JimWorld Gazette Issue #85 02/08/2000

JimWorld Gazette - Issue #85 - February 8, 2000

The World's First Official Desktop Jimtool
Review - Raising The Bar On Banner Exchanges
New On JimWorld
Review - Used Car Database System For Dealers
Your $1,000,000 Idea
Powerful Secret: Turn Skeptics Into Buyers
Online Buying Pools Changing The Face Of Commerce
Get Linked
Snippets

Link to this issue of the Gazette as http://gazetteworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g85

THE WORLD'S FIRST OFFICIAL DESKTOP JIMTOOL

I have fought the same problem for the entire 3+ years I've been
putting out ezines.

While most subscriber activity goes directly to the online list interface (SparkList), somehow several hundred emails accumulate in my subscriber email box each month. Requests to change addresses, subscribe, unsubscribe and the like.

The only way to handle these is one at a time. Cut and paste. Boring hour after hour. Tedium. Snooze.

I whined about this problem several times to TJ Walker at Software Solutions. He listened as many times as he could and finally broke under the pressure. He and I came up with a program that runs on my desktop machine and will intelligently pull email addresses and URLs out of any file on my hard drive. Including my Eudora mailbox files. Very cool.

OVERVIEW

The JimTool Extractor quickly extracts internet email addresses and web addresses (URLs) from any standard text file (.txt, .rtf, .html, etc.). It provides great flexibility in filtering, and provides full file management.

PURPOSE AND USES

The primary purpose of the JimTool Extractor is to assist website owners who have subscribers to newsletters, mail lists and the like. Since most email clients allow you to archive specified folders or boxes into standard text files, the JimTool Extractor is designed to quickly extract Email addresses and URLs from such files or any text based file including HTML files.

USING THE EXTRACTOR TO CREATE LINK LISTS

Another use of the program would be to extract all full URL's from Internet web pages. For instance, if you came across a page that contained dozens or hundreds of links you wished to extract, this can easily be accomplished by saving a copy of the HTML file to your hard drive and then use The Extractor to grab all the URL's from that file.

With the optional filtering capabilities, the JimTool Extractor can quickly go through very large files specifically looking at or ignoring specified lines of the file.

INSTANTLY CONVERT URL LISTS INTO HTML USING THE TEXT TO HTML UTILITY

As an added feature, the JimTool Extractor includes a separate utility program that can be used to instantly convert a text list of URL's into a HTML page with all the URLs hyperlinked to themselves. The Text to HTML parser actually works on any text based file - even ones that contain a great deal of other data in addition to full URLs. The Text to HTML parser will strip out all data except for lines that begin with a full URLs and then produce a HTML page containing the related hyperlinks.

This feature can save a great deal of time by instantly producing the HTML coding for a lengthy list of URLs contained in a standard text file.

TRIAL VERSION LIMITATIONS

The trial version of the JimTool Extractor is fully functional for 15 uses. After this trial period, the software will no longer function unless registered. The JimTool Extractor plus the Text to HTML parser is only $24.95 US Dollars.

If you ever need to extract email addresses or URLs from any type of file or convert text files to HTML, these are the programs for you. Try it for free to find out just how handy and easy to operate they are.

Download your free trial copy from
http://jimtools.com/extractor/jtextractor.exe or read the README file
at http://jimtools.com/extractor/

If you like this one TJ and I will turn out a few more low cost JimTools in the coming months.

REVIEW - RAISING THE BAR ON BANNER EXCHANGES

Every day that goes by makes it more difficult to get into the game.
Banner exchanges are a blatant example of that.

In the beginning there was traffic. Then Al Gore created web sites so all of that traffic would have somewhere to go. But the owner of every web site wanted more than her fair share of that traffic.

Finally came the creation of Banner Exchanges. A simple concept: Get thousands of web sites together and let them all show each other's banner ads. Keep some for the company operating the exchange so they could sell them and pay the bills.

