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 Web Marketing Strategies For Home Business Promotion
Wed 8th Mar.'00
WIN $10,000! http://www.nowsell.com/I-can-win.html
In this issue (Part 2):
1. VOTING BOOTH
==>This week's quick poll and last week's results.
2. FEATURE ARTICLE
==>"Tell Amazon.com & Jeff Bezos What
You Think of Their Patent Practices!"
by Nicholas Schmidt.
3. INFO SECTION
==>Subscription details. Join Biz Bits FFA!
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+ VOTING BOOTH +
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This is the place where we take a quick poll for a snapshot of
the Biz Bits family's position on a given topic.
··········
This week:
··········
Does the Amazon patent and similar moves by other big companies
worry you? (read the article below if you know nothing of this).
YES! >>>> mailto:yes+nowsell.com
It worries me. It could change the entire face of the internet!
NO! >>>> mailto:no+nowsell.com
I am sure that nothing will come of it in the end!
ERR? >>>> mailto:err+nowsell.com
I'm not sure... depends...?
*** Add any additional comments in the body of your vote mail ***
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Last week:
··········
Are you having difficulty deciding on a product of your own that
you could sell online?
YES! >>>> 36%
I don't really know what I could sell of my own!
NO! >>>> 64%
I have my own product/service that I am selling/plan to sell
online!
ERR? >>>> 0%
I'm not sure... depends...?
[Azam: I was surprised by how many had their own product. I had
expected the exact opposite of these figures!]
···············
Voter Feedback:
···············
YES!
The operative word in this week's question is 'sell'. It is
incredibly easy to find a product to promote on the net.
Virtually anything is acceptable (if not desirable). However, to
find a product that will SELL on the net, is more difficult. To
make money on the net, i.e. earn more than you pay-out, requires
a product formula which many items fail and will always result in
a net loss. They may provide an interesting, even exciting
experience. But money-in-the-bank? No way.
One product group which has a better-than-most opportunity of
providing a solid basis for success is information in the form of
downloadable software or Acrobat PDF reports. Information
because that is what most people access the net for. Downloadable
because instant satisfaction and fulfillment are what the net is
all about.
David Deeson mailto:david+nowsell.com
http://www.nowsell.com/internet_business/ask
[Azam: Thanks David. Right on the button as usual! Information
products are phenomenally successful online. For anyone
struggling to come up with their own product to sell, this is the
avenue I would recommend over any other. The market is huge, the
possibilities endless and you have no stock or shipping to worry
about.
Every single one of us has specialist knowledge about something.
The only hurdle we face is recognizing it for what it is: A
saleable product.
It doesn't even matter if others also share the same knowledge.
The shear number of people online, from all walks of life and
points on the globe, dictates that there will always be those
willing to pay for your information.
If you are thinking of pursuing this route, I highly recommend
that you take a look at "Make Your Knowledge Sell!" Further, I
suggest that *anyone* who falls into the 'Yes' vote category pay
a visit to http://www.nowsell.com/infoproducts . Carefully study
all the information about the opportunities in info-product
publishing, how easy it is, and how literally anyone can do it.]
NO!
I joined the internet to promote my offline product (decorative
candles) but have since become sidetracked and found a new
product (business opportunity service) to promote alongside my
original one. To me the important thing about internet business
is that your heart has to be in what you are promoting. Too many
people are wasting their time playing at internet selling.
When I started my candle business, my customers were mostly shops
within a few miles of where I lived, although because I live in a
tourist town, the product found it's way around the world. Now, I
am in a position to sell direct to people anywhere in the world.
The best part is that all my candle customers are also
potentional customers for my other venture. My advice is get your
product and strategy sorted out first, get this operative and
then go with the flow.
Ian Tiele mailto:ian+clickme.zzn.com
http://www.clickforcash.homestead.com
[Azam: I hope everything goes well for you Ian. I'd like to echo
for the all in the YES category: "your heart has to be in what
you are promoting" and "get your product and strategy sorted out
first."]
=================================================================
DISCOVER INSIDER INTERNET MARKETING SECRETS! NEW - Version 4.0!!
