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Need a Logo? Let the Contest Begin!

by Paul Joseph April 3, 2011 Featured

Whether you need a new logo design for a startup or it’s time to freshen up your old logo, one thing is for sure: a good looking logo is essential to your brand identity. People interpret a lot more about your company based on your logo than you might think. The color, shape, and general “feel” of your company’s logo all play a role in the perception people have of who your company is. As logos are so often part of a first impression, and first impressions only happen once, it’s important to get it right. If you’ve checked into having a design firm create a custom logo for you, the price might have convinced you that your company’s initials with the shadow font and a tagline underneath, created in MS WordArt, will do just fine. But is that the right decision? Indeed, companies have paid tens of thousands of dollars for a single logo design. Is it worth it? Your logo is important enough that it is worth it, if that was the only alternative. Thankfully, it’s not. Entrepreneurs are turning to crowdsourcing options for more solutions to common problems every day, and logo design is a perfect fit for the crowdsourcing model. Not only is this option far less costly, the real beauty of crowdsourcing is that you get the creative power of several people working on your logo project. You’ll get far more options than any single design firm will provide, and the quality is often surprisingly high. In fact, your most difficult task might just be picking the one you love the best. Within the world of crowdsourcing, one model that stands out as very effective is the contest model. In this form of crowdsourcing, designers actually compete to design the best logo. In a typical crowdsourcing model, people are also competing for the business. But the idea of winning a contest for which they not only get the money for the logo but also move up in the rankings, tends to step the quality up a notch – at least. LogoArena.com is a company that’s leading the way for logo design contests. They boast top notch designers from around the world, and the results of what these graphic artists have come up with are very impressive. An average contest on LogoArena will generate 50 to 200 unique custom designs. That’s something you’ll never get (without a very high price) from any design firm, and you can launch a contest for just $249. Your logo is so important to your company’s branding that it’s worth spending thousands of dollars to get the right one. But when you can get the same or better quality for a fraction of the cost, it’s a no-brainer. If it’s time to honor your brand with a logo that truly reflects your company’s personality, head over to LogoArena and get to it! This is a sponsored post. All opinions are 100% my own.

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From Video Games To Netbooks: How Chris Guthrie Made $150,000 Online After Losing His Job

by Paul Joseph March 9, 2011 Featured

Press play to begin streaming the audio or right click the text link and choose save as or save link. Download the MP3 [ 47 Minutes - 11 MB ] Chris Guthrie is like your every day guy. He’s into video games, he likes computers, he studied marketing at Western Washington University , worked a full time job first as a game tester with Microsoft, and later in sales selling IT equipment. He also happened to be really good at the game Halo 2 , so good that he decided to use his skill to create a website about the game to help professional Halo players (yes there are professional video game players!). Thus an internet marketing career began. Chris started recording his game performances and shared the footage as video on his Halo site. Eventually he added a forum and thanks to the community he built, was able to start making money with advertising programs like AdSense. His next major success was with review sites, in particular one site that reviewed netbooks (small laptops) just as they were becoming popular. Thanks in particular to income from the Amazon affiliate program Chris was able to leave the workforce and become a full time internet marketer (well he actually was fired!). Next Chris began buying and selling websites and creating more niche sites using his review site formula. Less than two years after starting his netbook site, he sold it for more than six figures using an investment banker as a broker. Hear The Complete Story Chris went from getting fired in 2009 to earning well over $150,000 in 2010 from the Amazon affiliate program and other income streams, and today makes his entire living online. Listen to this interview with Chris as he takes you back over his entrepreneur journey, including how he started his websites, how he made money from them and how he became serious about buying and selling websites. Websites mentioned during the interview: MakeMoneyOnTheInternet.com GamingVidz.com NetbookReviews.com Mp3 Download Download the MP3 [ 47 Minutes - 11 MB ] Get your bonus copy of my book “How To Start An Internet Business & Make Your First $1,000 Online” Download Here

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Two women researchers on MIT’s India TR35 list for their work in Bangalore

by Paul Joseph March 7, 2011 Featured

Two women researchers — Aishwarya Lakshmi Ratan and Alefia Merchant – are part of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) prestigious ‘ India Technology Review 35’  list for 2011 for their innovative work in Bangalore. Bangalore-based Microsoft Researcher Aishwarya Lakshmi Ratan came up with a low-cost digital system which lets the users have the convenience of using a normal pen and a… (Visit Yourstory.in for full news, other content, and much more!)

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