PowerBlog Review: AllBusiness Blog Center

Editor's note: We're pleased to bring you the sixty-ninth in our regular weekly series of PowerBlog Reviews of business weblogs. This week's review is being guest-blogged by Lynne Meyer. Lynne Meyer, APR, is president of A Way with Words.

All Business All The Time
By Lynne Meyer

AllBusiness.com ("Champions of Small Business") has taken a novel approach to blogging. Instead of starting a series of new blogs by professional writers (an approach taken by a number of traditional media sites) AllBusiness.com has gathered experienced small-business bloggers from all over the United States -- New York, Minnesota, Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, Florida, just to name a few -- into one central location called the AllBusiness Blog Center. As of this writing there are 14 blogs available at the Center.

Many of the blogs were pre-existing properties before being ported over to reside at the AllBusiness Blog Center. In fact, we've previously done PowerBlog Reviews on a number of these fine business blogs when they were stand-alone sites. Today, rather than reviewing any single blog, we are reviewing the Blog Center as a whole.

The AllBusiness Blog Center bills itself as "The best business blogs from around the Web." Peter Levinson, product manager for the Blog Center, describes how AllBusiness has taken the metablog concept to new heights, with the site serving as a clearinghouse of sorts for the blogs of several small business owners, designed to help other small business owners. Think one-stop shopping. Says Peter:

"AllBusiness has a number of professionals blogging on the topics of their expertise and sharing their ideas and experiences with other professionals. With these blogs at our site, we provide resources to help small and growing businesses start, manage, finance and expand their business."

Here you'll find a compendium of informational posts about a variety of business topics, including legal, marketing, management, sales, starting/running your own business and business news.

The bloggers make postings as often as they wish, and AllBusiness makes it easy and convenient for them to participate in the metablog site. There's a photo of each blogger, which is a nice touch with so many different bloggers included on one site. According to Peter:

"Each blogger gets his or her own blog and can build their own community around their topic. We make it easy and convenient for our bloggers because we support them with back-end management, marketing, traffic and other resources."

Being organized for the ease of readers should be an important element for every successful blog, and AllBusiness does this well by categorizing each of the blogs into a topical category, such as legal, marketing, management or sales. Some of the categories also have sub-categories. For example, marketing has two sub categories -- direct mail marketing and Internet marketing.

AllBusiness.com is a site designed specifically to serve small business owners. Says Peter, "AllBusiness contains forms and agreements, business guides, business directories, thousands of articles, expert advice and business blogs, along with solutions and services, all focused on the small business market."

Business guide subjects include starting a business, incorporation and tax and government. There are also all manner of business forms -- everything from forms for buying a business, to forms for hiring employees, to forms for websites such as a sample privacy policy. You'll also find a large number of RSS feeds by topic, not limited just to blogs but for various columns and advice.

AllBusiness.com appears to have a strong commitment to blogging. The Blog Center is nicely integrated into the AllBusiness site, with a dedicated menu item for "Business Blogs" appearing as one of the main navigation tabs on the home page and throughout the site, as well as down the left side. In addition, the Blog Center is showcased on the home page of AllBusiness, with rotating visibility given to a couple of the individual blogs and bloggers, too.

AllBusiness is at the forefront of integrating new media forms like blogs into their overall offerings. It will be interesting to come back a year from now and see how it all develops.

Take a one-stop shopping trip to the AllBusiness Blog Center.

Trend of The Alterpreneur

Several weeks ago Alex Bellinger of SmallBizBlog left a comment here about the trend of the Alterpreneur in Great Britain. In case you missed his comment, here is the description of that trend from an article in Freelance UK:

"A new breed of entrepreneurs whose main objectives are to keep their business small and enjoy life are shedding the 'enterprise culture' tag thrust upon them by Government initiatives.

Far from being the next Richard Branson, the overwhelming majority of entrepreneurs simply want "an alternative to the nine to five of a traditional job" that lets them "retain control over their lives."

These are the 'alterpreneurs' -- self employed people that "work to live" so they can obtain "freedom from the corporate treadmill and the chance to build their own lifestyle."

Starting a business often has been the refuge of those who want more control over their lifestyles and working hours, whether in the U.K., the United States, Canada or other countries.

The danger, however, is that entrepreneurs who start a business in order to have a less-stressful and less-demanding work life, can end up working more hours. At least in the United States (and I suspect elsewhere) it often ends up that way.

Perhaps the business takes off and begins to grow, leading to greater and greater demands on the business owner's time. Or perhaps the business requires more hours than the business owner expected, and in this 24/7 world of ours, instead of having fewer demands on their time the opposite occurs and the line blurs further and further between work and personal time.

Oh, the best laid plans....

