TechLifeMashup | Entrepreneurs, Social Media, and Technology

Video is now the fastest growing area of the internet advertising market.  Sites like YouTube, Hulu, and others have continued to assist in the digital media explosion that the internet has seen over the past few years through video.  You can see examples of this first hand on major news sites such as CNN who have switched a majority of their main page content over to video featured stories as oppose to traditional text.  So what exactly does this mean to you?  Well, if you’re an avid internet entrepreneur and/or blogger, you’ll want to read on to see all the reasons why video blogging is a must! More »

TechCrunch.com is a name very familiar with most tech enthusiasts and internet entrepreneurs.  TechCrunch is a technology, social media, and internet start-up focused blog that now attracts over 3,000,000 visitors monthly!  For this reason and many others, this week in the spotlight we take a look at entrepreneur Michael Arrington, who created the popular technology driven blog known as TechCrunch. We’ll look at how he did it and then highlight the important lessons to be learned for any upcoming entrepreneur! More »

Any entrepreneur will tell you to look before you jump, and what that means is you should always research your competition before launching a new product or site.  This is really the first thing you want to do after you’ve come up with a new idea.  Unless your idea is something completely new or out of left field, chances are there is someone (probably on the internet) out there doing what you just thought of in some fashion.  This is why you need to know your competition in a particular niche ahead of time before you invest your valuable time and resources into it.  No one wants to invest in a new idea that isn’t going to go anywhere!  In an effort to help you determine what kind of competition your new idea might be facing, I present you with the 6 questions every entrepreneur should ask. More »

If you’re serious about making money online with your blog, then you probably have heard the phrase “Monetize Your Blog.”  The word monetize simply means taking something of value and turning it into money, which is exactly what so many people are looking to do with their own site.  So the question quickly becomes how can I monetize my site and make money online?  While there are more ways available than any one person could count, today we are going to highlight the 10 most effective ways to monetize your blog.  See what they are and how they can benefit you! More »

LinkedIn is a popular business-focused social networking site for people in any profession.  Millions of visitors flock to the site each month to update resumes, look for jobs, and communicate with past and current colleagues.  LinkedIn now gets millions of visitors each month and millions of dollars in revenue to go along with it.  Behind every great idea though is a great entrepreneur!  This week in the spotlight we take a look at entrepreneur Reid Hoffman, who created the popular business-oriented social networking website called LinkedIn.  We’ll look at just how he did it so you too can learn from his success! More »

The proof is in the pudding or in this case the free gift EzineArticles just sent me in the mail.  I was quite surprised to find a package sitting on my doorstep this afternoon as I arrived home, especially since I didn’t remember ordering anything.  Upon closer inspection, I realized it was from EzineArticles, which puzzled me more since I wasn’t sure why they would be sending me anything.  Curiousity quickly got the best of me as I began to rip off the many layers of tape and find out exactly what was in this box! More »

One of the first things you’ll want to do as an entrepreneur once you have an idea is to develop a business model around it.  How are you going to make money off your new product or service?  That is the question your business model should answer.  Being the savvy internet entrepreneur that you are, I’m sure your business model will most likely depend on the internet as the primary delivery method of your idea to the masses!  This being the case, it would be extremely beneficial to know how other successful entrepreneurs are using social media business models to turn a very nice profit online!  Read on to see just what those top 5 social media business models are! More »

Amazon.com has easily become one of the largest and most successful companies on the internet.  It’s a company that started well before the dot com boom and has lasted well past the bust of that period when most other online companies failed.   Did you know though that Amazon actually started out of a very simple idea; a small online bookstore.  Want to know how the entrepreneur mastermind behind this site took it to where it is today?  Well, this week in the spotlight we take a look at entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, who created the popular online shopping website we have all come to known and love called Amazon.com.  We’ll look at just how he did it so all you entrepreneurs out there can learn from his success story and do it too! More »

Backlinks are one of the most important elements of building traffic to your site. The more backlinks you have pointing to your site, the higher you will rank in search engines. The higher you rank in search engines, the more traffic you will see to your site.  The more traffic you have coming to your site through backlinks, the more money you’ll make.  While there are many different methods you can use to get more backlinks (some good and some not so good), I’ve highlighted the top 5 safe and most effective methods that have worked wonders for many including myself. More »

Facebook, Twitter, and Digg are three of the most popular social networking websites on the internet.  They also happen to be three of my favorite sites as they probably are for many of you as well.  These now giant social networks have had millions of dollars poured into each of them by hungry investors who expect to make a large chunk of change back to say the least.  This got me thinking the other day on my way home from work, and I found myself asking how do sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Digg make money online?  After some research over the next few days I was able to find some interesting results that any internet entrepreneur might find useful! More »