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In today's Brain Storm! Business Podcast, we will discuss the 22 year old entrepreneur who left Harvard to market his wonder-creation, Facebook.

This is a great, fairy-tale business story (well, except for the fact that some other Harvard students are suing him, saying he stole their idea) about someone who made it right out of the gate. His story is a combination of kismet, hacking, and determination to keep what is his.

Once a hacker, always a hacker, Mark Zuckerberg started programming in high school, and made it into Harvard, only to hack Harvard's computers.

To clarify the story, Mark had an idea for Harvard to show profiles for the people on Campus so you could know who was there. Harvard refused. Mark said he would program it for them. Harvard refused. So Mark hacked their system and put a version of it up to see the reaction. Students loved it - Harvard pulled his internet connection.

He decided to launch his own version, allowing students to voluntarily post their information, and in 2 weeks, half the student body had done so!

Starting small and moving in concentric business circles, other colleges starting asking for a place on his site. Then came schools further away, and then high school students, and finally work networks. At 19 million users, their RSS feeds generate more news than any other news entity.

So we will follow the lessons they learned, and from whom they learned them (Napster is involved, as is Friendster), and what kismet landed them venture capital.

Will will find out the boo-boo they made that sent 700,000 customers into a frenzy. We will also find out who offered them a billion dollars to sell out, why he responded as he did, and also what we can do to apply these lessons to our own businesses. Yes, all in this business podcast! (smile)

So tune in and let me hear from you.

Let me know what you think of today's podcast, and even more importantly, let me know if you would ever be interested in brainstorming with me live for the show. I'd love to collaborate with some other brainstormers, so contact me if you are interested. Until next week...

Penny Haynes, 1st Podcast Publishing & Online Community Magazines

P.S. Sorry for the distortion on the audio - I tried recording on my new laptop and I thought the speakers were just buzzing. Wrong - I was recording too hot. Hopefully, it's not too bothersome.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

In today's business podcast we will brainstorm about business strategies from the multi-player game, Warcraft.

Who would have thought that you could learn such great business lessons from a massively multi-player game? Blizzard Entertainment uses great strategies to make 1 billion dollars a year and keep over 50% for profits.

First of all, they start with a $20 package to install the game.

Then add on a $15/month subscription package. Multiply that by the 8 million people that are addicted to this game, and you have a business success story.

What happens when you've seen it all?

You buy a $40 expansion pack and keep paying $15/month. I would have thought you might cut someone slack who has been addicted to your game and paid so much. Instead, they seem to make the most of their known addiction, and charge them twice as much for the expansion pack as they did for the starter pack.

So learn how we can apply these lessons to our own businesses in this week's Brain Storm! session.

Penny Haynes, 1st Podcast Publishing & Online International Podcasting Expo

Click here to listen to the podcast.

In today's Brain Storm! Business Podcast, we will review how Apple has become the biggest selling retail store (by square foot).

Who would have thought it made good business sense? Not the naysayer that gave Apple 2 years before they would turn out their retail store lights. That was 5 years ago, before Apple started making over $4,000 per square foot in their stores.

A lot of planning went into this venture, that Jobs says all went toward the release of the iPhone.

Now that really is planning ahead - 5 years ahead. And they didn't waste time trying to do it like other people, nor trying to figure it out themselves. They broke the mold, with the help of professionals who have been there before.

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity.

There are only 20 products in Apple stores. And you can touch every one of them, too. Nothing behind glass doors, everything connected to the internet. And someone to teach you how to use it all - and run your credit card while you walk around the store.

So follow me through the brainstorm child of Steve Jobs, and how we can apply these lessons to our own businesses.

Remember the Online International Podcasting Expo, April 20-21, 2007. And also check out the OnlineCommunityMagazine.com site to see how my latest idea is shaping up. Until next week...

Penny Haynes, 1st Podcast Publishing

In today's business podcast, we will talk about the latest cool inventions.

We have a lot to learn from the people that spend millions on research and development on the products they are creating and the prices they are charging. We talk about a $90,000 electric car that is purchased not for being "green", but being FAST. We discuss how our present life situation (and economic situation) can limit our creative and marketing efforts. I know that I don't think about creating expensive "toys" for people with disposable income, because I don't have disposable income - so I'm missing a huge market out there (and a high profit margin!).

People will pay for what they are passionate about.

Whether it's a brand of ice cream or toilet paper, or a big screen tv or business consulting, or clothes or make-up, some people will pay top dollar to get what they are passionate about. They may skimp in some areas, but they will pay top dollar for something they believe is really worth it. We need to find out what people in all different economic levels are passionate about - and create something to feed that passion.

What happened to Keds? New, wild sneakers...

You will not believe what manufacturers are putting in athletic shoes. MP3 player with speakers! That's just one of the things we'll discuss, so you'll have to listen to this business podcast to hear the others. <smile>

Best Buy is trying to increasing innovations by culling employee brainstorms.

Best Buy is trying to learn from the employees that have the highest amount of contact with clients. They find out what angers the clients and create ways to fix that. Damage while delivering large screen tvs was rampant. Thanks to a Best Buy employee's idea (with a lot of tweaking), they are addressing that problem.

We also talk about the high price of hiring the lowest bidder, and the stupidity of continuing to do business with bad service providers.

Some people don't learn. I've seen large million dollar machines being transported in Refrigerated Trucks, causing irreparable rust damage. And then they don't put safeguards in place to make sure it doesn't happen again. Stupidity. Or how about continuing to use someone that keeps damaging your product in transit, just because they are the low bidder? You really need to pay for the quality of work you desire.

Well, enough on that soap box - thanks for listening today. Remember the contest we're running. If I can get 10 people to respond with their brainstorms, judges and listeners will vote on the winner, and they will get $100! I look forward to hearing about what you think would be fun and cool.

Penny Haynes, 1st Podcast Publishing and BizPodExpo.com