October 31, 2012

What Is Fiver? How It Was Founded


At the end of 2009 two Internet entrepreneurs, Micha Kaufman and Shai Wininger teamed up as they felt that there needed to be a new website for people to achieve financial independence. The world nowadays is full of freelancers and people outsourcing projects, the idea of Fiverr is to bring them all into one place.
It was in February 2010 that the website ‘fiverr.com’ went live to the public, and it really did hit the ground running. There was no ‘settling’ in period that most other famous websites have gone through, the idea of fiverr spread like wildfire around the globe. There were over 500,000 gigs listed in the first year. If you haven’t heard of fiverr before let me explain exactly what it is about.

How Does It Work?

www.fiverr.com - Logo
Put simply you can list anything you want to do for $5.00, no matter how crazy it may seem. People then purchase your service. It really is simple. That is why Fiverr is the global juggernaut it is right now in the online freelancing sector. You can pretty much get anything you want on Fiverr, whether it be a couple of articles written for your internet marketing ventures or a video of a Michael Jackson impersonating doing the moonwalk. A quick browse through the website will show you how weird and wacky some of the things on offer are, and I feel that adds to part of the appeal of this website.
As I mentioned previously, over 500,000 gigs were listed in the first year, which goes to show how popular the website became around the internet in such a short space of time. Now you can find people listing their services from over 200 countries around the world, it truly is a global marketplace. Part of the appeal of Fiverr.com is that it is so incredibly easy to work on the website, all the tools are in place to take the order for you as well as the payment, all the workers need to worry about is making sure that they deliver their order on time.
One of the milestones in the history of fiverr.com occurred in January 2012 when a ‘level system’ was put into place. This system allows users to ‘rank up’ when they complete orders. Currently there are three levels (0,1,2) with a ‘Top Rated Seller’ level. The idea is that as you become more popular you get promoted more. After you have completed at least ten orders you can become a level one seller, this means that you can offer ‘gig extras’ and occasionally you will end up taking over $5 on a single order. Over 30% of transactions are now over $5 which really has expanded the amount of money that Fiverr.com rakes in. It really is bringing them close to their goal of being a global marketplace for freelancers.
That is just a brief history of the website; it had only been in action for less than two years and the majority of its history in front of it. Thousands of gigs are being added on a daily basis and the website is constantly attracting investors to take them to a new level. Just when people thought a website couldn’t come along that would change the face of the Internet, along comes Fiverr.com.

October 30, 2012

A Brief History Of Skype


Skype is the number one Voice Over Internet Protocol service on the planet. Since its inception in 2003 it has progressively gotten better, to the point where anyone with basic skills can master it quickly. It has free and paid versions. One of the things that has appealed to Skype users, besides being simple to use is that the free version of Skype has pretty much everything a casual user could want from a VOIP service. The application is constantly in a state of transition and improvement, as of this writing having released dozens of major upgrade versions. The latest is 5.10.0.114, which allows users to integrate their Skype and Facebook contacts into on single list among others. For the most part, Skype does operate along the lines of other VOIP providers, but with some notable differences.

History

The original founders of Skype were Scandinavians Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, from Denmark and Sweden respectively. However, the masterminds behind the software itself were three people from Estonia - Estonians Heinla, Priit Kasesalu, and Jaan Tallinn. Not only were these five the brains that spawned Skype but they were also responsible for the famous (and sometimes infamous) peer-to-peer file sharing behemoth known as Kazaa.
These guys had a great idea - to make it possible for anyone having an Internet connection to be able to chat and talk to any other over the web. But that's not all, all of this would be completely FREE! This was something amazing, especially for people from less developed countries, where the other ways of communication were expensive, limited or in some cases not possible. And boom, guess what happened? People started using Skype like crazy, taking advantage of the free calls to any point of the globe. This was like a free meal for everyone. In no time the users of the application skyrocketed.
The proud founders now had to think about making some money with their product. They decided to start providing a paid service - direct calls to regular phones from Skype and vice versa. And this was possible at really discounted prices, many times lower than the usual calls. This brilliant idea was what they needed. In 2005, more than 70 million people were using Skype, and the app started generating some pretty good money, or around $35 million per quarter. Well, compared to nothing this was pretty swell. But that was only the beginning...