Learn the Insider Internet marketing secrets that can explode
your online profits. One of the hottest selling Internet
marketing courses on the Net today. BRAND NEW UPDATE 11 JAN 2000
Secrets To Making Money On The Information Super-Highway:
http://www.aismedia.com/secrets/index.htm?MC10749xBB01
=================================================================
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+ FEATURE ARTICLE +
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------------------------------------
Tell Amazon.com & Jeff Bezos What
You Think of Their Patent Practices!
------------------------------------
by Nicholas Schmidt
THE LAST FEW WEEKS have seen events unfold that are so
outrageous and maddening... events that threaten YOUR
PERSONAL E-COMMERCE PROJECT... yes YOUR(!) WEB SITE...
the one that you may already operate, or that you may be
planning to launch soon.
I'm talking about "patents on Internet business models,"
as recently granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office
to Amazon.com, and pending for Priceline.com and a host
of other companies.
Towards the end of this article, there will be links to
relevant publications, the USPTO, and other sites that
shed light on this important and urgent issue.
------------------------------------------------------------
Why should you care?
------------------------------------------------------------
If you are a non-technical person, you may be oblivious to
patents or anything that drives technology. You may only
care about your wallet.
Fine. Try ignoring this development for another year or two.
But when it's time to start YOUR e-commerce site, which,
today, can be operated on a shoestring, even from your
home, with reasonable hosting and development fees... yes,
when it's time to build YOUR Web site, YOU will be the one
who has a rude awakening.
Why? Because you'll find out, that most, if not all of the
business practices that are completely common and obvious
on the Internet today... will have been PATENTED by
corporate behemoths like Amazon.com or Priceline.com...
making it outright ILLEGAL for you to:
1.) Set up an affiliate program on your own;
2.) Create a site that conductions auctions or reverse
auctions;
3.) Create a site where the customer will name their
own price on items;
3.) Create a Web site with a button that allows one-click
ordering;
4.) Create a Web site that does any kind of e-commerce at
all?
...unless you ask Amazon.com for permission to do so;
...unless you buy the software from the single (or one
of few) vendors that have been licensed by Amazon.com
or Priceline.com, etc. to legally sell such software;
...unless you pay a hefty MONOPOLY PREMIUM because all
competition in the Web software market has been
virtually eliminated;
And how would you like it if you found out that all this
is being done with a stamp of approval from U.S. congress?
Sounds like the death of the Internet as the greatest
"equalizer" of all times, right? Sounds like the Web site
you planned for your small business may be doomed, right?
Sound like Amazon.com wants to strongarm you into using
their zShops or whatever they call it, so THEY are the
only ones who will profit from the e-commerce revolution?
------------------------------------------------------------
Bogus patents will be fleecing YOUR wallet!
------------------------------------------------------------
An e-commerce Web site that costs just $5,000 now, may cost
$25,000 in the near future, JUST BECAUSE IT MAY REFLECT
A COMPLETELY COMMON BUSINESS MODEL, such as "affiliates
get commissions on all sales they refer to you" or "name
your own price," or "click here to place your order without
entering your credit card info over and over."
Why the price increase? Because any company like yours may
have to pay ROYALTIES to Amazon.com for using "their" idea
on your web pages.
THIS AMOUNTS TO A DE-FACTO E-COMMERCE TAX. Amazon.com's not-
so-secret goal may be to to gain a legal monopoly on all
e-commerce transactions worldwide, and force you and me to
pay a premium for each item we sell or purchase on the Web,
using "their" patents, even if we wrote each web page
ourselves.
There are many ways to turn a patent into money... here's
where Amazon.com may become truly inventive.
All this because bogus patents are being granted to
predatory and ruthless companies like Amazon.com,
who exploit the technical ignorance of a body of lawmakers
that ALLOW the USPTO to grant MONOPOLIES BASED ON MERE
IDEAS...
...ideas that are so OBVIOUS to anybody who has ever written
one line of HTML code wonders, "what are these people at the
USPTO thinking? Is my congressman sleeping?"
------------------------------------------------------------
What damage has been done?
