North x East North x East North x East is a blog about business and entrepreneurship, blogging, marketing and startups. 
Articles
Which came first, the business or the idea?
2007-04-02 14:21:00 What is the first thing you need when starting a business online? A cool idea or a way to make money? Any offline businessman would tell you that without plans for revenue generation you have no business. Online however, well lets just say there is room for discussion. In the halycon days of the late ... More About: Business , Idea , First , Ness , The Bus
An NxE Competition - Win Subscriptions to INC & Fast Company
2007-04-01 08:41:00 Start of a new month and time for a little competition. Its a pretty simple one, and to enter you simply need to comment below. Read on for the details. April Each month here on NxE has a different theme (though I stray from it more days than not!) and this month it is “Monetizing ... More About: Competition , Company , Comp , Script , Petition
The 9 Essential Posts that Every Blogger Should Know
2007-03-30 06:38:00 Keeping a posting schedule consistent can at times be a little taxing. There are those days when you don’t feel particularly inspired or driven or perhaps you simply don’t have the time. Hopefully you will have had the presence of mind to stock up some spare blog posts, but this isn’t always the ... More About: Blogger , Post , Blog , Hat , Esse
Why you shouldn?t let a lack of idea stop you
2007-03-30 01:13:00 Today I came across a new essay by Paul Graham on Why to not not start a Startup and as usual it was really worth reading. If you’ve not ever heard of Paul, he is famous for a few reasons (he developed and sold one of the first web applications Viaweb to Yahoo in ... More About: Idea , Stop , Should , Lack
Where do I find a WordPress Mechanic?
2007-03-30 00:59:00 I was just wondering does anyone know where I can hire someone who knows a *lot* about Word press to sort out a couple of niggling bugs - like that all my posts appear on the homepage despite my many, many attempts to fix it and yesterday my blogroll disappeared… how weird is that? So if ... More About: Press , Find , Here
Why I Paid $1400 for a .CC Domain Name
2007-03-29 10:07:00 Earlier today I mentioned that we (FlashDen) have just forked out more than a grand for a domain name that ends in .cc … One or two people have asked why anyone would pay so much for an obscure TLD, so I thought I would explain. Generally speaking I wouldn’t advise anyone planning on building a ... More About: Domain , Domain Name , Main , Paid , Name
A Bizarre Story?
2007-03-29 01:00:00 Yesterday I was completing the purchase of a my very first expensive domain name ‘eden.cc’ on behalf of FlashDen.net. This little guy has cost a hefty $1400 and though we have our reasons for wanting it I won’t go into those now as they are immaterial. The point is I negotiated the sale through ... More About: Story , Bizarre , Stor , Tory
Around the Top Commenters List
2007-03-28 06:50:00 This blog wouldn’t be the same without all the lovely people who post comments on it, and since many of them are bloggers themselves, here are some links out to some interesting posts written by those very same people: Self professed eBay Guru - thePaperBull writes up the 50 things he learnt while blogging this month Hannes ... More About: Men , List , Comment , Enter , Comm
Feed Icons
2007-03-28 02:24:00 We all know the RSS Feed icon well right? You know the one I mean: Well today I discovered that some time ago (I think in late 2005) Microsoft was actually considering introducing their own versions … and they looked like this: Yikes! Thankfully of course it never eventuated and we are left with the regular old ... More About: Icon , Icons , Cons
From Zero to Hero - Quickstart blogging
2007-03-27 05:49:00 A while ago I wrote a post called Good to Great - Why Some Blog s Succeed and Others Don’t, now lets look at why some blogs seem to hop on the fast track and attract readership right off the bat. When I launched this blog in early February this year I naturally noticed other similar bloggers ... More About: Blogging , Start , Star , Quick
If I Were a Rich Man ? Why It is Good to Struggle
2007-03-25 23:23:00 Good timber does not grow with ease. The stronger the wind the stronger the trees. - J. Willard Marriott Have you ever thought to yourself how much more you could do if you just had a little more to work with? Ever felt that you were being held back from your plans for lack of means? Well ... More About: Rich , Good , Were
Identifying a Unique Selling Point (USP)
