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Start your own business with a successful franchise

Have you often wished that you could be your own boss by setting up your own business? Setting up a new business from scratch is never easy, but you can improve the odds in your favor by setting up as a franchisee for a running successful business. As a franchisee, you will function as an extended arm of the company which will provide all the support that you can expect from a partner. How do you go about selecting which company you are going to work with?

Ideally, you would like the franchising company to operate in a business where there is high demand and limited competition. You would also like the full range of support services from the training to marketing and advertising. We are going to look at one company that has been extremely successful in franchising because there are many lessons to be learnt from their success. The company is called N-Hance and offers wood renewal services for wooden floors and cabinets through a system of franchisees. Entrepreneur Magazine put the company at the top of the home improvement and miscellaneous services category in its annual Franchise 500 rankings.

N-Hance is a renewal system for wooden floors, cabinets and other built in storage. It makes the wood look like new without using messy and pungent chemicals and without the expense of refinishing or sanding. They have built a highly successful and comprehensive support system for their franchisees including complete turnkey packages that even include business stationery and business cards. In addition, their powerful brand and unique customer proposition put you in a position where you can provide genuine value to your customers.

If you are interested in an outstanding business opening in the flooring restoration business, you should give serious attention to this franchise opportunity. You will find it a relatively painless and low-risk blueprint to build up a successful business.

Common sense invades the F.C.C.

About a third of Americans lack access to high-speed Internet service. That’s a stunning statistic that the Obama administration seems determined to rectify.

The Federal Communications Commission is proposing an ambitious 10-year plan that will reimagine the nation’s media and technology priorities by establishing high-speed Internet as the country’s dominant communication network.

The plan, which will be submitted to Congress on Tuesday, is likely to generate debate in Washington and a lobbying battle among the telecommunication giants, which over time may face new competition for customers. Already, the broadcast television industry is resisting a proposal to give back spectrum the government wants to use for future mobile service.

The blueprint reflects the government’s view that broadband Internet is becoming the common medium of the United States, gradually displacing the telephone and broadcast television industries. It also signals a shift at the F.C.C., which under the administration of President George W. Bush gained more attention for policing indecency on the television airwaves than for promoting Internet access.

Wow – the F.C.C. is actually concentrating on something like our digital future as opposed to nipple on television! This is the kind of investment that can have a real impact on the growth of our economy.

TurboTax vs H&R Block at Home

Are you ready for tax season? If you’re looking for tax preparation software, you should take a look at this recent article in the New York Times comparing TurboTax and H&R Block at Home. The makers of the software stress different benefits.

The two companies go to great lengths to try to distinguish their programs. Block stresses the backup provided by its nationwide network of professional tax preparers. Buyers of its Premium edition can receive a phone consultation with a Block staffer. The company will also provide the help of an enrolled agent — someone trained specifically to prepare returns and represent taxpayers before the I.R.S. — if a customer is audited.

Intuit, in contrast, emphasizes the ease with which TurboTax dovetails with other sources of financial data. Quicken users, for example, can transfer all of their information into the program with a couple of clicks.

Read the full article and see which is best for you.

Google Buzz eliminates the auto-follow features following a privacy backlash

Google Buzz has gotten off to a very rocky start, and the company is moving quickly to address privacy concerns resulting from its auto-follow feature.

The Buzz fiasco is encouraging, however, as another example of how the privacy police can alter the development and implementation of products. As we’ve seen, the Internet can be self-correcting, as users and self-anointed watchdogs work together to police new technologies and policies that can threaten our privacy. Google is the most powerful Internet company in the world, yet they understand that they have no choice but to take these concerns seriously.

This phenomenon will also strengthen our democracy and democracies (and fledgling democracies) around the world. Governments will think twice before imposing intrusive policies on their citizens.

AOL’s content strategy – will it work?

AOL’s content strategy is a mix of quantity and quality. We previously posted on how AOL plans to churn out gobs of content to compete with the likes of Demand Media. AOL also has it’s huge flagship site, which it uses to push traffic to its popular niche sites like Asylum and Engadget.

I like the strategy, as they have a good chance of competing for premium ads on their network of quality sites, and they can also make money with the shotgun approach as well. Will it work with their cost structure? Who knows. They’re slashing costs and closing offices, so they seem to have the right idea.

Regarding their prospects, one thing I won’t do is pay much attentions to analysts like Roger Kay.

Tech industry analyst Roger Kay gave Armstrong and the company a mixed report card. “I’ve got to give him some credit for doing as well as he did,” Kay said.

Still, Kay was skeptical of AOL’s new strategy as a Web publisher, given that the company never benefited from its years as a part of Time Warner, a company with ample supplies on the content front. “They couldn’t get content from a professional provider; now they’re going to do that on their own? I’d say the odds are against them.”

Really? Let’s be clear – Time Warner knew practically nothing about how to create content for the web. If you needed movies or magazines, Time Warner was the gold standard, but when it came to the web they were like most other old media companies – clueless. So, AOL’s history with Time Warner is not at all relevant.

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