One of the needs we all face from time to time in the digital age is how to share a file. Often we use email to send files to friends and business associates. But this is not always the best route. In fact if your file is larger that a couple of megabytes there is a good chance that it may never make it to it's destination.

There are many solutions on the internet to help solve this problem. They come in many varieties. There are free and paid services. Some services allow a lot of storage or huge file sizes. Some that are best for sharing within your company.  Some that only become easy to use once you pay for the service. They each have their own way of doing things.

One service that we use often is Microsoft Live SkyDrive. It is part of the Microsoft Live system. It gives you 25 GB of storage but a maximunm file size of 50MB. The 50MB should be plenty for anything other than large video files. The 25GB total for all files is a lot that you will be hard pressed to use up.

Sharing files is simple use Microsoft Live SkyDrive and best of all the service is FREE. I love that word. I love the way it rolls off of my fingertips onto the keyboard ;-) If you have a Microsoft Live account it is also a great way to back up and/or share your Microsoft Office documents with friends and coworkers. You can even edit those documents online if you don't have access to the whole Office suite at your disposal.

I have created a short video that describes how to share files using SkyDrive. You can find it here http://www.usbusinessnetwork.com/Media/Media_Player/VideoId/151/Sharing-Files-With-Microsoft-Live-SkyDrive.aspx . If you ever have the need to share files and don't like departing with your hard earned cash, this is well worth the 8 minutes of your time.

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On November 12^th Don Martin wrote an article and we sent out a general email describing changes to US Business Network. We will be providing more information and examples of the new simplified commission plan and more vendors that are in process.

One of the changes described will begin today December 1. We have introduced several new management and marketing tools. One of the key changes is that the Business Builder Websites are now part of a new Marketing Package. If you have not subscribed to the Marketing Package then your Business Builder Website is not currently active.

The Marketing Package provides you with these key Benefits:

1. A Business Builder Website to help you sell USBN vendor services and build your team. It is your personal website where you should direct both customers and potential team members.
   1. A personalized site with your picture and contact information
   2. It provides access to service information and referral forms for those services
   3. It provides a new member registration page where members are directly joined to your team.
   4. It has video and article marketing built in to use any of the USBN articles or videos to help draw people to your site.
   5. A contact form for potential customers and team members to contact you directly
2. Email and Banner Templates
   1. There are 3 types of templates:
      1. Email – These templates are customized for you to send to your distribution list. The message may be about a particular product or service, point the recipient to one of your targeted pages or help you build your team. The links contained in the message will point them to your Business Builder Website or one of the Targeted Marketing pages.
      2. Banner – These templates are pieces of HTML code that can be posted into web sites, blogs and social sites to link viewers back to your Business Builder Website or one of your Targeted Marketing pages.
      3. Simple Link – Like the banner, this is a piece of HTML code that links the viewer back to your Business Builder Website or one of your Targeted Marketing pages. However, there is no associated image, just text.
3. Targeted Marketing Site
   1. The Targeted Marketing Sites are single message sites that have a video and a giveaway (usually an ebook) on a particular topic. The point of the site is to find people that have an interest in a particular service or message. To get the giveaway, the person must provide a Name and EMail address.
   2. Once the email address is provided, an email is sent to the person with the giveaway (ebook) attached or a link to the giveaway. The email message will usually contain more information and a way to contact you or a link to that service on your business builder site.
   3. This lead is also forwarded to you to contact for more information.
4. Business Directory
   1. The Business Builder Websites, Targeted Marketing Pages and your Profile page in US Business Network are all ways to expose yourself to the public. We also provide a business directory to the general public where you can also advertise.
   2. The information in this listing can be about you or your company. It is up to you. In does not necessarily need to relate to your involvement in US Business Network. I have added my own business there and have gotten a couple of leads from it in the last year.

There is no requirement to subscribe to the marketing package. If you choose not to subscribe to the Marketing Package, you can still build a team and sell the products and services.

To register a new team member, send them to the Registration Page and have them put in your Member Code in the Leader Code box. If you are not sure what your member code is, you can find it on your profile in the Info Tab Here.

To submit a referral, you can use the Offerings Page and submit it from there.

Along with these new marketing features come another group of Referral and Team Management features that are available to every registered member. I have created a series of videos that describes all of these new features.

1. Part 1 - This video describes features available to non-registered users
2. Part 2 - This video describes features available to members, including the new Referral and Team Management features
3. Part 3 - This video describes the new Marketing Package features.