That worked for a while but the site owners grew restless. They were showing a lot of banners that were of no interest to their visitors. Their banner was being shown on sites that had no relevance to the banner message. But since it was the only game in town, what to do?

Link Exchange started to raise the bar when they announced their first banner targeting technology. It was pretty crude, but at the time seemed to be a fresh breath of air. The concept was simple. Each site in the Exchange entered information about the type of site that they operated based on a simple directory structure. Now a site owner could request that their banners only be shown on a specified type of sites.

By this time Link Exchange started running into competition. Competitors that were primarily trying to create technology that increased click-throughs by using intelligent agents in their systems. What followed was a dizzying array of comings and goings in the market. It seemed that every day someone announced a new banner exchange with some pretty spectacular features.

Unfortunately, most turned out to be "vaporware" that just never actually made it to the Net.

Other exchanges tried to increase results for their members by increasing the credits the received for showing banners on their site. Initially the offer was: you show two banners, you get to show one banner elsewhere. Various formulas were tried, such as you show three banners you get to show two banners. Or you show one half-banner and you get to show one half-banner. The exchange takes all of the other half of the standard banner space.

The ones that lasted were the ones that were able to deploy some expensive technology to increase results for their members. This technology means that an exchange needs a fair allocation of the space if they are to have enough income to provide the technology, bandwidth, sales and management needed to stay in the game.

One such company is SmartClicks at http://www.smartclicks.com/ a part of the SmartAge company http://www.smartage.com/ with a focus on business sites.

SmartClicks has effective technology (SmartTargeting) that allows their demographic targeting technology to learn where your banner will get the best results. That's a pretty simple description of a very complex technology. Their goal is clearly stated on their site. It's not to get you banner impressions, but rather to get you click-throughs to your site. From all indications, they do an excellent job of that. SmartClicks has 1 million members according to their site information.

I've talked to several members and they confirm that they are getting better results than they have gotten with other exchanges.

Here's their own description of the technology:

"SmartClicks really is smart. In addition to designating site segments on which you want your ad to appear, you can use our SmartTargeting feature to automatically send ads where you get the best click through. When you turn on Smart Targeting, we send ads to a variety of segments. As certain segments bring you more visits, those segments will be put in your account's rotation pattern. In other words, segments that give you better click through will become regular advertising stops for your banner. Another percentage of your rotation will randomly seek new sites, so as interest comes and goes on certain segments, the pattern rotation will change to give you the best click through.

"SmartClicks counts the number of impressions your banner ad experiences, not the number of requests. This ensures that your click-through percentage is calculated on the number of ads that people actually see."

Another aspect of SmartAge that I liked was the emphasis on offering their members tools to help them increase traffic. That is a nice attitude to see. You would think that all companies involved in e-marketing would understand that they benefit when they assist their members increase traffic. More traffic equals more banner inventory. Everybody wins. Unfortunately, companies that understand and act on this simple, obvious fact are few and far between.

SmartAge has a well rounded offer for their members. Here are a few:

Extensive reporting of your banner campaign.
Free site submission to search engines.
Fee-based search engine position tracking.
Free desktop software to create banners.
Interactive tutorials to help you improve your site and traffic flow.
SmartAge SiteWatch - Monitor your web server's response time. Fee.
SmartAge free customizable email service, powered by the ZapZone Network.

They have too much more to go into in this review. They seem to have a clear understanding of what is best for their members, and consequently, for themselves. No service will survive long if they don't show that they are committed to helping their members to reach their goals. SmartAge is a good example of a company putting forth that effort.

If you want to get information about joining SmartClicks and have a chance to win a free HP PhotoSmart C30xi digital camera, visit http://www.smartageimpressions.com/default.asp?pin=A4UCVNX

NEW ON JIMWORLD

I've got some great new stuff for you to use, and as usual it's all free.

First of all, you'll want to visit Free Site Templates at http://freesitetemplates.com if you are a designer and want to get lots of attention by contributing one or a few site templates to the cause. We'll make sure that you get lots of credit for your efforts.

