Mexican trademark body rules for iFone in iPhone services case

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's trademark body said on Thursday it had ruled in favor of local telecoms company iFone in a dispute over the marketing of iPhone services, opening the door to potential damage claims against the country's biggest mobile providers.
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Can Amazon.com Make A Smartphone For Your Small Business? Amazon.com Smartphones Are Here.

Courtesy of AndroidPit

The Wall Street Journal reports that Amazon.com is expected to release a smartphone in an upcoming press conference on June 13th.

Would you buy a smartphone from Amazon.com.

Like any technology, consider the technology you should buy based on your needs and what it can do for you.

Here’s why I would buy a phone from Amazon.com

  • Amazon.com has awesome support
  • Amazon.com’s phone will have awesome support for books, movies and anything Amazon.com sells
  • The phone might not work right at first, but they’ll surely get it better with future versions

Amazon.com has lots of experience building great mobile devices (ie the Kindle), a phone will be another evolution (ie iPod, iPhone, iPad)

What’s most important with your phone?

  • Does the phone have cellular connectivity where you need it most
  • Does the phone have the apps you need
  • Is your business life optimized for a mobile world

The post Can Amazon.com Make A Smartphone For Your Small Business? Amazon.com Smartphones Are Here. appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

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Patreon Offers Crowdfunding for Content Creators Like You

Patreon

If you're familiar with crowdfunding and sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, you know these are often intense projects that require a lot funding in a short amount of time. Traditional crowdfunding is a great avenue to quickly launch and market new products, but it might not be the best way to raise funds for people who create content on a regular basis: Like you, writers, bloggers, artists and musicians.

What Is Patreon?

Patreon is a crowdfunding site for the ongoing projects of artists and other content creators. Fans can support their favorite work through monthly pledges or by release (like per video or song). The site was founded in 2013 as a means to empower digital content and patrons of the arts. There are over 50,000 patrons currently supporting 20,000 creators and projects launched to date, including some popular Web comic artists like SMBC and YouTubers like tech geek Chris Pirillo.

The average pledge is $8 and the milestones are wide open according to Anthony Privitelli of the Patreon team. "Every creator has their own unique milestone goals from removing advertisements, to uploading a private video to their patrons, to buying new studio equipment," Privitelli said.

The Patreon Team

It turns out Jack Conte, chief executive of Patreon, is a creator too and doesn't even take a salary Anthony said. Rather, his income comes entirely from his own Patreon page.

We asked Anthony how the project got started and what to expect from the future of the platform. He told us:

“Patreon came from the brilliance of our CEO Jack Conte. Jack is a multi-instrumental musician himself and a YouTuber who wasn't earning enough from his Google AdSense to be a full time musician like he always dreamed of. So he basically turned to his fans from YouTube to see if they would throw him $1 or $5 for his next video… $5,000 later he knew he was on to something. So he called his freshman roommate from Stanford (Sam Yam, co-founder of Patreon) to build the site. Now harkening from modern day patronage we have Patreon – to support the creators you love.

Patreon is what you make of it! The only secret recipe for success on Patreon is having an engaged community around you. It doesn't matter if you have a fan base of 100 people or 100 million people. What matters is the engagement!”

Patreon is an interesting new player in the crowdfunding game that could shift the balance towards more permanent and sustainable efforts. Patreon also has an API in the making and we hope to allow creators and patrons to share their favorite campaigns on our content marketing platform soon too.

You can check out the new Patreon page for Screaming Social: The Comic here!

Republished by permission. Original here.

Image: Patreon

The post Patreon Offers Crowdfunding for Content Creators Like You appeared first on Small Business Trends.

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Google Says the Wrong People Could be Reading Your Gmail

Gmail End-to-End encryption

If you use Gmail for business and regularly send messages with sensitive information, did you know it may not be safe?

Google now says 40 to 50 percent of Gmail sent to recipients on another email provider aren’t encrypted end-to-end. This means there’s no way to guarantee that only the recipient of your emails sees your message.

In a post on the official Google Blog, technical lead for the Gmail Delivery Team Brandon Long explains:

“Gmail has always supported encryption in transit by using Transport Layer Security (TLS), and will automatically encrypt your incoming and outgoing emails if it can. The important thing is that both sides of an email exchange need to support encryption for it to work; Gmail can’t do it alone.”

Fortunately, Google is planning a new feature the company says will make sure only the people you email are reading your messages…when it’s ready.

Called simply End-to-End, this Chrome extension will eventually let those using Gmail get extra protection for their messages. On the Google Online Security Blog, Security and Privacy Product Manager Stephan Somogyi writes:

"End-to-end" encryption means data leaving your browser will be encrypted until the message's intended recipient decrypts it, and that similarly encrypted messages sent to you will remain that way until you decrypt them in your browser.”

Though Somogyi says end to end encryption in email has been around for some time, he adds that the Gmail version should require less technical know-how to use.

Google says the new Gmail End-to-End encryption extension is still in its alpha phase and must be thoroughly tested by the Google community before being available for download in the Chrome Web Store.

Once the Google team feels it is ready for “prime time” however, Somogyi says it should be able to send and receive encrypted messages through any Web-based email provider, not just Gmail.

Google Photo via Shutterstock

The post Google Says the Wrong People Could be Reading Your Gmail appeared first on Small Business Trends.