eBay Purchases Skype

In 2005, eBay purchases Skype for the astonishing $2.6 billion dollars! Almost 3 years after it's foundation, someone was giving billions for the company. The founders decided to cash in... And that wan not all... eBay were to pay $1.5 billion more in the next 5 years as a part of the deal. They believed that online communication is the soul of the web and they were making a big and lucrative deal! The very next year, in 2006, the revenue of Skype doubled, and reached around $195 million. The active users had grown rapidly to 171 million. In 2007 the revenue reached $381 million and the users 278 million, but the company declared a net loss of $1,4 billion, bacause of that eBay took a write down on the company. They admitted that they had overvalued the online chat... But they were completely wrong!
The revenue of Skype continued growing, it surpassed $550 million in 2008 and the users reached 405 million. In 2009 the company was generating $719 million of income but announced a big net loss of over $400 million. In November the same year, eBay announced that they sold 70% of the company receiving $2.5 billion for the deal. The buyers were a group of investors, among which was a company founded by the founders of Skype. They bought their company back! And thiks was for good! A far greater deal was to happen...
In 2010 Skype's users reached 663 million and the revenue was up 20% to $860 mil. But the company was still losing money, even though that year the loss was only $7 million.

Microsoft Offering 8.5 billion...

In 2011, Microsoft announced that they were about to buy Skype and pay for the deal the enormous amount of 8.5 billion of US dollars!!! This was the largest purshase, that the Windows developers had made till then. Microsoft's managers were feeling comfortably paying that amount, because they had big plans for their new acquisition - to integrate Skype in their applications like Windows, MS Ofice, etc.
With Skype a user can speak totally and completely free to any other computer user in the world, provided the other person has Skype installed as well. The setup is drop dead simple and you can be up and running, literally in minutes. Every user of Skype is identified by a unique name. If you wish, you could also be listed in Skype’s directory. And you can even take advantage of such features as video conferencing as well.
The main difference being that Skype functions on a P2P model, which is also what the aforementioned Kazaa software was based on. Other providers tend to go with the client server model. Skype is also available along a wide range of applications such as: Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8 and Windows Phones. Also for Apple’s iOS and Sony’s Play Station Portable.
If you are looking for a VOIP service with huge upside and unlimited potential for growth and development, Skype is definitely the way to go. They have a top-notch programming team and all the power of the mighty Microsoft behind them.

* Read another cool article about the history of the company on this site.

Download

Official Site: http://www.skype.com (get it for your Windows PC)
Linux: http://www.skype.com/intl/en/get-skype/on-your-computer/linux/
Mac: http://www.skype.com/intl/en/get-skype/on-your-computer/macosx/
Android: http://www.skype.com/intl/en/get-skype/on-your-mobile/download/skype-for-android/
iPhone: http://www.skype.com/intl/en/get-skype/on-your-mobile/download/iphone-for-skype/
Symbian: http://www.skype.com/intl/en/get-skype/on-your-mobile/download/skype-for-symbian/

The History of Peugeot Company


The Peugeot brand is one of the most popular car brands in the market today and has been in existence for many years now. The company based in France is the second larges car manufacturer in Europe. However, the manufacture of cars was not the first product. The company was first founded in 1810 as a coffee mill business. Then, in 1830, they started producing bicycles before finally settling on the production of cars. In between the coffee grinders and the bicycles there were also other businesses that the family owned Peugeot brand engaged in as well. As the revolution progressed in the eighteenth century the need for transportation also rose and it is at this time that Peugeot brand started to engage in the manufacture of cars. The popular trademark with the lion was registered by Emile Peugeot on the 20th of November, 1858.
Peugeot Type 19 - One of the first cars. This image is from the public domain. Photographer: Eigenes Werk.
When Armand Peugeot, a member of the Peugeot family met Gottlieb Daimler he became interested in the manufacture of cars which resulted in the production of a steam run three wheeled car. This was the first Peugeot car and was manufactured in 1889 (only four cars were built), which later was upgraded to a car that was four wheeled, run on petrol and had an engine that was licensed by Daimler. As the years went by, the need for the cars produced by Peugeot grew due to the number of innovations that the car manufacturer continued to introduce in the market.
The year 1896 saw the car manufacturer break from the family company and be registered under a new name that only concentrated in Peugeot cars. Furthermore, they also started manufacturing the car engines on their own which had a horse power of eight which saw the rise in the sales of the cars within the same year. In this time the Peugeot car was also involved in car racing which made it quite successful because of an upgraded engine.
In the beginning of the First World War, the car brand was involved in the manufacture of military vehicles as well as the making of arms, but as soon as the war was over they continued with the production of saloon cars. Now that the war was over many people viewed cars as essential which resulted in the rise in sales of the Peugeot car brand, which also saw the introduction of models such as 201 and another one in 1933 that had an aerodynamic appearance that was meant to entice customers to buy the cars despite the depression.
Nevertheless, the Second World War proved to be a major setback for the Peugeot brand as their operations stalled so that they could manufacture weapons as well as cars for the Germans. Furthermore, their factories were destroyed which lead to delays until 1948 when they produced the 203 Peugeot model. From here the car brand continued rising in sales as other models known as Pininfarina which were Italian based also formed part of the cars being manufactured. Later, Renault and Volvo also joined the success train that Peugeot had began, then Citroen much later in 1974 with the purchase of thirty percent of its stake by the car brand.
Peugeot Hoggar
The 1980’s saw the Peugeot brand purchase a division of Chrysler which turned to be a bad decision leading to the sale of most of the models that were manufactured in that time period. The reason for low sales in this time was because the facilities as well as machineries purchased from Chrysler were faulty and old. The 1980’s saw the Peugeot brand gain back some of its glory and this has steadily grown with more luxurious models being manufactured to meet the needs of their customers. Some of the most notable successes of Peugeot Company are the use of these cars in prestigious rallies such as Formula One and have resulted in increased sales worldwide.

