Gold Star Services
The last few years have seen an explosion in interactive Web sites that perform a service, rather than just presenting static information.
The most popular examples include:
- YouTube - for uploading and sharing videos
- Flickr - for uploading and sharing photos
- Facebook - for connecting with friends, family and colleagues
- Blogger - for publishing a blog
- Google Reader - for reading your favourite blogs
But these are just the best-known names. There are literally thousands of others - less well-known but extremely powerful for individual tasks - that are available for you in your business.
How do you learn about these services?
That's where the "Gold Star Services" mailing list comes in.
I've created the "Gold Star Services" mailing list to tell you about these services. You'll get
just one e-mail message a week (so you don't get overwhelmed), featuring one
of these services each time. I'll tell you about the service, link to its
home page, and explain how to use it in your business. Where possible, I'll
show you an example of it in action so you see exactly how you can use it as well.
This is not just a mailing list of "interesting Web sites". Every service has to meet these four conditions:
- It has to be a service. You create an account with the site, and use that to perform some sort of useful service.
- It has to be free or low cost. Many of these services don't cost anything; others charge a small monthly fee (none more than US$20 a month); others charge an optional fee for the "premium" version of the service.
- It has to be an on-line service, not some software you have to download. This means you can operate it from anywhere with an Internet connection, and works from both Macs and PCs.
- It has to have business benefits. Some of these services can be used for personal reasons, but they must also have some business or professional benefit as well.
Here's an example ...
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Subject: Display spreadsheet data using Widgenie
This week's Gold Star Service is Widgenie, a site for displaying spreadsheet data on-line:
 Widgenie is a "data visualisation" service. It can take boring spreadsheet numbers and display them in a number of interesting ways - such as tables, pie charts, bar graphs, line graphs and the like. What's more, it displays the data dynamically - so, for example, if you upload new data tomorrow, Widgenie will automatically update the graph to reflect the new information. Some ways to use this in your business:
Example: Blog post about effectiveness of an e-learning program Widgenie is a "freemium" service. It doesn't cost anything to get started, but the basic account is advetiser-supported. You can upgrade to a (relatively pricey) Pro account for US$49.95 a month, but it's worth it if your business will use it a lot. |
Sign up to the mailing list
Sign up to this mailing list and you'll get 50 issues - one each week for almost a year.
This is incredible value at just $97, which is less than $2 per week. Just one of these services could save you many times that much money!
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Gihan Perera
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