How Musicians, Writers and Filmmakers Make Money Today

We have had several guest columnists write about the tectonic shifts taking place in the music and publishing industries (you can find the articles listed on our Experts directory).

I am very pleased to introduce our latest guest expert, Robin Good. Recently I had the great pleasure of conducting a recorded interview with Robin using Skype. He shared his insights about the music, publishing and film industries. In addition to being very knowledgeable and interesting, Robin was kind enough to record the interview and provide it back to me.

Robin Good is a successful art and design director, film and videomaker, radio broadcaster, DJ, TV producer, information designer, computer graphics and multimedia production specialist. He is also a pioneering interdisciplinary explorer of the unfolding new media revolution. His flagship site with its popular newsletter, Master New Media, is well known for its excellent content about the latest developments in new media and the dramatic changes affecting traditional media.

The interview is a 40-minute MP3 recording.

Here are a few highlights from Robin's interview that I have summarized to give you a sample of what you will hear:

• A revolution is taking place, providing opportunities for independent musicians, filmmakers and writers to make money from niche products. Many are simply choosing to distribute their works on their own, and bypass major studios and publishing houses.



• As an example of how important niches have become, 57% of Amazon.com's book revenues are from books not available on traditional bookshelves.



• Artists are saying "Who needs audiences of millions?" Without the marketing burdens and the huge overhead of trying to reach mass markets, artists find they can be successful and make a profit with fewer customers.



• This shift is giving rise to completely new distribution methods and new kinds of websites that sell the output of independent musicians and writers. Examples include CD Baby, ArtistShare and Magnatune.



• The film industry also is in the early stages of change. In the U.S. 1,400 independent movies were produced last year. In India 800 movies were produced last year. Today, technology allows nearly anyone to produce professional-looking final product, not just the large studios. Soon we will have central clearinghouse sites for film downloads, just as we have central distribution for books through Amazon and for music through music sites like iTunes.



• Robin also took a few moments to talk about one of his latest projects, TheWeblogProject. He calls it an "open source movie' meaning that anyone can contribute to it. The film is about blogs. Robin is accepting video and other contributions for this project.

These points are just a small sample of what Robin spoke about -- you'll hear much more in the interview. Be sure to download and listen to Robin Good's interview.

Bank Loans for Startup Funding

When I sent out the last Small Business Trends newsletter, I answered a reader question as I always do in the Letters to the Editor feature. The question was: "How Do I Find Capital to Start a Business?"

My answer was: (1) family and friends, (2) angel investors, or (3) work two jobs and save your money.

Shortly afterwards, I received this email containing additional resources for startup capital here in the United States. I reproduce the entire email here:

Dear Anita,

There are more resources available to start-ups. Here are some of the ones we help our clients access.


• Count-me-in, an online microlender for women.



• SBA Community Express loans, available through Innovative Bank and local business organizations (such as ours).



• Community lenders. Check the SBA site, click on your state, then click on financing.



• State governments often have financing programs - check with the economic development units at the city, county and state levels to find out what incentives may be available for your type of business.



• Network in small business and economic development circles.



• Also, note that getting a bank loan is a process that you can get help with. Locate a convenient Small Business Development Center or Women's Business Center and meet with their counselors. These organizations have relationships with local banks and can help you find the right lender. They also provide the kind of business planning counseling and courses -- often delivered by lenders -- that leads, eventually, to successful loans. (We have a number of success stories.) They also teach the process of developing a relationship with the right bank so that, over time, you position yourself for a successful loan application.


Interestingly, a high proportion of potential business loan applicants have credit problems. Anyone who anticipates needing business financing should first learn their credit score and raise their credit rating.

I hope you will be able to share this information with your readers. Thanks so much!

Kind regards,

Susan M. Kuhn
Vice President, Entrepreneurial Programs
National Women's Business Center

Thank you, Susan, for taking the time to add your information for our readers.

Top Five Ways the Internet Has Changed Small Business

My Business, the magazine of the National Federal of Independent Businesses (NFIB) outlines the top five ways the Internet has changed small businesses:

1. Email: Because it changed the way small businesses communicate in business

2. Google: Because it changed the way small businesses advertise

3. eBay: Because it introduced online auction sites where small businesses can now buy and sell for their businesses

4. Amazon.com: Because it introduced small business to e-commerce

5. Online networking (such as LinkedIn.com): Because it enables business owners to share ideas and find business partners all over the country

This is a deceptively simple list. On the one hand, it could be dismissed as somebody's musings about popular websites.

But if you want to know "why are small businesses proliferating?" then part of the answer is on this list.

Stop and think of the implications.

All five tools on the list have certainly changed my working life and my business.

With email I'd go one step farther: email has totally transformed my business. Without email my business would move far slower, I would need more physical space (for all those filing cabinets for paperwork), I would need an administrative assistant, and I definitely would have more expense.