Recently I have been selling old books on Amazon. I discovered that it is actually a great way to get rid of them. The Amazon Marketplace is a very efficient and fairly easy to use system for sellers. And the prices are surprisingly high.
I tend to read books only once. I have about 10 favorite books that I can read over and over, but besides those I generally never read a book twice. If it makes a good reference book about trading or programming, then I might look at it many times. I take care of them and after I have read them they are still in new condition. That means they fetch a high price on Amazon.
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Business Strategy, Internet, Money, Success
Amazon, books, business, fulfillment by amazon, Internet, Money, sales, shipping, technology
After writing about Zappos yesterday, I remembered a few interesting things that I didn’t mention in the post about the company. I had heard about the wonderful customer service and company culture about 3 years ago. So I decided to do a little experiment. I called the customer service line to talk with whoever answered, to find out what it was like to work at Zappos.
Tony Hsieh, Co-founder of Zappos
I had heard about what a great company Zappos was, but I was a bit surprised when I actually talked to the customer service representative. Before I tell you what happened when I called Zappos, let’s think back about what a “normal” customer service call is like.
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Business Strategy, Dreams Come True, Success
Amazon, business, customer service, happiness, shoes, Success, tony hsieh, zappos
Now I am reading Delivering Happiness
by Tony Hsieh. Tony is a co-founder of Zappos, the online shoe company that was recently sold to Amazon for $1 billion. I highly recommend this book because it is entertaining and fun to read.
Yet it is also filled with some deep meaning. Tony shares his story about how he sold his first company, Link Exchange, to Microsoft for $265 million. His own share was $40 million. But here’s the interesting part. He would be paid $8 million for staying with the company for one year.
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Business Strategy, Dreams Come True, Great Books, Internet, Money, Success
Amazon, billionaire, customer service, entrepreneur, fun, millionaire, Money, Success, tony hseih, zappos
Here at Online Investing AI, we are dedicated to using new technology to develop Automated Trading systems. But there is one small problem with a purely programming approach. It does not allow us to leverage off the best trading strategies that people have already developed. That’s where you come in.
Are you a successful trader? Are you looking for ways of using new technology and Artificial Intelligence to improve your trading strategies? If the answer is yes, then we are looking for you.
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Accelerating Technology, Automated Trading, Business Strategy, Success
AI, Automated Trading, backgammon, business p, chessrtner, Money, partnership, Success
I just checked out Kapitall (with 2 l’s) and was really surprised to find so many new and fresh ideas. After my experience with Cooliris, I thought how wonderful it would be to find new ways of displaying the same old, boring stock data. And, just like that, a few days later I found out about Kapitall!
The Kapitall Desktop
As I mentioned before, I think that computers have come a long way in the last 30 years, but the way we interact with them has not changed much since the introduction of the mouse. And, looking at stock charts hasn’t changed either, except that they have gotten more complicated and less readable.
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Business Strategy, Internet, Investing, Success
Apple, design, detail, Internet, Investing, kapitall, management, Money, portfolio, stocks, web sites
No, I’m not talking about Gisele, Kathy Ireland, or Janice Dickinson.
They are entrepreneurial super models who make millions by lending their names and faces to products and services. But, that’s not exactly what I’m referring to.
I’m talking about the entrepreneurs who you would model your own startup career after. After all, it’s easier to visit the frontier if you have a guide. In this case, an entrepreneurial super model can be from any industry, any time period, and any position. They don’t really even have to be famous. The guy who owns a killer use record store that’s still in business might serve as one of your role models.
You don’t have to mimic these models exactly.
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Business Strategy, Great Books, Investing, Money, Online Investing AI
Bill Gates, entrepreneur, models, role models, startup, startups, super models, wright brothers
Yesterday I discovered Cooliris, which might just be the coolest thing I have ever seen. It’s an extension for browsers (Chrome, IE, Firefox and Safari) that lets you see all the images in a virtual wall. It is absolutely incredible.
I love Cooliris because it is so neat. But there is more to it. We have talked quite a bit about accelerating technology, and that is a powerful force in our lives. Yet there is another piece of the puzzle that most people are totally unaware of: how we interact with technology.
What does Cooliris teach us about how to interact with technology?
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Accelerating Technology, Business Strategy, Dreams Come True, Internet
chrome, computers, cool, entertainment, fascinating, future, Internet, mind, Success, technology
Many people are quite aware of the miracle of accelerating technology. It states that there is a certain period of time where the price/performance ratio of a product doubles. And, that doubling time is getting shorter. For computers, it is down to about 1.25 years.
Computers have a relatively long history, and it is interesting to see the effect on other more recent products. Today, I checked the Amazon home page to discover that they have released Kindle 3.0
.
The first version was released November 19, 2007, followed by version 2 in November 2009. So, the first version was replaced after 2 years and the second after just 8 months. That makes an average of 1.3 years per generation.
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Accelerating Technology, Business Strategy, Great Books, Success, US Economy
Accelerating Technology, Amazon, books, busness, E-ink, Kindle, Money, Success, technology
After reading this article about how Amazon’s profit has grown by 45%, I started thinking about the other companies that have been making huge profits. Companies like Apple and Microsoft.
Amazon is positioning itself as the leader in eBooks, with the success of its Kindle readers. It was just a few years ago when people did not believe that eBook readers would ever succeed, because reading books on a monitor doesn’t work. Amazon overcame that hurdle by licensing E-Ink, the revolutionary new technology that makes an eBook look more like a real book.
Apple has had similar success with its iPhone, which in just a few years has become one of its most successful products in history. The iPhone 4 was the best selling product ever for Apple. And its stock price reflects the company’s success.
Apple's stock from March 2009
What do all of these successes have in common?
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Accelerating Technology, Business Strategy, Dreams Come True, Online Investing AI, Success
Amazon, innovation, ipad, iPod, Kindle, microsoft, Money, stocks, Success, xbox
When reading about finances or talking to people, I always hear the same useless advice: “You have to learn to save money.” or “It’s hard because the economy is so bad.”
This kind of talk is really just complaints and useless advice. Everyone already knows that saving money will improve their finances. But they have no idea how to do it.
After reading this great post that Matt found over at My Wife Quit Her Job, I noticed that the reason I like Steve’s blog is because it contains information that is fairly rare. It’s not about saving money, it’s about building a powerful positive cash flow asset. It’s not about lamenting about how hard life is and how hard it is to get a job. It is about how Steve’s profit is going up as unemployment rises and the economy goes down.
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Business Strategy, Internet, Investing, Money, Success, US Economy
advice, blogs, business, economy, entrepreneurship, Internet, Money, my wife quit her job, saving, Success, unemployment
is one of my favorite financial books of all time. It's an allegory about a guy who has a terrible job, and how he overcomes challenges to achieve his dreams.
