You have heard this from so many SEO experts, blog often, blog this and blog that.  They are constantly talking about blogging, but the average person, well even I don’t know what to write about.  And trust me, you need to write meaningful content or people won’t read it, and if they don’t, you won’t get high rankings on Google either.   So how should we blog, how often and long, on what platform and Why?  I am going to keep this post short, as I blogged earlier about our Marketplace and the ITEX announcement, which is attached as a promo about our business.   Getting back to how why blogging helps your SEO Rankings:

1.   How?  Blogging is the same as writing, but it involves writing online.  Just start writing, it’s easy, add some pictures, from sites such as www.sxc.hu and off you go a gorgeous blog.

2.   How often?  Usually once a day is awesome, but 2-3 times a week, 2-3 paragraphs max keep it relative short and keep your blog to the point of your business and keywords.

3.   What platform and Why?  On MyTypes.com (We are biased that is our platform), WordPress.com, and Blogger.com.  On MyTypes blogging platform we automatically get your content indexed by Google and other search engines.  WordPress.com and Blogger.com are both free and quite amazing too.

Here is the blog from my Business blogs:

B2B Marketplaces go SaaS..Sassi with ITEX

February 29th, 2008 at 07:41 pm by Admin in b2b

B2B stands for Business to Business, but you already knew that. What it is, does not concern us in this blog post. What does, is the fact that many businesses are starting to utilize B2B marketplaces and b2b hubs as they were called to Buy, Sell, and Trade.    In contrast to the amazing reception of online marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon, the b2b world is quiet, maybe even boring? Well how do I say this, less exciting maybe, but Go B2B, kind of has a lack of tone to it doesn’t it? Regardless consumer online businesses are not the only one’s benefiting from b2b trade exchanges.

Hundreds of thousands of distributors, sales, marketing and millions of businesses are buying, selling, trading on sites like Alibaba, TradeKey and soon our b2b marketplace. By the way, ITEX a major investor in our company has 24,000 businesses in the trading community. A friend of mine often visits Alibaba.com and works with trade manufactures from China and helps further international trade. He is a professor of Internation business at a local University, and he often gets excited about the progress of businesses trading via the Internet Trading for B2B. It’s amazing how many products you can find from suppliers over seas. It’s good for them, it’s good for us, it helps the little businesses compete with large multi-nationals. Often this cuts out a cumbersome process of middleman and creates a global marketplace where everything is transparent. 

Alibaba made a huge splash a few weeks ago with it’s IPO, it instantly turned this multi-million dollar b2b marketplace in to a billion dollar company. It didnt’ hurt that it was approximately 38% owned by Yahoo. Besides Alibaba, I don’t really see a lot of marketplaces for b2b and businesses to buy, sell, and trade with each other. It’s nice that international companies are using the Net to trade, but what about US based b2b marketplace to help businesses, and especially small businesses. I am sorry but I just don’t see too many of those.  That is why we launched our Beta online marketplace a few weeks ago, we are in a non-stealth mode, as we do have to start the SEO process to promote it. The marketplace is developed in concert with ITEX and to promote the barter exchange of ITEX, but as we get deeper and deeper in to it, the more we are focusing on the b2b needs to help businesses with Buy, Sell and Trade. On a secondary note but probably more Saasy, ITEX made an amazing announcement yesterday, to help vertical Industries of all sorts leverage it’s marketplace platform and grow their businesses b2b or business to consumer.

ITEX CEO TO PRESENT AT MONTGOMERY TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE

Software as a Service Strategy to be Announced

Bellevue, WA – February 28, 2008 – ITEX Corporation (OTCBB: ITEX), The Membership Trading CommunitySM, a leading marketplace for cashless business transactions in North America, today announced that ITEX Chairman and CEO Steven White is scheduled to present Tuesday, March 11th at 8:30 AM (PST) at the Montgomery Technology Conference in Santa Monica, CA.

Mr. White is expected to discuss ITEX’s current operations and announce the Company’s strategy to enter the Software as a Service (SaaS) market. A video replay and copy of the slide presentation will be available on the ITEX website (www.itex.com), under the Investor Relations section, from the end of the day on March 11, 2008 through May 31, 2008.

Steven White, Chairman and CEO of ITEX, stated “We are pleased to be invited to present the ITEX story to this technology-savvy audience and to announce our entrance into the SaaS market. ITEX has grown revenue 50% since fiscal 2005and is expected to reach $15,000,000 in fiscal 2008. Operating income has increased on average 25% annually; more than 142% what it was in 2004, exceeding $1,500,000 in fiscal 2007. Part of our success is attributed to our dynamic and robust internet based technology platform which has proven to be practical, easy-to-use, efficient and scalable. For the last couple of years we have enhanced our platform in order to capitalize on a large opportunity for our Company – to offer our technology platform, and the many features and benefits it provides, to other businesses; so they may enhance the value proposition and revenue streams for their marketplace or community, while at the same time creating new revenue streams for us.”

