The outcome was no better for the Patriots in 2008 when they lost the Super Bowl to the Giants the first time. The Super Bowl, however, is so much more than a professional football final – as most people know. People from all over the continent usually attend Super Bowl parties, whether they are football fans or not.

They are all fully aware that with so many people getting excited about the big game, it only makes sense to connect with family and friends to take in what is one of the most watched televised events of the year. Halftime, for example, is about as big as the game itself.

This year, pop sensation Madonna, graced the stage for an intense, theatrical performance which also featured the likes of modern-day music sensations, Cee-Lo Green and Nicki Minaj. But as elaborate as this show was, it was not to be upstaged by what most people admit they watch the Super Bowl for – the commercials.

Can you imagine any other television event where people actually look forward to the commercials? Those who are heavily interested in advertising were no doubt paying close attention to this year’s ads, which literally cost millions to both make and have aired during the biggest game in the NFL season.

Not surprisingly, the two arch enemies of the soft drink world went at it with major advertising campaigns. The commercials advertising Coca-Cola and Pepsi, however, were interestingly met with derision by some online critics. On a website dedicated to reviewing the Super Bowl ads, the Coke commercial was referred to as “boring” and “lifeless”.

The all-computer animated ad featured the polar bear characters that are now synonymous with the soft drink. In comparison to many other ads shown during the Super Bowl (stars like Jerry Seinfeld, Jay Leno, Matthew Broderick and Clint Eastwood all made appearances in car commercials), the Coke ad seemed pretty tame. Watch it HERE.

The Pepsi ad didn’t fair much better, according to critics. In fact, the website commented that the ad featuring star musician Elton John “was going to be a ‘worst commercial’ contender from the moment we laid eyes on it.” They felt that the use of John was a poor choice as he wouldn’t be able to relate to a young audience. The site was also noted that the concept was a “stinker”. Watch it HERE.

If Canadian shoppers can stay within a budget, Canadian business owners should surely be able to do the same. In our last blog, we took a look at a Microsoft.com article by freelance writer, Jeff Wuorio that outlined ways that entrepreneurs can work within a budget. These tips are bound to be helpful, especially for small business owners who may have no other options but to maintain tight budgets.

Err on the side of conservative. Wuorio suggests that when setting your budget, you should overestimate your expenses just a little bit and “lowball” your expected revenue. This way, you will better ensure that your cash flow will hold up. Budget-saving strategies including special telephone plans and less expensive office furniture should also be part of the plan.

Nurture a cash cushion. Remember that staying within a budget is a plan, not a certainty. You may be on a budget, but you will always want to set aside some money “for a rainy day” as they say. You never know when your “hidden” income may save the day because an unexpected expense has come up. You would basically be creating your own bail out!

Check your budget every month. This is an important tip. You don’t want to neglect your overall objective by simply being lazy. Make sure that each month, you are examining your budget so that you have enough funds to meet your needs. This practice may require you adjusting your budget on a month-to-month basis.

Use your budget as a form of restraint, not constraint! Writes Wuorio: “Setting up and sticking to a solid budget is the most effective teacher of fiscal discipline there is. But don’t be shy about busting your budget on occasion should something truly warrant it.” In other words, there are times when you may want to cut yourself a little slack.

Sometimes situations will arise that require an unexpected amount of spending. But if these situations provide beneficial business opportunities, you wouldn’t want to miss out on them for the sake of being frugal. A valuable investment for your business will pay dividends down the road. Just be certain that it’s a sure shot!

Naturally, these unexpected events are hard to budget for. But as Wuorio explains, “It’s often impossible to budget for a valuable last-minute seminar or a trip to a trade show to make valuable contacts. If you are too rigid with your budget, you’ll refuse to spend when you really should.”

The more you know about someone, the more you develop a personal concern for his or her well-being. There is nothing wrong with that, of course, but because you are working with people you like, don’t forget that they still owe you money! It’s fine to offer those who are close to you discounts, but there’s a way to do it that will still allow your business to thrive.

After all, you don’t want your business to suffer just because you are working with friends who are on a tight budget! There may be times where you are working within a tight budget yourself and will need a helping hand to get through some difficult patches. On Microsoft.com, freelance writer Jeff Wuorio discusses the ways in which business owners can make budgets work.

The key, says Wuorio, is to remember that being on a budget is not a bad thing. In fact, it’s a good business strategy to set guidelines for yourself that include smart saving habits. There are some problems that arise when working within a tight budget, however. Wuorio offers some suggestions that may help.