If you're looking for a fast loading, free template to start your next site design, you can head over there too. To my surprise several hundred people each day are already downloading templates. Here's a fast loading site built with one of the templates: http://cybernovae.com/getpaidwatch/

Then it's over to JimTools http://jimtools.com for a lot of upgrades to existing tools and the all new Free Spam Free Free-For-All submitter. (Anyone know how I could work in 'Free' one more time?) Yes. Submit your site to over 100 FFA pages and receive not even one email as a result.

If you operate a FFA page that does not send email as a result of submission, send me the title and URL of the FFA page and I will add it to the submission database. You'll get lots of action as this new tool took of like a rocket the day it was put online.

The standard FFA Submitter has been upgraded to submit to 1,200+ FFA Pages.

The Position Checker is back online. Give it a try.

I am at long last caught up reviewing sites for the Helpware Sites directory. http://helpwaresites.com If you submitted and did not receive an email confirmation then you should visit the directory and search for your site. If it is missing, please submit again.

Helpware Sites has been updated to the newest version of Hyperseek http://hyperseek.com and there are a ton of new features available. I'll be adding new features to the directory this coming week and will have a full review of the newest Hyperseek for you next issue.

Just opened in the Get High (Traffic) Forums http://gethighforums.com/ an all new forum to help you buy or sell a web site.

If you have a site to sell, just open a new thread and describe your site and what it has to offer. Be sure to read the Forum Rules in this forum. It will help you explain your site well enough to get you some action.

Do not list domain names for sale. Any listing in this forum must have a fully developed site. Domain names are not sites.

Finally, if you are running the Freeware Plus program Word Market, we have an update version for you that resolves many of the search engine changes in formatting of their output. The program and the upgrade are both free.

REVIEW - USED CAR DATABASE SYSTEM FOR DEALERS

Online Arts Virtual Showroom
http://www.onlinearts.net/showroom/
Platform: Unix or Windows NT
Language: Perl
Single License Price: us$500.00

In my quest for ideal online data base systems, I have not only been testing general purpose systems, but also many specialized systems.

One such that I ran across was the Virtual Showroom by Online Arts. Saw it on their site and requested a copy to review. One of my friends owns a car dealership here in Southern California and I figured I'd just put it on his site to try it out.

I did so and now he won't give it back. Loves the system and has increased sales since it went online.

The system was easy enough to install and had every feature I could think of and one that I hadn't. When you find a car that you want to show you other half, or just go back to look at later, hit the Memory button. It sets a cookie with a list of all of the cars you wanted to remember. When you return to the site, you can use this memory list to navigate through the inventory. Very cool feature. Apparently many people think so since over 60% of the site visitors use it.

The basics of the system are:

Built-in payment calculator - Based on their situation, your clients can estimate their monthly car payment.
"Memory bank" - Your clients can mark their favorite autos and have them available the next time they visit your web site.
Intuitive web-based administration - You can add, delete, and modify listing using any computer equipped with internet access and a web browser.
Cascading style sheets - Customize the appearance of all Virtual Showroom screens by changing parameters in a single file.
HTML-based templates - Change the way a listing looks without having to know PERL. Simply replace the default HTML template with your own creation. There are also templates to determine the contents of program-generated drop-down lists.
Photo Upload - You can upload auto photos using your web browser.

Try before you buy! You will be e-mailed download instructions for Virtual Showroom after you successfully complete a trial request form. However, you are expected to pay for the script within a week of successful installation.

To check out the way this system turned out visit http://achevyshowcase.com/preowned/showroom/

I like this system a lot. It did everything required of it, which is more than you can say for most software. With the free trial you only risk some time.

Yes, it's easy to dance to so I give it a 9.5. Hope there's someone on this list old enough to know what that means.

YOUR $1,000,000 IDEA

The $1,000,000 idea. Every week new start-ups are making millions because of their simple ideas that take the world by storm. Success definitely involves effort, but sparking your creativity and coming up with profit-producing ideas may be easier than you think.