------------------------------------------------------------
* Amazon.com owns a patent on their "groundbreaking" idea of
one-click ordering: This is the idea of placing a button on
your Web site that allows ordering without entering credit
card details every time you place the order.
The USPTO should have said: DUH!
Instead, they granted patent number 5,960,411 on 9/28/99.
* Now Amazon.com received a patent on "affiliate programs":
The idea of issuing someone commissions as a reward for all
sales that have been generated by a hyperlink from their
site to yours.
Again, anybody who ever created just one Web page would
say: DUH!
But the USPTO granted patent number 6,029,141 on 2/22/00.
BOTH IDEAS ARE PLAIN AND OBVIOUS. But, due to a loophole in
U.S. patent law, you, me, or anyone, could have applied for
a "patent" on these business processes, so as to extort
royalties, or impose a de-facto e-commerce tax on virtually
all transactions made anywhere on the Web, from anyone in
the world who ever chooses to create Web sites that employ
the same, inevitable, and obvious IDEAS.
------------------------------------------------------------
Ok, you're not a techie, so you're not convinced yet.
------------------------------------------------------------
THAT'S THE CORE OF THE PROBLEM. The Internet is so new,
it's easy to pull the wool over a USPTO bureacrat's head by
using lots of buzzwords like "hyperlink" and "real time" in
your patent application.
Using the right lingo in a new technological field that few
lawmakers and government employees use (much less understand),
it's EASY to make a simple, obvious 3-step business
transaction, or a simple marketing promotional scheme, appear
like a true technical innovation that deserves a patent, and
royalty payments from thousands of other software companies
that implemented the same, obvious procedure, years ago.
If you too can't tell HTML from CGI, let me illustrate the
sweeping broadness of the Web patents being granted to
Amazon.com and their ilk, every day:
Imagine the fictionary market leader in Pizza delivery
services, "Domino Hut" applied for a patent on the following
procedure:
* Customer calls in by phone, orders a pizza;
* Pizza is is paid for by credit card in real-time, with
immediate feedback given to the customer who holds the line;
* Pizza is cooked using a unique high-tech device called
"oven".
* Pizza is then delivered (in real time!) to customer at
his or her place of residence.
* At that time, a coupon is handed over to the customer
that can be redeemed for discounts towards additional pizza
purchases in the future.
IMAGINE THIS PATENT WAS GRANTED. Not only would "Domino Hut"
be able to immediately sue its largest competitor "Papa
Caesar's"... it would also have effectively put ANY AND ALL
SMALL PIZZA DELIVERY services out of business... with the
stamp of approval from the U.S. Government, the supposed
last defender of the capitalist system of free market
competition in the world.
What's more, "Domino Hut" would become the sole provider of
takeout pizza to American households, allowing them to charge
you a $20 per delivery MONOPOLY TAX... but unlike government
taxes, this money would go right into their pocket. With the
blessing of the government.
SOUNDS SCARY? RIDICULOUS? Well, such patents on completely
obvious "business processes" are being granted almost every
day now, to companies who have the million-dollar resources
to file the application first.
And we, the smaller e-commerce start-ups, have no choice
but to follow suit, jump on the bandwagon, and file our own
patents, unless legislators come to their senses soon.
=================================================================
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=================================================================
------------------------------------------------------------
Help wipe Jeff Bezos' phony smile off his face
------------------------------------------------------------
WHAT MADDENS ME MOST is the phony "good guy" image that
Amazon.com, Priceline.com, etc. have built up in public.
You thought Microsoft is ruthless and plays hardball? At
least Bill Gates is honest about his plans for world
domination. ;-) And he's smart enough to not alienate the
Internet community (and the DOJ) by filing bogus patents
en masse, and harassing competitors with lawsuits based
on such patents. Amazon.com, however, has already filed
suit against BarnesAndNoble.com for implementing the oh-so
original idea of one-click ordering online.
Hardly a day goes by that Jeff Bezos (named in the patents
in question) smiles at you from some cover of a magazine,
or touts his "garage-to-riches story" to a group of
drooling admirerers at some Silicon Valley event.
It's sickening, if you ask me.