Mr. White continued, “ITEX launched its internet based platform in 2003, internally named TEAM (Trade Exchange Account Manager). More than just Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, the platform has payment processing, record-keeping, and billing functionality and provides comprehensive transaction data on
24,000 active members within the ITEX trading community as they complete over 1,000 transactions each business day. Our web interface can be customized and branded for a variety of online marketplaces or communities. What makes our platform unique is its ability to track both cash transactions and those based on non-cash currencies, such as rewards, points, units or other consideration a vendor decides to use.”

Steven White’s presentation at the Montgomery Technology Conference will be the first opportunity for ITEX to showcase its new SaaS strategy.

About Montgomery Montgomery & Co. is a leading provider of merger and acquisition advisory, private placements, and private equity for companies in the media, communications, information technology and healthcare sectors. Montgomery
& Co. has emerged as the premier investment banking alternative for growth companies in the United States by offering its clients in-depth industry knowledge, financial expertise, access to key relationships and a high degree of customer service.

Montgomery & Co.’s primary offices are in Santa Monica, San Francisco, and San Diego. Montgomery & Co. is a member of the National Association of Security Dealers, Inc. (NASD), and its professional associates are registered with the NASD-SIPC. For more information, please visit www.monty.com.

The 5th Annual Montgomery Technology Conference will gather a highly select group of 750-plus venture, private equity, public institutional investors and senior technology executives from around the world. Conference highlights include 90 high-quality private companies, 50 industry-leading public companies, industry keynotes and panels.

About ITEX – ITEX, The Membership Trading Community SM, is a thriving community of member businesses buying and selling more than $270 million a year in ITEX dollar transactions. Member businesses increase sales through an exclusive distribution channel managed by franchisees, licensees and corporate-owned locations, by
utilizing ITEX dollars to exchange goods and services. ITEX is powered by ITEX Payment Systems, the leading payment technology platform for processing cashless business transactions. ITEX is headquartered in Bellevue, WA.

I have been a fan of PRWeb for more than two years, because we received thousands of links with our Press Releases and quickly got a good Google page rank for our previous blogs and real estate websites. Every SEO expert knows that sending out a professional Press Release through a wire service is the best way to get thousands of contextual links.  One of the other things you can do, is to go to our b2b and  online marketplace and  submit your business information.  While it won’t give you thousands of links, it does get get good traffic and it’s a sure way to promote your businesses! But recently I learned that PRNewswire says that they SEO press releases, but they did not provide contextual links within their press release, in fact they only provided one link. I had my client check with his PRNewswire rep to make sure that he got what he paid for. He paid the extra $250 but never got the links, his rep said that they SEO but don’t provide links. This was the silliest thing I have heard.

But, I wanted to do some research and make sure that PRWeb and PRNewswire were fully researched before I provided my SEO and Internet Marketing verdict. I read a few blogs, I did some research and my past experiences to make my judgement, which is. PRNewswire is an old company, with old ties and if you want to be seen as a Fortune 500 company, use them. They are expensive and worthless for SEO, because they don’t provide any contextual links back. PRWeb is the #2 company for Press Releases and does so much to SEO your news that it actually helps you get thousands of links in a week or less. The online tools for PRWeb are not super easy to use, but who cares, they give you THOUSANDS OF contextual links from news sites, which is amazing for SEO.  Every business should do press releases, but only when they have news.  B2b marketing finding customers is now much easier, so you don’t have to constantly push,  sites like Alibaba and Trade Key are great sites for b2b Exchanges and online businesses to promote themselves. 

Every SEO expert also knows that you need more Contextual links than your competitor, especially from news worthy sites, and blogs. Well guess what folks, PRWeb delivers, thousands of links for the price of about $130. But don’t take my word for it, spend hundreds of dollars, lots of time, and than you can email me later saying, YOU WERE RIGHT Vipin. No, don’t do that, take my word for it, and read the following links and search results:

Prweb Vs. Prnewswire – High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum

Prweb Vs. Prnewswire, Is one better than the other for SEO? Options V … Does this make them better for SEO tactics than PRNewswire? Any advice is welcome. … www.highrankings.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=26155 – 51k – Cached – Similar pages

PRWEb vs. PRNewswire Press Release Service for SEO – SEO Tip Week 38

PRWEb vs. PRNewswire Press Release Service for SEO – SEO Tip Week 38. Written on September 25, 2007 – 6:31 pm | by Shell Harris | … www.bigoakinc.com/blog/prweb-vs-prnewswire/ – 33k – Cached – Similar pages

PR Newswire vs. PRWeb From an SEO Perspective » Slicksurface …

PR Newswire vs. PRWeb From an SEO Perspective. A client of ours distributes “soft news stories” for their corporate clients. These can range from product …
www.slicksurface.com/blog/2007-05/pr-newswire-vs-prweb-from-an-seo-perspective – 25k -Now you have the secrets of the top SEO Experts, you should be sending out Press Releases every week on PRWeb.com.

