Web and Tech News in the Northwest

Earlier this summer I wrote a very brief article about Washington’s change in the way they collect sales taxes.  Seeing that this new policy has been in force since July, I figured it would be high time I give you a little more information as it effects not only NW businesses, but any business shipping to Washington State.  From the Department of Revenue for Washington State:

“Prior to July 1, 2008, Washington retailers collected local sales tax based on the jurisdiction from which a product was shipped or delivered - the “origin” of the sale.”

Meaning, that if you operated a business in Idaho or Florida, or any other state, and shipped a product to a Washington resident, you were not required to collect sales tax on that sale.  But as of July 1st that has now changed.  Now if you are a merchant and ship a product to a Washington State resident, you are required to collect sales tax according to that recipient’s jurisdiction.

Again from their website:

“Under the new rules, if a retailer delivers or ships merchandise to a buyer in Washington State, the sales tax is collected based on the rate at the location where the buyer receives or takes possession of the merchandise.”

What does this mean?  It’s pretty clear it effect everyone shipping products to Washington State and online businesses doing so.  There no longer is an incentive, no sales tax, to purchasing from you over a local business.  Slowly each state is essentially repealing the “no internet sales tax” that we have had standing for so long.  The cost of doing business online just increased and got closer to being on par with offline business, at least where taxes are concerned.

I’m always interested in the “why” as much as the what:

“The legislation signed by Governor Gregoire allows Washington to petition for membership in the national Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement (SSUTA). It is an important step toward encouraging out-of-state sellers to collect sales tax on sales to Washington customers. In this way, SSUTA helps level the playing field for Washington’s “brick and mortar” businesses.”

WE NEED MORE MONEY!  Isn’t that just what we need, more money in the hands of people who can’t seem to manage it - government.  Like I’ve said before, instead of reducing waste, reducing services and other means to reduce overal operating expenses (like every business does) the only thing our government seems capable of doing is taking from you and I.

I had originally thought this effected affiliate marketing programs, but unlike the law passed in New York this applies to everyone.

Tags: destination based sales tax, northwest, washington

From the SeattleTimes:

“James Voelker, the CEO of Bellevue technology company InfoSpace, received stock awards worth nearly $3.9 million and a salary topping $400,000 in 2007, a year in which he ranked as the Northwest’s best-paid chief executive.”

Hold up here, Infospace is still around?

“High Technology,” said Jason Crawforth, founder and chief strategy officer of MobileDataforce, a Boise company with a software system for compiling and transmitting information from handsets in the field to databases in the home office. In fact, the bulk of this article, written by the New York Times business journalist James Flanigan, talks about how the potato needs to move over in Idaho. I was a bit taken aback by this statistic. I knew Technology was a driving force in Idaho but I had no idea that it is over 70% of the state’s economy.

I’m wondering where Mr. Crawforth got this number? I’d like to take a look at the data. Nevertheless, it is exciting to see our state compete in the Tech industry (even though it has recently taken a hit with the slumping economy).

Tags: Economy, Idaho, Techology

Just surf the Idaho Statesman’s website for a few minutes and you will realize very quickly that  Boise companies Micron and Hewlett-Packard are in some trouble.   Heck, Idaho is in some trouble.

Micron, one of Idaho’s largest employers, stated that they will be laying off 15% of their employees nation-wide, translating into 1500 Boise workers.  Gov. Butch Otter stated that “the global marketplace is driving this situation.” YA THINK?! But here’s the kicker… just days after dropping the bomb on all those Boise employees, Micron buys $400 million in stakes in a Taiwanese company.

This brings up the question, “What are we to do, on a state level, to keep jobs here in Idaho?” It is an incredible challenge to keep these companies in a place where tax burden and the inflated dollar makes it too expensive to do business in this country.

Hewlett Packard has yet to release any information on how many Idaho employees it will lay off but has said that they plan on a 8% Worldwide reduction.

These are scary times. Let’s do what we can as individuals on a community level to work our hardest… and vote for folks who care about sound economic policies.

Tags: Economy, High Tech, Idaho

Microsoft’s failed Yahoo bid now looks like lucky miss

From the Seattle Times:

"Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer said he was disappointed Yahoo refused a takeover offer that went as high as $47.5 billion back in May. Now he looks lucky.

