Strategy + Solutions

News from the Big D Event

So what's SSI's take on the 5th annual Wall Street Journal D conference?  Some interesting news about the lovefest between Bill and Steve but the news that captivates is the company Mahalo (means "thank you" in Hawaiian).  The D conference in Carlsbad, CA reveled this new gem which is a search service that is vetted by humans.  As ClickZ puts it : "Mahalo combines human-edited results pages for fat-head search queries with Google's long-tail results and ads." Check out Amazon's Mechanical Turk for comparison. The site currently launched in Alpha with the Internet's 4,000 most popular search terms completed with a goal of 10,000 by the end of '07.  Mahalo is lead backed by Sequioa and NewsCorp.  Other investors include CBS, HubertBurdenMedia, Allen & Company, Mark Cuban and Fred Wilson. Jason Calacanis the CEO is a tech heavyweight with several successes under his belt.  Check out this interview for more information. This company is definitely worth watching and using!

FreshBooks Update and New Estimates Service Announcement

More news from the great company FreshBooks, which recently surpassed 175,000 happy business users, is rolling out its much anticipated release of estimates as an integrated extension to its industry-leading online invoicing and time-tracking service.

FreshBooks is a painless online invoicing and time-tracking service designed to make its users look as professional as ‘Fortune 500’ companies. It changes the way businesses manage their books, saving them time, improving their cash flow, enhancing client communications, and streamlining their business processes. Packages range from $14 to $149 per month.

With the new estimates feature, small businesses and independent professionals can now create professional, branded quotes for their clients and prospects.  Customers can instantly review all of the information provided in the estimate and send back change requests or simply accept it as-is.  Following the completion of the work, the estimate can be converted into an invoice and sent to the customer with one click.

“FreshBooks customers can now use estimates to manage the entire relationship with their clients, from quotes to reporting to billing,” said Levi Cooperman CIO of Freshbooks. “Integrating estimates into FreshBooks allows businesses to save even more time to focus on billable work.”

Enterprise 2.0: A Strategic Shift in Business

Most people who discuss "Enterprise 2.0" get lost on the fact that this is a big strategic shift in the way people will do business in the future and not so much a technology revolution. Yes, this is the hot technology buzz phrase but the real value is in the business uses and applications and how it will transform corporate communication, productivity and provide valuable research and information that will be on demand at your fingertips to create organizational change and opportunities.

People ask me to cite strategic implementations in the field and how Enterprise 2.0 is making a difference for Fortune 500 firms.  Look no further than this case study and you will understand how this phenomena could be implemented in every Fortune5 shop from coast to coast and around the globe.  If you want a true description of what Enterprise 2.0 is read this link by Harvard Business School's Andrew McAfee.

The implications for the small and medium business market will be even more compelling and create a diverse set of tools for SMB's to compete with larger firms.  The strategic business tools that are being produced using Enterprise 2.0 architecture will change the face of business from the largest of blues to the smallest of SMB's competing for a target customer and/or managing their local or global enterprises success using relevant and instantaneous data to be proactive with customers or events that may effect current or future business results.

Where 2.0 Conference

Another exciting event is coming real soon.  Check out and plan to attend the Where 2.0 conference in San Jose if you can make it!

From the website:

"The third annual O'Reilly Where 2.0 Conference brings together the people, projects, and issues building the new technological foundations and creating value in the location industry. There's no better place to meet the people behind the mash-ups and platforms, and the folks looking ahead to the future of geospace. Where 2.0 is the one place where corporate decision-makers can meet the people building the next wave of location- and mapping-enabled technology; where CTOs swap ideas with grassroots developers building mash-ups; where community activists network with venture capitalists looking for the next investment opportunity. Learn more about Where 2.0.

Where 2.0 takes place May 29-30, 2007 at the Fairmont in San Jose, California. Join us to debate and discuss what's viable now, and what's lurking just below the radar. When it comes to location technology, it's not just the place, it's the people. Register Now.

Coming early? Join us at Ignite, happening Monday evening, May 28. Or, staying on after Where 2.0 concludes? Be sure to sign up for the Google Dev Day, happening Thursday, May 31. "

Lead Gen 2.0?

Check out LeadPoint, a new venture in L.A. that recently received VC funding.  This blog post describes their philosophy and it is very interesting and exciting.  One to watch.

Freshbooks April 2007 Billing, Web, and Tech Stats for the SMB Market

FreshBooks, which recently surpassed 165,000 "happy" business users, announced its April 2007 billing, Web and tech statistics for media tracking the small to medium-sized business (SMB) market.  FreshBooks’ online invoicing and time-tracking service anonymously collects and aggregates data in real time, leveraging its Software as a Service (SaaS) model to deliver ongoing insight into trends in the SMB market.

FreshBooks sources these monthly online billing and technology statistics and trends from its online invoicing and time-tracking service.  Strategy + Solutions greatly appreciates this data since we love metric based decision making tools to help SMB's optimize their business performance. 

This company is making its mark in the Software as a Service (SaaS) community and continues to impress.  Again, if you are a SMB or professional service provider you need to consider Freshbooks because it is a winning solution that provides meaningful metrics for better business decision making and performance.  Now to the numbers:

April 2007 Trends

For companies who accept online payments:

- In March, 15.7% of payments were accepted online

- In April, 16.0% of payments were accepted online

"We had a slight increase in payments accepted online this month which is due to the large number of new businesses that signed up in March and have now been able to setup online payments," stated Levi Cooperman, CIO of FreshBooks.

Payment Methods:

- Visa: 14.4% March, 14.7% April

- MasterCard: 7.3% March, 7.7% April

- Amex: 4.2% March, 4.2% April

- PayPal:  7.6% March, 7.6% April

- Other (including check, cash, account credit, etc.): 66.5% March, 65.8% April

"Visa and MasterCard recovered slightly this month, while Amex and PayPal held steady," observed Cooperman.

For companies that send invoices by both email and ground mail:

- In March 96.0% of invoices were sent by email and 4.0% were sent by snail mail

- In April 95.3% of invoices were sent by email and 4.7% were sent by snail mail

"More businesses with traditional customers that prefer snail mail are starting to discover FreshBooks and are opting for paper versus electronic invoices," says Cooperman.

Browser Usage:

- Internet Explorer 7 - March 24.04%, April 26.12%

- IE 6 - March 34.23%, April 33.91%

- Firefox 2.0 - March 29.02%, 28.99%

- Firefox 1.5 - March 8.08%, 6.66%

"Since December 2006, Internet Explorer 7 has been gaining ground at the expense of FireFox," says Cooperman.

Operating System Usage:

-Windows - March 88.53%, April 89.44%

-Macintosh - March 9.14%, April 8.26%

-Linux - March 1.67%, April 1.56%

-Unix - March 0.05%, April 0.03%

"After Macintosh looked like it had rebounded, Microsoft has made another push in April," according to Cooperman.

Carbonite

If you are a professional service provider, small or even a medium business you can't go without a solution to back-up your data on your PC's so that it is recoverable in case of a hard disk failure, theft, fire, etc. 

After reviewing several Strategy+Solutions likes Carbonite.  It comes with a free 15 day trial and backs up your data on the internet while it works in the background without interruption.  The quality of the service appears to be a very good value considering its price and they claim that the amount of data for back-up is unlimited.