• A New Landscape for Venture Capitalists in the Tech Sector

    Frank Quattrone , is back on the scene. He was involved in some of the biggest IPOs of the dot.com boom--like the Amazon and Netscape IPOs--and then spent a few years on trial for federal charges of obstruction of justice . Now he is running the tech-focused investment bank Qatalyst Partners. And he thinks confidence in the tech sector is starting to come back. But he cautions that the current recovery is going to be very different from the recovery after the dot.com bust. While he says there were, on average, 62 IPOs per year from 2001-2007--following the dot.com bust (there had been nearly 400 IPOs per year in the "crazy years" at the height of the dot.com bubble), the average dropped to 18 over the last two years. The big problem, he says, is the lack of credit. Quattrone spoke about the state of the tech sector at the Wharton School 's San Francisco campus. Here's an excerpt of the discussion: Read more about the panel discussion here .

  • Local Search Guide for Small Business

    Lisa Barone of Small Business Trends strongl y recommends that business owners David Mihm 's Local Search Ranking Factors --just updated this week for 2009. Mihm's report is a comprehensive guide to all things search, built on a new study of Google Maps , interviews with the heads of Google Maps and Yahoo Local , and surveys of top "bloggers and practitioners." From Barone's testimonial: One of the most interesting things I got from David’s guide was the growing importance of getting local citations for your Web site. Citations are mentions of your business name and address on other Web pages. That means in order to rank well in local search you should be reaching out to the many local organizations around you and letting them know your business exists. Get a mention from your Chamber of Commerce, from local blogs, local directories and resource sites, your school board association and anywhere else local business information is found. These citations are relatively easy to get (small businesses owners love helping one another out) and they’re very powerful to the local search algorithms. Read Barone's full post here .