Latest Posts

Think like a creep

One of the regulars at Paul’s Pub (my little Facebook group for marketers) read the post here from the other day, titled “How scared should you be?” It’s about taking a common sense view of online security, and mentioned an article from the Times which stated that Russian hackers had collected 1.2 billion username/password combinations. […]

How scared should you be?

There’s no question about it. The Internet has more than its share of scumbags, lowlifes, and general miscreants. And boy, do they get press. The New York Times recently ran a story about a small Russian group that has collected the log-in credentials for 1.2 billion accounts at various sites and services online. There’s an […]

What do you want?

What would make this blog useful to you? What do you want to learn or stay informed of or do that you aren’t finding the way you want somewhere else?

Frequently asked questions

So, what’s the theme? I assume you mean the topical theme, rather than the PHP code. The latter is likely to change at a moment’s notice. “News, reviews, and how-tos.” Where are all the cool conversion and social linking gimmicks? On their way. There’s a lot of stuff that will be added, but I’d rather […]

Welcome to the TalkBiz News blog.

Sit back, relax, and browse a bit. The blog is still new, so there may not be all that much to read for a while, but I promise... It will get interesting. On top of the constant changes in this market, I have thousands of pages of back issues, articles, reports, and unpublished material to sort through. I'll be updating and adding the still-applicable stuff as time allows.

I hope you enjoy the ride.

TalkBiz News is one of the oldest continually published newsletters on the subject of doing business online.

We don't do things the usual way, as you'll see from the sign-up page. Instead of the common 6 lines and a flashy graphic, it's an actual explanation of what you get when you join. Including the 117-page book, "Need to Know," and an editable mindmap of the PLANTS System to help you plan your online strategy.

Check it out and see for yourself why we've still got subscribers who joined us 17 years ago.

Get the full details, and join the fun here.

This is a collection of 6 powerful tools you can use for planning out an online business. We don't just hand you flat graphics, which can be intimidating when they get into detail. You get the actual mindmap files, in Freemind and XMind formats, so you can edit them to fit your own goals and experience.

Take it all in at your own pace, and as you need it.

You'll also get my intro course on mindmapping. This is one of the most profitable skills you can learn to organize your thoughts and systems, and create better products in far less time.

The quick-start guides will have you creating a complete, original, and useful mindmap of your own within 30 minutes or less. Even if you've never used a mindmapping program before.

Check it out here.

After publishing a plain text email newsletter for so long, why start a blog now?

Easy answer: Blog posts don't land in the spam folder.

There are a lot of other reasons. Some things that are fit for a blog post wouldn't make proper issues of a newsletter. Blogs allow more interaction between readers. It's easier to share the link to a post on Twitter or Facebook than to forward whole issues of a newsletter. They're easier to read on mobile devices.

If I get inspired and start posting every day for a while, people won't freak out like they would if I started sending issues of the newsletter that often.

There's also the fact that you can leave a lot more resources in one place this way than you can via email.

It seemed time to do it again.