I wanted to write a blog post on the best marketing books of all time, I typed in Google and came up with this list, attached link. Some of you know, I rip on Amazon a little, but I mean no harm buy it, gosh, they are a good company. But this blogging/SEO expert, Moi have to give them some credit for their amazing SEO skills or it could be their smart book content?    Honestly Amazon is known to be an amazing company run by an amazing CEO, but the internal structure has stopped it’s employees (my friends–many of them work there) of following through on some interesting initiatives. The company is known for it ruthless corporate culture, it’s been said that the cut throat corporate culture at Microsoft never reached this height. This is coming from good people who work there folks. But, maybe that is what is required to be the world’s largest ecommerce, and online marketplace. I do have to say that I love eBay, but they have their issues and their Online Marketplace had a revolt from it’s sellers last few week with a boycott too. Finally here is the list of the books by Amazon and my list below:

Amazon.com: “Top 17 Marketing Books Of All Time”

So what are my favorite Marketing Books of all time, and why? I have to do some research on this, but I have to tell you, I may not have read enough to make a difference. And, mine are now becoming outdated, and tend to focus on high tech marketing.  I will compile a bigger list and add to this blog. This starts to complete this wholistic view I want to present about SEO, Blogging, Search Engine Marketing, Internet Marketing and Marketing as a whole. Because our goal here is to work in the real world to help all businesses succeed, that is why it makes sense as a series of blogs?

1. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. Why? Because it explains human behavior and how trends are started and created, a must read marketing book of all time!

2. “Crossing the Chasm” by Geoffrey Moore

3. “Inside the Tornado” by Geoffrey Moore

4. “Innovators Dilemma” Clayton Christensen

5. “SEO for Dummies” by Peter Kent

6. “Marketing to the Social Web” Larry Weber

7. “Purple Cow” Seth Godin

8. “The Big Moo” Seth Godin and 33 other experts such as Tom Peters

9. Everything by Peter Drucker

10. “Watch This Listen Up Click Here” by David Verklin

There are honorable mentions of a couple of Internet Marketing books, the SEO Book is good, and there are countless others, want to add to this list, let me/us know. “The Long Tail” is a great concept and book, I have not fully read this book, just skimmed it. I do want to mention it. Also, you may have heard about us launching our Internet Marketing book, which covers blogging and it’s benefit for SEO, which I have always said is the most important part of SEM (Search Engine Marketing), and is ultimately part of Internet Marketing.

Last night I was reading a good book that a friend of mine returned to me on Friday. “Marketing to the Social Web” by Larry Weber. It’s a good book on the subject of Social networking, and what I call Internet Marketing 2.0 if you have read my recent blogs. What makes it a great book for me personally for SEO and other business owners is that it has sound strategies and simple  statistical value. Before I get to the paradigm shifting marketing strategies of the web 2.0 concepts of “Marketing to the Social Web”, I do have to say Larry’s cover of Jookster is what made it a favorite of mine. You see Jookster was co-founded in Seattle by a friend of ours, Othniel Palomino. Do read the book as it’s has a ton of information, and it’s as up to date as anything on the subject. He also has great testimonials on the back cover, from experts whom I value and respect.

So last night as I am reading the book, I run in to some great stats. I skim through most of the topics of most books I read, sorry too much to do, too little time. Even if no one loved my SEO articles and blog writing work, I do consider my self a SEO expert and Internet Marketing 2.0 expert. Hey we are #32 on Google for the keyword “SEO” that is out of 60million plus sites, and we just started to focus on SEO last week. You will see us in the top 10 soon, we hope. Social Web or Social networking is the key aspect of web 2.o arrival as you have probably heard. Online communities such as MySpace, YouTube, FaceBook, and even our small community of bloggers at MyTypes.com are all the rage. Why you ask? Because no man or women is an island, we are social beings. In my opinion, no one, Yes, I mean no one likes to eat alone.    Very few if any, like to shop alone, and most people like to live with others, that is why Urban centers have so many people.

Now getting back to the subject of the book, marketing to the social web. How Larry how? I actually have not read that far yet, but I am sure there is no holy grail for every business, on how to attract more customers. But we do have an advantage over Larry in the fact, that we always talk about how to attract more customers via SEO (search engine optimization). We won’t go hammer the SEO mantras here once again, but Larry does mention that search marketing via proper keywords is great way to attract and invite members to your social web. The key to providing value is another topic, and I am sure that book covers it in detail. It’s a good book, based on what I have read so far. Here are the stats (4 things from Compete Inc. research) of what people are looking from Online communities based on the book:

“1. Meet people. Some 78 percent of the people who visit online communities join them to communicate with others, either colleagues or new acquaintances with whom they develop relationships.

2. Entertain themselves. Another 47 percent join to find entertaining content such as photos, music, or videos.

3. Learn Something new. Some 38 percent join because they want to obtain information about topics that hold particular interest to them.

4. Influence others. And 23 percent join to express the opinions in a forum where their ideas can be discussed, debated, or acted on.”

Now the hard part is to put this data in to practice, you are already here at a SEO blog community, learning to use SEO information, learn everything you can about this amazing subject. Do join our blogging community at Community.MyTypes.com? Why we actually promote the most recent 50-60 people on the front page of that site, check it out. Also, those pages are heavily indexed by search engines due to our SEO expertise. In the last 2.5 months we have been able attract over 3,100 people to that site, with nothing but SEO efforts. Now that may not be much, but I am proud of it.

