Business & Investing: Editor's Choice
by Joe Williams

Accountants Home Page
www.servtech.com/re/acct.html
The rough-and-tumble world of accounting isn't for everyone, but if you
have the mettle to crunch the numbers, come hoist a flagon of mead with
your mates at the Accountant's Home Page. This site, maintained by
Rochester, N.Y.-based Cohen Computer Consulting, offers a jackpot of links
to public and private accounting organizations, business and financial
news, tax law, workplace humor (Dilbert, anyone?) and trade publications
such as True Accounting, Lusty Ledgers and Two-Fisted Tales of Embezzlement
(just kidding).

Advertising Age
www.adage.com
Long the bible of the advertising industry, Advertising Age now comes with
the subtitle "It's All About Marketing." The online version is heavy on
Internet-marketing tidbits, with all the latest news on Web-utilization
stats, strategic alliances between content providers and advertisers, and
advances in eye-catching hypermedia technology. But there's also plenty of
the huckster-biz meat and potatoes for which the magazine is famous:
hirings and firings, media trends, and analysis of high-profile ad
campaigns. The site also offers a portfolio of great ads from years past.
(And yes, there is such a thing as a great ad.)

Burma Shave Today
www.charm.net/~windsor/daily.html
In the golden age of Route 66 Americana, the Burma Shave Company made a
name for itself with a series of clever, sequential billboards. The premise
of the Burma Shave Today site is that Web pages represent a new kind of
corporate billboard, and this site shines its virtual headlights on the
best of the bunch. By its own admission, this weekly review focuses on a
lot more corporate heavyweights than unknown entrepreneurs (after all, the
giants can afford the best designers and programmers), but such fun home
pages as the Molson, Crayola and Joe Boxer sites are invariably worthy of
the praise they receive here. The Webmaster also promises critical
discussions of the advertising biz in the near future.

CyberCash
www.cybercash.com
If we can believe what we read, it's time to roll up that penny collection,
because cash money as we know it will soon be history. Online financial
transactions are fast becoming a reality, and several competing
technologies are already trying to divvy up the digital pie. The cyber-cash
faction, which has several heavy-hitting allies, describes the principles
and advantages of cashless commerce at this site. Find something you want
to buy online? CyberCash offers "secure purchases" for consumers and
merchants on the Web. You can even use it for "pay as you play" video
games. O, brave new world ...

A Day at the Consumer Electronics Show
www.halcyon.com/ces/welcome.html
The Consumer Electronic Show, held annually in the timelessly elegant
confines of the Las Vegas convention center, is "the one show where you can
go to see the latest in computers, software, home electronics, games,
peripherals, household convenience products [and] entertainers." This
virtual recap of the 1995 soiree only hints at the overkill weirdness of
the event, where the likes of Bill Gates rub elbows with moonlighting Vegas
showgirls, Penn & Teller, and tipsy, tapped-out programmers from Anytown,
USA. Includes a preview of upcoming conventions with a similar gee-whiz
factor.

FranNet
www.frannet.com
Are you sick of kowtowing to the man? Do you want to be your own boss? Do
you dream of wearing a paper hat and handing sacks of food through drive-up
windows? Then you might have what it takes to be a franchise owner. But as
FranNet points out, there are far more franchise money-making opportunities
than just the traditional fast-food route. This page can connect you to
franchisers ranging from tax-preparation firms to weight-loss centers.
General-interest tips and topics covered here include selecting and
financing a franchise, and a quick test to help visitors determine whether
they're good candidates for owning a franchise operation in the first
place.


The Gallery of Advertising Parody
www.dnai.com/~sharrow/parody.html
Juxtaposing bad ads with clever send-ups, the insiders at the Sharrow
Advertising agency take some well deserved potshots at the worst of the
profession. The targets range from Absolut Vodka ("So tasteful. So au
courant. It makes a DUI almost worth it.") to IBM ("It's embarrassing to
see old farts pretend they're hip and cool. Especially when they're all
warped and twisted.") to the Gap. Graphic designers with an Xacto wit are
welcome to submit their own parodies for inclusion here. The challenge: to
be even worse than the original.

Internet Rockhouse
www.rockhouse.com/
Let's say you're the manager of a neo-psychedelic folk-pop combo called
Righteous Broccoli and the bigwigs at the major labels won't give you the
time of day. You can jumpstart the careers of your young protegees with the
help of the Internet Rockhouse, a Web marketing service for musicians. The
Rockhouse can help you develop a home page or place your band in its
directory of hopefuls, which is sorted by musical category (original rock,
classical, folk, blues, punk, even -- touchingly -- new wave). There are
also chat rooms, classifieds, gigging and equipment info and more, all of
which can make that long and winding road to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
that much smoother.

