When it comes to making success fall at your feet, there is no better way than getting and staying motivated.

I have found no greater satisfaction than achieving success through honest dealing and strict adherence to the view that, for you to gain, those you deal with should gain as well. – Alan Greenspan

You must be the change you wish to see in the world. – Mahatma Gandhi

Let’s be honest. There’s not a business anywhere that is without problems. Business is complicated and imperfect. Every business everywhere is staffed with imperfect human beings and exists by providing a product or service to other imperfect human beings. – Bob Parsons

You need to be aware of what others are doing, applaud their efforts, acknowledge their successes, and encourage them in their pursuits. When we all help one another, everybody wins. – Jim Stovall

The only way around is through. – Robert Frost

You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong. – Warren Buffett

The noblest search is the search for excellence – Lyndon B. Johnson

The man who does not work for the love of work but only for money is not likely to neither make money nor find much fun in life. – Charles M. Schwab

You must remain focused on your journey to greatness. – Les Brown

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. – Theodore Roosevelt

Where there is an open mind, there will always be a frontier. – Charles F. Kettering

Tags: business, excellence, success

If you want to stay ahead of the rat race and believe in your abilities like never before, this compilation of interesting and inspiring quotes will not let you down.

I like thinking big. If you’re going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big. – Donald Trump

Nobody talks about entrepreneurship as survival, but that’s exactly what it is and what nurtures creative thinking. Running that first shop taught me business is not financial science; it’s about trading: buying and selling. – Anita Roddick

To waken interest and kindle enthusiasm is the sure way to teach easily and successfully. – Tryon Edwards

Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. – Bill Gates

Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable. – Coco Chanel

The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time. – Henry Ford

The good or ill of a man lies within his own will. – Epictetus

I have known not a few men who, after reaching the summits of business success, found themselves miserable on attaining retirement age. They were so exclusively engrossed in their day to day affairs that they had no time for friend making. – B.C. Forbes

The cynic says, “One man can’t do anything”. I say, “Only one man can do anything.” – John W. Gardner

I feel that luck is preparation meeting opportunity. – Oprah Winfrey

If there is such a thing as good leadership, it is to give a good example. – Ingvar Kamprad

Tags: entrepreneurship, financial science, inspiring quotes, leadership, success

The lighter, slimmer, cheaper new version of Barnes & Noble’s e-reader, Nook, would be making an appearance before customers as a simple eBook reader.

Price tag of the latest Nook – $139 – is a sign that the book seller is striving to compete with Amazon and Borders Group Inc. on e-reader prices.

From news.yahoo.com:

The focus on simplicity means the new Nook’s battery can last 2 months, CEO William Lynch said at an event in New York to announce the device. Lynch told the crowd of bloggers, news media and analysts the latest Nook was inspired by feedback from customers — specifically a letter asking why no e-readers were suitable for a grandma.

“The Kindle 3 has 38 buttons. That’s 37 more than the all-new Nook,” said Lynch, taking a jab at Amazon.com’s e-reader, the market’s top seller.

The new Nook, to be available June 10, is Wi-Fi only, has a 6-inch touch screen and can hold up to 1,000 digital books. It features the latest E Ink technology, which significantly minimizes flashing that can occur as a user pages through an e-book. Pages seem to melt into each other on the new Nook.

The latest Nook allows readers to look up words, highlight passages, search, and adjust font size.

Tags: Amazon, digital books, eBook reader, Nook

McDonald’s, the leading international food chain, has decided to open more stores in China.

This means that fans of McDonald’s could now enjoy burgers, fries, and shakes from their favorite international food chain in no time.

From news.yahoo.com:

McDonald’s aims to open at least 700 new stores in the country by 2013. At present, there are 1,300 Big Mac outlets in China, marking its largest expansion strategy ever deployed there. The newly announced goal sharply accelerates its December plan to open just 200 locations. So why the sudden move?

Mickey D’s is no stranger to the Middle Kingdom. In fact, McDonald’s has been in China for about two decades and, therefore, understands the market better than many of its rivals who may be just jumping in.

McDonald’s bet on China is clearly a play on the country’s growing attractiveness as an investment destination and as an opportunity to capitalize on the “Westernization” of consumers. To boost sales and improve profitability, companies have raised stakes in emerging markets where availability of cheap labor and raw materials often help these companies improve margins.