I don't mind Mr. Bezos being happy; he has reason to smile,
and I like good-natured people.
No, it's the phoniness, and the attempts to shove the truth
about Amazon.com's practices under the rug, that maddens me.
Next time you catch him trying to look as cute and harmless
as possible, ask him about his software patent practices.
Ask him if he will tax YOUR e-commerce Web site because it
implements any of the ideas that he claims a monopoly on.
Ask him if why Amazon.com wants to eliminate, or tax the
small operators who eek out a few dollars a month by
participating in affiliate programs.
He will typically defind himself saying that it took
Amazon.com years of hard work to develop their one-click
ordering system, or their affiliate system, or whatever
promotional scheme is common on the Web.
Phony.
Sickening.
Mr. Bezos, it may be true that it took a lot of time to
implement the idea. But you applied for a patent on the
UNDERLYING BUSINESS PROCESS, i.e. the idea itself, which has
nothing to do with the admittedly difficult implementation.
The BUSINESS MODEL of one-click ordering, or issuing
affiliate commission reports, is obvious. These are ideas as
old as the Internet itself. In fact, business and marketing
can hardly function without things like hyperlinks that
generate commissions.
I don't know about you, dear reader, but this writer feels
that ANYONE should be allowed to create a Web site that
issues affiliate commissions to its sales representatives,
or cuts a check to joint venture partners, even with "real
time" e-mail reports. (Another duh! feature of Bezos' patent.)
ANYONE should be allowed to offer the convenience of one-click
buttons to place an order online. None of these ideas take
more than five minutes to write down on a napkin. The excuse
that Amazon.com invested a lot of engineering genius into
these ideas is just another attempt at misleading the public
into believing any of this has to do with the "rocket science"
of implementing the idea or writing software -- it isn't.
So when you see Mr. Bezos' still boyish face, remind yourself
that you're really seeing a ruthless businessperson who will
do ANYTHING, and I mean, ANYTHING (legal) to wipe out small
competitors like you, and take over the Internet, and tax it
as much as this is possible.
------------------------------------------------------------
What can you do about this?
------------------------------------------------------------
1.) PROFITSTREAM.COM IS NOT ALONE IN ITS PROTEST. I do not
want you to take just my word on this. Read the recent
articles on Amazon.com's anti-competitive practices:
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,34670,00.html
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20000301/1981865s.htm
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,12377,00.html
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-922281.html
2.) READ THE PATENT ITSELF. One paragraph of such sweeping
generality, it's hard to believe anyone at the USPTO even
read it or has any idea of how far-reaching its impact on
e-commerce in the U.S. will be:
Go to the USPTO's Web site at:
http://164.195.100.11/netahtml/srchnum.htm
There, enter the patent numbers:
5,960,411 Jeff Bezos' patent on one click ordering
6,029,141 Jeff Bezos' patent on affiliate systems
3.) TAKE ACTION. If you can envision the catastrophe we're
heading towards, and you do not want to be forced to operate
your e-commerce site from a remote island nation where bogus
U.S. patents can't reach you,
* CALL YOUR CONGRESSMAN ON MONDAY!
* CALL AL GORE & BILL BRADLEY ON MONDAY!
* CALL GEORGE W. BUSH AND JOHN McCAIN ON MONDAY!
And if you're concerned about Priceline.com's equally
sweeping patent offense, call William Shatner, of Star
Trek fame, and explain him what kind of company he's
advocating in his commercials.
4.) GO TO http://NoWebPatents.org and make your voice heard!
http://www.nowebpatents.org/
Register, participate, sponsor this fantastic site!
5.) SHOW SOME CIVIL COURAGE -- SPREAD THIS ARTICLE WIDE
AND FAR. It's YOUR right to conduct e-commerce with
your own small business on the Web, without fear of
getting sued by some corporate bully for "violating" a
patent on an idea that's as obvious as the wheels on a
car.
It's YOUR right to run a Web-based business without
paying a universal e-commerce tax that goes into
Jeff Bezos' pockets.
