Online Biz Roundup 7/13/08: iPhone 3G Edition

Last Friday, Apple released the iPhone 3G and their new iPhone App Store. In other news, Yahoo rejected another offer from Microsoft and eBay may be banning luxury goods from being sold on its site.

In this week's roundup, we talk about those stories, plus how to get a blogging job, a look behind Google's search ranking algorithm, social media branding, HTML/CSS/JS cheat sheets, tutorials for Photoshop and practically everything else, Web tools for troubleshooting website problems, and even a link to Playboy....

iPhone 3G News, Reviews, and Links

The iPhone 3G was released last Friday, along with the new iPhone App Store. The "3G" means this version of the iPhone can use the faster 3G cellular network (almost as fast as WiFi).

The App Store is also a big deal. For the first time ever, there is an officially sanctioned way for developers to create iPhone applications and sell them (or give them away) at the App Store. With this opening up of the platform to 3rd party programmers, we should see a whole lot of new functionality (from games to business productivity apps) be added to the iPhone.

• Third Party Reviews of iPhone 3G:
  
  
  • Mind numbingly comprehensive reviews by gadget geeks: Engadget, Gizmodo, CNET
    
    
  • Mainstream reviews (less geeky): NY Times (David Pogue), Wall Street Journal (Walter Mossberg), USA Today (Edward Baig)
    
    
  • My 10-second summary of all these reviews: The iPhone 3G is definitely faster. App Store is going to add a ton of new functionality making this iPhone a "computer in your hand". Built in GPS is awesome. Only downside? It's not really half the price because of hidden costs in AT&T plan.
  
  
• Official Apple pages: iPhone homepage, iPhone App Store
  
  
• iPhone Apps for: social networking (5 apps), science geeks (20), investors (5), filmmakers (13), personal finance and money (35), guitar players (5), photographers. Plus 10 absurd iPhone Apps.

By the way, if you're curious about iPhone alternatives, Wired has a roundup of the iPhone 3G main competitors.

(Update 7/14/08 - Apple sells 1 million iPhones and 10 million apps downloaded in first weekend. [CNET News].)

Non-iPhone Related News

• Luxury Brands Dior, Givenchy Among Newly Banned Items on eBay - Luxury brand LVMH (Louis Vuitton) won a lawsuit against eBay. A French court ordered eBay to pay $61 million for having counterfeits on its site. In the latest news, eBay is denied a stay in the case, and now several luxury brands will be banned on eBay.
  
  
• New Microsoft Offer (for Yahoo), Quickly Rejected [Techcrunch] - The "offer" had a 24 hour expiration and required the complete replacement of the Yahoo board. It was quickly rejected (duh). Interestingly, in its rejection letter (printed in full at the link), Yahoo says it is now for sale at $33 (Microsoft's original offer). The soap opera continues.

Good Reads: Tutorials and Articles That Make You Smarter

• How to Apply For a Blogger Job [Blog Herald] - This is the second half of a two part series by blogging expert Lorelle VanFossen on how to land a blogging job. She links to 18 job boards that list blogging jobs, and then spells out what you should do to have the best possible application. In the first part (Blogger Jobs: What Are They Looking For?), Lorelle examined 20 things publishers are looking for when hiring a blogger. Having been on both the hiring and applying sides, I can say with confidence that these two articles are spot on. If you want to make $5-$100 per post writing a blog, get started by reading this guide.
  
  
• A Blogger's Guide to Social Media Branding [Problogger] - A comprehensive article on how to brand yourself using social media (Digg, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc). The article is written specifically for bloggers (ie., personal branding), but the thinking and strategies also apply to businesses.
  
  
• Introduction to Google Rankings [Official Google Blog] - The ranking algorithm is at the heart of everything Google does. In addition to Web search, there's images, YouTube, Local & Maps, etc. This post explains the 3 philosophies behind that algorithm:
  
  
  1. Best locally relevant results served globally.
  2. Keep it simple.
  3. No manual intervention.
  
  And over on the AdSense blog, there's a post offering some tips for optimizing your site for Google search.
  
  

Toolbox: New Resources to Bookmark

• 6 Free Ways to Track Down Site Issues [Read/Write Web] -- When your website is your business, you can't afford even a second of downtime. But when you do get the inevitable downtime, it's good to have these 6 websites bookmarked so you can narrow down the problem. Includes the very cool Internet Traffic Report, which tells us the general health of the Internet around the world (lag time, congestion, etc).
  
  
• 23 Cheat Sheets for Frontend Web Developers [Six Revisions] - Print ready cheat sheets for HTML/XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript (including MooTools and jQuery).
  
  
• Top 10 Photoshop Tutorial Websites - Want to learn Photoshop for free? This list is for you.
  
  
• 10 Awesome Tutorial Websites [Dumb Little Man] - "20 years ago, who would have thought that one would have easy access to already completed business documents, research papers of world class universities, free encyclopedias and some great books, no matter where he or she is located in the world. Here are 15 such super-useful sites which aim to provide you with all the tutorials you'd ever need."
  
  
• 10 Documents to Help You Start a Company [Jason Nazar] -- Includes an LLC Operating Agreement, Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA), and a template for Financial Projections.

And the fun link of the week... Playboy wants to know who you think is the hottest female blogger. (Don't worry, the link is safe for work.)

Every Sunday, we link out to the Web's best new resources, articles, and interesting news that help you run your online business better. Got a tip? Email me at onlinebusiness.guide@about.com. Thanks!