Of course, creativity can result in a profitable start-up business idea. But have you considered how important it is to other aspects of your business as well? Creativity is an effective way of improving your company's quality of service, reducing production costs or generating a new product line.

BRAINSTORMING

You can use brainstorming to develop creative solutions that may seem overwhelming and impossible to solve. Creativity can speed up business developments and can be used to adapt, streamline, reorganize or change the direction of your business.

By focusing on a problem and deliberately coming up with as many off-the-wall ideas as possible, you'll be surprised at the innovative solutions you'll find. Stretch your imagination by thinking like a child where the sky is the limit.

SPARKING CREATIVITY

So how do we turn off our own judgment so we can be more creative? Here are some basic brainstorming rules that will enable you to be more creative

First, realize that everyone can be creative. You may not believe that you are a creative person, but the difference between a creative person and the rest of us is that the creative person commits to their creativity to overcome limitations imposed by others. They take chances.

Second, forget for the moment that you live in the real world. Avoid judgment of any kind until after you've finished brainstorming. Judgments can constrain and often squash creativity altogether.

Third, be aware of your own defenses. If you are brainstorming by yourself as opposed to within a group, finding a place or activity that you enjoy can sometimes spark your creative thinking. While you are brainstorming, you want to be as relaxed as possible and let go of your defenses.

Lastly, nothing is "bad". Well, that is until you come out of your brainstorming session, judge your idea and squash it.

BREAKING IT DOWN INTO STEPS

There are certain steps to follow when brainstorming. Whether you want to come up with a business plan for a start-up or develop a time-saving strategy within your existing company, it all boils down to solving a problem.

When you brainstorm, remember to break down preconceptions about any limits. The objective is to open your mind and list as many ideas as possible without stifling creativity.

You can even merge two average ideas into one very unique one. Understand that any new ideas we develop can only come from the ideas we already know. Brainstorming encourages our minds to combine ideas into innovative solutions.

Define your problem or what you want to accomplish. Be concise.
Give yourself a time limit. Start with about 20 to 30 minutes. As you become more experienced, you'll be able to judge the amount of time that works best for you.
Start your brainstorming session, thinking of as many ideas as possible. Make sure to write them all down. Don't criticize, evaluate or worry about how you'll even make your ideas work at this point.
Once your time is up, select the 5-10 ideas that you liked best.
Decide on 5-6 different criteria for judging your ideas. Start the criteria with 'should'. (it should be more profitable, it should gain more attention, it should be more cost effective, etc...)
Score your ideas on a scale of 1 to 10 using your criteria. The idea with the highest score will most likely be the best solution to your problem.

ASK QUESTIONS

The quickest and most direct way to stimulate creativity is to ask questions. By provoking answers, questions automatically lead to resolution.

The more questions you ask, the more ideas you'll be able to come up with. When problem-solving, try to see things from a different perspective, like the average Joe walking down the street. He has never heard of your company and may not even know about your product.

Ask yourself questions that encourage making a change to an existing idea.

Modify: (i.e. How can you modify the product?)
Minimize: (i.e. In what ways can you minimize the time of delivery or cost of production?)
Substitute: (i.e. Where can you substitute parts or services?)
Re-arrange: (i.e. How can you re-arrange the layout or work schedule?)
Reverse: (i.e. Which processes or formats can you reverse?)
Combine: (i.e. What products or services can you combine?)
Put to other uses: (i.e. How can the ideas you use now be put to other uses?)

Get in the habit of brainstorming on a regular basis, and you'll benefit even more. Without a lot of effort, you can train yourself to automatically investigate, question and analyze every business situation, which can result in finding and resolving a conflict before it turns into a major crisis.

This proactive approach can save you a good deal of time and money. As you become more aware of your business operations and the endless possibilities that are available, your flexibility will enable you to adapt to outside influences and quickly make changes when needed.

