I love getting my finances online. I can look up info on my WAMU Checking account, Citibank credit card (with ThankYou Rewards), my 401k, and my direct deposit paycheck stubs. ADP iPayStatements provides the paystub in PDF format, but it is an awful website. I can review my Pay Statements or my W-2 forms, which is great. I can also get email notifications when new statements are available. Since we no longer get paper copies, this is great. The only issue is the way the website is constructed. They don’t let you ‘Open in New Window’! So my multi-tasking browser is stuck dead in the water with the following message: “To protect your sensitive information, you cannot access iPayStatements from this browser window.”

Okay, so no second browser window is not the end of the world. But they are going further and screw with Adobe Acrobat’s settings. So Acrobat’s default setting is to “Display PDF in browser”. This means that the browser window is open, and the PDF is displayed within Internet Explorer or Firefox. I hate this concept because it limits the toolbar, can crash/stall your browser, and is usually inefficient since I usually download the full PDF so I can view later. This ’security’ limitation is a pain, and will cause me to hate the site. I went to look for help on the topic at ADP’s website since the PDF was not displaying initially, but the only answer I got was to either install Acrobat (meaning I didn’t have it already) or upgrade to the newer version.

Someone over at ADP needs to learn how to make a website more user-friendly. Until then, I am only going to visit to get my W-2 and 1099 forms once a year.

So I used to play this game as a kid, as did many others I bet. Check out this fantastic video of the grown-up version over at xbox.com

While researching possible stocks to invest in, I found a blurb about the upcoming launch of Zecco.com. It sounds like a nice idea. People sharing ideas and news on stocks. Then they will also have the option to execute stock, option, and mutual fund trades. I think I heard someone say that they would be offering free trades (no commission). I don’t know how that is possible, but that feature won’t be available at launch. It looks like a lot of their ad sponsors are from financial services companies. I am a bit worried about the idea of users spreading news/rumors and pushing stock prices in the wrong direction. Indiviuals don’t have to disclose the same things large companies and analysts have to. So I don’t trust blogs to give honest stock recommendations…

Its interesting to note that commission fees are dropping. I remember paying $35 per trade and I now pay $12.95. I also don’t have quarterly or yearly fees on my Schwab account. TechCrunch has an interesting take on this new service.

Mortierbrigade, a Belgian ad agency, created a website which allows you to put your own in Materazzi’s mouth. They have a sample on the website, which isn’t half bad. But you can create your own dialog, and share it! Go now…materazzisays.com

Okay so lets take this whole web 2.0 thing to a new level, how about open source business plans? I have created a backpack page for us to work on a brainstorming for healthy business ideas. I propose we focus on two key tasks to start, first what are the principals a “healthy lifestyle” business should abide by? See my initial thoughts and add your own in the main body section.

Second who are possible customers, what are the key segments that we could target with a business?

By combining these two areas I hope that we can combine principals with target customers to find a unique opportunity that will launch a ground breaking business.

Clearly business terms are also needed to govern this space, here is my proposal:

1) All are welcome to use the thinking to establish a business on their own, if you do post ideas to this page they are available for any member of the group to use.

2) Any business’ that do start using these ideas must credit extra8 as an inspiration and must always include extra8 promotion on their site and in any physical location.

3) Revenue and Profits, the real reason to start a business, in my view these are the property of the crediting organization and owners of the business, with risk comes the reward. If we do find some good ideas we may want to create a sub group to actually work on launching the business and then this group would share the revenue in some yet to be determined fashion.

Thoughts? Interested?

Check out Business Plan 2.0

As I’m sure my fellow coffee addicts and friends will attest, Starbucks has entered an interesting new area with the support of their first movie, “akeelah and the bee“.  For the last month or so, every Starbucks I’ve been to has been littered with paraphernalia related to the movie.  

This is an interesting move for Starbucks.  The way I understand it, Starbucks is actually taking a percentage of the box office in return for marketing the movie in their retail stores nationwide.  Starbucks has long been working on becoming the ‘third place’ in peoples’ lives, and now they are going to attempt to use that influence to generate profits for themselves at the box office.  

I must say, I’m impressed with Starbuck management on this one.  They are taking it upon themselves to generate returns for a movie that otherwise might have flown under the radar and gone unnoticed.  This is a nice example of how I think advertising partnerships should work – a big guy getting on the bandwagon of a little guy and promoting the little guy to the profit of both.  Wouldn’t it be nice if the rest of the world always worked that way?

To make up for my post yesterday about the Firefox ad, I wanted to point out some entertaining advertising from Microsoft. They have launched a new viral campaign for their product OneNote 2003 called stationaryisbad. Here’s just one ad from the campaign and view more below to see some others.

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In what seems to be emerging as a trend (see Chevy Tahoe post), another company is letting users create their own ads for the company’s product. The Firefox Foundation is letting users create and submit their own ads for the Firefox browser. The contest is called Firefox Flicks, has some great prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places, and has resulted in some great (read: hilarious) ads already. Check out the one below for an example, and check out firefoxflicks.com for more.

If you ever owned a blackberry, you will know there are tons of ways to accessorize your crackberry. Ever wonder how people walk and type at the same time? They cheat! Most of the time they aren’t looking for the obstacles that exist in front of them! Check out this useful accessory that Rick Mercer from the CBC put out. I sure hope they start making one of these for Palm Treo, iPods, PSP, and a kids version for the Nintendo DS. These days kids need something like this!

via Steffen Nork from Frankfurt, Germany

Woot! is a company that sells junk to ‘computer geeks’.  From home appliances to computer equipment to kitchenware to electronic gear.  That’s no different than Best Buy or Fry’s, right?  Wrong.  Their sales are entirely web based, so they are like Amazon.com, right?  Wrong.  The key difference is they sell only 1 item at a time, and look for a target market.  That’s right, they typically hock 1 item on the website every 24 hours.  If it sells out in 30 minutes, great!  If not, then the left over stock sits in the wearhouse waiting for another chance.  Sales start at midnight central time (they are based in Texas), and they tend to sell out quickly.  They are selling ‘cool stuff’ that typically is end-of-life or is being replaced by another item.  They don’t provide support and recommend you contact the manufacturer for all issues.  The idea is to lower their costs, and push all issues back to the engineers that make the stuff.

So Woot! has a ‘Woot!-off’, which is like a massive sale of items.  Read the rest of the article to check out the revenue for the 24hr period of the current Woot!-off that is going on now.
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