B2B means Business to Business, but what’s the deal with SEO in it?

B2B is all about businesses, buying and selling goods and services, basically trade exchanges, communities, and promoting products and services business to business. SEO is about promoting online businesses, and often that requires trading links and being part of directories and link exchanges. While SEO does not have to trade links, and most smart or past SEO companies don’t do that. Do you see the similarities between SEO and b2b yet? Back in the late 90′s and early 2000′s there was a lot of hype around business vortals as people called them. They were business portals for vertical business segments, such as SteelNet or AlmuniumNet. But what problems were these websites or portals trying to adress? B2B Exchanges such as Alibaba, TradeKey, and others have come a long way. What do these sites really do except for pass on leads to sellers and buyers. B2C is the second cousin of B2B and we actually used the term B2b2C, business to business to consumers. So in the world of SEO, which really is the #1 keyword in my opinion for Business marketing, it ties the whole purpose of b2b. Which is to enable business to business commerce, which is greatly enabled by Google as a platform, not just a search engine.

Google has become probably the biggest and best intermediary of information, all information not just consumer. B2b aspects of Google and it’s search and information indexing have to do with small businesses utilizing the Adwords advertising program to advertise all over the internet, not just on Google’s search site, but on millions of blogs, business directories, shopping sites, you name it you can advertise on the internet unlike ever before. So the advertisers now have the largest variety of sites and pools to advertise on.

Now imagine thousands and millions of online businesses and models that have sprouted from this advertising (business promotion) engine. Starting to see the connection of SEO and b2b yet? Businesses buy and sell services to each other not just consumers right? Well millions of businesses are doing that through the google adwords, but wait that is only half of it. Imagine online businesses, blogs, or websites, that could not find enough advertisers to advertise on their websites, having a way to generate revenues. yes, that is what the Google b2b exchange does that for them, Google AdSense allows any blog or website or businesses to place ads and make money. It’s pay for performance, so the more customers business blogs or websites have the more money it makes. SEO is the art and science of getting ranked in search engines and getting organic traffic. Some businesses have learned that Organic SEO is 5 times as effective for ads to gain targeted traffic. While click through and conversion rates for ads tends to be a little better than organic SEO, a 3.5 for ads versus 3.07 for SEO traffic. But the five times as much traffic certainly makes up for the small difference in coversion ratios.

So b2b advertising exchange of Googles adwords to buy ads, and sell ads via adsense complete’s the full spectrum of the supply and demand channels of businesses. Because what do businesses do, they buy stuff, and they sell stuff, and any b2b platform has to accomplish that. Now our online marketplace is setup just for businesses, really it is already a b2b exchange of 24000 businesses in the US and Canada. Our marketplace has 31 categories ranging from Jewelry to Automobile to Industrial businesses. There are 300million dollars worth of transactions being completed through the ITEX trade exchange. Hopefully our b2b exchange with the SEO skills of our team will grow that to billions of dollars that is already being done off-line. What is our niche, and the main value of our online marketplace? read more next time..this is a blog not a commercial:-)

We are super thankful to the SEO WordPress blog templates, you probably got here because you found us on the search engines, looking for WordPress SEO or Blog templates.  Surprisingly we get a few visitors a day looking for Blogger & Blog templates, so we thought, we should SEO some of those blog templates too.  We also get visitors from our blogging platforms front page, at MyTypes.  So don’t feel like this site is dedicated just to Blog templates, we talk about SEO trends, SEO Tools, and so this blogs naturally moving in to the SEO blogs world, meaning we have to talk about SEO issues and trends.

I wanted to write today to explain why WordPress and Blogger are the two best blogging platforms, and quickly announce that we are looking forward to SEOing Blogger templates.  Everyone knows that WordPress.com and .Org are the number 2 blogging platforms, but Blogger.com is the certainly the biggest and the badest platform, pardon my slang.  Because of these visitors looking for Blogger templates, we want to help people get blogger SEO Blog templates.  We also want to actually design our own templates and give them out to people free, in the Open Source paradigm.  Because if it wasn’t for the Open Source movement and specifically due to WordPress, Joomla, and Elgg.org we would not be here doing what we do.

IF YOU ARE  a Blogger Template designer or a WordPress or any BLOG TEMPLATE DESIGNER, PLEASE CONTACT US! We will promote you on this site, and the front of our main page at MyTypes.com.  As you can see on the side of this page, there are thousands of blog templates being download on this blog.  Also, please Click Here to visit our Blogger site where we show case the WordPress Blog Templates that are in the Theme Pack #1.

On my morning walks I usually think of what I am going to do for the day, the specific tasks etc for our blogging platform, for the ITEX Barter System, and often what the days blog post is going to be about. As a professional SEO and Marketing expert, I have to tie every thing back those points and provide helpful tips for online businesses. Because if you are not an online business, I don’t really care about you, just kidding. I care about you, but I would care more about you if you were one the Online businesses using our online marketplace. So folks todays topic is about B2B, what is it and why an online marketplace for online businesses? To make my point stronger, I would love to cite any professors papers on the subject, the b2b eCommerce trends etc. To do that, I was luck to find the following report. Here it is, I am going to give you the abstract version, not the full details, and high light in Bold the most important aspect. This is basically as long as I would want to read, to give you enough detail, it is still long.

