Many of you saw the cover story on Business Week a few days ago about Kevin Roses tremendous success with www.digg.com and having redefined the news industry.  We wrote an article on him just a couple months ago.  Well this cover story has stirred up alot of controversy about the hype associated with some of these web startups.  Here are two more realistic views of what's happening in this Web 2.0 space.  Still promising - but not as hyped as the lead article.

• Original Business Week Article - Kevin creates $60 million of wealth in 18 months - hype or hope?
• Scott Rosenberg's Comments - on the bubble spirit and what he feels is happening
• Jason Fried of 37 Signals Comments - on the same topic, and a great user discussion

Much requested by friends and family - here are the photo's from our trip to Riviera Maya, Cancun Mexico.  It was just a fantastic trip and such a great start to our new life together!

• Paul & Kristen's Honeymoon Photo's on PaulHelmick.com

Starting in September, the Kauffman FastTrac® GrowthVenture™ Program is a ten-week, ten-module educational program created by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs that is designed to help participants look at their entire business. Delivered locally by seasoned entrepreneurs in the community, it's hands-on program uses participants' businesses as case studies, giving them the opportunity to put proven business practices to work for them.

• Learn more about Innova's FastTrac Training
• Available in Beckley, Charleston, Fairmont, Martinsburg and Wheeling
• Programs will begin September 5, 2006
• Graduation to be held November 14, 2006.
• Classes meet one evening per week 6:00 p.m.-9:30 p.m.

Citynet Digital Phone Service is now available for the low price of $24.95 a month - giving you unlimited calls anywhere in the US.  They just had an open house in Charleston and the service is pretty incredible.  They have an excellent product/service offering that has every feature you could want. All you need is a cable or DSL connection to the Internet. There are no contracts, they provide the hardware, you keep your phone number and setup is easy. The service includes real time online account management and 24/7/365 access to customer support.

• Learn more about CityNet's Digital Phone Service
• Contact Carolyn Barr, Sales Support Manager at 304.391.5923, carolyn.barr@citynet.net
• Contact Tim Thompson, VP of Sales at 304.391.5921, tim.thompson@citynet.net

Here are some great lessons from a clear winner in their field.  This article shares Google's 10 Golden Rules of  Management.  Below is the link and we've summarized these for you into one short list.  Very insightful and it seems to help people give the company their very best.

• Complete Article from MSNBC

Google's Ten Golden Rules (see article for details on each)

1. Hire by committee.
2. Cater to their every need.
3. Pack them in.
4. Make coordination easy.
5. Eat your own dog food.
6. Encourage creativity.
7. Strive to reach consensus.
8. Don't be evil.
9. Data drive decisions.
10. Communicate effectively.

From WV Inc Online: Governor Joe Manchin III has announced that West Virginia will host the National Governors Association Seminar for New Governors for the second consecutive time. "It is such an honor for West Virginia to host this vital seminar for the second time," Manchin said.  The Seminar for New Governors is held every two years; the last event was hosted by former West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise at The Greenbrier.

• Complete Story from WV Inc Online

From Inc.com: Let's face it. Starting a business is tough. You have to build a client base, hire employees, find office space. There are plenty of challenges, but the one that many entrepreneurs find most daunting is raising start-up capital. Here is a site FULL of great resources for finding your funding.

• Complete Article from Inc.com 

The article provides links to over 40 in-depth resources in each of these areas:

1. Survey the Field
2. Bootstrap your New Business
3. Inspiration from the Inc 500
4. Tapping Family and Friends
5. Bank Borrowing
6. Government Programs
7. Finding an Angel
8. Getting Creative
9. Credit Cards

This is an incredible story of a very successful business owner (sold his business to Warren Buffett) who tapped the professional and personal wisdom of an informal board of directors.  The experience he shares provides valuable insight as does his 6 key strategies for having an informal board.

• Complete Article from StartupJournal.com

Guy Kawasaki, author of 'The Art of the Start' is an experienced entrepreneur, venture capitalist and I think, a great resource to new entrepreneurs.  In his weblog, he shares 11 fantastic tips that will provide some great guidance to anyone getting a business going by the bootstraps.

• Read the Complete Post by Guy Kawasaki 

Just for fun - sometime these little videos are SO worth sharing.. This one's pretty catchy Enjoy.

• Watch the Google Video - Dream Car for Ladies (15 sec)

From the StartupJournal.com: What's the truth behind supposed studies that show about 80% or so of small businesses fail within their first five years? While there is no clear evidence to back up those numbers, the bad news is, they may be true. A close up look look at this 'statistic'.

• Complete Report from the StartupJournal.com

The article reports that:

Let's start with what we do know. Roughly half of all new businesses with employees survive four years, and even those that shut down aren't necessarily failures. Amy Knaup, a researcher at the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that 66% of the 212,182 employer businesses started in the second quarter of 1998 lasted two years, and 44% survived four years. 

But there is a major shortcoming to these numbers: These studies track only businesses with employees — not nonemployers, such as the next-door neighbor running an eBay store from a computer in her basement.  Nonemployers, which account for a whopping three-quarters of all U.S. businesses, are much harder to research because they don't file much information about their operations with the government.

From TechCrunch: Fox Interactive Media has entered into a nearly $1 billion, 3+ year deal with Google to exclusively power search across most Fox online sites, including Myspace. The partnership will begin in the fourth quarter of this year and extend though the second quarter of 2010.