Accept the learning curve. Wuorio writes that it’s important to understand that the practice of properly allocating your money towards appropriate expenses will take some trial and error. Learn to adjust your budget, over time, as you go through your list of requirements that will help drive your business. The more you do this, the better you will get at it.

Be prepared to miss your budget estimates and act accordingly. According to Wuorio, “This was rule No. 1 in setting up a budget: knowing that your budget projections are a best guess and nothing more.” As part of your learning curve, you will sometimes need to reallocate funds to certain areas of your budget so that you are able to make up for potential losses in particular areas.

Work flexibly. Sometimes your revenue won’t match what it is you expected to make. In some cases, you will need to trim back your expenses. In other cases, you may need to invest in better advertising methods. This works best, however, when you actually are making more than you expected!

Watch your cash flow. Writes Wuorio, “If you want to stick to a budget, make sure that your inflow more than compensates for your outflow. Monitor your income closely to make certain that you’ll have adequate funds to pay your bills, particularly if your business is prone to long lapses between paychecks.” Check out our next blog for the completion of this list of tips!

Between our VoIP telephone, blogging and website hosting services to name just a few, our company is pretty much based on communicating by utilizing the world wide web. It’s no surprise then that social networking websites, such as Twitter, have become the global phenomenons that they have. These days, people love to speak their minds and let the rest of the world hear what they are thinking.

But late last week, a very interesting article was released revealing that the freedom of speech provided by Twitter may be in jeopardy. According to Gerry Shih of Reuters, Twitter announced that, in certain countries, particular restrictions on the content of tweets are going to be made. But don’t worry, it doesn’t appear as if Canada will be affected.

The report notes that Twitter is considering cooperating with countries like France and Germany who ban any type of pro-Nazi content. While this decision may be considered commendable, some Twitter users see it as the beginning of censorship on a social media network that was first created as a venue for free speech.

Shih writes that Twitter’s decision to begin censorship is a far departure from its policy from just a year ago. The idea to even consider such an initiative was sparked, however, when “anti-government protesters in Tunisia, Egypt and other Arab countries coordinated mass demonstrations through on the social network and, in the process, thrust Twitter’s disruptive potential into the global spotlight.”

At one point, Twitter blogged that they did not have a policy of removing tweets based on their content. Going forward however, in some cases, users of the micro blogging site will receive a message indicating that that their tweets are being blocked in the event they breache a particular code of ethics insisted upon in their respective countries.

Twitter is not alone in its quest to be globally acceptable. Shih points out that Google and Facebook have also had their fair share of altercations with foreign governments over freedom of speech and privacy issues. Of course, with each country having their own policies, there are evidently many different factors to consider when operating abroad.

At the ripe old age of 32, John is still one of the country’s youngest entrepreneurs and easily one of the busiest. With the amount that John puts on his plate on a daily basis (don’t bother to pardon the pun), he still remains hungry for even greater success. So what in the world will John come up with to do in his next year of life?

His past year might be a bit tough to top. Back in June, John unveiled his hidden identity as a hip-hop artist by recording and releasing his first-ever rap single. Entitled “888-MELOTEL”, the track served as a jovial commercial for MeloTel, highlighting the many unique services offered by the company. Take a listen by clicking the play button below!

Check it out!

Of course, John wasn’t done being innovative. In fact, he was only just getting started. By the time November rolled around, John was making his debut as an actor in a music video. Not straying too far away from the hip-hop scene, John played an overzealous car owner who was too “ghetto” to afford the gas needed to drive it. The song, of course, was “Ghetto” by the hip-hop duo, Perfeck Strangers. Here’s the video (look for John around the 2:50 mark):

That same month, John participated in his first-ever Movember campaign, growing a usually-absent moustache. His efforts help to raise money to both aid in the awareness of men’s health and battle prostate cancer. You would think that adding hip-hop artist, actor and philanthropist to VoIP telephone company owner would be enough, right?

Nope. Not for John. Published author was added to that list of accolades in December. That’s when he got his online shopping-based article entitled “Avoid The Mall Crawl With Online Shopping Solutions” printed in an edition of The National Post. That’s right, an article in the national newspaper detailing the benefits of shopping from the comfort of your own homes!

You see, trudging through a busy shopping mall is not one of John’s ways to enjoy the holidays. But singing sure is! Rounding out his list of accomplishments over the past year is John’s Christmas album, Uncle John’s Holiday Hits. Intended as a gift for his neices and nephews, John crooned his way through seven holiday classics like a pro, releasing the project online for free.