RETHINKING B2B E-MARKETPLACES AND MOBILE COMMERCE: FROM
INFORMATION TO EXECUTION

Mahesh S. Raisinghani , Ph.D., CEC
University of Dallas, Graduate School of Management
mraising@gsm.udallas.edu

Hanns-Christian L. Hanebeck, Dipl.-Kfm.
University of Dallas, Graduate School of Management
hchanebeck@aol.com

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the interface between the exchange relationship in the digital economy and the emerging and continuously improving wireless technology. Exchanges become highly relevant when we look at how collaborative processes are performed. A special emphasis is placed on enabling collaboration between multiple business partners. In most cases, companies require standardization of information flows and business processes to be able to collaborate. Here, trading platforms, private and public exchanges will play a much more important role due to their increased ease-of-use (as opposed to EDI for example). The key line of thought is that collaboration is essentially based on information sharing, information sharing enables exception management, exception management relies on near real-time data, and real-time data can be collected through wireless technologies. The key ideas of online marketplaces are discussed along with the evolution and future of exchanges in the digital economy, to help management rethink the exchange relationship in the digital economy.

Introduction
B2B is about connecting the existing buyer and sellers. It is not a disintermediation play. It is about intelligently implementing Internet technology to improve business processes. The online B2B market across the world is increasing in value rapidly, but there are some hurdles and limitations to be met in the near future. The report, from Strategy Analytics (an international research and consulting firm), notes that s global B2B e-commerce transactions will grow from $226 billion in 2001 to $2.02 trillion in 2006 [Bellomy 2002].

The B2B eCommerce revolution includes eProcurement, B2B exchanges, and business infrastructure relationships. eProcurement involves firms selling supplies, equipment, materials, and services with a streamlined online purchasing function that often eliminates traditional intermediaries, thereby reducing costs and cycle times
while offering greater flexibility and responsiveness to changes in demand. Web-based supply chain management networks improve coordination between trading partners by linking a firm’s forecasting and production planning systems with its suppliers’ and distributors’ systems. They can create dramatic savings and quality improvements.
B2B exchanges include various categories of market spaces, including vertical market portals (”vortals”), hubs, and various types of auctions.

A single Infomediary (industry consortium or 3rd party) brings together many buyers and sellers within a specific vertical market, such as plastics, steel, or industrial chemicals, charging a commission on all transactions. Hundreds of industry-specific exchanges have now been launched, and more are being developed every day. Some of these ‘market spaces’ operate with posted pricing models, while others employ collaborative negotiated prices, auctions, reverse auctions, Dutch auctions, and other pricing mechanisms. Many are used in spot markets for industrial materials, overstocks, and perishable goods, as well as business services transactions. More important is the development of entirely new eBusiness infrastructure industries. Many firms support online activity by facilitating the interaction between various parties in eCommerce as preferred outsourcers for eBusiness processes. They have become integral to the effective operation of Internet-based activities and may account for the largest source of profits from the future growth of eCommerce. They provide digital content or improve its delivery, bring new customers to websites, finance acquisitions, and provide many other services. They include application services providers, content maximizers, wireless service providers, and payment processors.

The key questions addressed in this paper are: What does the exchange landscape look like in the digital economy and what can be inferred from the past to chart the direction and value proposition for the future? This paper is structured as follows: Following this introduction, we will describe the characteristics and differentiators of online marketplaces followed by the evolution of e-marketplaces. In the next section we conduct an in-depth assessment of e-marketplaces and discuss event management and wireless-enabled exchanges. The concluding section tracks the transforming future of exchanges in the digital economy and provides a summary of the more general lessons, in terms of rethinking the exchange relationship in the digital economy.

Online Marketplaces: Characteristics and Differentiators

The possible forms of B2B marketplace are point-to-point connections (extranet), or e-marketplaces (Independent Trading Exchange (ITE)). As shown in figure 1, e-marketplaces can be either one-to-many or many-to-many environments. The key pricing mechanisms are fixed/static pricing (i.e., catalog-type/aggregator sales), and
dynamic/variable pricing which includes both exchanges and auctions where price is negotiated in real time. An auction is one buyer and many sellers, or one seller and many buyers, whereas an exchange is many buyers and many sellers. However, caution is advised since almost everything is calling itself an exchange. Most are simply catalogs where buyers can search across multiple suppliers.
Buyer Auction Exchange
Seller Auction

Traditional Electronic Relationship

Fig. 1: Types of E-Marketplaces

As online marketplaces proliferate, a bewildering array of subvarieties and hybrid exchange models will emerge. Here the term ìmodelî is referred to as a general case through a typological meta model (as illustrated in figure 1) and then we discuss the distinguishing characteristics of models. These variants can be distilled into six
primary flavors of online marketplaces, serving both the B2B and B2C markets [Kaplan and Sawhney 2000; Bakos 1991; Malone et al. 198]:
1) Online Buying Services
2) Auctions
3) Functional Exchanges
4) Vertical Exchanges
5) Industry-Sponsored Exchanges
6) Net Markets

The salient characteristic shared by all six is that they increase the ease with which buyers perform one or many steps of the purchasing process, from product consideration to demand generation through to the transaction itself.
Specifically, online marketplaces deliver:
• Price and product transparency (i.e., the ability to easily locate and compare products and prices).
• Supplier and seller discovery, or the ability to aggregate demand and supply.
• Convenient and reliable transactions, by matching buyer and seller orders, and enabling a wide variety of pricing and market-making mechanisms.
Ultimately, value-added services to enhance the selling process, including logistics, inventory management, financing, forecasting, advertising, catalog management, and more.

