The Australian, Entrepreneur MARKETING fads come and go but YouTube and the internet look as if they are here to stay. YouTube is about rich interesting content rather than rich video production companies that usually make expensive TV ads. And this makes it an ideal medium for the small to medium-sized business, according to Sydney-based Laurel [...]

The Australian, Entrepreneur FOOD franchises are the fastest-growing franchises. On the league table of fastest growers, six are taking some sort of health angle on food: Sumo Salad, Big Dad’s Pies, Healthy Habits, Noodle Box, Pizza Capers and Crust Gourmet Pizza Bar. Tim Dixon, CEO of consultant Franchise Works, says the high street is so dense with [...]

The Australian, Entrepreneur DARREN Rowse is an accidental entrepreneur. The Melbourne-based lay preacher has earned more than $700,000 from internet advertising since 2003 simply by working out what people want to read on the internet. Now he runs the B5Media Network of 320 bloggers with co-founders Shai Coggins from Adelaide and Jeremy Wright from Toronto after 18 [...]

The Australian, Entrepreneur AUSTRALIA is behind the rest of the world with online shopping. According to online researcher Hitwise, just 6.75 per cent of Australian internet traffic last month was for shopping and classifieds. In the US, 9.54 per cent and Britain 9.61 per cent of traffic was in this category. In the DVD market, 10 per [...]

IN THE BLACK: In the trenches Cool customers: the growing Chinese consumer goods market may give us the greatest lessons about understanding the customer. By Ed Charles Knowing your customer is essential to the success of any business enterprise. China is the market that many multinationals are concentrating on. So how does one begin to understand this [...]

IN THE BLACK Are you a knowledge worker or a pen pusher? The likelihood is that you are the former, which means you are about ideas and -collaboration. In that case, the expressions ’social media’, ‘Web 2.0′, or more importantly, ‘Enterprise 2.0′, should be in your vocabulary, even if you don’t have a profile on Facebook. While these [...]

From The Australian, Entrepreneur: Blogs save time and energy, writes Ed Charles | July 27, 2007 THE hype over blogs focuses on gossip and radical politics. What many people miss is the power of the blog as a marketing tool for small business and an alternative to e-newsletters.  BUSINESS BLOGS • workingsolo.com.au • blog.completepotential.com • trevorcook.typepad.com • www.benjaminchristie.com • www.nobledentist.com.au/blog/index.php • www.frankteam.com.au/blog • blog.nowhiring.com.au • www.barrett.com.au/blogs/suebarrett • lukegoodwin.blogspot.com Blogs offer superior features to static websites, sometimes cost [...]

INTHEBLACK - In the trenches Over a thousand years ago whisky was born in Asia. Only now is it experiencing a rebirth. By Edward Charles. Chinese youths are increasingly turning away from the nation’s traditional potent spirits, known as baijiu, in favour of whisky as their alcohol of choice. In the bars and discos in Shanghai, [...]

The Australian, Entrepreneur: Victoria Angove continues to push her family’s heritage further, Ed Charles reports. BEING the fifth generation of family to enter a business founded in 1886 doesn’t preclude Victoria Angove from being entrepreneurial. At the age of 29 she is charged with developing the Angove’s wine company’s international markets to diversify export risk and build sales, [...]

Here’s the problem: Australia is very good at digging stuff out of the ground, and it’s very good at planting loads of stuff in the ground and growing it. What the country isn’t so good at is making high-value products – whether they be minerals or food staples – out of those raw materials. According to [...]