In other words, if you own a baby website, you can add baby-related items found on eBay that are $1 or less.

This is a nice way to attract visitors as they will return to your blog every day to see the latest deals. Better yet, you will receive a commission for every item sold.

Please email me if you wish to test/participate in this new feature as it is currently not available to the general public.

I find it more rewarding than setting an impossible to achieve goal. And also that way, you don’t get mad if what you hoped for doesn’t work out as planned.

For 2009, I wish to improve my deal website by providing a plugin to other Wordpress blogs. That way, everyone will be able to put eBay deals on their home page. There are already plugins but none seem to search for items under a dollar ending soon…

A simple "improvement" and an easy to attain goal, don’t you think?

So what will you do in 2009…?

Nothing. Nada.

I expanded my search to Canada and found a couple of dealers. I then expanded by research to the USA and found many dealers. Most offering very good prices, cheaper than local dealers – even when factoring delivery – which cost about 100$.

This is just an example. I’m sure you got frustrated by not finding what you wanted online. Why? Why is online shopping in Quebec so poorly developped? I’m amazed at how many times I have to order something on eBay or Amazon – from the USA – just because I can’t find it here.

High speed Internet is easily available at a reasonable cost. Credit cards are common. If I had a store, you can be assured that I would be online too. Why limit your market to your city?

What are your thoughts on this? Why do you think store owners are not online?

The big question is why on Earth was Cuil labeled as a Google killer? I don’t know but here’s what went wrong. We all know about the David & Goliath story. In my version of this story, Goliath is Cuil and David is, well, the user. Where the story went wrong, is instead of having a fearsome, scary Goliath (Cuil), David (us) is faced with a 2 years old toddler. Sure, everyone in Goliath’s village said how big and brave he would eventually become. So Goliath’s ego grew immensely and he went on his quest and met with David.

Here are some mistake that you must not reproduce in your product.

First mistake : don’t let your ego blind you. In "David & Goliath" terms: what you want to do is train until rumors spread outside of your village that you are so good that you can beat anyone. Do not label yourself or let anyone else label you as a warrior when you are not one. In business language, let your product do the talking. In geek terms, let your coding do the talking. This applies to all aspects of life. If you are the best, people will find you. Bragging rarely works in life. Does Tiger Woods brag about how good he is or does Bill Gates brags about his bank account? No. Staying low is cool.

Second mistake : don’t use a name that is not pronounceable or that sounds like a male body part in French. This could be excused as domains are getting harder to find. Or perhaps this is a marketing scheme well implemented by Cuil. Indeed, instead of the famed Google slap, Cuil will be holding you by the balls. I guess this could prevent black hat SEO from happening after all… English is not my native tongue but even some native English speakers are not too sure how to say Cuil. If you’re not sure how to write down the URL, you’ve got major problems.

Third mistake : have a scalable, user friendly interface. Cuil has none. A simple search for the word "test" returned millions of results but only 11 results on the first page. One thing I particularly hate is to scroll lots of pages so I like to have a lot of information on the first page. Cuil forces me to click next many times. Another user interface issue is the "home logo" on the top RIGHT coder. I think this is the first time that I have seen a logo on the top right corner. Very annoying and confusing. It’s ok to make it simple, but please make it correct/logical at least.

Forth mistake : be bold, but don’t be bold, italic and underline at the same time. I’m curious why journalists and even many tech bloggers claimed that Cuil was a Google killer. It takes some guts to write this down without losing all your credibility. Even a non-tech journalist could have quickly concluded that Cuil is obviously not par with Google. Not even Yahoo. Not even MSN search. Now when your product is not as good as Microsoft’s product, you’ve got a big problem (that’s almost an insult actually). Why did people even spread this information? I don’t know. The problem here is that users will not return on Cuil’s website for many months as they know the product doesn’t work well. Had it really been a Google killer then things would’ve been different and the fire would’ve spread by itself. But this is not the case. I, myself, will probably not return for a few months even if I tend to give the runner a second chance. But most won’t give this extra chance. It’s just too late…

Cuil is dead. Long live Google.

I don’t think anyone will be able to compete with Google just now. So what should you do if you are in the search industry? The obvious choice is to partner with them. One thing I can think right away is to outsource the crawling of web sites. Since the Google index is not updated in real time, if you can do something for a few cents cheaper in another country then you might have a case.

I’m not a Google fanboy, I believe that Google will eventually collapse on itself just like other search engines did in the past. It’s life. Webcrawler, Hotbot, Inktomi, Altavista were all good search engines until they were left behind by users. I’m not saying the fight is hopeless but that if you claim to be a Google killer, then how come no one is using your product?

So there you have it. How not to do marketing.

The knife analogy helps me redefine if an idea is good or not. You can eat a steak with a regular knife but it’s so much easier with a steak knife. Chicken on the other hand, can be eaten with a regular knife (sometimes without a knife at all!). Steak can be seen as first class meat in a sense because it has its own knife. If you want to truly enjoy a steak, you must buy a steak knife.

This relegates chicken as second class meat. It is so easy to eat that anyone can eat it easily without investing into fancy knives.

So think about your business idea. Do you want to cater to people who won’t mind buying but also investing more money in your own product (as they see the extra value) or do you want to focus on people who don’t want to invest at all? In other words, is your idea so interesting that people won’t mind paying for it AND for extraneous services/add-ons just like they won’t mind buying a nice set of steak knives to truly enjoy their steak?

I believe you want customers who not only want to buy steaks, but also want to buy steak knives. These people are experts and truly appreciate your service or product.

In other words, if your product is not top quality, you’re basically trying to sell chicken knives. No one wants to buy a chicken knife :)

Blitzweekend is scheduled this spring (March 1st and 2nd) in Montreal, Canada. We expect it to be a very exciting and innovative event. Developers, designers and entrepreneurs are invited, in the spirit of StartupWeekend and rails rumble, to team up and build a product in just 48 hours.

