The BBC reminds us that writing compelling material starts with the headline. How’s this one for an example:

Great tits cope well with warming

That headline is currently the most read article on the BBC website. It’s captured so much attention that it’s already more read than articles many months older.

You can learn more about effective headlines here or in the magazine rack at the end of your local grocers checkout.

Are there any readers left out there? If so..please accept my apologies for the very long delay between posts. As many of you may know, ten24 Media has been making the transition from a pure marketing services company to a web-incubator of sorts. In the days to come I’ll tell you a bit more about that as well as roll-out a new design for our own extremely dated website. You know what they say..shoemaker makes his own shoes last.

See you soon.

Most entrepreneurs will tell you that launching a company comes at a stiff personal price. You need to dig deep and make sacrifices for your startup. Maxed out credit cards, tiny salaries (or none at all) and friends that give up calling.

This morning however I reached a new level of sacrifice. A conference call was fast approaching and I didn’t have time for a trip to the grocers. Instead, I went on a scavange through my cupboards and was delighted to discover a box of Raisin Bran.

Down to the last few bites, spoon in one hand and a mouse in the other, I noticed them………

Red Flour Beetles - a good half dozen swimming about.

I’m not sure how many I oblivously devoured, but I’d say I’ve crossed some sort of line here.

“The mice which helplessly find themselves between the cats’ teeth acquire no merit from their enforced sacrifice.”
Mahatma Gandhi

“You can’t make smart pricing decisions without taking your costs, competitors, customers, and sales-people into account. But nearly all experts agree that making any of those factors the primary basis for your decision is a big mistake. Instead, the right price for a product or service should rest on one thing - the value that a product or service provides.”

Inc. Magazine, June 2005

“Branding doesn’t mean you have to be flashy or loud or scream your value proposition, but you have to know who you are….Run a good business and your brand will follow.”

Fast Company, October 2005

“We demonstrate globally from our office in Wellington, install our products remotely and receive funds electronically. We have US phone numbers in our office. The barriers to global commerce are minimal. We don’t really even think about, we just do it.”

Rod Drury, of New Zealand based AfterMail (recently acquired by Quest Software for US$45 million)
[via Read/Write Web]

“The reason you go to a building to go to work every day is that steam or water power used to turn a giant winch-like structure that went right through the factory building. Every workman used that power to do his work. As factories got more sophisticated, it remained efficient to move the workers, not the stuff.”
Seth Godin

BBC Money Programme has a good video on Google. How they got started, their rise to the top and the troubles they are facing as a result of that rapid growth and power.

On first glance its easy to think that the web drives prices down. However, a new study on Internet pricing shows that the ability to find products online easily???particularly niche and obscure products???is nearly ten times more important than price alone when it comes to shopping online.

Consumers are less particular about price if they can find that special something which may be difficult or impossible to purchase otherwise. “People do save money by going on line, but when we compared lower prices to greater choice, we found that the value to consumers of having the extra choice was 10 times greater than the value from price alone.

Read the full article here.
[via Atomiq.org]

From a horse whisperer:

“The more you use your reins, the less they???ll use their brains.“

[via We Break Stuff]