Creative brainstorming can help you create more options for your business, but also can help to eliminate stress and fear because you have increased your awareness and have better control of business outcomes. You'll find that your business can run much more smoothly while you stay one step ahead of competition.

----------

Sue Barrett works for HomeBusinessCenter.com, which has helped hundreds of people successfully start their own home businesses since 1997.

HomeBusinessCenter.com: information entrepreneurs need to be successful in a home business: new home business ideas, simple how-to guides, easy-to-use marketing tools, small business financing, e-commerce help and lots more.

For more information, visit http://www.homebusinesscenter.com or
contact Sue at editor@homebusinesscenter.com

POWERFUL SECRET: TURN SKEPTICS INTO BUYERS

One of the most convincing marketing strategies is to admit your
product's faults and explain why they'll be of no problem.

Many marketers have the misconception that hiding or masking their shortcomings will not be noticed by their prospects. They're wrong. We live in the age of skepticism. With good reason. One scam or another has burned too many people. That's why when people read your sales literature they look for reasons not to buy. You have to consider what their objections might be and make it a point to overcome them.

In the mid-1980's researchers at Cleveland State University made a startling discovery.

They conducted an experiment by creating two fictitious job candidates David and John. The candidates had identical resumes and letters of reference. The only difference was that John's letter included the sentence "Sometimes, John can be difficult to get along with". They showed the resumes to a number of personnel directors. Which candidate did the personnel directors overwhelmingly prefer? Difficult to get along with, John.

The researchers concluded the criticism of John made praise of John more believable. Admitting John's wart actually helped sell John. Admitting flaws gives you more credibility. A key to selling.

Good marketing strategists know how to turn objections around. They meet them head on. They deal with them by turning negative questions into positive responses.

Here's some examples; "Our price may be a little higher than the others but none of the other programs offer you personal one to one telephone consultation."

Or;

"We know were a small business but unlike big corporations, to us your a valued customer not just a number."

By acknowledging the flaws, you force yourself to address your sales literature recipient's questions, objections and concerns. You also add credibility to your offer.

Make a list of every objection your prospect may think of and every excuse he/she may come up with for not responding. Then come up with a valid reason why these objections are not really a problem. When writing your sales literature include the possible objections and your rebuttals.

Every product and offer has some unattractive points. Nothing's perfect, and everybody knows that. By admitting and openly discussing the drawbacks to your offer, your credibility goes way up in most of your prospect's mind.

----------

Don Cirillo
CFI Marketing
Learn How To Create Irresistible
Web Sites that Make People Buy
http://www.cfiweb.com/sell-more.html

ONLINE BUYING POOLS CHANGING THE FACE OF COMMERCE

Buying pools have been around for years. For centuries, groups have banded together to increase buying power and leverage. The Internet is reviving this age-old concept, giving small and mid-sized businesses a way to level the purchasing playing field.

According to recent surveys, there are approximately 7.3 million small to medium-sized businesses in the United States. In order to compete in the new economy, these businesses will need to utilize all available e-business applications and technology to gain every competitive advantage possible, including buyer pooling, to maximize their purchasing power and reduce their overall costs.

It may be hard to imagine a mom-and-pop operation having the same purchasing clout as a Wal-Mart, but buying pools have the ability to do exactly that.

How? Online pooling enable groups of small businesses to join together and order items as a bulk order, giving them the discounts ordinarily available to the largest players. When a small business joins a buying pool with other businesses purchasing the same goods, every one of them gets in on the high volume discounts no matter how little they purchase.

The buyer pooling trend is in infancy, and today there are only a handful of firms capitalizing on the technology and applying it as the next wave of e-commerce solutions.

One of those companies is Volumebuy, Inc., <http://volumebuy.com/> which has a proprietary patent pending technology that includes multiple pooling techniques. The technology takes advantage of the Internet to simplify buying pools for small businesses of every size, shape and form.

