I hereby award "WebSite101 Best of Show Award" to Groopz, for their stunningly simple and very powerful sales tool that, although stretching limits of affordability for typical SOHO (small office, home office) practitioner, it is definitely a fit for those who are trying to decide whether office space is justified. My answer, unless you MUST have a place to meet public or can't separate yourself from work at home, I say DON'T rent that office yet! Instead get Oracle Small Business Suite plus Groopz service which together total just $200 monthly, far less than any worthwhile office rent might cost. Even if you do rent office, this combination can't be beat!

To many who choose to work from home, it just isn't possible or there is little need to meet public at a business location, but now you can virtually greet them via Groopz live Java chat and real-time customer greeting system. Their marketing tag- line is, "Breathing Life into Web!" It turns out that this is not so far from truth since business owners with Groopz enabled site can now greet customers whenever they walk into your WEB store, extend a "digital handshake" and offer well known greeting, "Hello, Can I help you?"

The Groopz enabled web store allows a business rep (or owner) to know instantly that someone is shopping, know which page customer is on and how long that customer has been in store to make it possible to offer that "digital handshake" at any time or simply monitor traffic and activity in real-time. There are two ways for a conversation to be initiated. You can wait until they click "Contact live support" button or you may proactively approach them after noticing they are on FAQ page looking for answers. A Java chat window appears on screen.

The time to initiate that contact may be when you see them on information or sales page of your most profitable product or when they linger on one page for any significant length of time. Just as a person expects a store staffed by salespersons to be available to answer questions, so to would experienced visitors of your site. Once they have had that live interaction and refer your products to friends, they are very likely to let that friend know that live support and help is available from your business web site. If they leave with questions, they'll very likely return to ask them rather than leaving frustrated.

I'd like to offer my highest compliments to Craig Conway, one of dozens of keynote speakers at InternetWorld. He is President and CEO of business processes software company, PeopleSoft. Conway made a compelling case for EVERYONE to care about what is going on behind scenes at large businesses. Because it will directly touch us all in ways we haven't taken time to understand. Most speakers are so jargon-bound they are tongue-tied if it's using plain-easy-to-understand English.

In fact, understanding software is much easier when you have Conway doing talking. Clearly PeopleSoft is aptly named when most would call it ERP-CRM-Soft. Maybe that's why he proudly proclaims that his company is profitable and has $2 Billion in bank - In Cash! He makes it apparent that business needs to communicate it's BENEFITS to PEOPLE, not software features to IT geeks in IS department, staffed by HR department and fed by HS (Hunger Solutions) department serving NU's (Nutrition Units).

"Any sufficiently advanced technology," Conway quoted, "is virtually indistinguishable from magic." This 1972 statement by science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke has subsequently become known as Clarke's Law. I'd like to suggest Clarke's law is true of inner workings of advanced technology, but not in RESULT of those advanced technologies on our lives. I can't tell you anything about technology behind my magical one-inch-thick notebook computer but I can tell you it has a profound effect on my life and allows me to work from anywhere in world with an internet connection. That's magic! Nobody will believe in that magic once technology advances further. Do you think your phone magic?

Mr. Conway spoke in terms that everyone can comprehend about his company and changes resulting from virtually all commerce moving online to operate in real-time. He spoke of going through a fundamental shift in way business is conducted. He referred repeatedly to "companies moving their business online" and major cost savings, and immediacy of resulting human experience.