Oh, and by the way…John still somehow managed to run the day-to-day operations of MeloTel, adding a plethora of new services to his business. Now, that’s how you celebrate a year! We only look too forward to seeing what you’ll come up with this year, John. But until we find out, have yourself an incredible birthday!

These battles, however, are not conducted on a microphone. Instead, the internet itself has become the venue for online superpowers to duel it out. This time around, it appears as if search engine juggernaut Google is scrapping it out with social networking champion, Facebook for the rights to be your go-to source for information online.

As The Toronto Star‘s Lesley Ciarula Taylor reported yesterday, Google is being accused of practicing an unfair monopoly over other search engines. So much so, says Taylor, that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is investigating the extremity of the claims against Google.

This new online war seemed to have been declared on January 10th when Google released “Search Plus”. This new tool scours the web through Google and Google Plus eliminating such sites as Facebook and Twitter from its search. Engineers over at Facebook insist that this isn’t fair.

As part of their counterattack, a collective group of engineers who work for various social networking websites have launched Focusontheuser.org. The home page calls out Google by insisting that it allows for social searches to draw results from all over the internet.

The creation of this website has caused quite the stir in the online community. Taylor reports that Wired co-founder John Battelle interviewed Facebook’s Director of Product and Firefox creator, Blake Ross to get his take on the entire ordeal. Ross indicated that there are pretty big implications for such a group to start such an initiative.

Said Ross: “It’s one thing for a lone hacktivist to do this, it’s quite another for a member of the Internet Big Five to publicly call Google out. Facebook would need to vet this with legal, with management (this clearly had to pass muster with Mark Zuckerberg) and, I was told, Facebook wanted to reach out to others — such as Twitter — and get their input as well.”

According to the Focusontheuser site, Google unfairly sends online users to sometimes-obsolete Google-run sites instead of more relevant Facebook or Twitter pages. So if fans are looking to research their favourite celebrities, for example, they won’t always be pointed in the most appropriate directions. We’ll continue to follow this war.

As The Toronto Star‘s Internet Law Columnist, Michael Geist reported yesterday, Wikipedia was widely successful in having its online visitors support its protest. To highlight its reach, Geist revealed that last year’s most-watched television program, the Super Bowl, garnered 111 million viewers.

By comparison, he insists, Wikipedia’s protest was a “stunning success”. Evidently, people are fighting against SOPA – a bill perceived to pose a serious threat to the open sharing of information on the internet. In fact, even blogs such as this one – that refer to other websites, blogs and current events information – would potentially be jeopardized if bills such as SOPA were to pass.

Geist remarks that the true success of Wikipedia’s black out was measured by eight million of the site’s visitors that looked up contact information for their elected representatives. As well, seven million online users signed a Google petition while “Engine Advocacy reported that it was completing 2,000 phone calls per second to local members of Congress.”

He also reports that the impact of such online protests and petitions quickly made their way to Congress. ProPublica is a non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. Geist writes that according to ProPublica, before the protest, 80 members of Congress supported SOPA while 31 opposed it.

Two days after Wikipedia’s blackout, only 63 supported SOPA while 122 opposed it. At this point, it appears as if the protest against SOPA is one of the most potent in internet history. The use of the internet – which is seen as an open space for free communication – is clearly something that people hold dear.

“It’s practically trying to eliminate freedom of speech,” said a friend of MeloTel’s when hearing of this issue, “If you can’t access information on the internet in this day and age, then what would be its purpose? It’s cool to see people sticking up for their freedoms of speech. I can’t see SOPA ever getting passed.”

Geist agrees. “SOPA appears to be headed for the dustbin,” he writes, “but successor U.S. legislation is sure to follow. A political consensus on anti-piracy legislation will eventually emerge, but the day the Internet fought back will remain the elephant in the room for years to come.”

As one of MeloTel clients often likes to say, “I don’t work a 9 to 5, I work a 24/7”. Now while being an entrepreneur definitely insists upon a great deal of effort and dedication, it can obviously be quite rewarding. We thought we’d take today’s blog as an opportunity to share a few ideas as to how you can make being an entrepreneur work for you.

Return Your Phone Calls. Believe it or not, this is one of the biggest pet peeves that people have when dealing with independent businesses. The simple act of returning a phone call, email or text message shows that you are showing concern towards your clients. Ignoring them or taking too long to respond can create a lot of frustration that may be difficult to overcome.

Offer What Others Cannot. Because you own your own business, you get the opportunity to call the shots. For example, if you don’t live too far from a client, perhaps you can deliver your products personally. This type of personal interaction doesn’t take place between owners of big businesses and their customers. Use this opportunity to your advantage.

