About 754 days ago Internet and Online Business

Free Technology for Small Business

Alexa von Tobel of LearnVest shares her favorite free technologies.
Posted on April 29, 2011 by Tiffany Black
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When starting a business, Alexa von Tobel, founder and CEO of LearnVest, says “first look for free open source technology.” At a panel on how great small companies use technology to drive growth held Thursday night at the Trump Soho hotel, von Tobel gave her list of favorite free resources.

von Tobel’s list included:

- Gmail for Business – Webmail service

- WordPress – An open source blog tool and website publishing platform.

- Disqus – Online service that offers a centralized discussion platform for websites.

- iContact – Email marketing software to create, send and track your email messages.

- Survey Monkey - Create and publish online surveys and questionnaires and get results graphically in real time.

- Crazyegg.com – Allows you to track pages to figure out what people are doing on your website.

- Google Analytics: A product aimed at marketers that generates detailed statistics about the visitors to a website.

Also on the panel, moderated by Inc.com  The Internet Strategist blogger Maisha Walker, was Mike Hudack, co-founder and CEO of blip.tv and Tricia Han, general manager of DailyCandy Deals.  Walker added that Google Website Optimizer is another great free tool.

All the panelists agree that in the beginning you should leverage free tools but once your business scales eventually you should upgrade to premium services.

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  • http://twitter.com/mmnjug mmnjug

    Brilliant stuff here! Thanks.

  • http://www.submishmash.com Michael FitzGerald

    Any small business interested in accepting and triaging applications, resumes, or any media files, Submishmash offers a free version: http://www.submishmash.com/pricing

    Also, the application can process credit cards, which is fun for contests that engage your users and create revenue.

  • http://profiles.google.com/n.valerkos Nikolas Valerkos

    To the Author:

    I am sure that crazyegg.com is a nice service and everything, however I thought that this article is about Free or open source software that SMB can take advantage of; crazyegg.com is neither. You pay to enjoy the same service that google analytics can do for free. Thus, if inc.com wanted an opensource solution that does the same with crazyegg.com or google analytics then should view piwik.org .
    I think inc.com is promoting the sales of crazyegg.com, shame shame… I wonder how much it costed crazyegg.com for that Guerilla style Marketing. Please post, I am interested.

  • http://www.lv1854.com replica louis vuitton

    Brilliant stuff here! Thanks.