Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Doing business with dad

In honor of the upcoming Father's Day I thought this was a great article about father/son business yeams. From california mortgage rate partnerships to many other small businesses around the country this article talks about what it is like for fathers and sons to work together in small business.

"(My son) Eric was always complaining about the politics and structure of corporate life," said Gary GrefRath, 66. So Gary, who taught a small business management course at the community college, decided that the two of them should start their own small business.

Because of Eric's technical skills and Gary's sales and marketing experience, they chose to open an AlphaGraphics franchise, which offers digital copying, printing, archiving and mail services to other small- and medium-sized businesses.

full story

Gasoline: How low it will go?

Experts say prices could fall by over 50 cents a gallon by July 4; after then, everything depends on hurricane season.

OF course we all know that prices have increased at record rates over the last few months so really it is the same old, same old in regards to how the prices work. Jack the price up a buck. Slowly move it back down 50 cents so that it seems like a big savings. Other than Las Vegas Real Estate there probably isn't a much better investment over the past several years than gas stocks.

After setting record highs less than a month ago, gasoline prices are on the way down.

Experts say motorists can expect gradually declining prices from now until July 4. After the Fourth, and barring any unforeseen event like war with Iran, the cost of gas will largely depend on how the hurricane season shapes up. Special Report
full coverage

Nationwide average retail prices have fallen from a record high of $3.23 a gallon at the end of May to about $3.07 as of Tuesday, a drop of roughly 5 percent, according to the motorist organization AAA. The government reported a similar decline in its latest weekly survey. more

The PayPerPost Revolution Accelerates, Sponsored Blogging Marketplace Secures $7 Million Series B

PayPerPost has released this recent press release discussing a new influx of cash into the business. The company is a mediary for bloggers and advertisers to put them together and allow advertisers to advertise on blogs and really get some needed exposure to millions of readers for prices that don't even compare to traditional advertising.

Draper Fisher Jurvetson leads round and joins Board of Directors

ORLANDO, FL – (June 12, 2007) – PayPerPost, the leading marketplace for advertisers to reach bloggers and other consumer content creators, today announced it has completed a $7 million second round investment led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, an investor in the company's Series A and one of the world’s leading high-technology venture capital firms. The financing brings the total amount of capital raised by PayPerPost to over $10 million, giving the company considerable resources for further development as the industry’s leading Consumer Generated Advertising marketplace. Additional participants in the round include existing investors Inflexion Partners and Village Ventures as well as new investor DFJ Gotham. With this investment, DFJ Managing Director Josh Stein also joins PayPerPost’s Board of Directors.

“PayPerPost created this exciting new advertising space and has established itself as the industry leader,” said Ted Murphy, chief executive officer of PayPerPost. “Although we’ve only used a portion of our first round capital, this added support from investors unlocks significant growth potential. Our content creator and advertiser ROI metrics clearly demonstrate the upside for PayPerPost’s model. We intend to use this capital to build the infrastructure, visibility and professional expertise necessary to reach and retain a greater network of advertisers and content creators than ever before.”

Since its founding in June of 2006, PayPerPost has signed more than 6,500 advertisers to its groundbreaking service, which has enabled Consumer Content Creators to be compensated for their efforts discussing specific companies, products or services via blogs, videos or other media. The content creators are required to disclose relationships with advertisers on their blog, providing transparency for the end reader. Over 125,000 Internet postings, most in the form of blogs, have already earned money for their creators through PayPerPost’s innovative marketplace. PayPerPost recently released PayPerPost Direct, a disruptive new service that allows advertisers to contract and negotiate directly with individual bloggers they identify through a safe, managed system.

“PayPerPost has laid a strong foundation for the future,” noted Tim Draper, founder and managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. “It continues to attract a critical mass of participants from both the advertising and blogging communities. Analogous to Overture’s sponsored search model, we believe PayPerPost’s business model holds disruptive potential and will enable the company to thrive in the evolving paid-content arena.”

To mark the $7 million dollar funding, PayPerPost has launched a new website detailing the company’s service offering at http://www.payperpost.com. Bloggers and advertisers can easily sign up at the site and begin leveraging the self service marketplace.