2007-03-24 23:38:00 So let’s say you have an idea for a business and you are feeling pretty positive about it, what next? The first thing you should do are analyze your idea and make sure it is sound. In this post we’ll look at identifying your Unique Sell ing Proposition (USP). Previously we discussed framing an idea as a ... More About: Point , Ique
The Idea Factory - How to Enable Your Creativity
2007-03-24 11:35:00 Every business, every project, every solution begins with an idea; a seedling in your mind that you bring to reality. Idea s and creativity are essential tools for success in every field from the sciences to the arts to business. At some points everyone has experienced the thrill of a great idea and its power to ... More About: How To , Factory , Fact , Your
It?s All About Startups
2007-03-21 08:05:00 Until now I have never really clarified exactly what this blog is about. Its important to have a clear focus, if you look at any great blog its usually immediately obvious what the blog is about. This Blog is All About Web Star t ups. There will be, and have been plenty of digressions into lots of other aspects ... More About: Startup , Tart
Advertising here on NxE
2007-03-21 00:18:00 I thought I would say a quick word about advertising on NxE. First of all welcome to our first advertiser - xHTMLit. xHTMLit is a company that will take your photoshop (or fireworks, or illustrator) mockup and slice and dice it into a nicely formatted valid xHTML site. I’ve used similar services ... More About: Advertising , Sing , Here , Advert , Vert
The Guerilla Guide to Marketing & Promotion
2007-03-20 02:41:00 When you’re low on cash you have to think differently When you run your own business – be it web or otherwise – it is a general rule that you need two things to accomplish any particular task: money and time. A lot of one means you need less of the other.If you had a lot ... More About: Marketing , Promotion , Market , Prom , Guide
Where Do You Think?
2007-03-18 20:59:00 I think best in the shower and the bath. There is something about buckets of hot water flowing over and around me that makes my brain work in overdrive. In fact probably the majority of my best thoughts have been formed there. Is this odd? I don’t think so, but nonetheless ... More About: Think , Here , Where
Is Alexa really worthwhile?
2007-03-18 01:39:00 As most of you will know Alex a maintains global traffic rankings based on its Alexa Viewbar which transmits data back about which sites are getting traffic and which aren’t. Now it is common knowledge that Alexa isn’t exactly precise, but recently I have started to wonder if its even in the right ballpark. Until recently I ... More About: Real , Worth , While
Ideas are cheap, action is what counts.
2007-03-17 06:04:00 I have heard quite a few business ideas in my time and I have had more than my fair share. Through it all I have realised one thing. Idea s are cheap. In fact they are a dime a dozen. Everyone has ideas and I would even say at various points everyone has some ... More About: Action , What , Hat
Mythbusting Search
2007-03-16 02:45:00 Getting Found Getting a site found has always been a little bit of a mysterious art. This has happened because everyone is always trying to outdo each other in being findable. This results in what I call the fluoro effect. If you have one person dressed in fluorescent clothing standing in a crowd ... More About: Search , Bust , Sting , Myth
Follow the Herd!
2007-03-15 22:00:00 Everyone has experienced those moments when you think “everyone’s doing it, it must be good”, whether ‘it’ is a new fashion, hobby, word or whatever, and you decide to give attention or time to something that you might have otherwise ignored. Sometimes referred to as ‘herd behavior‘, it is used to explain everything from ...
Back in Blogging Business
2007-03-15 11:07:00 Well yesterday I published a post called A Comprehensive Guide to Starting your Freelance Career and it was a hit… at least it was for a moment. Ivan very kindly wrote to Problogger and they linked up to the post, this was followed by a surge in del.icio.us bookmarks and the page made it ... More About: Business , Blogging , Blog , Back , Ness
A Comprehensive Guide to Starting your Freelance Career
2007-03-13 23:23:00 A Comp rehensive guide to starting your freelance career Working as a contractor - or freelancing as it is often termed - is both a great stepping stone to running your own business and a viable career in itself. For the uninitiated there can be numerous hurdles to overcome on the way ... More About: Free , Your , Freelance , Care
42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.
