What is the 1st Corporation to Issue Stock?

Do you know what the 1st multinational corporation was, and also the 1st to issue stock?

The Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie or VOC in old-spelling Dutch, literally “United East Indian Company”) was established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia. It was the first multinational corporation in the world and the first company to issue stock.^[1] In addition, the VOC possessed quasi-governmental powers, including the ability to wage war, negotiate treaties, coin money, and establish colonies.^[2]

TrendHunter.com - What’s hot?

http://www.trendhunter.com/

PS: Did I mention the editor is unbelievably gorgeous?

Springwise & Trendwatching!

Springwise -New business ideas for entrepeneurial minds. This site is pretty wild. Loads of great content… check it out.

Springwise scans the globe for the most promising business ventures, ideas and concepts ready for regional or international adaptation, expansion, partnering, investments or cooperation. Ferociously tracking more than 400 global offline and online business resources, as well as taking to the streets of world cities, digital cameras at hand.

To ensure true ‘glocal’ coverage, the central office is in close contact with more than 8,000 Springspotters in over 70 countries worldwide. The full colour, monthly Springwise (and related trendwatching.com) newsletters, to which you can subscribe for free, get sent to more than 210,000 business professionals in more than 120 countries.

So whether you’re a budding entrepreneur, head of a start-up, management consultant, marketing manager, business development director, trend watcher, or anyone else interested in creating or expanding companies, Springwise will instantly inspire you by getting the world’s most promising young ventures right in front of you. To check out the most recent newsletter, click here.

Springwise is the first company to compile and send out a newsletter like this on a global scale, making optimal use of an ever more networked world. Established in Spring of 2002, Springwise is headquartered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

BTW: Springwise is brought to you by the minds at Trendwatching.

trendwatching.com is an independent and opinionated trend firm, scanning the globe for the most promising consumer trends, insights and related hands-on business ideas. For the latest and greatest, we rely on our network of 8,000+ spotters in more than 70 countries worldwide. Most of our findings are aggregated in a free, monthly Trend Briefing, which is sent to 130,000+ business professionals in more than 120 countries. To read the latest edition of the Trend Briefing, please go to www.trendwatching.com/briefing/. Our trend findings (and recently published ‘Tips and Tricks on how to be a better Trend Watcher’) help marketers, CEOs, researchers, and anyone else interested in the future of business and consumerism, to dream up new goods, services and experiences for (or even better, with) their customers.

Keyword Selector Tool

This is a great little tool to find little keyword niches to exploit to your hearts content! MUHH HAAA HAAA!@!@! I tried the word “entrepreneur” and got this nice list:

Nielson Net Ratings

This morning I noticed someone selling a Poker site geared towards female poker players for roughly $20,000. They reported that “Nielsen Media research shows 30-40% of players online now are women while only 5% play live. These numbers are growing very fast and are expected to balance at 50-50.” I wanted to find this research, but only came up with Nielson Net Ratings, which appears to be the internet research division of Nielson Media Research, which handles TV ratings. In any case, Nielson Net Ratings may be a powerful tool to learn about trends, if you can afford their rates.

From their own mouth:

Nielsen//NetRatings provides real-time research and analysis about Internet users, delivering the timely, actionable data you need to make critical business decisions on your competition, your Web site’s audience and your customers.

Nielsen//NetRatings is the global standard in digital media measurement and analysis and the industry’s premier source for online advertising intelligence. We cover 70 percent of the world’s Internet usage and lead the industry in tracking digital media usage — including streaming media, instant messaging and proprietary services — to give you a complete view of the digital media and online world.

Google Suggest

Another way to find keywords, search trends, etc… this little technique uses AJAX.