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Mobile Video Posts with Apple

The web is amazing -- just look at all you can do! As business owners scramble to take advantage of the latest and greatest technology online, including the latest social platform, APIs, and more, they might be missing out on other technology directly responsible for the progression of mobile web.

Apple has positioned themselves as an exceptional provider of consumer electronics, producing not only computers, but music players, video players, cameras, and web communication devices as well. With the latest introduction of the iPod Nano, people can now listen to their music, record video, and even play games using the device no bigger than the palm of your hand.

As pointed out over at the Dapeem.com blog, you can now create video posts with your iPod nano, which means it's a lot more convenient to record video than ever before.

Why is this important?

Video is the hottest trend online -- forget about everything else, it's all about video. Why? Because video is more interesting than text, it's easier to digest (honestly, you just sit there), it's embeddable, spreadable, and enjoyable regardless of the production value or lack thereof.

Video has improved tremendously since the early days of YouTube, and internet providers are able to handle it a lot better as well, which goes to show that in the back-end, video is progressing ... and fast!

A few years ago, there was a boom of podcasts -- episodic deliveries of audio, which mirrored talk radio or standard radio show. Shortly after that, there was the boom of video podcasts, most famously launched in popularity by the Four Eyed Monsters crew, which used the medium to promote their film.

The act of video podcasting required not only video equipment, but audio as well (to deliver crisp sound) -- but now, with the advancement of technology from Apple, everyone, including filmmakers, critics, fans, and even business people, can document what they see when they see it, create video podcasts on the go, which is a lot better than sitting in a room in my opinion, and provide their audience or prospective customer with high quality content in a new way.

Whether you use the iPhone, iPod touch, nano, you'll be able to create video on the fly, sync to your computer, and upload your video to YouTube in under 5 minutes -- in fact, the ipod touch and iphone don't even require you to sync: simply shoot, edit, and post to YouTube.

Check out what's available at Apple.com and get connected on the go.

for more on this topic, check out Creating Video Posts with Your iPod Nano at Dapeem.com's blog

Starting a Home Internet Business

Contrary to belief, starting a home internet business isn't all that difficult when you have a strong idea -- and there sits the key to starting a successful business! It's all about the idea and how well you position yourself to make money.

Be sure your business idea is fruitful, as close to fail-proof as possible, and well developed -- there's nothing worse that realizing your business idea isn't all that great a few months into the process of starting a home internet business.

To get started in the creation of your home internet business, consider drawing out what your're going to need to get up and running. A few things you'll need for traditional business startup will include business licenses, tax ID number, DBA (doing business as) name, and other business formalities. In addition, because you're interested in starting a home internet business, you're going to need a few other things, such as your domain name (the actual address of your website), hosting plans, formats, and web publishing programs. For more on this, check out the A to Z for Business Owners Online.

If you're pretty savvy online, you won't have much problem starting a home internet business, reaching out with social media, and starting the flow of revenue for your business. However, if you're not sure what social media is or why it's important and useful to business owners online, you should probably do a little research before launching into your new endeavor. To get you started, and as an overview for those that already know, let's take a look at the basics below:

Social networking

Sometime early millennium, the web started a major shift from being a static, web-master controlled environment to a vibrant, consumer controlled environment. With the emergence of Facebook, Myspace, and other networking sites, the net turned into a whole new animal, where people could customize their own pages, create links, write about what they were experiencing, and most important, connect with each other. Once the friend request was born, web 2.0 soared in popularity and enabled people to connect without having to meet in chat rooms, IM sessions, or via email.

Oh, and did we mention, everyone stopped being afraid of the internet. In the early days the web was often used for stalking, hacking, and virus spreading. While those things still live on to this day, the web is a much friendly place -- you no longer have to be on edge when talking to someone you don't personally know because you can see what they look like, what their name is , who their friends are, and what type of movies they like. It's a much more social web, hence, the name social networking.