Small or mid-sized firms in vertical industries such as pharmaceuticals, auto parts, textiles, and shipping, experience tremendous inequalities in the purchasing power afforded larger corporations. Technology like this allows these and other industries consisting of small purchasers to anonymously interact and create large aggregated purchases for volume discounts.

The model is relatively simple - businesses enter buying pools for the goods and services they want to purchase in a given time frame - five days, for example. As other companies join the pools, the prices dynamically drop until the pool closing date. When the pool closes, the supplier sends the goods to the pool participants at the lowest price based on the number of customers in the pool.

BUYER POOLING IN ACTION

One illustration of this is the pharmaceutical industry. In the past 20 years, a large number of independent pharmacies have gone out of business. Buyer pooling has the potential to dramatically change the competitive landscape.

Assume for a moment that a small pharmacy buys 500 units of penicillin from its supplier for $1.00 each, while the large chains pay only $0.80 per unit based on volume orders of a 10,000-unit minimum. If the pharmacy was able to pool its purchases with other pharmacies that were also under the 10,000 minimum, then they could obtain the penicillin for close to $0.80 or possibly even less if enough buyers join the pool.

Clearly, buying pools help small businesses stay competitive by giving discounts that will enable them to entice customers back from the giants. In fact, many experts believe that online buying pools will help redress the balance of power to a more level playing field between huge chains and independents.

BUYER POOLING: THE NEW E-COMMERCE

The buyer-pooling model differs from other e-commerce approaches in that it can take advantage of the volume and time relationship associated with orders placed online for future delivery. Suppliers, having pre-committed orders in advance, get the lead-time to schedule inventory, acquisition, production runs and fulfillment. It is these efficiencies to suppliers that will ultimately enable the lowest prices to buyers.

BUYER POOLING AND THE FUTURE OF BUSINESS

One thing is certain about the future of business - it will change. Navigating through the change will require keen business acumen and the ability to adapt to new strategies to minimize risk and maximize opportunities. To increase purchasing power and reduce overall costs, small and mid-sized firms will need to also adjust. E-commerce will continue to morph as technology and procedures advance, but buyer pooling certainly seems poised to be the next killer app. in the Internet economy.

----------

Jay Conrad Levinson
Author of the "Guerrilla Marketing" series of books
(415-453-2162)
Jayview@aol.com

GET LINKED

Visit The1000 at http://the1000.com/ for 19 new places to submit your
site for a free listing.

SNIPPETS

GOTO.COM INCREASES SEARCH RESULTS RELEVANCE
http://goto.com/

GoTo.com has stepped up their examination of keyword bids submitted. On the assumption that they must deliver valid results to searchers, I see this as a major step forward on their part. As their engine has become more and more popular, the bidding for keywords has become more competitive. They will be scrutinizing keyword bids to insure that the keyword leads to a valid page on the listed sites that actually have content appropriate to that keyword. Imagine that.

I can attest to the fact that they are doing their job in examining sites. In fact, they are over doing the job in my case. Can you believe they actually turned down some of my bids? Hey, I thought it was OK to bid on keywords that nobody else wanted. Honest. No, really.

If you get turned down on bids that you think are appropriate, take advantage of their offer to discuss it with you and maybe change their mind.

Need to find out what keywords are appropriate for your site? Use the GoTo Keyword Research Tool at JimTools http://jimtools.com It's free and will help you find and bid on as many keywords as you can handle.

----------

SparkNotes
http://www.sparknotes.com

Free online plot summaries and study guides written entirely by Harvard students.

This is a great looking site and the study guides I checked out are of excellent quality.

Unlike Cliffs Notes(TM), SparkNotes are free. If these had been available when I was in school, I could have saved a fortune.

I thought that the thousands of students that subscribe to the Gazette would find SparkNotes helpful. They will save you enough time to let you read the Gazette.

----------

TheAdStop
http://www.TheAdStop.com/

Do you accept advertising on your web site or in your e-zine? If so, you need to get over to TheAdStop and get listed in their data base. It's free and has already generated 2 inquiries for me.

