This article appeared a few days after Queen Rania's interview (see below). Here, Prince Charles talks about the Internet as possibly the most effective tool in history. If you need material to use within your company to overcome objections from doubters that you should more proactive online, these make powerful arguments.

Link to original article: http://griff.in/n

Everyone's feeling the pressure of the economic squeeze, but not everyone is being smart about it. Even before government bail-out plans, there were cash grants, loans and awards to be had if you only knew the right places to look for them. There are government-funded agencies eager to come around and give you free business advice too, and in some instances, practical help. You can even find ways to legally make free phone calls, and there is one printer we know of who produces a wide range of business stationery from free to practically free, you only pay for the postage.

Most useful for those dependent on technology to run their businesses are high quality software suites that are every bit as good as Microsoft products. "Free" is a substantial saving on the £500 cost of MS Office, for instance. For a net outlay of nothing, you can fully equip every PC in your office with all the software you will ever need. Thus, you can edit your photos, create a professional-looking newsletter, and turn it into a PDF file to more easily send to your clients or place on your web site, all at no cost. And you may even get some training through your local BusinessLink.

So there may have been a time when shopping around was an unproductive use of your time, but not any more.

Advertising spending on-line is growing at a frightening rate in the UK, being forecast to grow by 30.8% to £3.4 billion this year. That compares with television advertising which will grow by just 1% to around £3.56 billion by the end of 2008. It is almost certain to exceed television spending by the end of 2009, according to Group M, a media buying and planning group who are well qualified to know these things. It's a prospect that fills me with dread, quite frankly.

A new approach to standard email phishing scams has been reported targeting senior executives in California, coining a new term in the process - whaling. Whaling, then, is for phishing scams that target big fish. This particular email appears to come from a court in California and includes the target's name, company, and phone number to give it an air of authenticity. There are some useful lessons we can all pick up from this.