These sites are used to connect with prospects from the business owners stand point, and history has proved that it works. Building a following of your business in the social web can be a powerful tool when interested in spreading the word, reaching out beyond your local, and finding new customers in your local.

Social networking is a balance act though -- too business like and not personable, and you're bound to fall in the spammy, I'm just here to make money category, which no one wants. Too friendly and you risk seeming unprofessional.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking is how people share content with each other online. You can either set up your own library of content, complete with category indexes, keywords, etc., on Delicious.com, or you can part take in the collective library with such sites as Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon. To bookmark something is to save a page or website along with your recommendation, rating, notes, etc., for those interested in what you're looking at.

Digg and Reddit are two of many sites that specialize in the collective bookmarking experience, and because of it, web publishers are desperate to reach the top of their recommendations. One day at the top of their list, and a website could experience thousands upon thousands of fresh, new visitors.

While bookmarking is effective, it also takes time and content creation, which is a whole process to itself that can take hours or even days. For the business owner interested in starting a home internet business, bookmarking might not be as important as social networking simply because of the odds -- you're playing against the house on this one.

Overall, staring a home internet business requires just a bit of extra education regarding the online experience and tools available.

How to Help a Dumb Customer

Over at Dapeem.com, a recent post included 3 ways to impress the smart customer, which triggered my curiosity into exploring what course of action would be best with a "dumb" customer -- dumb being the term not to describe the person's mental capacity and level of intelligence, but rather, the term to describe the person's course of action when approaching a service or product provider.

While the smart customer might research the product they're interested in and invest a bit of time into growing a knowledge of it, the dumb customer will most likely walk into a store and let the sales associate go to town, up-selling them along the way.

So, this brings us to the question I'd like to explore:

How do you handle a dumb customer?

It might seem like a simple question to answer -- you sell them your product, -- but let's look at it a bit closer.

Do you up-sell them? Do you take advantage of their lack of knowledge and sell them the most expensive item you can manage? Or, do you help them with what they need and nothing more? Do you let the possible chance of making a few more bucks go to waste and address only their main concern?

The answer is yes.

Here a few steps to consider when helping a dumb customer and contemplating whether or not to up-sell of be of honest help.

• Listen to them - this is the first step with any type of business. You need to gather what they're looking for and what they know about it.
• Give them what they need ... and offer a bit more - this might simply mean bringing out two pairs of shoes -- the one they asked for, and an alternate choice you think they might be interested in. At this point, you might be able to get away with up-selling them a bit by bringing them a shoe that's slightly more expensive, but your main goal right now is to impress them with your willingness and ability to go above the call of duty with your suggestion. Perhaps you have experience with another shoe and you could tell them a bit about it, show them what bothered you about it, or why it was great.
• Be the expert - Yes, with dumb customers, you still have to be an expert and let the customer know all about the product.
• Answer their questions - answer their questions with valuable information they find helpful, and reference product that best reveal what you're saying -- in other words, answer their question using examples from the show you'd like to sell them. Keep it helpful and in the park -- customers, even dumb ones, can smell upselling from a miles away. Don't just say, "Yes, well this model is better because ..."
• Show the customer what you're talking about - again, use the show you'd like to sell them compared to the show they picked.
• Let them try it - in addition, let the customer feel or see the difference between the shoe they picked and the one you brought out in addition. Chances are they'll agree with you regarding which shoe is better -- the more expensive in most cases.
• Bring out a less expensive example -- if you really want to cover your tracks of up-selling the customer, consider bringing out a cheap example in order to show the customer what they want to avoid. Let them try on the show and feel the difference. Again, chances are they'll be excited about the premium choice.

All in all, the choice is up to you. To up-sell or not to up-sell?

Keep in mind your reputation, future sales, how you can win the customer and their friends, and how to make them happy.

For more on thinking ahead, check out Word of Mouth is the New Smartbomb over at Dapeem.com