Yahoo closed Monday with a market value of $18.7 billion, so Ballmer’s failure to seal the purchase saved the biggest software maker from a writedown that could have rivaled the industry’s most vilified deals. Yahoo ended Monday at $13.49 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. "

Talk about a lucky break.  I know MS would have loved to complete this deal, but like the article says, I’m pretty sure he is happy he didn’t close it when they did.  It seems this economy is effecting everything.  But if your business has the cash, this would be a great time to acquire the assets you need to grow your business.

Tags: acquisitions, microsoft, yahoo

Are you a web/tech professional in the Northwest?  Do you want to write about the issues that effect our industry and our little section of the country?  Well now is your chance!  NWWebReport.com is currently looking for contributors in Spokane, Seattle, Tacoma and Portland areas, as well as outlining cities.

We are looking for individuals who are plugged into the industry within their location and want to share with others what is going on, and also get a little exposure for themselves :). If you are interested, please fill out the form below and we will get back to you within a day or two.

Tags: contributors, northwest, tech, web

I came across this article today in the Spokesman Review.  The Senator, current majority leader, wants to change the current requirement, two thirds majority, to a simple majority needed to increase taxes.

From SR:  “The flak was no surprise, Brown said. But after 15 years in Olympia, watching lawmakers struggle to balance a budget in an up-and-down economy, she said, it just seemed like time to clarify the law. In a representative democracy there’s a careful balance of powers, she said, and the two-thirds requirement threatens that.”

Um, how many of you use a budget, either at home or at your company.  Yeah, most of you, that’s what I thought.  Here is a quick question, when your bills are MORE than your revenue (income), whatsoever are you to do?  Let’s see, in my house, and in my company, it’s pretty easy.  The fix is simple, 100% effective and, well, is just the right thing to do.  WE CUT DOWN OUR SPENDING.  I know, I know, it’s a hard concept to get a hold of.  I mean, if I have $1000 in bills, but only bring in $800, you turn off the cable, no more movie nights and you eat rice and beans.  Why is this such a hard idea for our elected leaders, democrats and republicans, to get a hold of?

More from SR:

“Unhappy with taxes, Washingtonians in 1993 passed Initiative 601. It set in place the two-thirds law that Brown is challenging. Lawmakers, including Brown, later approved it as well, and voters reaffirmed it in I-960 last year. “People work hard for the money they earn,” said Tim Eyman, who’s made a career out of running anti-tax ballot measures. “It should be really hard for the government to take it away from them.””

Now, I’m not necessarily a fan of Eyman, but isn’t this democracy in action.  The people of Washington State were unhappy with how their elected officials were taxing the bread right off their table.  So what did they do when their leaders stopped listening and kept taxing?  They passed an initiative that made it harder for our public servants to raise taxes, I’m sure they hoped it would push them to manage their money better, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Now the good Senator has files a lawsuit.  Why?  So she can raise taxes more easily.  Higher taxes, means less economic growth, less money in the hands of consumers, which means less buying of your products.  If the she wins the lawsuit, expect more taxes all the way around in Washington State.

So what to do?  Contact your local elected officials here.  Let them know that you want to manage your money, not them.

Tags: taxes, washington

I remember surfing the net through Compuserv and AOL way back in 1996/97.  Back then AOL or Compuserv was THE Internet and, if I can remember correctly, you paid for the amount of time you were on their services (I could even go back to the day when we surfed directly to BBS’s through the phone and if you called long distance, well then you paid long distance, but I won’t bore you with that).

As reported by the AP, originally by BroadbandReports.com,  a  New York broadband company, Frontier Communications Corp., is now putting a 5gig cap on users internet usage.  3 dvd’s a month, essentially.  And they aren’t the only one, Time Warner is trying it out in Texas.  If you are in the Northwest, Time Warner is one of your choices for Broadband, so this could be troublesome for you and your site users.

Are we going back to the day of yore when we pay for what we use?  The “free market” guy inside of me is sort of ok with that.  I mean, I know that I agree with the basic concept.  I always thought it was weird for people with no kids to have to pay the levy’s and taxes for schools that they will never use.  And hey, I don’t like toll booths on the east coast, but it sure is a good solution to keeping those roads open.  Those who use them, pay for them.

