| ‘Magic Fingers Vibrating Bed’ Inventor Dies Posted: 19 Jun 2009 02:15 PM PDT 
USA TODAY:
John Joseph Houghtaling, the inventor of the “Magic Fingers Vibrating Bed,” which brought weary travelers 15 minutes of “tingling relaxation and ease” for a quarter in hotel rooms across America, has died. He was 92. During its heyday in the 1960s and ’70s, Magic Fingers was a pop culture icon. In a 1963 New York Times profile, Houghtaling said he was selling beds with a built-in vibrating mechanism when he realized during a repair job that it would be much cheaper to create something that would attach to the outside of an existing bed. “After ripping away the frills, I found that it was the vibrator that counted, not the bed,” he recalled. “Magic Fingers was born then and there.” In its heyday, there were about 175 Magic Fingers franchise operators across the country, and the gadgets collected $6,000 to $7,000 a month in quarters, Houghtaling’s son said. By the late 1970s, dealers complained they spent more money to repair devices that thieves broke open. Houghtaling developed a debit card-like system for the machines to replace the coin slots, but the idea never took off. “He was trying to move it to a cashless mechanism so people wouldn’t have any reason to break into them,” his son said. “Unfortunately, it was kind of ahead of its time.” Photo by AP.
From Business Opportunities Weblog. 
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| Signs That Your Business May Be In Danger Posted: 19 Jun 2009 12:30 PM PDT 
 photo credit: tttallis
In business there are many signs to look for that indicate how healthy or not your business is. SmallBizBee has ten of them, and what to do to fix them. Here are the first five: Sign #1 You don't know you unique selling proposition (USP) Sign #2 You have to play with the #'s to “make it work” Sign #3 You haven't made short and long term goals for the business Sign #4 You lack support Sign #5 You're having partner problems early on
From Business Opportunities Weblog. 
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| Zany Patents Posted: 19 Jun 2009 11:11 AM PDT Forbes: Even in a recession, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office keeps busy. Since 1996, the annual number of patent filings has jumped 130% to 485,000 last year. But what some consider innovation, others might call a boondoggle–especially given the prohibitive costs of papering a patent. In the best-case scenario (where an application gets stamped, sealed and approved on the first try), inventors pony up about $15,000, assuming they hire a skilled patent attorney. Apparatus for Facilitating the Birth of a Child by Centrifugal Force
Patent No. 3,216,423
 Combination Pillow and Crash Helmet
Patent No. 3,538,508
 Pneumatic Shoe Lacing Apparatus
Patent No. 5,205,055
 Fresh-Air Breathing Device and Method
Patent No. 4,320,756
 Photo by USPTO. From Business Opportunities Weblog. 
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| Leveraging Your Articles Posted: 19 Jun 2009 10:30 AM PDT 
photo credit: TheTruthAboutMortgage.com
Writing valuable content-rich articles for your target market and submitting them to article directories and other publishers is one of the best ways to market your business, become known as an expert in your field, and add subscribers to your list. As stated on Solo Entrepreneur this week.
One of the most important aspects of writing your articles is to protect you work always. Do this by always adding your copyright to the article. Write or maybe even revise on of your already written articles that are directed towards your niche in the market and that contain a lot of useful and valuable information for your readers. In the end, make sure to submit these articles, yes this can become very time consuming for you especially depending on the number of articles you have written, but hiring a Virtual Assistant would definitely come in really handy for this step. From Business Opportunities Weblog. 
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| Getting Your Story On TV Posted: 19 Jun 2009 10:10 AM PDT 
UnderstandingMarketing.com: If your small business has a hot story that you know would be appealing to a producer or reporter at a television station – local or national – you can call them up and pitch them. And you'll quickly realize that if you haven't done your homework on that particular reporter at that station or network, that pitch call will be a one-person conversation faster than you can say dejection. The best PR professionals take the time to study each different reporter and television station/network so that they can target their story pitches with great precision. We spend hours and hours studying, and often times I feel like a football player walking out of the team headquarters with all kinds of knowledge. I get a great understanding of what my reporter covers, the type of stories the station likes to run, if there are special segments on any of the newscasts or shows, and on what day. Once you've developed your story pitch (use the PR Toolkit to help with this), figure out which show you want to be on, whether it's the local NBC news affiliate or the CBS Early Show. You must start with a target. Next, begin recording that show on your DVR. This will enable you to go home each night and take 15 or 20 minutes to zip through the day's telecast. Study who the reporters are. Get to know their television persona a little bit. You'll quickly realize that one reporter covers health stories while another one covers investigative or consumer stories. This is how you will know who you need to pitch your story to, which is key to understanding marketing opportunities. Continue Reading: “Getting Your Story On TV” Photo by PhotoFunia. From Business Opportunities Weblog. 
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| Great Resources For Beginner Bloggers Posted: 19 Jun 2009 09:30 AM PDT 
photo credit: evhead
When contemplating the idea of starting a new blog, many may have some reservations on what to write, how long of a blog to write, what to put on the site other than writing’s and more. I recently came across an article on The Mogul Momthat had some tips for beginner blogger that i think can really come in handy for you. ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Incomeby Darren Rowse & Chris Garrett–this is a perfect book for new blogger who are starting a blog with the hopes of earning an incomefrom it, not blogger who are just doing it for fun.
