Home Wealth Project
Extensive Research On How To Build Wealth From The Comfort Of Your Own Home.
Visa Nabs PlaySpan, Has Big Plans for E-Payments
Feb 9th
Visa plans to buy PlaySpan, which makes software that lets users make purchases inside of apps and games, for $190 million. This is Visa’s second e-payments buy–it bought ecommerce payment company CyberSource last year–and increases its presence in the e-payments industry. TechCrunch has the story:
This is a big exit for PlaySpan, which has raised a total of $46 million in funding since its launch four years ago. PlaySpan has been growing like a weed, striking partnerships with a number of social network, gaming and media companies, including Viacom, Disney, Facebook, Ubisoft, and Sanrio. As virtual goods becomes a booming business, PlaySpan has reaped the benefits of technology and media companies looking to incorporate virtual goods into their platforms.
PlaySpan’s flagship product UltimatePay is a ‘Monetization as a Service’ platform for apps, games, videos and digital goods. Based on the user’s location, the payments platform draws from over 85 different payment options. Because of its vast variety of payment options (which include PayPal, pre-paid cards, and a number of credit cards), UltimatePay is designed for a global audience. Currently, PlaySpan powers virtual goods marketplaces across 1,000 video games, virtual world publishers and social networks.
Visa says that ecommerce sales, which reached an estimated $948 billion, are a big growth area for the company. Approximately 45 percent of U.S. online spending takes place on Visa’s network today and for Visa’s fiscal first quarter 2011, the company reported 25 percent year-over-year growth in ecommerce payment volumes globally. Visa is going to use PlaySpan to capitalize on the growing digital goods market, which generated an estimated $25 billion in consumer spending globally in 2010 and is expected to reach $280 billion by 20143.
PlaySpan was started by a 12-year-old, according to TechCrunch. That’s some reward for the kid (and his dad, who is the CEO of the company).
Mobile is currently a huge part of Visa’s strategy. As the Visa blog notes:
The company is currently testing contactless payments methods in over 20 markets located in both developed and developing countries. Our collaboration with DeviceFidelity— transforming a phone into a payment device—has already been introduced at high volume retailers, such as fast food, taxis, drug stores throughout New York and other metropolitan areas, where speed matters. Outside of the U.S., mobile phones are accessible in ways that a traditional payment infrastructure can’t reach. Visa is moving on all fronts—creating new mobile services, acquiring technologies and platforms, and working with leaders in wireless —to ensure that Visa’s network plays a vital role in bringing secure, reliable and globally interoperable mobile payments to consumers everywhere.
I wonder whether Visa, if it gets a majority share of the mobile pay market, will find a way to game the market in its favor, the way it did with debit cards.
View full post on Business Pundit
Obama Plans 2-Year Federal Pay Freeze
Nov 29th
Civilian federal government employees will have their pay frozen for 2011 and 2012, according to a New York Times report:
The president’s proposal will effectively wipe out plans for a 1.4 percent across-the-board raise for 2.1 million civilian federal government employees in 2011 and 2012. The military would not be affected. The president has frozen the salaries of his own top White House staff members since taking office 22 months ago.
While a pay freeze will make only a small dent in the federal deficit, it represents a symbolic gesture toward public anger over unemployment, the anemic economic recovery and rising national debt. By announcing it on Monday, the president effectively will preempt Republicans who have been talking about making such a move once they take over the House and assume more seats in the Senate in January.
The number of federal workers making more than $150,000 a year has grown ten-fold in the past five years and doubled since Mr. Obama took office, USA Today reported earlier this month. Since 2000, federal pay and benefits have increased 3 percent annually above inflation, compared with 0.8 percent for private sector workers, according to data cited by the newspaper.
Reading those stats, it’s about time federal workers had their pay frozen.
View full post on Business Pundit
Small Business News: The Best Laid Plans
Nov 25th
Successful small businesses are based, oin part, on good planning whether this involves a formal business plan, good financial planning, marketing plan, whatever. Never fail to adequately plan where your business is headed, no matter how formal that plan may be. The type of plan is less important than having the right plan in place for your business.