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After Months of Testing, Square Now Officially Offers Cash Advances

square capital funding

The testing began back in May with a small number of merchants. Now the new merchant cash advance program, from credit card reader and online eCommerce services provider Square, is officially up and running.

Called Square Capital, the program seems pretty simple.

According to the company’s website, eligibility is based (obviously) on being a registered Square merchant. But it’s also based on the volume of payments you process and your “history” with the company.

Square says merchants may be invited to participate through their “Square dashboard.” Or they can request more details from the Square sales team if their revenue is more than $250,000 a year. (So this gives you a pretty good idea of where your sales need to be with the company before even thinking about the program.)

This video gives an overview of the way some small business Square customers are already using the program:

Though the terms of the advance will vary based on the specifics of the request, Square does give an example of how the program would work.

Say you ask for $10,000 to help with creating new products for your business. Square would deposit the money in your bank account.

You would then make payments back to Square with a percentage of each days sales (in this example, 10 percent), until a total of $11,000 is repaid. This includes an extra $1,000 for the service.

But Square points out this is not a loan. So the fee due back for the service will not change, no matter how long it takes to repay the total amount.

Though few other specifics are available from the company website, the percentage of daily sales is probably tied to the amount of the advance. It could also have to do with the volume of payments a merchant is currently processing with Square.

Back in May, Square merchant Extreme John shared some specifics of the company’s Capital pilot program showing three basic tiers of advances and payments:

  • $3,200 with repayment of $384 at 4 percent.
  • $5,600 with repayment of $672 at 7 percent.
  • $8,100 with repayment of $972 at 10 percent.

Given the example on the Square website, there are probably some other options too.

Square is not the only payment processor to offer such merchant advances.

For example, PayPal merchants can get up to $8,000 with repayments at 10, 12, 15, 20 or 30 percent. The higher the percentage, the lower the one time cost added to the advance. And you must be averaging $100,000 in annual sales to qualify.

American Express also offers an annual or monthly advance to some of its merchants. The company’s website says amounts available and fixed repayment fees are based on a company’s credit and debit processing history.

Image: Square

The post After Months of Testing, Square Now Officially Offers Cash Advances appeared first on Small Business Trends.

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Spotlight on Bloomforth: Bundling Small Business Services in the Cloud

Bloomforth
This week we shine the spotlight on Bloomforth. The company, founded by CEO Quy Vo, has 16 employees and is still a new startup, just 4 months old. Its ambitious goal is to create small business cloud software that handles newsletters, point-of-sale, inventory management, appointment booking, and employee time keeping. Here are more details.

WHAT IS THE BUSINESS KNOWN FOR: Small business cloud services all in one bundle.

Ask Founder and CEO Vo (pictured third from left, back row above) what he thinks sets his company apart. He’ll tell you it’s that, while a lot of providers sell software applications to small businesses out there, Bloomforth innovates by bundling it all together:

“For each of our applications (i.e. point of sale, inventory management, employee management, e-newsletters) there are many competitors on the market and each one with a separate monthly/yearly fee. So if you own a small business, you end up paying many different companies to have each application you need and that gets expensive fast.”

Bloomforth offers just three versions of its service, the first one free. The two paid services offer a single monthly rate for everything based on your company’s size.

WHAT INSPIRED THE BUSINESS STARTUP: A desire to supply small businesses with better tools.

In his previous job, Vo had seen how small businesses often struggled with little or no technology because of the expense involved. In particular, he said their lack of analytics put many small businesses at risk of failure since they had no data to figure out what customers wanted. First, Vo started Torchlight, a company created to provide small businesses with analytics and marketing research. But he found little interest.

“That's when I came up with the idea for Bloomforth. I could make technology for small businesses to use and include the analytics as part of the inventory system! This way small business owners could manage their daily operations better and still get the necessary analytics to stay on top of their business.”

BIGGEST RISK: So far, getting this thing started.

Vo himself has taken a big personal risk putting a considerable amount of his own money into the venture to get it up and running.

IF THIS BUSINESS WERE A BOOK, WHAT WOULD IT BE: One of the “Harry Potter” books by J.K. Rowling:

“Because we are the wizards of small business software.”

FAVORITE QUOTE: "Be the change you want to see in the World" – Mahatma Ghandi

FUN TIDBIT: Vo says the best thing about Bloomforth is the environment at the company which he defines as “work hard, play hard.” Certainly the work hard part isn’t difficult to figure out. As far as play, well…employees enjoy plenty of distractions to their work week. Take the regular movie days or bring your pet to work day. There are also two vintage arcade games in the break room and a PS4.

FAVORITE TEAM FOOD: Another perk of working at Bloomforth is the company provides lunch for employees. Says Vo:

“We've eaten everything from pork chops to kale salad.”

He maintains his team (pictured above) has a partiality to Vietnamese fried rice.

* * * * *

Find out more about the Small Biz Spotlight program.

The post Spotlight on Bloomforth: Bundling Small Business Services in the Cloud appeared first on Small Business Trends.

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For Samsung heirs, little choice but to grin and bear likely $6 billion tax bill

SEOUL (Reuters) - The heirs of ailing Samsung Group patriarch Lee Kun-hee face one of the biggest inheritance tax bills ever, and appear to have little option but to pay up.






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New bugs found in software that caused 'Heartbleed' cyber threat

BOSTON (Reuters) - Security researchers have uncovered new bugs in the Web encryption software that caused the pernicious "Heartbleed" Internet threat that surfaced in April.
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