More layoffs @ MEDS

This week employees where I work were told they had to take additional weeks of layoff. After five months of working every other week, some employees will now have to continue this routine through September. Despite reports of an improving economy here in the US, there is no guarantee that "time off without pay" will end anytime soon. You can't blame talented people for looking at other opportunities in this environment.

This past week I have made a few changes to my web site and have started work on a craft directory site for people who want to list their hand-made crafts for sale. The idea here would be to offer a free page or link to a web site that features hand-made crafts. For people that want to sell craft items online, Budget Homepage would offer transaction processing. There would be a small fee for the transaction service and the site would be supported by ad revenue, similar to the Midwest Machine Shop Network site.

Ad revenue has been very disappointing this month, along with the number of visitors to the web sites that I manage. One report I found says that US broadband growth is the slowest it has been in eight years. I suspect that people are spending less time online and when they are online it is for watching movies and updating their my-face-tweet accounts. I have also been getting emails from people claiming that they can improve my web site listings. But often the tactics they use to improve search results aren't very ethical. I'm always looking for honest ways to improve search engine rankings and attract visitors. But it's hard to make improvements when everyone else is cheating the system.