home business

A while ago I was interviewed by a TV news syndication service for a story on sites that let you sell your expertise online. The story showed, just briefly, screenshots of a few of the services. For completeness' sake, here's a list of 10 sites (plus a few bonus sites) you can use to monetize your down cycles, e.g., make money in your spare time from the stuff in your head.

1. BitWine has a large list of topics from which you can select your expertise. You set your own hourly rates. Calls from customers looking for your expertise come in to your computer, but people calling you can connect to the network via ordinary telephone. (See story.) See also Wengo, a European take on this concept.

2. Ether has a slick system to connect people to your phone line and charge them for the call. Its big difference is that there's no directory. You put a little "call me" widget on your own site or blog, where, as the company says, "trust already exists." (Review.)

3. Skype Prime is like Ether, but works over the Skype Internet Telephone (VoIP) service. Skype takes a large percentage of revenues for using this service (30 percent, compared to Ether's 15 percent). (Story.)

4. Talkbean is designed for language teachers. It escrows the lesson fees: Students pay up front, and tutors get taught once the lesson is complete. (Review.)

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Yesterday was the setup for an eye-opening smart home adventure for my new custom home. Here's the conclusion:

I found lots of solutions that weren't robust enough for my application. One of the best was by Control4, a venture-funded startup in Salt Lake City, Utah. Control4's products are wireless and perfect for retrofitting an existing home since they don't require structured cable. Still, I had the luxury of wiring the house, which in my perhaps overly-conservative way of thinking is more bulletproof than wireless, so I kept on searching.

The best solution I could find for new home construction was Lifeware by Exceptional Innovation. Lifeware integrates with Windows and now Vista Media Center, creating a single interface and relatively seamless integration between subsystems. I even found a contractor capable of designing, networking and installing all the subsystems.

I was more than a bit queasy about Microsoft having any part in controlling my home. What if it crashed? Would the whole house turn blue until I rebooted it? And how exactly do you reboot a house? What if a virus or a worm or spyware got in? But Lifeware was supposed to be bulletproof, so I temporarily set my fear aside while I awaited the all important price-tag.

I was really excited to get the contractor's proposal. I involuntarily held my breath as I opened the attachment and then scrolled down to the bottom of the six-page document. After the initial shock wore off, I was finally able to breath again. I called another vendor for a sanity check. Same thing.

I wondered if these people were smoking something or maybe I'm just cheap? I didn't believe the latter, since I was building a relatively expensive home. I'll let you decide. Here's the math:… Read more