Get International funding for your Web Projects

Lets say you have a great business idea and would like to see it through. You have assembled your team and would like to go out to the world – blazing with your game changing projects. You only have one little problem- funding. You need money.  Where do you get it?

After attending the garag3.com sponsored event in Singapore, here are some ideas I was able to learn and share with you here:

Getting Donations:

http://www.kickstarter.com/

Kickstarter lists projects from the creative arts—Art, Dance, Film, Music, Photography, Publishing, and Theater—as well as projects from the diverse and creative fields of Food, Design, Fashion, Technology, Games, comics and jouranlism. People then choose which projects they would like to fund. It could be yours.

One sample success story is from the Moonchild project. Sara Chong and Chen Yanyun, was in dire need of donations in order to finally finish their animated film – “Moonchild”  They aimed for only 2000 USD in 60 days, but already got more than 4000 USD in 6 days!

Getting Equity Investors:

http://www.profounder.com/
ProFounder was created to ensure all entrepreneurs have access to the resources they need through the engagement of robust, supportive communities. Traditional funding sources can be expensive, difficult to access, or not a great fit for many small enterprises. Instead, we believe that communities can be the best source for the energy, encouragement, tools and capital small business entrepreneurs need to succeed.

Getting Loans:
http://www.kiva.org/

Kiva’s mission is to connect people, through lending, for the sake of alleviating poverty. Kiva empowers individuals to lend to an entrepreneur across the globe. By combining microfinance with the internet, Kiva is creating a global community of people connected through lending

I am sure that the Philippine government has counterpart funding scheme of some sort similar to Singapore’s Spring, MDA and IDA programs, but I am not aware of any at this point. If you have information about this, kindly share it with us here.

Website to help in choosing color combinations

Visit this website: kuler.adobe.com to get to use their color chart suggestions for color combinations. Again this was shared in a session at the garage seminar in Singapore. Browse, search, and modify Kuler color themes directly in your CS4 application. Include them in your workflow by using the Swatches panel.

View their demo on http://tv.adobe.com/watch/learn-flash-professional-cs4/using-kuler-color-themes

Rapid Website Prototyping using Balsamiq

Just learned this from attending the Garage seminar in Singapore.

For rapid site development and webpage prototyping, use this software from www.balsamiq.com . It lets you quickly add wireframes using your keyboard, drag and drop interfaces for simplicity, allows you to re-use symbol libraries to create master templates, and is fully cross-platform!

Why dont  you try it out?

Websites help increase sales

Source: http://dealnews.com/features/Survey-85-Research-Online-Then-Hit-Black-Friday-Stores/404165.html

Online retailers will probably be scratching their heads at this conundrum of statistics: While 85% of people now research and compare prices online on Black Friday, the majority of them then turn off the computer and head to the stores to do their actual spending.

A new poll released exclusively to dealnews by Lightspeed Research shows that 64% of people still end up buying in stores, even though the vast majority of them now research online first.

“No matter how convenient online shopping may be during the holidays, it appears that the majority of consumers still enjoy making their final holiday purchases in-store,” said Chris Urinyi, CEO, The Americas, of Lightspeed Research. “We can only make assumptions as to why, but I would suspect that it may simply be that people enjoy the holiday shopping experience in itself, or that the desire to browse and touch gifts in person before making a purchase outweighs the convenience of shopping online.”

 

Yahoo Philippines to Webcast Presidential Inauguration

On June 30, Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III will not only take his oath as the highest official in the land, but will also make history as the first Philippine president whose inauguration will be livestreamed on the Internet.

Yahoo! Southeast Asia will provide a live video stream of the Aquino inauguration, in partnership with broadcast network TV5, MediaQuest and webcast provider, FutureGen.

This will be made available on the Purple Thumb election site of Yahoo! Philippines, together with a live blog that will give up-the-minute updates and allow readers from all over the world to post their comments.

Just as in the Purple Thumb coverage of the first automated elections in the Philippines, bloggers and citizen journalists can take part in Yahoo!’s social media coverage by using the hashtag #PurpleThumb together with their election-related tweets. These #PurpleThumb Twitter updates will be automatically posted on the live blog, where they can be read by the millions of readers who visit the Yahoo! Philippines site.

More Info here: http://ph.yfittopostblog.com/2010/06/29/live-video-stream-of-aquino-inauguration-on-june-30/

Make Social Media the Secret Ingredient to Your Marketing Success

Here’s your chance to understand what social media is all about, and how to clearly and completely integrate it into your existing marketing strategies and campaigns.

Social Media is about joining the ongoing conversations our customers and prospects are already having and not trying to control them.
Beyond this first step of connecting with customers on social networking sites, how do you generate more business from your social media activity?

Attend this conference – The 3rd Social Networking Conference 2010 on April 22-23, 2010 at Hotel Intercontinental, Makati City, Philippines…and learn how to:

– Design and execute an innovative social media campaign
– Integrate social media into your current marketing mix
– Connect with your target audience using social media tools

Social networking is bigger than buzz, don’t miss this conference.

Hurry! Sign-up now and book your conference seat.

Save P1,000.00 when you register, NOW!

LEARN MORE: http://www.fmi.com.ph

Call 8960639, 8960637, email: fiera@info.com.ph for registration.

Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac Offers Fastest Performance on Snow Leopard and for Windows 7

image001Parallels has announced the availability of the fastest, most seamless Windows-on-Mac solution ever: Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac. This is the latest version of the number 1 Mac system utility, currently enabling more than 2 million users to run Windows, Linux and other operating systems side-by-side with Mac OS X.

According to performance research conducted by Crimson Consulting Group, Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac performs 22% faster than the nearest Windows-on-Mac competitor in standard productivity testing of Windows 7 64-bit on a MacBook Pro. In addition, version 5 is up to 300% faster for virtual machine operations than the previous version.  For 3D and graphics performance, tested under the industry standard 3Dmark 2006 Professional test suite the new version performs up to 7 times better.

Users can test this for themselves with a free trial from www.parallels.com/desktop.

<Availability>
The Parallels Desktop 5 (PD5) for Mac is now available. Additional localized versions will soon be available in Simplified Chinese and Japanese for the APAC market in the coming weeks.

<Pricing for PD5>
The standard retail price (SRP) of Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac is USD$79.99, including USD$175 worth of additional software for free:
– Parallels Internet Security 2009 by Kaspersky (1-year subscription);
– Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0 (Disk Management); and
– Acronis True Image Home 2010 (Backup and Recovery Solutions).

Current Parallels Desktop users can upgrade their existing software for USD$49.99.

<Free Upgrade to PD5>
Users that purchased version 4.0 on or after 1st October 2009 qualify with a proof of purchase for a free upgrade to version 5.