands of free templates you can chose from, one of them may be what you’re looking for. If not….
6. …find someone who can do a custom design for your blog. I told you in #1 that branding is not just about a pretty logo, but still your design is very important. Apart from your existing customers who might read your blog, probably a whole lot of people will find your blog on search engines and blog directories, and you want them to stay, read and eventually contact you.
7. Proofread and spell-check your blog posts before you publish them. Imagine you have this beautiful profit-pulling website, and your blog is full of typos and grammar mistakes. Not good.

Now, all these advices and tips will be of no help if you have no idea what to write about. Trust me you don’t have to be the most skilled writer out there to run a successful business blog. Sure you can write about your company, but don’t you already have a website that provides your visitors with the exact same information?

My best piece of advice would be to read blogs related to your industry, subscribe to rss feeds, and get yourself familiar with the blogging world before you take the plunge and start your own.

I hope you enjoyed this post, please feel free to leave a comment below. Blogging is all about relationships, so we might as well start now.

(This article is guest posted by Etienne Teo from www.etienneteo.com)

When it comes to Internet Business and blogging, you need a large network of firm believers of your product and what your niche is selling. What makes a business blogger so successful in marketing their products within their network?

Online Business Objectives and Goals
Do you know why you have not learned anything from a blogger’s event? The reason could be you did not plan for a goal to meet during your blogger’s event and since you have no goals, how could there be any achieved objectives?

Striking the Trend While it is Hot
You might have notice what many other bloggers have moved to in order to make themselves famous, if you are unable to do it yourself let the internet help you! Trust the social media marketing and optimization to get you further to where you want to go.

Become a Successful Business Blog
Being smart in creating value for your customer is a a step forward to keeping your loyal and potential customers from coming back to you, if you were not able to give them the service they want, chances are you will lose the deal. In 10 simple principles to become a successful business blog.

9 Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers
If you want to be successful in Business blogging, you need to know the trick and tips of how a successful blogger make their blog work for them. I am sure if you follow their habits, you will be able to follow their footsteps and that is being successful.

The Small Business Blogger
You might have seen many successful stories of bigger business blogs making tons of dollars but no matter what you do on your blog, you seen not able to make it big yourself. The bigger blogger also once were like you struggling at the bottom, so what’s their secrets that you did not do? Learning to do what small business blogger do will surely get you to where you want to be, it’s just a matter of when.

Improving Your Business Blog
When everything seems to be going your way, have you sat down and thought about things you can do to further improve your business blog? Optimize your blog frequently, not for yourself but for the readers you have on your blog.

One Improvement is Your Business Blog Design
Giving a Professional Business image is very important, you can’t use a spiderman template for a business blog, can’t you? You need to improve on your styling of your blog design as well, making it more friendly and attractive is the key to success.

10 Stupid Small Business Mistakes
It was not shocking when Steve Pavlina shared his silly mistakes of setting up small business that is out to fail. Apparently he is not the only one making those mistakes, most of the small business makers who fail makes the same mistakes and Steve was able to piece them together and share with you on his blog on what you should avoid so that you don’t fall into the trap.

Making a Profitable Business Blog
Your main motivate of creating a business blog is to attract more readers, now you have your loyal readers and a group of hungry advertisers. What can you do to further improve your profits and not affecting the features and content level on your blog?

Small Business Resolution for Year 2008
Year 2007 is about to end and here we welcome Year 2008 early with 23 surefire marketing resolution for you guys to start your small business.

Looking for Resourceful post, Blogging tips and Social Media Marketing, Etienne Teo shows you how to turn opportunities into profits.

This is the first in our series of video tutorials for members. This one covers the members home page which is the first page you see when you login to www.GlobalBusinessNetworking.com.

To see the full-size version please download the video and then play it from your hard drive.

Comments are welcome!

 

 Video Tutorial 1 - Member Home Page: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

(This is a guest post by Ritu from www.worknplay.net. Thanks Ritu!)

Networking – The Essence of any Business

Networking – what does it mean to you and your business? Is it something that you do for the sake of socializing or marketing? Networking is a very broad category to analyze. Networking can be done for the sake of knowing others or for letting others know about you, which of course is marketing.

In today’s fast growing world networking is of utmost importance for the survival of any business, be it online or offline (I can’t really think of a business that can survive without an online existence anymore). Other things aside, let’s focus on three things that networking can do to leverage your business,

1. The power of attention

- This is something we all know. Networking gives you an opportunity to be heard and seen. If you network with others within your field you will gain attention and as you grow within that community you will build authority. Again, the main thing is how you come out to the community within that network. Don’t try to market yourself too much (yes, there is such a thing called “ over marketing), nothing in excess is good. Networking can help you achieve what you want as it gives you the power to grab the attention of others within a network or community.

2. Buzzing The Buzz

- Although it might sound like this ties in with the first point, it actually serves a different purpose. If you build your business on the grounds of proper networking, you then will gain authority and help from other members as well in marketing. May be somebody will use your service and tell others about it. Example, Mr. A is an active member in a community ( network ) and provides some kind of help to Mr. B. Mr. A didn’t offer any service through his business but just a quick help to a network member. Now Mr. B goes and recommends Mr. A to other members. This creates a viral effect. You offer help to others and others hear and talk about you. You gain more popularity and authority within that network and more and more people talk about you thus creating the buzz for you and most importantly for your business.

3. Access to information and other services

- The other thing businesses can achieve by participating in social networking or shall I say business networking sites is that they gain instant access to a lot of resources. If you are a webmaster looking for somebody to market your website, you might very well find somebody within your community. And remember point no. 2 , there might be a free buzz going already! Also if you ever need a service would you get a service from somebody that you don’t know or somebody from within your network that you have had a chance to interact with? Exactly. So, networking not only helps your business achieve financial growth but you will also grow in terms of resources and contacts.

Although I would like to list more and keep em’ coming, at 3:00 AM in the morning this is all I can write. The clock is ticking and my mind is going into sleep mode as I have been networking for the past 4 hours on different social networking site. What was the purpose of this excessive amount of networking? Marketing my blog which I would like to turn into a business marketing tool someday (sometimes in 2008, I am starting up a business and you know what you have to do – Network).

So go ahead and start networking. Be social and get your business out there. Your customers and visitors aren’t going to come to you unless you make them aware you are there. That’s all for today, I will try and see you around if Paul gives me an opportunity again 