The second reason for this expansion can be the pressure McDonald’s is facing from its competitors. The fast-food market is heating up, and this is the time to expand. McDonald’s is looking at Asia for growth as it prepares to take on key rival Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM – News) in its pursuit for growth in China.

McDonald’s has the advantage of a two-decade-old presence and success in its Chinese expansion would be witnessed by an immediate impact on sales and bottom line.

Tags: debt ceiling, expansion strategy, financial crisis, food chain, in emerging markets, investment destination, McDonald's, recession

The AIM instant messenger of AOL Inc rolled out the first version of a free video chat service on Thursday that does not require users to download any software or log in.

The move is seen by many as an attempt by AOL to become more competitive in the fast-growing field of video chat.

From news.yahoo.com:

Called AV, the service was created as a way to have quick, easy video chats, Jason Shellen, a leader of the AIM team, said. Though there are plenty of other voice and video chat offerings available for computers and smartphones, AV is unlike many with its decision to eschew both logins and software downloads.

In order to start a chat, a user gets a unique link from AV and sends it to friends. Once a friend with a webcam clicks on the link, a chat window will pop up on the screen and show live video of the user who started the chat session and any other participants. Up to four people can be involved in a chat at once, Shellen said.

The service has several features, such as the ability to type messages to individual users while video chatting — to send a link to a webpage, for example. The originator of the chat session also has the ability to remove others from that chat. Other features will arrive in the next few weeks, Shellen said, including one called “Group Shot” that allows you to take a photo of everyone participating in the chat at once.

AV makes use of Adobe Systems Inc.’s Flash software and will work on a personal computer and many Flash-running smartphones.

Tags: AIM instant messenger, AOL inc, Flash software, software downloads, video chat

If you have been looking for success quotations, these motivating quotes will surely be of an interest to you.

I have always been amazed at the way an ordinary observer lends so much more credence and attaches so much more importance to waking events than to those occurring in dreams… Man… is above all the plaything of his memory. – Andre Breton

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours. – Henry David Thoreau

Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. – Kahlil Gibran

No one should negotiate their dreams. Dreams must be free to fly high. No government, no legislature, has a right to limit your dreams. You should never agree to surrender your dreams. – Jesse Jackson

So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable. – Christopher Reeve

We all dream; we do not understand our dreams, yet we act as if nothing strange goes on in our sleep minds, strange at least by comparison with the logical, purposeful doings of our minds when we are awake. - Erich Fromm

There is a vast world of work out there in this country, where at least 111 million people are employed in this country alone – many of whom are bored out of their minds. All day long. – Richard Nelson Bolles

Tags: dreams, motivating quotes, quotations

If you have been trying hard to find easy clues to understand search engine algorithms, you may be left disappointed to learn that search engines may be speedy but they lack preciseness.

Search engines such as Wolfram Alpha have employed the model of delivering answers and not pointing to the direction unlike Google and others that start providing hints as soon as a word is typed in the search box.

From Timesofindia.indiatimes.com:

There are no easy answers. Search engines like Google are based on an algorithm mechanism. This is a complex mathematical formula that crawls through billions of sites on the net and ranks its pages, thereby creating a vast index that is tapped to deliver search results. “Considering that the internet is growing at a frantic pace, and new pages are continuously being added, it’s a challenge to constantly index fresh pages and produce results that are new and pertinent,” admits Dod.

Often, experimentation is the key. Google has experimented with what it terms the Universal search. This blends listings from its news, video, images, local and book search engines to deliver comprehensive results. Vinay Goel, head of products, Google India, says that Universal search is an important first step in exploring the full range of what can be achieved. “Users today are looking at compact and personalized results. Search engines have to understand this and be more intuitive. The future will see radical advances in modes of search. Our goal is to take advantage of these and keep evolving the interface design and user experience.”

Bing, Microsoft’s search portal, launched last year as the “decision engine” has similar aspirations of developing as a search engine that can offer solutions, not just plain vanilla search results. Eventually, say Microsoft sources, the idea is to pull out specific bits of information from different web pages and serve them up as one result. This will be quite different from the way it works now, where an engine lists a choice of many pages, each of which contains the keywords searched for.

Kapil Gupta of Synapse India, a software firm that specializes in SEO, said search engine algorithms have become smarter with integrated artificial intelligence and search domain has surely got more user-oriented than ever and will continue to do so.