Equally, as a consumer it is your right to enjoy one-
click ordering, or participate in affiliate programs
other than Amazon.com's and make a few bucks on the side.
I KNOW, ENTREPRENEURS LIKE YOU WOULD RATHER NOT BOTHER.
I know, you have to use your 8 hours a day to make money.
We rarely have time to fight a crusade. But how will YOU
earn your money a few years from now, when your right to
conduct business on the 'Net as you please, has been all
but eliminated?
How will it feel when YOU have to pay universal
e-commerce taxes to Amazon.com for each transaction you
run at your site?
------------------------------------------------------------
YOU DO HAVE FREEDOM OF SPEECH, and public opinion quickly
turns against corporate bullies, if they push it too far.
------------------------------------------------------------
A SWING OF PUBLIC OPINION IS THE ONLY WAY TO FIGHT THIS.
A huge backlash is building against Amazon.com, and
their imitators will be next. Jeff Bezos still plays
the "good boy" on TV, but his image can crumble as soon
as the mainstream media pick up on this story (as they
should ~ why haven't they?)
USA Today just picked up this story. NOW is the time to
help this cause pick up steam!
If Amazon.com or anyone bullies you, let me know and
we'll run a story on it immediately.
Friends, only a massive public outcry can wake up
congress, and can save the competitiveness of the United
States economy in the world. WHERE will e-commerce go
if competition can be eliminated in the U.S. by simply
filing a patent on an IDEA that pops into your head?
E-commerce will go offshore, of course, where idiotic U.S.
patents don't apply. Always an alternative, but not a
convenient one.
IS THAT WHAT CONGRESS WANTS? E-commerce companies moving
out of the U.S.? Or does congress want a thriving e-economy
where YOUR company could become the new garage-to-IPO success
story, without being charged to death by one corporate
bully who wants to choke competition from the start.
5.) FINALLY, surf over to Profitalk.com to discuss this
issue, and watch for updates -- I invite Mr. Bezos
directly to defend himself at our public forum:
http://www.profitalk.com
------------------------------------------------------------
Climbing off the soapbox
------------------------------------------------------------
Ok, I'm getting off my soapbox now. Yes, this article is
opinionated, emotional. It takes outrageous free speech to
fight outrageous wrongdoing, conducted by basically good
people who use the system and milk it for what it's worth.
Some of these good people are simply oblivious to what's
going on, as are most of our lawmakers and the executive
branch of our government.
Some of these good people simply tell themselves, "if I
don't apply for a patent myself, my competitor will." Just
reasonable thinking, right?
And some of these good people think it's alright because
other good people either don't object, or are doing it
themselves.
The negative spiral is gaining momentum and in a few
short years, there'll be nothing you can sell on the
Web without violating someone else's patented idea.
HOW CAN THINGS GO WRONG, DESPITE SO MANY WELL-INTENTIONED
PEOPLE INVOLVED? 'cause it ain't hurting in anyone's
wallet yet.
But the greater good, the freedom to conduct business online,
using whatever buttons or promotional schemes, REALLY IS in
acute danger.
YOU, as a consumer, are already hurting because BN.com had
to take their convenient one-click ordering button off
their site. And if you're counting on BN.com's
affiliate commission checks to supplement your income,
guess what will happen to this useful program, now that
Amazon.com owns the right to shut down any and all affiliate
systems worldwide, if they so desire? Amazon.com will
probably force BN.com to give up their affiliate program,
and there goes your check!
Sure, it's not hurting in your wallet today, but it WILL
tomorrow. You heard it here first.
Truly a startling development. Truly amazing.
------------------------------------------------------------
Since none of the "good people" currently involved in the
process, seem to do anything to stop it, the burden is now
on YOU.
------------------------------------------------------------
Yes YOU.
Review the action points from above. Take action now. It's
YOUR e-commerce future that's at stake.
Do it now.
It's important that you do it now.
-Nicholas Schmidt
Copyright © 2000 Nicholas Schmidt
Nicholas encourages everyone to re-publish this information.
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OK, that's it for part two! Below you'll find the INFO SECTION.
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Biz Bits is Copyright © 1999-2000 Azam Corry. All Rights
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