It is not uncommon for MeloTel President, John Meloche to meet with his clients face-to-face. He finds that not only does this help to build a more trusting relationship between business and client, but John’s affable personality can’t help but to make him new friends. Creating a comfortable atmosphere that is associated with your small business can help it go a long way.

Give A Little. Take part in your community events. As mentioned, being a small business owner allows you to connect with your clients in ways that larger corporations cannot. Be sure to meet with members of your community and get to know them by name. Offering a little of your time and efforts towards positive causes will paint an excellent impression of your brand.

Build A Strong Team. Best friends don’t make the best business partners. In fact, they may make the worst ones! “I started my business with my best friend,” recalled one of our clients earlier this week, “Let’s just say we’re not best friends any more. Getting him to come to work was a chore. And he felt I couldn’t call him on it because we were buddies. Needless to say, it didn’t work out.”

Be sure to surround yourself with those who are like-minded and just as focused on achieving success as you are. It’s better to have a small dedicated team than a large one with members who only serve as dead weight. Being in business for yourself can be a great experience. But don’t forget that it will always be hard work!

According to Wikipedia’s page describing it, “the bill, if made law, would expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods.” Wikipedia also started its 24-hour blackout of its English-language website today to protest Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA).

Believing that bills such as these threaten investments made to sites such as Wikipedia, Facebook and Google, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is hoping to get the support of the 25 million or so daily visitors to his website. He hopes they will let Washington know that they are opposed to such bills. The acts wish to block access to foreign sites that may be offering pirated material such as movies and music for free.

To have a little fun with this subject, we figured we could turn the MeloTel website into your go-to stop for information today – as we mentioned, Wikipedia will be down for 24 hours. Since MeloTel has already become your one-stop shop for VoIP services, website domains, blogging and other services, why not add Melopedia to the list?

What’s Melopedia, you ask? Well, people tend to go to Wikipedia quite often to research information on just about anyone and anything. So Melopedia (for today only) is your one-stop website for all things that define MeloTel. You want the definitions for what makes a company worth working with? Well, here they are:

Innovative. What other company do you know that is run by a president who moonlights as a voice actor, hip-hop artist, Christmas music singer, music video character and philanthropist? MeloTel President, John Meloche represents MeloTel’s commitment to innovation. Thinking outside of the box in order to “wow” customers is what MeloTel is all about.

Dedication. Going all out to satisfy customers is the name of the game around here. MeloTel’s service guarantee represents the company’s refusal to leave any customer with a sense of unhappiness. Making it our mission to deliver excellent products and services 100 per cent of the time is what makes MeloTel a cut above its competition.

Reliability. If you need us, we are there. Because we are a smaller company than the big name telecom companies, we are able to provide more personalized service to our clients. That means that our customers come first. We never make them jump through hoops to talk to us or get the service they need. It’s our job to make them feel valued after every encounter.

With that said, we also know that speed and efficiency are key ingredients to what makes customers happy about the services we provide. Our VoIP telephone services go hand in hand with the use of the internet, of course. So, to have them running smoothly, internet providers need to be just as efficient in keeping the flow of traffic moving briskly.

But, have you ever heard of “net throttling”? As Sarah Schmidt of Postmedia News explained in an article published last Thursday, net throttling refers to a practice used by big telecom companies who purposely slow down web traffic to certain websites. They do this in an effort to “preserve the quality of service of its retail customers, who risked being crowded out during peak hours by heavy bandwidth users using peer-to-peer applications.”

Naturally, this slowing down of web traffic has caused some angst among many internet users. Schmidt notes that in October of 2009, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunication Commission issued a policy that stipulated that if telecom companies intended on slowing down peer-to-peer file sharing traffic, that they were to get prior approval from the CRTC first.

In addition, companies are required to disclose their intentions to do so to their customers. Nevertheless, Canada’s big name internet providers seem to be slowing down online traffic more than ever, as of late. And it’s causing quite a stir within the Canadian online community – to put it mildly. Internet users are actually getting pretty upset.

Schmidt reports that there have been more complaints filed to the CRTC since last fall than there have been in the two-year period prior to the commission’s new traffic management guidelines that were released in the fall of 2009. Many are criticizing the very premise that internet traffic management exists as it is a “violation of the principle of ‘net neutrality’.”

Net throttling, evidently, is very unpopular. Schmidt writes that the uprise of complaints may have struck a chord with Bell Canada and Bell Aliant. She notes that last month, they announced that they will no longer use equipment that slows down peer-to-peer file-sharing applications of retail and wholesale customers during peak hours, beginning on the first of March.