Iowa Electronic Markets
www.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/index.html
Like the weather, everybody talks about politics but few people do anything
about it. Now savvy investors can put their money where their mouths are
with this civic-minded twist on fantasy investing. Sponsored by University
of Iowa's College of Business Administration, the Iowa Electronic Markets
site allows investors to bet real money (yes, real money) on the outcome of
the U.S. presidential elections and other global events (such as the
Russian elections and the status of Hong Kong). Specialized indices enable
players to predict winners as well as specific margins of victory. It's
supposed to be educational, but we say it's a new dimension in vote
peddling.

JobCenter
www.jobcenter.com
For the jobseeker, it's a big and sometimes heartless world. Your knuckles
can grow raw from knocking on doors, and your nose can be bloodied from
having them slammed in your face. The JobCenter circumvents some of this
humiliation by matching employers and applicants online. For a fee,
job-seekers and recent grads can post their resumes to this central
database for the perusal of potential bosses. For the same fee, a
resume-critiquing service is also provided. (Pity the overqualified
philosophy major seeking that first position in the fast-food industry.)
The fortunate ones will have potential job leads delivered straight to
their e-mail in- boxes. Hey, it beats cold calling.

Master-McNeil, Inc.
www.naming.com/naming.html
What's in a name, you ask? Well, there's a reason that Burroughs Inc. is
now called Unisys and Western Electric is now called Lucent Technologies.
The average Joe might not know the reason, but Master-McNeil does. This
Berkeley-based firm has a knack for names. When corporations need new
monikers to spruce up their images, this is one place where they turn. This
home page offers an explanation of Master-McNeil's naming philosophy for
the digital age, a surprisingly extensive glossary of naming terms, and a
list of clients (before and after). Be on the lookout for the names
MemBrain, Symbios and dpiX, all of which were hatched by the company and
embraced by their high-tech clientele.

The Olivetti Active Badge System
www.cam-orl.co.uk/ab.html
Olivetti is the Italian computer (and typewriter) company. Visitors to this
page will find information on its Active Badge System, which allows
companies to track employees electronically by location, thanks to a little
badge they wear. (They're actually quite proud of this.) Thus if you think
that Smithers is spending a little too much time in the john, you can get
your proof without actually hiring a stoolie. Of course, there are also
less-invasive uses of the technology, as demonstrated here on the employees
of the Olivetti lab in Cambridge, England. This site is available in
English and Italian.

Online Market Research
www.ora.com/survey
You might have guessed that more men than women use the Internet. But did
you know that the largest percentage of users make between $50,000 and
$75,000 a year? That the largest employment sector among users is Sales?
That the average Web surfer spends 22.5 hours per day online? All right, we
made up that last one, but you can separate Internet fact from fiction by
checking the numbers in the Online Market Research survey from
California-based publisher O'Reilly & Associates. Armed with these numbers,
marketers can target their Web resources to the people who are really
online -- which, at least for now, seems to be 35-year-old white male
college graduates with an obsessive interest in "Star Trek" and
spokesmodels.

T-Net
www.usscreen.com
In case you thought that "I'm With Stupid" or the yellow smiley-face
phenomenon just happened by accident, T-Net is here to set you straight
about the genius and hard work that underlies this free-thinking arm of the
apparel industry. The U.S. Screen Printing Institute's home page provides
news from the screen-graphics, airbrush and t-shirt printing industries,
along with an industry buyer's guide, trade-show listings and supplier
links. A highlight is the T-Shirt Mall, where shrewd retailers can pick up
everything "from funny slogans to slightly off color" togs and tees. Just
do it!

Union Pacific Railroad
www.uprr.com
America has had a love affair with the railroads for as long as there's
been an American dream, and the Union Pacific Corp. is an ongoing
embodiment of that love affair. Sure, its home page has all the usual
corporate information -- financial and organizational notes, press
releases, a system map -- but it is in the ancillary materials that this
site really shines. It is packed with the stuff of popular lore: the rich
history of the frontier expansion, images of the great trains, scenic
vistas along the railbed, and a gallery of yesteryear celebrities embarking
on train trips. Visitors can also buy their own railroading gear at the
company store, and those who fancy a life on the rails can check out the
job opportunities.