Raisinghani & Hanebeck: Rethinking B2B E-Marketplaces and Mobil Commerce
Information Service

Fig. 2: Four dimensions of E-Marketplaces

As shown in figure 2, each type of marketplace differs fundamentally along four axes:
1. Level of information provided (e.g., price, availability, and range of substitutes).
2. Breadth of services offered (e.g., quality assurance, financing credit risk, and customer support).
3. Type of market-making mechanism (i.e., the way transactions occur, such as Dutch auctions,
reverse auctions, real-time transactions, and collaborative negotiations).
4. Enabling technology (e.g., web shopping agents, content management, levels of database, and transaction infrastructure).

Next the taxonomy of online marketplaces, i.e., its six flavors are described in detail below:

Online Buying Services
These services offer support during the awareness and demand generation phases of the selling process. Specifically, they provide price and product transparency (e.g., via shopping agents and comparison sites), buyer and seller discovery (e.g., shopping agents, price aggregators and industry catalogs), and quality recommendation and selection aides (e.g., analyst and review sites). Online buying services are targeted primarily to B2C markets, such as big-ticket consumer retail (e.g., electronics) and one-of-a-kind novelty purchases, as well as small business markets. The individual services that make up online buying services will be absorbed into more mature exchanges and net markets over time. Examples include mySimon, CarPrices.com, and CNET.

Auctions
Auctions are online markets that aggregate demand and match buyers and sellers for a wide range of B2B and B2C products. They employ a variety of market-making mechanisms (e.g., reverse, Dutch, English, and sealed-bid auctions) to meet specific business objectives such as demand aggregation and price maximization. Auctions serve B2B, B2C, and C2C markets, including retail, novelty, maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) purchases, distressed inventory/perishables, spot purchases of commodities and raw materials, and secondhand capital equipment. In the B2B space, auctions are generally targeted to small business customers that lack both purchase power and sophisticated purchasing operations. Examples include Amazon.com (auction) and Mercata (demand aggregator).

Vertical Exchanges
Vertical exchanges are trusted intermediaries that facilitate B2B e-commerce with vertical market and product-specific expertise. They offer real-time pricing and complete product information. Eventually, they are to offer a range of value-added services across an array of vertical markets (e.g., MRO, spot purchases of commodities and raw materials, capital equipment, secondary markets, distressed inventory and perishables, and some direct materials such as semi-finished and engineered products). Examples of vertical exchanges include PaperExchange.com and FreeMarkets.

Functional Exchanges
Functional exchanges are trusted intermediaries that facilitate mostly B2B e-commerce involving process, functional, or channel-specific expertise. These exchanges market an array of primary services or solutions that automate or support specific business functions or processes (such as HR benefits or energy management). Functional exchanges offer real-time pricing, complete product information, and value-added services. Examples include tradehub and Celarix.com.

Industry-Sponsored Exchanges
Limited to B2B commerce, these exchanges have equity participation or sponsorship from major industry buyers and (frequently) technology partners as well. They act as intermediaries to facilitate B2B e-commerce in industries with high concentrations of buying power. Industry-sponsored exchanges offer the same range of services as other exchanges, including real-time pricing, complete product information, and value-added services and information. Over time, these exchanges will accommodate more highly engineered products and direct materials. Examples include COVISINT (the GM-Ford-DaimlerChrysler joint venture) and Globalnet Exchange.

Net Markets
The holy grail of online marketplaces will be Net markets, or federated Net markets. These markets are sophisticated networks and combinations of online marketplaces that will emerge over the next three years. Net markets will develop from the quilting of functional and vertical exchange capabilities and expertise, and the assembly of value-added services across the supply chain (e.g., logistics, inventory, demand forecasting). This type of market will deliver more value-added services and will require high levels of buyer collaboration to conduct complex transactions. Because Net markets will demand the integration of many industry supply chains and the coordination of multiple large and small markets, they will not mature for several years. In the short term, each of these online marketplaces creates value by facilitating the sharing of information about products and pricing, matching many buyers and sellers and improving the ease and speed of transactions. Longer term, value will arise from greater levels of purchase-process integration and through the delivery of value-added information and services.

Vertical hubs with market focus in industries such as plastics, steel, chemicals, paper, telecom and so forth. Vertical Net operates over 40 exchanges that attempt to serve nearly all facets of one niche industry, such as Chemical Online, a chemical industry portal; MachineToolsOnline, a machining industry portal; and Aerospace Online, an aerospace industry portal.