How The General Motors Compny Was Started


A Few Words About GM

The General Motors Company, known throughout the world as GM is an automotive giant. As of 2011 it was the world's largest automaker in terms of vehicle unit sales. Currently GM employs 202,000 people and does business in over 150 companies countries. Let's take a look however at the beginnings of the General Motors company and how it got started. As with all thriving American businesses General Motors has a unique history behind it that has contributed to the success. The brands the company operates under are: Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Opel, Vauxhall, and Holden.

Foundation

Cadillac
The General Motors company was founded on September 16, 1908 in a city called Flint, Michigan. At that time all General Motors was a holding company for Buick, another American car brand that you likely are well aware of as well. At that time in 1908 the company was controlled by William C Durant. When the turn of the 20th century came there were less than 8000 automobiles in America and as a whole and Durant's main industry was manufacturing horse-drawn vehicles and not even automobiles. As his horse-drawn vehicle business it expanded he ended up joining forces with Charles Stewart Mott who joined his horse drawn carriage company.
In the years to come Mott and Durant would become more involved in the automobile industry. It would acquire Oldsmobile later in 1908 and then would buy a name you might've heard of, Cadillac, in 1909. Once they completed the acquisition of Cadillac to Durant and Mott we're now firmly entrenched in the automobile industry in the growing United States. After even more expansion that led to the creation of GMC truck division in 1910, Durant began to take on too much debt and his business was in danger of collapsing around him.
Did you know that for a short portion of time Chevrolet actually purchased controlling interest in GM? Durant would take back control of the company in one of the most interesting takeovers in American business history, but there was a portion of time where Chevy owned a controlling interest in General Motors. Durant would reorganize the company in 1916, but that shortly thereafter would lose control for good after the new vehicle market crash.
After the departure of Durant for good Alfred P Sloan would take General Motors into what became their heyday as an automobile manufacturer. With Sloan in charge General Motors Corporation let a postwar global dominance of the automobile industry. This growth would last from then all the way into the 1980s when they employed 349,000 workers in over 150 assembly plants around the world. General Motors would lead the world in global sales for 77 consecutive years from 1931 through 2007. This is obviously the longest streak for any automaker ever.

The Fall of A Giant

On the first of June, 2009, happened the biggest corporate failiure - General Motors filed for bancruptcy. The company had been struggling to keep its business since 2005, but after the financial crisis hit in 2007, this became a really tough task. Its sales started decreasing and losses started growing. The government injected $19.4 billion trying to help the company, but that funding had no effect on the final result. Later, the autorities would invest another $30 billion to resurect and reorganize the auto titan. As a result of ll of this, txpayers ended owning a big stake of 60% in the company.
Hopefully this gave you some insight as to the early days of this great company, and how it contributed to the success that we saw later and his development. General Motors has hit some rough days in the past decade but has even emerged from those as a shining light in the automotive industry.

Here you can read more stories about auto entrepreneurs