Spotlight Features

Today, for the first time, China has 100 million people on the Internet, 30 percent of whom are on broadband. Within a few years, a billion people in Asia will be playing with e-commerce. All that power and all that technology replicating at a phenomenal rate will create global shockwaves both in tr...

Today it's all about search-ability and search engines. Spelling and cognitive associations control corporate names. Business listings have gone through the roof: A two-inch directory of the past is now a two-mile thick book. Has pure memorability of the precise name become more critical then the en...

Challenges facing new offshore call centers can spill over and impact clients and customers of those clients. Driven by cost considerations and the availability of personnel, U.S. firms are increasingly turning to offshore call centers -- but are often doing so without fully understanding the constr...

Mobile computer users have always accepted that their devices were only mobile in the sense that they could be taken from one wireless access point to another. Accessing the Web at any point in between -- in other words, over most of the globe -- was problematic at best. However, with the release of...

The European Union (EU) has been slowly and steadily gaining strength and momentum and has today become a major financial challenger to the U.S. Of late, however, most of our economic focus has been on China, due to the enormous current-account deficit that the U.S. has created with that country. It...

Most great, successful corporations do not own a single global iconic name brand identity, clear and free of conflict or confusion. Finding a name to be yours as a solid intellectual property asset is vital to coping with all the confusion surrounding new positioning and new borderless marketing. As...

A new call center just opened in Navi Mumbai, India. It won't be making the headlines for being a new monster facility with impressive clients and well-known managers. But this modest business, Purple Support Services, has more to teach us about call center operations and IT outsourcing than any oth...

Chief risk officers aren't just for banks anymore, but analysts say the position still is only necessary for certain companies. A position that first appeared in the financial services industry to deal with a bundle of compliance and security issues, chief risk officers, or CROs, are now spreading t...

The majority of U.S. states are moving to end the tax-free ride for most online shoppers, a development that is facing opposition from some members of the public, businesses and a number of federal lawmakers. At present, 43 states have joined a states-led coalition called the Streamlined Sales Tax P...

Is your brand worth a billion dollars today? Maybe yes or maybe no, but it surely is worth something pretty big. At the end of the day, all the work you have put in pushing your name identity and your range of products and services in your marketplace adds up in an abstract space of the consumer's m...

Spam-fighting strategies used by ISPs and consumers might be turning the tide against unwanted e-mail. However, innovative phishing scams continue to target both corporate users and consumers. Users of file-sharing networks are particularly vulnerable to attacks, a new industry analysis warns. Accor...

Web conferencing and Web-based seminars are taking a bite out of traditional business travel and telephone conference-call budgets, with companies like WebEx, Microsoft, Raindance and Netspoke leading the revolution. Indeed, with the surge in demand around Web conferencing technologies rapidly incre...

If you are looking to raise substantial capital for your privately held business, you need a competently prepared business plan. You must convince the lender that your business is capable of repaying the debt, through principal pay-downs and/or the issuance of publicly traded stock to the lender. He...

When it comes to Web hosting and small business' needs, the old adage, "You get what you pay for," just may apply. This according to Affinity Internet President Jim Collins, who believes there are Web hosting services worth paying for -- and for good reason. Small businesses, he said, need more th...

There soon will be a central place for Web surfers to dwell in a forbidden cyber land of adult fantasies, sex, dark rituals and total taboos. Finally, ICANN has given in to the pressure and has tossed a big rock across the turbulent e-commerce ocean. It has approved a new suffix, .xxx, for adult-onl...