The Basics
How a plan can help you gain funding. Obviously, one important use for a business plan is to gain financing from investors. To this end, creating a business plan, including details about your business model and earning projections will be imperative when it comes to interesting investors. Business Strategy Blog
Anatomy of a modern business plan. You know you need a business plan for your next small business venture. You may even have some idea of the kind of content you will need to include, but how do you getg started. This how-to guide can get you started. Youngentrepreneur
Strategy
Small business strategic plans are also important. What is a small business strategic plan and how can it work to pilot your business through the many chgallenges ahead. Check out Constance Gustke’s basic overview and start figuring out how to create a strategic plan of your own. Business.com
Planning a link building strategy for online marketing. SEO and online marketing are other kinds of business planning ever more important since the arrival of the digital age. If you don’t know how online users will find your Website online, you dpn’t have an adequatemarketing plan. B2C Marketing Insider
Marketing
Don’t follow your competitor’s marketing plan. Or his/her business plan or business model for that matter. While you don’t want to reinvent the wheel and may be able to get some good ideas from what a competitor or even a business in another industry is doing, it’s a bad move to start copying their marketing plan completely. B2B Marketing Smarts
Being ready for opportunity. Some planning and preparation is less about determining how to take advantage of an already existing opportunity than it is about being prepared for opportunities when they do emerge. Here are some pointers that will help you get ready to pounce on opportunity when it does show up. Internet Marketing
Taxes
Planning for your schedule C. Here in the U.S. as probably most other places in the world, the key to preparing your small business tax return correctly is planning ahead and keeping good records. In this video a tax preparer takes you through the process, but more importantly stresses the imperative of keeping good and accurate records and planning ahead. Finance Online
More tax planning for your small business. This kind of planning is just as important as marketing and other strategies because it determines how much of your company’s revenues can be reinvested to grow your business. Paying your fair share of the tax burden is one thing but not taking proper deductions for losses, especially when starting your business, will not the cash flow to audiences. About.com
Small Business News: The Best Laid Plans
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
Study Shows Small Business Expansion Plans Hurt by Capital Crunch
Oct 15th
A study has confirmed something many small business owners know from painful experience: The much-ballyhooed capital crunch is hampering small businesses’ ability to expand.
The Pepperdine University Private Markets Capital Project surveyed 559 privately held businesses and 1,430 lenders and investors nationwide and found that, although the majority (78 percent) of businesses had solid growth strategies, only 40 percent had access to the resources they needed to grow.
“The study shows private business owners feel they are being constrained by access to financial capital,” said survey author John Paglia. “Owners currently expect a 10 percent revenue growth over the next 12 months. If they were to receive additional capital, they estimate their revenue growth rate to jump to 25 percent.”
The survey by Paglia, a finance professor at Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business and Management, is unique because he interviewed alternative lenders, such as venture capitalists and private equity firms. Most surveys like this focus on one type of capital (such as banks or angel investors).
Here are some of Paglia’s findings:
- Lenders and investors reject 90 percent of loan applications or investment proposals that would be secured by a business’s real estate holdings.
- They reject 73 percent of loan applications or investment proposals that are based on a business’s cash flow.
Where are businesses getting money?
- Slightly more than 50 percent of business owners surveyed had obtained capital from friends and family for money.
- One-third had obtained bank loans.
- Approximately 10 percent had obtained financing from alternative lenders.
One worrisome finding: Despite their frustrations, most business owners are significantly more optimistic than actual conditions warrant, Paglia told the Los Angeles Times. This could prompt them to take unnecessary risks, and might mean that small businesses are in worse shape than previously thought.
Read more about the survey and get the full report at the Pepperdine University website.
My take is this: When you feel constrained by lack of capital from traditional sources, it’s time to look at non-traditional sources more closely. Look at how you can use a charge card in place of a line of credit; factor in your invoices; study grant and loan programs from your local economic development organizations; check out credit unions instead of banks for loans; and finally, look for trade terms that will give you extra time to pay. Leave no stone unturned.
Editor’s Note: This article was previously published at OPENForum.com under the title: “Capital Crunch Hurting Expansion Plans: Study Shows” It is republished here with permission.
Study Shows Small Business Expansion Plans Hurt by Capital Crunch
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
Answering Our Own Questions About Oracle’s Social Acquisition Plans
Sep 25th
| It connects to standard social media technologies through the application layer. It is increasingly sifting into middleware. |
|
||||
View full post on Home Wealth Project Riot!
University Plans Social-Media Blackout Week
Sep 14th
 |
Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, located in Harrisburg, Penn., will block social sites like Facebook,… |
|
||||
View full post on Home Wealth Project Riot!
Publications University Plans Week Without Social Media 09/10/2010
Sep 11th
| The only problem with the UofH social media blackout is that isn’t nearly sweeping or intrusive enough. Frankly you could just as easily ask “What if all… |
|
||||
View full post on Home Wealth Project Riot!
Look Out Groupon – WhitePages Has Big Plans For Social Buying Site DealPop
Sep 8th
 |
It went by largely unnoticed, but directory services provider WhitePages launched a social buying website called DealPop last… |
|
||||
View full post on Home Wealth Project Riot!
Iran Plans to Set Up National Internet Search Engine by 2012, Shargh Says
Aug 29th
| Iran is planning to set up a national Internet search engine by the end of March 2012, Shargh reported, citing the head of research at the state-run… |
|
||||
View full post on Home Wealth Project Riot!
Internet Fail: Blockbuster Reportedly Plans Bankruptcy | Epicenter
Aug 27th
| Not only was it a profitable partner… but the company provides competition to Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, iTunes and other internet-based video services. |
|
||||
View full post on Home Wealth Project Riot!