This is big - not only for MySpace users, advertisers, Google, those who compete with Google, the Fox network, most everyone on the internet.  Big.  Specifically for businesses that have been working on a strategy to figure out how to monitize the tremendous traffic of MySpace - well Google is an expert at doing that with their search.  And beginning this fall - its available to you..

• TechCrunch Announcement

From Hitwise: This July, MySpace has surpassed Yahoo! Mail as the most visited domain on the Internet for US Internet users.  This is an incredible result in just a couple of years - the opportunity for business development and for advertisers is just tremendous.

• Complete Report from Hitwise  

Today Hitwise issued a press release reporting that for the first time, www.myspace.com has surpassed Yahoo! Mail as the most visited domain on the Internet for US Internet users. To put MySpace's growth in perspective, if we look back to July 2004 myspace.com represented only .1% of all Internet visits. This time last year myspace.com represented 1.9% of all Internet visits. With the week ending July 8, 2006 market share figure of 4.5% of all the US Internet visits, myspace.com has achieved a 4300% increase in visits over two years and 132% increase in visits since the same time last year.

From BusinessWeek Online: Cell phone users spend lots of time talking into their devices, but they generally communicate with very few people. Just how few? Would you believe four? Here is an excellent summary defining our new six communication channels.

• Complete Article
  

The lone fixed-line telephone has given way to multiple fixed and mobile phones, e-mail, instant messaging (IM), text messaging, voice-over-Internet-protocol (VoIP) free (or near-free) telephony and videoconferencing, and other interactive channels such as blogs and wikis. 

Here is an excellent excerpt on how the study defined our new communication channels. 

– The fixed phone is the collective channel: "a shared organizational tool for the whole household," with most calls done in "public," because they are relevant to other members of the household. Only 25% are done "privately," from one's bedroom or study.

– Mobile voice is "the micro coordination channel": It is "the preferred channel for last-minute adjustment of plans or updates on where people are and what they are doing." Surprisingly, "80 percent of all exchanges are with only four people."

– SMS, or short messaging, is "for intimacy, emotions, and efficiency. Only the most intimate sphere of friends and family are contacted by SMS, and the content of the messages is often related to 'grooming' and emotional exchanges."

– E-mail is "the administrative channel," used to support online activities such as travel reservations and shopping, for coordination with extended social groups (clubs, friends, acquaintances), or for exchanging pictures, music, and other content with close social networks.

– IM and VoIP are "the continuous channels": "users open an instant messaging channel for the day and then just keep it open in the background while they do other activities; they multitask — and step in and out of a conversation." This starts to apply to VoIP as well (think Skype).

– Blogging is the broader networking channel: "Personal pages are often primarily a center of communication with friends and people online in general."

From CNNMoney.com: Established franchises are booming, while over 500 new franchises were formed last year. A third of all franchises had more than 100 operating outlets and nearly half had more than 50.

• Complete Article from CNNMoney.com
  

The article also states:

Over the past three years, around 900 businesses started franchising. In 2005, there were over 500 new franchise businesses, that is up from 220 in 2004 and 207 in 2003.

A third of all franchises had more than 100 operating outlets and nearly half had more than 50. Significantly influenced by the growing number of new franchises in the past few years, 25 percent had 10 or less units.

There are 767,483 franchise businesses in the U.S., according to a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers based on data from 2001, the latest figures available.

The franchising sector's impact on the economy exceeds $1.5 trillion and provides more than 18 million jobs, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

From Information Week: E-commerce sales rose to $80.8 billion from $67.2 billion during the same period last year, ComScore Networks reported this week. Nontravel retail increased 24.6% from a year ago to $46.1 billion, and travel spending rose 14.7% to $34.7 billion.

• Complete Article

The article also shares that:

For the full year, ComScore expects online spending overall to reach $170 billion, including $102 billion in non-travel e-commerce. This year could mark the first time such spending has topped $100 billion.

In the retail category in the first half of the year, office supplies accounted for 54 percent of spending, followed by computer software, 39 percent; sports and fitness, 38 percent; home and garden, 36 percent; and toy and hobbies, 33 percent.

As reported by TechCrunch - YouTube announced it's hit the 100m videos per day mark. It's estimated that 60% of the videos watched online are now served by YouTube.  In June 2.5 billion videos were watched on YouTube and with 30 employees, the company has over 65,000 videos updated daily.

• TechCrunch Article
• Reuters Article

From Forbes - Among the 793 billionaires Forbes found in 2006, only 11 of them, or 1%, were under the age of 35. Of those, five inherited their fortunes, the other six created their own wealth.  Here's a short article and photo slide show of these 11 fortunate folks.

• Forbes Youngest Billionaire Article and Slideshow

•  Also - Full Coverage on the World's Billionaires

Compare the features of the three most popular free, web-based email services on the web! Very helpful if you are trying to choose one - even more helpful if you think you might try switching to one with more features.

• Comparison Chart for Email Services

And as a bonus for you… a comparison chart for mapping services as well

A great article from the Wall Street Journal's Startup Journal team -

'Building a business as a twentysomething has its own special challenges. On the one hand, you have decades to recover financially if the business goes bust. And you're less likely to be tied down with big financial commitments, such as kids, that often scare older people away from self-employment. On the other hand, you may lack the money, life experience and connections that are crucial to make a business work.' 

This is a recommended reading if this thought hits home.

• Startup Journal Article