Blogs

Home Blogs Page 2
Business, start-up, entrepreneur, commentary, blogs and analysis | Blogs

Will Apple ever grow up and seize a chunk of the business market? Well...

I often get accused of bashing Microsoft and Oracle. In the interests of balance, here’s my message to Apple: If you want to go after enterprise business, make it a priority. Don’t toss it out there if it’s something you only plan to pursue in between hacky sack sessions and iPhone love-ins.

How Anthill's first Cool Company Awards caused an icy reception

It's fair to say that the application proffered by applicant company Laybuy was the cause of an icy-reception. In fact, it was literal cause of an icy reception area. The dissertation on the reasons why Laybuy is ‘cool’ arrived embedded in a block of ice and spent two days in the office sink defrosting before we could get to it.

Why we’re embarrassed about our new website (and proud of it!)

In mid-2008, we wrote about a clever Australian company called TrickyTix on the topic of Product Development. TrickyTix CEO Scott Handsaker provided us with the...

This should hang on every entrepreneur's wall

From the wonderfully verdant mind of entrepreneurial illustrator Hugh MacLeod, author of Ignore Everybody (listed among Amazon's Top 10 Editor's Picks for Best Business Books 2009), comes this print worthy of hanging on any entrepreneur's wall.

NAB’s social media strategy: Create a common enemy [But aren’t ALL banks ‘the enemy’?]

Last Friday night, NAB appeared to have one of those butt-clenching moments when a not-so-corporate tweet went out via @nab, the banking giant's Twitter account. It read: “Sooooo stressed out. Have to make a tough decision and I know I’ll probably hurt someone’s feelings! Arrggghhh.” The message was retweeted over 100 times. We all now know, it was the beginning of something far grander.

Sheesh, Rupert, would a subscription model KILL you?

The truly anarchical nature of the internet (despite attempts to control it) precludes the concept of the captive audience. Now, it’s a buyers’ market – and we have so very many options. Big media take note.

More lessons for every entrepreneur from the final episode of Season 4 of Game...

The final episode of season 4 of Game of Thrones, The Children, yielded some interesting lessons. And, as with last week and the one...

Website of the Week: Business Exchange

The real value in this new digital media landscape rests with networks and the ability to extract what is interesting and useful from the cacophony created online by pornographers, pontificators and penny-stock pushers. Last August, US business magazine BusinessWeek lifted the lid on Business Exchange, a social media initiative that it had been developing for two years.

Twittering about Anthill

When we made our big announcement yesterday that Anthill Magazine had become a quarterly publication, we never expected to receive the flood of emails, SMS messages and phone calls of support. But we were intrigued to discover that we'd become a discussion topic among the chirperati on Twitter.

Now you can get Hulu in Australia (and Stephen Conroy ain't gonna like it)

Hulu is a website that offers commercial-supported streaming video of TV shows and movies from NBC, Fox and many other networks and studios. It topped Fast Company's Top 100 Innovators list for 2009, beating both Google and GE. It is a rival to YouTube (offering full episodes, rather than 10 minute teasers), threatens Apple's strategy for renting and selling video content online (as a logical extension of iTunes) and in April signed a deal with Disney that sent shivers down the spines of television and studio executives the world over (those execs with spines, anyway).

Does education kill creativity?

Did you feel like your creativity was really nurtured at school? Chances are, it wasn't. In this great talk from the 2006 TED conference, British creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson argues that current education systems are geared to producing obedient worker drones rather than creative innovators. In contrast, he believes that educators should consider creativity as important as literacy when preparing young minds for a rapidly evolving future.

Website of the Week: A quirky new path to market for product ideas

Ben Kaufman, who also founded mophie and kluster, is back with a new variation on NameThis: quirky. The premise is this: entrepreneurs and creative people in general are bubbling with far more product ideas than they can possibly pursue. Consequently, these ideas end up dormant or exploited by someone else. Described by Kaulfman as a "social product development company", quirky invites users to submit their product ideas for US$99 each - this ensures that only the best ideas are lodged. The quirky community selects one product from the pool of submitted ideas every seven days. From there, the community (known as "influencers") weigh in by voting, rating and influencing other people's product ideas.

100 words that stop your emails getting opened (They include “friend”, “your family” and...

This is a list that came to our attention by way of an email. It's headline featured none of the words below. That's because this...

The benefits of Australian VCs and US VCs

August is Venture Capital Month at Anthill and last week we launched a new series written by San Francisco-based Steve Anderson focusing on the capital raising cultures in Australia and the US. Today, Anderson discusses the comparative advantages and disadvantages of pursuing funding from Australian VCs or US VCs.

Website of the Week: Don’t buy – save your cash and rent at Rentoid.com

While Rentoid contains the everyday items you'd expect to see listed (chainsaws, ladders, laptop computers, air conditioners, etc.) there are also some deliciously oddball items. You can rent an island, sports cars, private jets, a unicycle, a driveway, a full-size wrestling ring, an R2D2 projector, even a wife (listed in the "antique" category).

How a picture of a punk can boost your creativity

Recent research indicates that people think more creatively when looking at an image of a punk. Pinning up deviant images could be just the trick to introduce a little controlled anarchy to your brain.

How to build a business in 7 days for under $500 [Day#3: The Pitch]

So you want to start a business but time and money are holding you back? Sebastien Eckersley-Maslin has set himself the challenge of launching a startup in seven days for less than $500. He’s posting daily summaries for seven days. This is his third post in the series. If you’re new to this series, it’s worth reading the preceding posts for context.

What going home with a hooker taught me about my business

These nuggets of wisdom shared by a brothel worker are more useful than most pieces of business advice you’ll read in a book.

Want Anthill to sell your products and services? [What is Antmart]

With this sister-site almost live, we're now seeking progressive companies to partner with. Would you like Anthill to sell your products and services using this new sales model?

Steak knives don’t come out for Young Entrepreneurship ‘concept’ event

Michael Fox of Shoes0fprey.com revealed his penchant for designing stilettos. Jeremy Levitt of PodProperty and Service Seeking proudly informed the crowd that he enjoys cold-calling. Kirsty Black of Halo Headphones explained why she turned down $500,000 and went sailing instead. Julie Sweet of Certificates Online shared inspiration from Buddha and explained what she'd do with five thousand.
Subscribe to the Newsletter Over 30K subscribers

FREE BUSINESS TOOLS

FREE BUSINESS TOOL

How to price your product or service in 8 steps with...

The world is littered with products that do little more than cover their cost, and underpaid service industry professionals. But there are some entrepreneurs who set their own prices and receive what they ask with apparent ease. Steve Major teaches you how to become one of these entrepreneurs in this 8-step infographic.

INFOGRAPHICS

New Zealand’s Xero eyes US IPO, further disruption as subscribers increase...

Xero recently held its annual meeting in Wellington, during which the company revealed some interesting details about its future. As has been widely suspected, the...

OPINIONS & ADVICE