Tags: artificial intelligence, Google, images, keywords, news, search engine algorithms, SEO, video, Wolfram Alpha

The ongoing tussle between the Indian government and maker of BlackBerry phones, Research In Motion (RIM), has adversely affected the sales of BlackBerry communication devices that are considered to be one of the most admired fashion accessories by the Indian corporate executives.

It is worthwhile to note here that some of grey market dealers in Mumbai have already stopped ordering fresh stock of BlackBerry models till RIM sorts out the issue with the government.

From Timesofindia.indiatimes.com:

“After I exhausted my stock, I decided to wait till we get a better idea of what is going to happen with BlackBerry in India,” a grey market dealer in Mumbai’s Fort area said. A few other unofficial dealers promised to source required models, provided a deposit was made for the device. “Our margins are pretty thin on such goods, and I don’t want hassles that might arise at a later date if the government’s decision goes against RIM,” a shopowner explained.

BlackBerry sales have similarly seen a dip in Bangalore. “I sold 35 handsets in July, but this month I haven’t been able to sell more than 15,” said a dealer on Brigade Road. A shopkeeper in Dubai Plaza echoed his words, saying he had sold 60 handsets in July, but only 10 in August. “People want to wait till the August 31 deadline and then decide,” he said. But someone’s loss is always someone else’s gain, and other brands such as Nokia, Samsung and Apple are benefiting from the decline in Blackberry sales.

Currently, there are an estimated 1.1 million BlackBerry users in India.

Tags: Apple, BlackBerry, BlackBerry communication, BlackBerry in India, BlackBerry sales, Nokia, Research In Motion, Samsung

If you are an online marketer or business owner, you must have already tried the old yet successful marketing idea of luring more customers to your business website, hooking them on the site, and see the profits soaring.

The point is – online businesses can drive more traffic by emphasizing upon better user experiences and this can even help them to retain interest of new site visitors or potential customers. For this, some of the amicable options can include search engines, banner ads, and email marketing.

From Timesofindia.indiatimes.com:

Players like eBay have given a slightly different twist to the kiosk strategy. They are tapping internet cafes around India.

“We have partnered with Reliance Web World in 100 Web Worlds in 16 cities with plans of scaling up this quarter to 140 Web Worlds in 24 cities,” says Rathin Lahiri, CMO, eBay India.

It works almost similar to the kiosks, the only difference being that the consumer goes to an internet cafe instead, where the cafe owner handholds her though the entire process of buying online.

There is no denying the fact that even today, the most widely used window to the internet is still cyber cafes. According to IAMAI (Internet and Mobile Association of India) 24% of India’s 50 million-odd internet users still accesses the net via pay-and-surf cyber cafes. So it makes superb business sense to have these cafe owners bring in newbies to your website. The strategy has worked for eBay India at least.

“Reliance Web Worlds were among our top three new user acquisition channels for the year,” says Lahiri.

It is worthwhile to note that a modern-day business just cannot neglect its presence, offline as well as online and offline marketing is what’s helping businesses boost their online sales.

Tags: banner ads, business website, eBay, eBay India, email marketing, marketing idea, offline marketing, search engines

Despite the economic crunch getting the better of firms in the recent past, things are changing and this is very much evident from the fact that as many as 28 American companies in the Fortune 100 list including retail giant Wal-Mart, Time Warner, and Coca-Cola are still hiring.

The Fortune magazine stated that 28 Fortune 100 employers have at least 150 openings as of mid-April and this is at a time when many big companies are announcing mass layoffs.

From Indianexpress.com:

Media group Time Warner has about 480 openings posted online in creative, editorial, marketing, media, finance, accounting, graphics design, animation, new media, ad sales, film/television production division among others. Technology giant Hewlett-Packard has 150 vacancies and is hiring in several areas of its businesses such as information technology, human resources, research and development, marketing, finance and administrative. While, beverage company Coca-Cola is searching for 160 people for a variety of different functions on many levels including finance, bottling, retail operations, production and customer service, delivery and food chemistry.

It is worth noting here that the Arkansas-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc, which is presently ranked second in latest list of Fortune 500, has thousands of job openings.

Tags: accounting, ad sales, animation, Coca-Cola, economic crunch, finance, Fortune 100, Fortune 100 employers, Fortune 500, Fortune magazine, graphics design, marketing, media, new media, retail operations, Time Warner, Wal-Mart