From the AP Article: “The growth of traffic means the company has to invest millions in its network and infrastructure, threatening its profitability, according to the e-mail.“  I totally understand that argument.  But what will consumers say?  I know those who download more won’t like it, but I think I’m ok with that.  Why should I pay when all I use it for is basic web sites, some e-commerce and email?

One of the main things you as a web site developer, ecommerce provider, or retail website need to worry about as these caps start to take place, is the overall size of your site.  It’s always important to keep file sizes low, but now, the size of your pages may be a criteria users evaluate when deciding whether or not go to your site and how often they come back.  You can be that this will be an issue that effects the Northwest, not only from NW broadband providers, but most sites cater to the nation, and if you have NY users, you may already be effected by Frontier’s decision.

Today Microsoft launched their Photosynth website and it’s very cool photo tour product.  This product is very cool. From Microsoft’s site: “Imagine being able to share the places and things you love using the cinematic quality of a movie, the control of a video game, and the mind-blowing detail of the real world. With nothing more than a bunch of photos, Photosynth creates an amazing new experience.”

I created an account and walked through Rick’s Potting Shed.  Not the most exciting topic I thought, but the tool is so cool that I actually enjoyed taking a tour of, well, Rick’s Potting Shed.

What the tool does is take between 10 and 300 photos of a subject, Microsoft’s recommendations, and pieces them together to create “something between pictures and videos”.  After your photo’s are “synthed” you can take a tour through all the pictures.  It pinpoints common points in each picture and pieces them together.  So in Rick’s case, I could walk completely around his shed, open the door, walk inside and check out the interior.  This is also great for tours of streets and properties.

The Photosynth site has many “synths” already loaded for you to tour.  I wasn’t able to login and view using a PC and Firefox, although I met all the requirements.  Once I switched to IE7, I had no problem.

Northwest implications?  Well, if you sell real estate, both commercial and residential, this could be a cheap and easier way to give your potential clients a walk through and around your property.  Once the photos are synthed, there doesn’t seem to be any limitations to the direction you can view the subject from, assuming you took good photos.

I don’t think there is the option right now to host these synths on your site, but I would assume some sharing type function will come down the road.  The creation of something like this in a widget would truly open up the uses of this to other sites, including e-commerce.  I sure could see a use for this in auto and other sites.

Tags: microsoft, photos

While I was in New York last week, I noticed a few local Coeur d’Alene “Tweeters” mentioning the Spokesman Review’s new Twitter account.  There was a big murder trial going on in Boise Idaho where Joseph Duncan murdered members of a Coeur d’Alene family.

The murders were gruesome, and seeing that they occurred only a few miles from my family’s home, the case really hit home.  I’ve been involved in web marketing, technology and social media for some time, and Idaho/Spokane has not really been thought of as leading the way in some of these areas, but I was surprised to see that the local newspaper, the Spokesman Review, had a reporter sitting in on the trial and “tweeting” the proceedings.

You can read up on the entire string here.

At first I was following it closely, wearing out my F5 key to get updates as quickly as they came (I’ve stopped getting tweets on my phone after very large texting bills).  The content, at times, can be tough to read as they detailed a lot of the things that were shown and said during the trial.  The most fascinating part of the whole thing was that there actually was a reporting in the courtroom, essentially reporting in 140 character stories, the happenings of a high profile, local trial.  All live while it was happening.  I was transfixed by the content and the questions this activity raised.

Will they allow tweets from courtrooms going forward?

Should you be tweeting from something like this?

Is there any ethical ramifications from using Twitter for something like this?

I need to check up on this, but I do believe that TV camera’s were not allowed into the courtroom, would this be treated as the same thing?  One could argue that this is simply a news piece that just happens to go our much more quickly than a typical article or 15 second news segment.  It didn’t seem like too much of a problem with this case, but take it a step further.  Is it acceptable to tweet from an execution?  The jury room?

As you can see in their account, and the picture above, the Spokesman Review has ended this “test” and may come back to it as the trial develops.  I’m looking forward to seeing them become active again.  I love the medium and think it is a great way to communicate.  I can also see this as a great tool for old school publishers to reach new readers and get them back to their site.  As their subscriber base continues to decrease, these new tools will become even more vital to their success, and hopefully, provide the greater community with a much better product overall.

Tags: joseph duncan, spokane, spokesman review, twitter