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Business Sites
Computer Currents magazine
Article on Inc. Online
In the 1957 movie Desk Set, Katherine Hepburn is the manager of a corporate library who answers questions like "What are the names of Santa's reindeer?" Small businesses have never enjoyed that kind of information resource, and so the diffusion of the Internet has been a particular boon for them. But the Internet isn't simply a source for Christmastime trivia. It supplies crucial resources for acquiring financing, doing taxes, creating a marketing program, and many other functions. In the articles I've written, I've tried to guide entrepreneurs to the Net's best small business sites.
Inc. Online (1998)
One of the great joys of surfing the Net is that you can start off reading about Sudan and wind up making sushi. But when you're running a small business and it's Monday morning, a free association Web crawl is the last thing you need. You've got two angry customers to call back, a press release to send out by noon, and a tax auditor on the way. Where on the Net can you turn for help that's quick, smart, reliable?
Try Inc. Online: The Web Site for Growing Companies (www.inc.com). This is a great resource for small businesses. Go down the left side of the home page a bit, and you can search the complete lnc. database of more than 5,000 articles by keyword. Apparently, it has every piece they've published since 1988. For example, type angry customers, click the Go button, and you'll hit on "Real-World Customer Service," which is full of advice and anecdotes about handling unhappy clients. Type press release and you're rewarded with an excellent primer on how to write one. Look up tax audit, though, and you may be disappointed. There's good material on state audits but not much on IRS exams. Overall, however, I'd give lnc. Online two-and-a-half out of three stars in this road test -- not bad for quick-and-dirty searches. If you want to refine your searches, there are loads of options.
How else can Inc. Online help your small business? The home page says some 13,000 users have their own Web sites on the Inc. server, and it didn't cost them a penny to create or maintain them. I was skeptical, but I clicked Create Your Own Web
Site and followed the simple directions, which include some design options. Within a half-hour, my RS Writing site was online. You actually get a fair amount of space, including pages for a mission statement, company history, products/services, customers/clients, and sales channels. And you can easily modify the site (again, for free) whenever you. feel like it. Of course, you don't make anybody's Cool Site of the Day list, but it's not bad if you just want a no-hassle, no-cost Web presence.
Inc. Online has glossaries, directories (such a franchisor database), Web links, downloadable business software, and several bulletin boards on small business topics. Most of this stuff is OK; it's nothing earth-shaking. Like many big sites with lots of content, Inc. Online is a little unwieldy. But its comprehensive, easy-to-search database of excellent articles definitely makes it worth a bookmark.
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