Horizontal or functional hubs may ìhorizontallyî cross several different vertical hubs, while providing vital services to different industries with process focus such as logistics management; maintenance, repair, and operations
(MRO) goods or services procurement; project/capacity/HR/credit management; or auction applications. A private exchange is driven by a single seller or buyer and it typically involves a company automating its own supply chain. The customer base and participation is generally open to suppliers or customers of the company. Companies that have perfected this model include Dell, Cisco, and Wal-Mart. A public exchange is an industry consortium or a third-party dot-com forming an entity (such as Covisint and e-Steel) to aggregate the buying behavior of a group of buyers and their suppliers, with an emphasis on the buy side.

The Evolution of B2B E-Marketplaces
The evolution and diffusion of B2B e-marketplaces has occurred in three distinct waves [Berryman and Heck 2001; Swahney 2001].

In the first wave of B2B, there were approximately 1,000 independent online marketplaces for commodities such as paper and steel (e.g., PaperExchange and e-Steel) to specialized components such as airplane parts (e.g., MyAircraft.com). Unfortunately, most of these independent, fee-based marketplaces such as Aluminium.com inc. and Ventro Corp.ís Chemdex and Promedix were not able to maintain their liquidity since a
few large organizations that generated most of the transaction volume could negotiate with the suppliers and vendors on their own and save the transaction fees. Others, such as Vertical Net Inc. and SciQuest Inc. have transformed their business models from charging fees for online B2B transactions to positioning themselves as B2B software
vendors [Hicks 2001].

PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR THE REST OF THE REPORT:

Rethinking B2B Marketplaces(PDF)

The possible forms of B2B marketplace are point-to-point connections (extranet) … relationships, and decent profits for sellers since unlike B2B marketplaces, …

www.csulb.edu/web/journals/jecr/issues/20022/paper8.pdf

**A few points to remember, we placed the abstract part of this report for detailed definition of b2b and online marketplace.  We think you should go download the full report if you want to the full scope of the report.  This is a blog, so we chose to shorten, and we are not the authors of this report.  Also, we write this blog so we could provide information on the topics, and therefore the links go back to our Online Marketplace.  We are partially owned by the barter system of ITEX, there are 24,000 businesses that are part of our b2b trade exchange, so we know a thing or two about building an online marketplace.  Thanks for reading all of our blogs and commenting, as always we really, really appreciate your feedback.  Best Wishes!

To get ideas for a blog post for today, I was reading Seth Godin’s book “The big Moo”, it’s quite good, not just for Internet marketing, but for SEO too.  But I really wanted to write about our new Market Place, that has built in SEO so your online businesses get promoted.  So much of SEO is rooted in Internet Marketing and vice versa, did also know that the Keywords are almost searched just as much, about 1.8 million searches a month or more.  So my idea for writing a blog on SEO was about our Online Marketplace, but I have to write about the Yahoo Keyword Search tool.  So do go read the Seth Godin book, he is a marketing genius and quite inspiring.  One of the ideas that I got from him, was that comprise often slows down innovation.  Leaders and management have to deal with issues of compromise all the time, especially in the era of employee retention.  The key is to innovate and be unique, can’t please all of the people all of the time, so go be a rogue cowboy or whatever suits your fancy, go Innovate, but promote your online businesses in our online marketplace.

And this SEO blog you are reading is ranked #42 for “SEO” in Google as of today. Why is that, because so many of your download these wonderful SEO blog templates and give us links back, and visit this blog often. So keep doing that, and we will keep providing you valuable insights and tools to help you promote your businesses.

Here is a tip for the day, some of you know that Yahoo’s Search Marketing Keyword tool became defunct last year. They have launched a new version at Searchmarketing.yahoo.com, check it out and click on the #3 Tab on the right, for the budget tab.  Than you can type in your Keywords you want to SEO and it will give you a specific number of how many impressions, clicks and budget you should forecast for. I noticed it two days ago, so I am thankful for the keywords search tool. While the old tool was much better, the fact that it broke and had outdated information, it was of no use at all.

Why do I like the Yahoo SEO search tool better than the Google ad words tool?  I don’t, but it does have one fair advantage, it gives you specific information about the keywords you are searching for. For Example on the Yahoo tool, it says SEO is searched for about 596,000 times today, times that by 5 and you get the idea. What is the hottest thing in Internet marketing, SEO, and our blogging website? It’s our Online marketplace in collaboration with ITEX Barter System. We are starting to get ranked in the top 15 in Google for Online Marketplace, b2b marketplace, business marketplace etc.  The key to promoting your business is to be found on the search engines and to sell products where the buyers are, such as eBay and Amazon, that is why they are so successful.  Yes, this is a weakness of our system, but we are less than 1 month old on this project.  The items for sales in the online marketplace has over 5,000 items from 24,000 businesses.  Just so you are aware, these items are all barter items for trade or exchange from ITEX members, you can join ITEX and start trading today for no cost.  Or you can place your items for sale or list your business in our directory and it will get an amazing level of SEO value and traffic to your website. This marketplace is not just for Barter items, but for all online businesses, suppose it can be for off-line businesses too, but why would an off-line busenesses promote online?   Ah, it’s called promotion, duh:-).  We built it with Search Engine friendly URL’s, title tags, and a ton of SEO promotion, because we get indexed and rank high many ways. You will find out online marketplace to be ranked in the top 5 within Google and start to get traffic to your site.

