Steve King

With the country mired in a recession and President-elect Obama assuming power next January, it is clear that federal infrastructure spending will increase substantially.

The President-elect’s proposed economic stimulus package includes billions of dollars dedicated to roads, bridges and other public works projects. He has also called for the creation of a $60 billion “National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank” to help states fund infrastructure projects.

There is little doubt America’s infrastructure needs upgrading. Traffic congestion is a national problem, roads and bridges are crumbling and levees along many of our waterways are at risk of collapse. A recent survey of state departments of transportation identified over 3,000 high priority bridge and road projects that lacked funding.

In addition to traditional infrastructure projects, spending on alternative energy projects will also go up. read more

Since the early years of the Internet consumers have hunted for bargains at eBay. The online marketplace was an exciting place to shop and consumers enjoyed bidding on items and winning auctions. Millions of small businesses became eBay sellers and a global, vibrant ecommerce community emerged benefiting almost everyone involved.

But for many consumers auctions have become time-consuming and frustrating. Instead of wading through an uncertain auction process, online buyers are choosing to use search and shopping tools to quickly and conveniently find and buy fixed priced products. This shift has resulted in traffic declines at eBay while competitors such as Amazon, Wal-Mart and Craigslist enjoy increasing numbers of online shoppers.

eBay has identified this trend and has announced a series changes to improve their “Buy it Now” fixed price service. They are also redesigning their site and releasing new search tools in hopes of creating a better buying experience for consumers.

To better understand how small sellers are being impacted by the shift from auctions to fixed price sales, we recently interviewed a number of web merchants about their web presence and views on online auctions. The key results are: read more

From jazz musicians to painters, a growing number of artists are choosing to become entrepreneurs. Artists do this so they can pursue their artistic passion and pay the bills. And while making a living as an artist continues to be difficult, 3 broad trends are combining to create new opportunities for artist entrepreneurs: read more