Why should you be there?

1. For innovation

We will have geeks, gurus and entrepreneurs eager to work on latest technologies and try to come up with new software, algorithm, and designs of their own. Cool? You bet!

2. For the challenge

Do you have what it takes to design, build and deploy in 48 hours? Can you quickly solve technical problems? What about team dynamics? This is most certainly not an easy feat, and you will need to deliver your best and bring your best tricks. Excited yet?

3. For the experts

Each team will have “joker cards”, allowing them to call an expert in technology, design, marketing, business plan, finance, interface design etc. Do you feel that the challenges are overwhelming? Just raise the joker card, and you’ll get expert advice, allowing you to go forward in no time.

4. It’s an unconference

We won’t select attendees. We won’t ask for your resumes, your past experience or diplomas. Instead, we view each attendee as a co-organizer, bringing his or her own experience and skills and making blitzweekend the best event ever. Did we mention it’s free?

5. To learn

Blitzweekend will be an ideal opportunity to try out technologies and frameworks you never had time to try out previously. We will also be planning keynotes during the event, given by select experts and professionals.

6. To connect

Needless to say you will work, meet, and mingle with the most talented people in design, programming and in business. This, in itself, is worth the trip. If you are looking for co-founders, for a project or if you are hiring gurus for your startup, this is most certainly the event to be at!

7. Launch pad for you startup

The most promising teams who want to take their project to the next level and start a company will have access to resources such as venture capitalists, angel investors and business consultants. Got a good idea? Prove it!

8. Because it’s the future

Do you think people can’t build something in 48 hours? We don’t think so. Think rapid development frameworks like Ruby on Rails, Django, Merb and so on. Leaders like Facebook, Netvibes, Apple or Google released APIs that allow third-party developers to quickly develop an application on their platform. We think that it’s just the beginning, and we will see in the near future extremely rapid and agile tools allowing developers to launch applications in just a few days, if not hours. Come explore this world with us!

9. For the freedom

We will provide facilities, rooms, wireless access and food during the event. There are no rules on the projects themselves, apart that they should be in technology and they should be innovative. You can choose to either experiment or make stuff. If you want, you can write a business plan and create your own startup! It’s your choice!

10. For the fun

Yes, fun is they keyword here. If you go through the official website, you will see that it’s designed to be a game where teams compete to make something in a pre-determined amount of time. Attendees will get to vote on the most promising project at the end. We will even have a fun prize for the winning team.

So if you are in Montreal or planning to visit the city on March 1st and 2nd, then blitzweekend is a must attend event. For those of you who are interested, you can register on www.blitzweekend.com (it’s a wiki, so you can simply add your name)

[…] opportunities are growing areas in such as Web 2.0, unified communications and wireless mobile technology.“

It’s pretty interesting to know that growth will not be affected, but seeing how the Canadian stock market reacted yesterday (following bad news from USA), I’m not so sure our growth will be that high. We have to remember that Canada is a small market compared to the USA (roughly 10% in size).

The good news is that if you can survive doing business only in Canada, then your business will surely grow when the US economy will return to its bully stage.

The problem is how to form a team when most people have a day job and are very busy? It’s not easy.

Programmers are good at programming but might lack marketing or business skills. True programmers like to code. They often code after work. They contribute to open source projects.

Business guys are good at business but they are rarely good coders or designers. Business guys always think about ideas. They come up with a new idea every time nature calls, whenever they see someone frustrated at something and so on.

Designers are awesome at creating something neat and fun to use but might not be able to code a large application or find out if a market is profitable or not. Designers can transform any ordinary web page in a work of art.

It’s very hard to find a multi-disciplinary individual (ex: someone who’s both a great coder and a great business man). I always believed in working as a group instead of working for yourself. Being in a team, it’s much easier to talk about a project, to do research, to design and code it. The reason is you have access to other excellent resources. When you do it on your own, you must be very focused and dedicated otherwise you will quit or fail. Being solo doesn’t work very well.

So you might be wondering where all this is heading? Well I had this idea where people contribute to startups in various ways. I call it “coop entrepreneurship”. People join startups like they join open source projects. They contribute what they can: they code, they design, they write business plans, they do marketing, they invest money, etc. Basically, they contribute their skills (or money if they are investors). Their participation is evaluated and shares are given depending on their participation. Once the project is completed, they look for funding and launch.

I’d really like to “test run” this idea with a few people before brining the concept further. So if you’re a programmer, a designer/user interface expert, a business man, a network engineer, a sysadmin, an investor, a mentor, a coach, a lawyer, an accountant, a secretary, an idea guy or if you think you could be part of a startup then please let me know.

I would really like to hear your thoughts about the model itself. On my side, I think the model is viable as the coop model has been around for ages. It is just being applied in a different way and actually, I know that Cambrian House is doing something similar. In the medium term, the goal would be to create a hub where people could meet, find partners and start a business. Some sort of business catalyst or perhaps a very informal incubator.

So… who’s in? Just email me.

As far as I know, there will be an elimination process so that only the 5 best companies will be allowed to “pitch” in front of the audience. Why only 5? Well this is to keep the event challenging and interesting for the audience. Remember, unlike geeks, business people are busy and want to go “to the point” :)

I believe the event will be recurrent so don’t despair if you are not selected as a nominee. Picking 5 startups by itself is a challenge. As mentioned by Heri, Embrase is going to sponsor the event. For those who don’t know Embrase, they offer a concept that I think is similar to the Y-combinator (by Paul Graham) called the “Green house”.

Even if you are not nominated, please do not hesitate to join the event!