Review: Ybn.com wants to be your business network

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Ybn.com is a Web site that offers online networks for small businesses, along with news and other services

by Owen Linderholm

(IDG) -- Small business services sites are popping up on the Web like mushrooms in the damp autumn grass. These so-called B2B sites share the goal of bringing businesses, whether online or offline, together with other, Web-based businesses. They also have something else in common: Most of them don't go the extra distance by adding the content, services, and value required for success, which is the aim of ybn.com.

The site, dubbed ybn for "Your Business Network," uses a very different approach. It puts in all the extra effort up front and then adds in B2B services as an extra.

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Ybn.com serves as an online network for your company. It stores your business and personnel records online, in a secure area. You can grant your employees access to the files, and you can grant them clearance to update the information. You can even set it up so that employees can keep their own information up to date.

Your company can use the data stored at ybn.com both internally and when interacting with ybn.com's B2B partners. That's where the extra value comes in.

Useful links featured

Ybn.com provides direct links to services that your company needs--services that can be managed effectively by the data you've already entered in ybn.com.

For example, ybn.com has teamed with SimplyHealth to provide a comparative analysis of health plans for a member company. It has paired with PurchasePro to provide business products online, and with CapitolAdvantage to track local and industry-specific laws and bills. Through ybn.com, you can access Bigstep for help setting up a company Web site, or InsuranceNoodle to get business insurance services. Ybn.com partners YellowBrix and the Wharton School of Business both supply the site with news and information about business.

The resources of YellowBrix and Wharton help ybn.com fill out a rich area of the site. They offer information on developing a startup business, marketing, growth, management, human resource issues, and more. These alone make the site worth a quick visit for any small-business entrepreneur.

Resources, advice in easy reach

The information on the site is organized with tabs, making it easy to do research and find valuable background articles. Section by section, you'll find materials on starting up a business, growing a business, managing a business, and marketing your businesses' goods and services. Also featured are sections on the role technology can play in making your business more effective, and how to manage employees.

Within each of these groups are dozens of articles that apply to any company, whether it's a single proprietorship or a mid-size business.

Ybn.com's aim is that visitors drawn in by its content will become full members and will buy the other services that are offered.

At the moment, the array of B2B services offered is small, and ybn.com's own application is somewhat limited in value, but ybn.com is adding more material to the site all the time. Its comprehensive content is the added value that ybn.com's developers hope is its successful twist on the B2B flood.

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Your Business Network
Yellowbrix, Inc.
SimplyHealth.com
Wharton School of Business

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