Yesterday, we talked about the exciting opportunities presented by providing Internet marketing consulting services to local businesses. There has probably never been a better time to get involved in such a business. But there is, however, a MAJOR downside to being a local Internet marketing consultant.

A downside that should not be dismissed lightly, given that it’s probably a major reason why many people want to start an online business in the first place.

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In my mind, there are three kinds of entrepreneur: inventors, modelers and marketers. All can be successful, but in my mind, only one kind of entrepreneur is on the surest path to building a business that survives… and thrives.

So what’s the difference between the three? Well, keep in mind that the three terms ‘innovators’, ‘modelers’ and ‘marketers’ are just labels. I think, though, that as you read my definitions, you’ll get the distinction between each entrepreneurial type. And, sure, I’m generalizing - there are probably people who fit into each category in different situations.

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Heard of Power.com? Well, you’re probably going to hear a lot more about it in the weeks and months to come. Essentially, Power.com is a platform that allows you to communicate across all your favorite social networking sites from ONE place.

Power.com works like this. You register with your preferred social networks. Then you use your Power.com home page to view all the content from those various social sites - friends, chats, emails, images, etc. You can then use Power to send and receive messages, change your profile, and update your friends or followers list… and do so across all your social networks.

Power.com currently works with Facebook, Hi5, MSN, MySpace and Orkut, and is scheduled to work with LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, AOL and Skype within the next few months.

Given its, um, power, you can probably see why Power already has 5 million registered users.

Of course, it helps to have, among other things, a link to Power on every message that is sent via the Power.com platform!

Even so, it’s selling proposition is so compelling that the company’s vision of 30 million registered users by the end of 2009 is probably realistic.

The company also has some serious backing - it has received $8 million in Series A funding from investors including venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson and tech visionary and entrepreneur Esther Dyson.

Based in Rio de Janeiro Brazil, Power.com is a privately held company with 70 employees. It’s opening new offices in San Francisco, California and Hyderabad, India.

Source: Lidija Davis, “Social Inter-Networking with Power,” ReadWriteWeb, November 30, 2008

If you use Gmail you would have noticed the addition of a new feature last week: video and voice chat. Hmmm, looks like Google plans to take on Skype!

To activate the new feature, you need to install a small browser plugin. The feature will work on PCs with Windows XP or Vista, as well as on Macs with OS X 10.4 or later. The plugin will work with all the major browsers, including Google’s own Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari.

Source: Justin Uberti, “Say hello to Gmail voice and video chat”, Gmail Blog, November 11, 2008

Andrew Warner recently commented on my article, 3 Tips For Viral Marketing Success. It turns out that Andrew recently interviewed viral marketing ‘guru’, Hiten Shah, partner at ACS SEO and a guy who has helped grow online traffic for major tech players such as TechCrunch, Guy Kawasaki, HP and Samsung.

During the interview, Shah revealed a number of powerful techniques he recommends for optimizing viral marketing campaigns. Here are six (6) such techniques - techniques you may wish to consider using in one or more of YOUR viral marketing initiatives:

1. Use a ‘beat me’ or competitive approach. Websites that allow users to challenge each other are inherently viral. For example, eduFire.com went viral by allowing its users to play language games and then challenge friends to score higher.
2. Require people to refer others to the viral application or content in order to benefit. Put it this way, no-one can use Skype… unless others also use Skype. And the same goes for numerous other applications and services, ranging from email to PayPal.
3. Let people show off - let people create or contribute content, and share what they’ve created. Doing so is a major reason behind the viral success of GE’s online whiteboard.
4. Encourage people to share - make it super-easy for users to share and embed your content. Who does this exceptionally well? YouTube!
5. Give people something to boast about - give people something to brag or boast about… and they will! For example, when Feedburner created a badge allowing bloggers to show how many readers they had, bloggers everywhere began displaying Feedburner badges – leading to Feedburner’s growth.
6. Measure your progress - measure your viral growth to see what is working… and what isn’t… and make changes accordingly.

To learn more powerful viral marketing techniques, click here to listen to the full interview between Andrew and Hiten Shah.

Source: Andrew Warner, “7 Essential Tools of Viral Marketing - The Hiten Shah Interview”, Mixergy.com, September 5, 2008

Skype 4.0 is due for release any day now. According to Josh Silverman, president of the eBay owned Internet phone division, this new version of Skype will feature a dramatic redesign and better integrate audio calls, video calls, file-sharing and text chat.

Among the new features will be having the “call” and “video call” icons beside each user’s name to make video calls easier. The new version will also feature records of previous communications beside each user’s name to make it easier to view past conversations.

Of course, commercial considerations are likely to be the main driver behind the revamp. Since eBay bought the company in 2005, Skype has grown dramatically in terms of both users (now 309 million) and revenues (now $126 million). Even so, it seems that eBay may have spent too much on its acquisition, having bought Skype for $2.6 billion and needing to take a huge write-down on the purchase in 2007.

Consequently, the company hopes the redesign will more effectively channel more users to the paid Skype services. For example, future initiatives as part of the Skype 4.0 revamp will include making it easier to use PayPal to send money via Skype, and access to Skype Prime. Skype Prime will involve third parties providing paid services via Skype, for which eBay will receive a commission.

Source: Brad Stone, “A Redesign at Skype”, The New York Times, June 17, 2008