"Unbiased, free directory of Internet advertising. Search for ad space matching your target market. List Internet advertising and increase sales! Users in 83 countries."

Looking to buy some targeted advertising? Search their data base and find exactly what you are looking for.

----------

Rocket Links
http://rocketlinks.com/?link=rlinks

Ready for another directory that lets you bid for placement and pay for each visitor you receive? Then Rocket Links might help you get more out of your unspent traffic dollars. I've registered to give them a try and will keep you posted.

They don't have an inquiry tool to tell you how many searches are performed for any given keyword or phrase, but I used the GoTo.com Keyword Analyzer at JimTools http://jimtools.com and took the top searches from there and bid on them at Rocket Links.

The directory lists paid links first and the remainder are provided by Google.

----------

.NU Domain
http://www.nunames.nu/customers/secure

NU Domain now has a new, exclusive service available - support for your local language character set in any .NU domain name you have already registered with a $35 fee to upgrade your domain name.

The technical staff at .NU Domain, working under the guidance of Dr. Paul Mockapetris, the inventor of the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS), are developing an updated version of the DNS software used on the internet which allows .NU Domain to provide this unique service. Although the service is in its Beta or early test period, .NU Domain will now accept pre-registrations of domain names that use Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch, German, French, Spanish and a wide range of other European character sets in any .NU Domain name.

----------

THE END OF LINKING?
http://websearch.about.com/internet/websearch/library/weekly/aa121099.htm

A Federal judge in Utah has issued a ruling that could fundamentally alter, if not destroy, the Web as it exists today.

Ruling in favor of the Mormon Church, U.S. District Court Judge Tena Campbell issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting Church critics Jerald and Sandra Tanner from posting URLs of sites that featured illegal copies of a Mormon text.

Visit About.com to read the rest of Chris Sherman's excellent article about this disturbing issue.

I guess it is still legal for me to link to Chris's site until the appeal is over.

----------

Sonar Network
http://www.sonarnetwork.com/

DoubleClick Inc. has launched a new network called the Sonar Network, a mass-reach, value-oriented Network offering sites and advertisers DART's targeting capabilities. This new initiative complements the four-year-old DoubleClick Network, a collection of premium Web sites.

The Sonar Network is segmented into 16 niche categories comprised of sites that have a minimum of 100,000 ad impressions monthly. Inventory from the Sonar Network will be sold by a dedicated sales force, separate from the DoubleClick Network. Thus far, Sonar has 87 sites in its network with 1 billion committed ad impressions. Currently, sites in the Sonar Network include Air & Space Smithsonian Magazine, ObjectSoft, 3D Stock Charts, APB Online, Spree.com, PIIQ.com, AuctionWatch, eFax.com and Virtualcountries.com.

----------

Worried about missing the e-boat? Trying to rush into the consumer e-commerce arena to grab a piece of the pie?

You might miss the real boat if you do. Business-to-business is projected to top $100 billion this year and reach at least $1 trillion by 2003. These numbers make B2C e-commerce appear less like the pot of gold. The most optimistic projection for Business-2-Consumer is only $38 billion for 2000.

Check out the B2B industry if you're looking for your next great idea.

----------

Worried when your site's server goes down and you miss some visitors and page views? Imagine how Yahoo! must have felt on Monday when their network overloaded from a classic denial of service attack bringing them down for about 2 hours. That's approximately 39 million page views. Even at $10 CPM that comes to about $380,000 lost income. That doesn't even include the e-commerce sales they missed during that time. Ouch!

If you want to learn the basics of site security Microsoft has posted a Tech Net tutorial at http://microsoft.com/technet/security/CSOverv.asp titled "Cross-site Scripting Overview." It will help you spot any security hole in your site caused by your dynamically generated pages. Absolutely a "Must Read"

----------

Run The Web
http://www.runtheweb.com/
JimTools.com is this week's "Site of the Week" Thanks.