Yaicha

Here’s an article by David Pogue in the NYT that caught my attention: “A Little Piece of Microsoft Aids Small Business.” Even though it seems as though every business has a website these days, that’s not actually the case.

What makes Office Live Small Business so compelling is its sharp focus on a single problem: that half the small businesses in America, and 70 percent of one-person businesses, don’t even have Web sites. Obviously, the percentage that exploits Internet marketing tools like e-mail newsletters, search engine ads and online stores is even lower.

Here’s what David Pogue has to say about the nicely unified and very affordable offerings that Microsoft has put together in Office Live Small Business:

How are you supposed to get a Web site? Who will design it, and who will host it? Who do you pay to place search engine ads for you, and how will you know if they’re working? How do you send out e-mail newsletters without being blocked as a spammer? And how will you know if that effort is paying off?

And above all: how much is all this going to cost you?

Office Live Small Business (O.L.S.B.) is a centralized Web site where you can set up all of those small-businessy things — a Web site, an online ad campaign, e-mail promotions, in-company communications — all by yourself, even if you’re not very technical. For the first time, these big-league tools are within your reach, partly because you don’t have to hire somebody to set them up and partly because many of them are free.