It’s never easy being the new kid on the block. This is especially true in the world of business. While there are people who love new faces, there are millions more who prefer to stick with the tried and true. Overcoming the inherent resistance to change that is the main feature of the international public can be difficult. One thing is for sure: It’s a task that will be all but impossible to accomplish if you fail to equip yourself with the proper tools for the task. And when it comes to doing business on the Internet, you had better be equipped with the latest e-commerce software.

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If you have been contemplating whether to throw your hat into the ring and jump into the arena of the modern 21st century business world, the fact of the matter is that there is no better time to do so than now. You can join the technological revolution that has completely reshaped and revitalized the world of business, and you can make a heck of a lot of money in the process. You’re already on the web with your email and social media accounts, so why not add your own business to your list of daily Internet connections?

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Here’s an interesting article, as Twitter is working with the innovative Stripe payment service to make it easy for people and companies to sell things through Twitter.

It will be interesting to see how this evolves and whether it will affect the user experience on Twitter in a bad way. I guess anyone who send sout to many “buy this” tweets can risk losing followers. The game is changing . . .

Free image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Do you know all the ways that you’re being tracked through the Internet and your smartphone? Data aggregators, including Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and more, are tracking everything you do. Are you okay with that?

Privacy Online

When we post things online, perform web searches, and write emails, many of us assume that that information is private. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. The information that is found through this mining is stored on a database and with the right resources, this information can be pulled together and given to those interested.

Reported in the New York Times article, “The Web Means the End of Forgetting,” such a thing happened to Stacy Snyder, a 25-year-old student teacher who in 2008 posted a picture of herself drunk on her MySpace page. Because of that photo, the university denied her degree just weeks before her impending graduation. She’s not the only one. Others have lost jobs for posting negative things on Facebook about their jobs. Some companies even require you to login to Facebook before they will hire you. Suddenly, there’s no disconnect between your personal life and your professional life; the Internet is bridging the gap.

Apps Tracking What You Do

But it’s not just the Internet that is tracking what you do. Apps that you put on your phone can track you as well. For example, Pandora reportedly asks you to give it permission to track your location. Many apps ask for this; it makes sense for a map app or for one that helps you find cheap gas near where you’re at. But why would Pandora need to know where you are?

Other apps are doing even worse. Researchers analyzed 10,000 apps for Android cell phones and found that 8 percent of them ask users for access to the International Mobile Equipment Identity number, a unique code given to each cell phone. There is no reason these apps would need this unique identifier.

Is It Possible to Be Private Online?

In an interview with Tom Ashbrook on Boston’s NPR station, Michael Fertik privacy advocate and CEO of Reputation.com, shared the idea that there needs to be a barrier between us and the companies that we interact with.

So if you want to go on Netflix and indicate which movies you like and what you don’t like, it’s anonymous. Instead of connecting these preferences to our real names, it would be connected to something like user10537. So it is possible, but will it happen?

For now, be careful about what you post online and check the privacy settings on all social media websites.

Facebook is moving to verified accounts for celebrities, and they will be able to create other accounts with fake names.