Starting a blog. This was found in Better Homes And Gardens magazine actually. This is a wonderful resource for new beginner blogger. This is jam packed full of resources for just about everything you could ever imagine on blogging such as how to start a new blog, blog software basics, wordpress blog templates and more. From Business Opportunities Weblog. 
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| The Computer Ate My Homework Posted: 19 Jun 2009 09:09 AM PDT 
The New York Times:
Just when you think that there are no new ideas for a business here comes one. Students (and, it should be noted, reporters) with a deadline hanging over their head have a deviously brilliant new delaying tactic. Paying someone to write the paper for you would be clearly dishonorable, but Corrupted-files.com is offering a simpler solution that doesn't involve plagiarism. The site sells a corrupted Microsoft Word file that can be emailed to the teacher after being renamed something appropriate like "Jones-Final-Paper-Rev-34.doc." As the file is corrupted, it will either not open at all or be filled with gibberish. But since files do get corrupted from time to time, it can be passed off as an unfortunate — and unavoidable — technical error. The longer the grading takes, the longer it will take the professor to discover the mangled data and the more extra time the student (or reporter) gets to polish the real version. The Internet gets the blame. Corrupted-files.com is also much cheaper than the paper mills that can demand hundreds of dollars for pages filled with legitimate exegesis of, say, the symbolism of that green light from The Great Gatsby. The corrupted file only costs $3.95 through the end of June. Added advantage over pre-written papers: Sending a corrupted file probably won't get you expelled. Photo by Corrupted-files.com.
From Business Opportunities Weblog. 
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| Must Reads For Small Businesses Posted: 19 Jun 2009 08:30 AM PDT 
photo credit: gadl Every business owner knows that the more useful information on running your business the better, there is never such a thing as having too much useful information. It’s like the old saying “knowledge is power” and in business both knowledge and power are two very vital things to have. Below is a list of extremely useful books for small businesses recently posted on OpenForum. - Never Eat Alone – Keith Ferrazzi and Tahl Raz
An excellent guide on how to build long-term mutually beneficial relationships with customers and other businesspeople. - Groundswell by Charlene Li is a complete guide that walks you through emerging social technologies (such as twitter and facebook) which in turn helps make your business better.
- Buyology. Probably one of the most useful books for small businesses. This book by Martin Lindstrom talks about the best aspects that actually work in marketing and such suggestions like which colors to choose for your business.
From Business Opportunities Weblog. 
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| Hopes To Cash In On Speed Traps Posted: 19 Jun 2009 08:08 AM PDT 
Washington Post:
Steven Forage, a software salesman who spends at least five hours a day in his car, juggles a lot on the road: finalizing deals over the phone, sipping coffee, checking e-mail. One thing he no longer worries about, though, is speed cameras. “Fuzz alert,” an electronic voice called out from the console of his Cadillac recently as it approached a speed enforcement camera in Montgomery County. The system, known as PhantomAlert, feeds the locations of speed cameras and red-light cameras into standard Global Positioning System devices and prompts the devices to warn drivers when they are near one. PhantomAlert has subscribers throughout the nation, including more than 2,000 in the Washington region, said the company’s owner Joseph Scott. Scott and a handful of employees scour government and police Web sites for camera locations. But subscribers send in most of the locations, which are added to PhantomAlert’s database. Scott said police should be thrilled by PhantomAlert, particularly because officials say speed cameras are designed not to generate money but to slow drivers. Photo by PhantomAlert.
From Business Opportunities Weblog. 
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| Lifelines For Your Start-Up Posted: 19 Jun 2009 07:30 AM PDT 
photo credit: David Sifry
You’ve made the decision to start your own business, you have your great idea, your awesome business plan and now your sitting there waiting for the investors to agree, waiting to be able to put all of your hard worked plans into motion. Starting a business can be tough especially in an economy where banks are not exactly champing at the bit to give out loans. Entrepreneur.com has a list of some organizations that can help you find funding. Here’s one: Ultra Light Startups caters to “bootstrapping” entrepreneurs, says founder Graham Lawlor, who started Ultra Light by gathering a group of friends and fellow entrepreneurs in New York last year to brainstorm some business ideas.
Remember, though, that you don’t need funding to start a business. You just need to start. From Business Opportunities Weblog. 
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| Mom Bloggers Find Niche Helping Bargain Hunters Posted: 19 Jun 2009 07:07 AM PDT 
Associated Press:
When Melissa Garcia was frustrated by Old Navy’s scanty coupon offerings, she didn’t just complain to the store. She vented on a message board tied to her blog consumerqueen.com, which is read by at least 30,000 people each month and now, increasingly, by corporate America. Within weeks, chatter in the so-called mommy blogosphere led Gap Inc.’s Old Navy to begin issuing coupons several times a week, instead of just once a week. Moms have always had marketplace muscle, but a new frugality driven by rising joblessness, housing woes and other economic problems has them exercising it like never before with the help of the Internet. In this recession, their talk online encompasses everything from complaints to advice on coupon clipping, low-budget meals and family finance. Retailers and consumer product makers are listening, too — and responding. After picking up chatter on blogs that was advocating layaway purchase plans be restored at its namesake department stores, Sears Holdings Corp. brought them back over the holidays after a two-decade hiatus. And Sears’ Kmart chain now accepts online coupons and has launched a Web site called Kmart.com/coupons that makes it easier to find specific deals, in response to chatter on mother-oriented blogs. Photo by ConsumerQueen.com.
From Business Opportunities Weblog. 
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