The Stock Solution
URL: http://www.xmission.com:80/~tssphoto/
Category: Business Resources
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Surely the Web was made for sites like The Stock Solution, which licenses stock photography for one-time use. It¹s easy to preview images, search a database of some 200,000 photos, and locate a comprehendible price and order scheme. Because TSS provides digital images, you can request a custom search, which you¹ll receive via e-mail; much more efficient and cheaper than the research fee most stock houses charge. You can search files alphabetically, or scan sample images from broad categories: nature, people, wildlife, etc.. A special bonus: The page is well-written, and well-executed. Good job, TSS!
Overall Rating (out of 18): 11
MarketPlace
URL: http://www.mktplace.com/home1045/
Category: Business Resources
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
If you like business analysis or aren¹t shy about sending contact info to marketeers, MarketPlace might be for you. It¹s a front page for a Dun and Bradstreet CD-ROM offering market research by industry, a national directory of service businesses, and other business research tools. You must register (for free) to access the database. Pull up ³eating places/restaurants,² for example, to get the estimated number in the U.S., annual sales, number employed, and company size, location, and specialty data. The information isn¹t dated or referenced, so you might want to take it with a grain of salt. current.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 6
Welcome to FINDEX St Clair Financial Index
URL: http://www.findex.com/
Category: Business Resources
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
FINDEX is a search index of worldwide financial institutions. You can search by category (r.e., banks, trust companies and stock exchanges, etc.), or by geographical location. You can also enter a keyword, and see what comes up. FINDEX is in fact a helpful front door filter for all the individual pages put up by companies already on the Web. Of course, the drawback of a front door is that the quality of company information you receive varies widely. Even so, if you want to research a U.S. financial market, compare services between Canadian banks, or locate an Australian insurer, this is a handy starting place.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 6
HP Financial Services
URL: http://www.dmo.hp.com/fsi/index.html
Category: Business Resources
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Hewlett-Packard is a huge company with many markets, many customers and many clients. The Financial Services page is but one portion of its corporate Web site, and here you¹ll find an overview of products and ³solutions² that H.P. offers to high-end financial, insurance and retail banking clients. These clean, professional-looking (though rather sterile) pages describe H.P.¹s expertise and offerings in each area. If you¹re looking for descriptions and prices of actual products, most of the lingua franca is brochure-speak, although the Technical Library does contain useful product briefs, data sheets and white papers.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 6
1st Steps Cool Marketing Resources and Tools
URL: http://www.interbiznet.com/ibn/nomad.html
Category: Business Resources
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
A diamond in the rough, Internet Business Network has scanned the Web for info on Web-marketing and selling, and critiqued sites for marketing savvy. It comes up short on information design, though: the newsbits, tips, and links are buried in tiny type by date ‹ fairly meaningless for categorization. If you¹re interested in developing a business Web site, or marketing your stuff online, you'll find a few good ideas and links embedded here. IBN means well ‹ you can track your UPS and FedEx packages ‹ but as it works now, is not a mandatory bookmark.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 5
Welcome to Access Business Online
URL: http://www.clickit.com/touch/home.htm
Category: Business Resources
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
It¹s image map city at Access Business Online, which epitomizes entrepreneurialism on the Web at its most overblown. The site promotes business self-help books and videos, canned how-to-ask-for-more-money articles, and a few links outside to daily news sources. There¹s an ever-present, very busy-looking grid to ³guide² you through clips and product pitches. For all the elaborate front-end, it¹s not a smart guide. Too bad Access Business Online doesn¹t follow its own quote-to-live-by: ³Do one thing. Do it well. Do it better than anyone else. Do it for less."
Overall Rating (out of 18): 5
Netresource.com Home
URL: http://www.netresource.com/
Category: Business Resources
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Remember the joke about consultants? They borrow your watch to tell you what time it is. Netresource is kind of like that ‹ a Web marketing consultant whose site is virtually all links to pages it¹s created for clients. The only value here is a serviceable article about the pros and cons of marketing on the Internet. You can have a memorable catch-22 experience at the search button, which instructs you to ³enter a search pattern,² which in turn leads you to the command, ³enter a search string.² Never did find out what I should search for.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 4
Inter-Mark
URL: http://www.tech-comm.com/techcomm/tch1009.html
Category: Business Resources
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Inter-Mark presents pages of text on its company products: Internet access, Web page creation and maintenance, and online advertising and marketing services. A single internal link shoots you to a customer list, while other links send you to pages the company has built or manages. Richer information would be necessary to encourage customers to actually turn to Inter-Mark for business: What are the tools? How do they work? What specifically has the company done for each client? Without this kind of information, there¹s little reason to visit Inter-Mark.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 4
Words of Mouth
URL: http://www.hookup.net/~wom/
Category: Business Resources
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
An excellent idea gone awry. Words of Mouth is a Canadian speakers¹ bureau that fronts the Web sites of a number of business consultants and motivators. The homepage encourages editors seeking pithy quotes and articles to scan links below. Topics include teamwork, change, and risk-taking. So far so good, right? But when you choose a link (actually, the name of speaker), all you get is a marketing brochure and contact information. You *don't* get any words of wisdom that would indicate the value of these sages! Come on, Words of Mouth. If you¹re touting wise thoughts and stirring ideas, do share.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 4
Results Unlimited Helps You Do More Business With Less Effort
URL: http://www.widdl.com/results/
Category: Business Resources
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
What were the creators thinking? There¹s less text here than on a bus ad ‹ and zero value. Apparently, these folks want to sell you marketing consulting and training services, and, of course, videos. The links go to a paragraph or two of teaser copy: ³If you¹d like to do more business with less effort, you can either sell more or reduce your cost of doing business.² And hey ‹ Results Unlimited can work with you on both. Just send e-mail. What¹s really unlimited here is lameness.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 3