The Marketing Package subscription is $19.99 a month. You can prepay one year in advance for $199.00 which costs less than 10 months of the monthly subscription. To subscribe to the Marketing Package Click Here.

We are seeing a lot of activity right not with our new service offerings. We believe that these changes are the right ones to further accelerate that growth.

Please let us know what you think about these changes in the Network Happenings Group forums.

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Why do you need a Smartphone? As a sales person or small business owner, your most important assets are contacts, availability and time. The right sm...

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We are currently working on making a number of changes to the US Business Network Website.

Those changes will be coming incrementally during the next week.

Some of the changes include:

1. A cleaner look and feel
2. Opening more areas of the site to the public
3. Consolidation of Vendor Referrals with their groups
4. A new channels area with four Channels to start: Business, Marketing, Finance and Technology
5. New Marketing Templates
6. A new Support Center

Some changes to the site access have already been made but may not be apparent unless you went directly to one of those pages.

Some of these changes are cosmetic, some are required based on the growth in the number of vendors we have as well as new opportunities we will make available in the coming weeks.

If you see anything that keeps you from conducting business, please send an email to support@nsage.com

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Social Networking features seem to be all the rage these days. But how do you incorporate them into your business strategy? The answers are probabl...

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If you are reading this, you should have noticed that the Start Page of the web site has changed. We have tried to make it easier to read and give visitors a feeling for what is inside. Much of the content is the same, just organized in a more appealing fashion.

We have also added two new spotlight items: Member Spotlight and Vendor Spotlight. The Member Spotlight will feature a member that exemplifies the spirit of US Business Network. The Vendor Spotlight will showcase information about one of the USBN vendors.

In addition, when you log into the network, you will be directed to your new Home Page. This page has the latest information about what is going on in your selected community. It shows your latest activities, the activities of your friends and the activities related to groups to which you subscribe. It also shows information about new groups that have been created. It is designed for you to have an “At a Glance” view of the US Business Network areas that interest you.

An exciting new feature that sign posts things to come is the Business Directory. The Business Directory is a public side of US Business Network that is a place for the public to find businesses that can service their needs. Every member of USBN can add their own business listing to the directory.

To create or update your Business Directory listing, go to the Business Center and then Directory Listing on the left side menu. If you have not already added your listing, you can do so by clicking on Manage Directory Listing. You can add information about what services your business provides, business category, contact information, address, web site address, etc. You can add the location of your business and it will generate a map for your listing. You can also add a logo or picture to display in your listing.

Once we get enough participation in the directory, we will begin to direct traffic to it from various search engines and other marketing opportunities. The idea is to use the power of the network to bring marketing clout to your business.

We hope that you like the changes and additions. If you have comments, advice or anything else to say, please let us know through the forums or even by leaving a comment on this article.

We think that 2010 is going to be an incredible year for growth and we are really excited that you will be there with us to see it happen.

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It is little over one year since Don Martin first came to me with an exciting new concept for the Real Estate industry. The American Agent Network.

Those pieces were rolled out in January of this year. They were not real pretty, but they fulfilled the requirements we had at the time.

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One of the types of items that we had scattered throughout the portal in Articles and forum postings was video. We embedded video within an article or forum posting, but it was not something that the average member would do because it was a bit complicated. We did know however that video is a great way to learn and communicate a message. So in November we added a new Media center. This allows any member to add video that can be seen by other members as well as the general public.

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If you have looked through the portal, you will have noticed a whole bunch of little orange icon. These are RSS feeds. We use these for our blogs, groups, forums and uploaded materials.

If you click on the icon, it brings you to a page that you can use to grab the latest items for that category. You can use that page to have other programs and services such as Outlook, My Yahoo and Google reader automatically fetch these for you. This allows you to get feeds from multiple sources and keep updated on all of them in one place.

This video gives a brief description of what RSS is and how you can use it.

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Do you backup your computers?

You have a lot of valuable data on your notebook, home computer and office systems. If you do not have a backup strategy, you should get one. If you are simply backing up to drives that are within your office, what happens if you have a fire? That is why Online backup solutions have become prevelant.

Today I saw a unique software package that I wanted to share with you. It is called Cucku. OK, funny name, but a very cool idea.

What if you could backup to other computers that are either in your building or across the internet? What if those backups were secured in such a way that you could backup onto a buddy's computer and they couldn't access your data. Would you let your buddy backup to your system as well?

It's Social Networking to a whole new level. You can find out more information at http://www.cucku.com/

Below is information from their web site.

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