We are starting to launch the first three categories of local businesses such as massage therapists, lawyers, dentists, and restaurants. Here are some pictures that we will use within each online marketplace landing pages and categories, enjoy. They are from StockExpert.com and SXC.hu, as some of you know we use them all the time, as Sxc.hu is free for blogging sites and individuals to use. So if you want to promote your online businesses, you certainly want to place a free listing in our online marketplace, but if you want to try Barter check out ITEX.com too!

Believe it or not, the Title tag says a lot about the branding of your businesses, as it is the first word that shows up in the Google Search results. And your company name should be the first word in your title tags and SEO efforts. But they should not be the only words in your title tags. Smart SEO consultants will use : colons as they are called right after the brand name. After that the most important keywords, do limit them to 10-12 though, and use them again in a sentence in your Meta Description tags. These are the two most important aspects of building your brand and your online businesses. This blog made me think of a great blog our blogging coach wrote last summer enjoy:

Branding Your Blog: Five Questions To Ask Yourself

Branding a blog is not unlike branding a business – you want to design a brand that encapsulates your core characteristics, that makes you stand out from the crowd, and that sums up your philosophy. I’m not talking about pretty logos or a memorable slogan, however. In order to succeed in the age of Web 2.0, your brand/blog must be dynamic, beneficial and/or entertaining – or preferably all three. Today’s readers are savvy, demanding, and fickle, so there has to be substance behind the hype if you want your message to stick.

When you begin your blog, ask yourself these questions:

1. What do I want to say? Try to narrow your message down to a few sentences. Think of it as a blogging mission statement (you can put this on your about page).

2. What do I have to offer? What unique skills and knowledge do you have to share with your readers? How can someone benefit by reading your blog? This can can become the basis for your cornerstone content.

3. What is my niche? No one can be all things to all people, so focus on what you can do well. Define your niche so that your blog and brand can be tailored to it (this is also important for SEO purposes, as it helps you to focus on the best possible keywords).

4. Is this sustainable in the long run? Do I have enough to say on this topic to maintain a blog? If you are blogging about your business, (hopefully), you’ll be very passionate about it and have more than enough to say. Remember that creating a successful blog, like a successful brand, requires time and commitment.

5. What sets you apart from the competition? What makes you and your business stand out? Can you describe in a few words? Why should someone read your blog?

As an example, here are the answers for this blog:

1. What do I want to say? In a nutshell, I help bloggers make their blog better; in particular, I teach to people use blogging to promote their businesses.

2. What do I have to offer? A finely honed writing ability combined with an knowledge of new media and web 2.0 topics, and an awareness of trends in the blogging community. Plus, I’m patient, friendly, and a good teacher.

3. What is my niche? Yes, I’m one of the many who blogs about blogging, but I’m focused on helping small business owners and entrepreneurs create compelling content and maximize the potential of their blogs.

4. Is this sustainable in the long run? Definitely. I clearly have lots to say, and the blogging community is incredibly dynamic and innovative, so there are always new topics to cover and lots of blog fodder. I’ve developed blogs before, so I understand the time commitment. Finally, blogging is something I’m passionate about on a personal level, because starting a blog literally changed my life (ultra quick summary – I was planning on going into a completely different field after I got my B.A., but I started a fashion blog as a hobby, fell in love with the world of blogging and online media, and the rest is history).

5. What sets you apart from the competition? I consider myself a writer as well as a blogger (just because the web is more informal medium than print doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t put my best face, or posts, forward), and I teach people to use their blogs as a means of active communication, connection, and involvement with their readers/markets instead of just a promotional tool. I’m in this to help other people succeed.

This post is being submitted to ChrisG on New Media’s Branding Round-up, so click the link for more posts on branding and how it relates to new media.

And a Happy 4th of July to my American readers!

Posted by: Blogging Coach

Our Friend Eric Sartoris just won an award as the Best Seattle Wedding Photographer, he and his partner Laura Elskan are amazing!   But that’s not the main reason we are writing this blog.  We are partnering with them to launch a photo sharing and wedding photography site @ WeddingPhotos.com. He is not only one of the best Seattle Wedding photographers, but he was visionary enough to get the URL WeddingPhotos.com years ago. I guess it takes a visionary to be the best Seattle wedding photographer. By the way the award by given by an association of the Seattle Wedding photography, sorry don’t know the exact name of the group. But if you Google Seattle wedding photography association you will find it!

Here are some posts and photos from Eric’s blog, enjoy the Wedding photos:

 

Janelle and Ron – February 8th, 2008

February 15, 2008 | Category: Seattle Weddings | Leave a Comment

Janelle and Ron married on a wet and windy evening, but the party inside The Vault was incredibly warm and loving, filled with their adoring friends and family. It was amazing to see how much all the little ones had grown since photographing Janelle’s sister Colleen’s wedding, last summer.

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