2007-03-12 22:46:00 Someone just emailed me this list of amusing one-liners and I couldn’t help sharing. I wish I could credit the author but unfortunately I have no idea who wrote them! You can however find a much longer list of one-liners at vegard.net… Save the whales. Collect the whole set. A day without sunshine is like… ... More About: Cent , Spot , Statistics , Made , Stat
The Importance of Having a Vision
2007-03-12 12:31:00 If I were to ask you to run a foot race with me, the first question you would ask is where is the finish line? And rightly so, because unless you know where you are going chances are you will wind up in the wrong place. So if you would not start a race ... More About: Port , Sion , Visi , Vision , Visio
Expressing Your Idea as a Problem - Solution
2007-03-11 08:17:00 Perhaps the most common inspiration for good business ideas comes from looking to what you know best and solving a problem that you yourself have experienced. We’ve all had that feeling when you are using a service or a product and you think “this could be so much better if only…”. Actually carrying through ... More About: Press , Your , Idea , Problem , Sing
How You Write Defines Your Community
2007-03-10 10:09:02 Consider that when you write a blog you are deciding not only who your audience is, but also how they respond to you. The type of posts, the style of writing and the tone and personality that you project determines both the readers and comments you receive. Write in an explanatory, how-to sort of way and you will attract people looking to learn, who are happy to share and likely to ask questions. If on the other hand you write a highly subjective and opinionated blog you will receive a significant amount of both supportive and highly argumentative readers and so on. There are of course exceptions to the rule, but look at some of the more famous blogs like Kathy Sierra’s Creating Passionate Users or 37Signals’ Signal vs Noise you will see this in effect. Kathy writes in a very positive, open-minded, helpful manner and attracts an audience of very happy readers and commenters. 37s put forward a very opinionated view of the world and this is then reflected in the comm... More About: Community , Muni , Your , Unity
Starting Ideas and Climbing Mountains
2007-03-08 16:07:02 Everybody has ideas. From time to time, they even have good ones. However, not everyone acts on them. There are many reasons why this is, fear of failure, not knowing how to execute, apathy, intimidation, distraction just to name a few. Today I thought I would talk about a way to get past these restraints. There is one magic antidote that properly applied cures them all, and that is action. Of course this seems like a circular argument - prescribing action to a situation when the problem is that you are not acting - and here is where the key lies, one needs to begin somewhere to get anywhere, its just that often that somewhere is not particularly important. What I am getting at here is that when you find yourself procrastinating or hesitating for whatever reason the best thing to do is choose - arbitrarily - one small step that you can take and then do it. Once you have taken that one step, choose another and do that, then choose another and do that. Do not look up until you f... More About: Ideas , Mountains , Idea , Start , Star
Good to Great, Why some Blogs Succeed and Others Don?t
2007-03-08 04:06:01 Have you ever wondered why some blogs engender the success that they do? Why Techcrunch has 1/4 of a million subscribers and charges $10,000 a month for a 125×125px ad? Or why more than 20,000 blogs have chosen to link to BoingBoing and 1,500 people have listed it as a Technorati favourite? Why the DailyKos received more than half a million visits a day and every post receives comments number with three digits? What sets these giants of their fields apart from the rest and why have they become some of the most well known blogs in the world? And how many questions can I ask in one paragraph? What follows are my observations on what sets these blogs apart… The Givens First there are the requistes for a good blog that any how-to-blog site will tell you about - that you must blog consistently, be on-topic, produce well written posts and that you need a clear focus to the blog. We will take these as givens as they are all factors in making a blog good. Certainly by themselves... More About: Other , Blogs , Blog , Great , Others
Design maintenance? Shouldn?t take long
More articles from this author:2007-03-07 22:05:01 A Quick post to say that the new design has arrived…mostly. I just need to fix up a few bugs in the fonts, line-height and one or two of the images, but it shouldn’t be more than a few hours before its all fixed up! So bear with me today… Share This More About: Design , Main , Take , Desi , Maintenance 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
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