The most important FUTURECents rule. It is the absolute key to avoiding financial disaster, quite bluntly put is.........
Assume Nothing.  

Expect something to go sideways on you. In other words, plan for the worst case scenario. Even though you risk assess before you invest, still expect the worst. When you begin thinking this way, you will be more likely to see the indicators of a potential disaster before it strikes.

Look in advance, be aware, develop that "financial survival will" if you plan to swim with the sharks.

Sad, but true. The world is full of hype, scams tricks and deceit. You have to constantly be thinking of your tactics to stay in the game and avoid being swallowed up by the Pro's. Trust Us...the Sharks don't care about the minnows.

Throughout our site, we give you that "Heads Up" information to give you that survival edge. Each major topic gives you a balanced outlook of the pros and cons.

Watching The Rule Breakers

FUTURECents has a simple rule to follow. 

• "Watch for people messing with our rules, because this is the sign of significant change."
  

• You can ride the bus or you can drive it.  "To stay ahead of the pack, you don't have to be the best, just the first."  In other words, create your future, don't react to it with the rest of the pack.  
  

• Now you're saying.....that's easier said than done! Yes, you're absolutely right!  
  But, by being able to anticipate future trends, directions and paradigm shifts, that's moving forward or creating your future success.  
  

• Watching the rule breakers is something you can do right now. You have the advantage on the Sharks (Pro's) because they are so far removed from the grassroots game. Many of them have their institutional blinders on. They are not listening to their employees, their customers, who are really the front line future sensors on the shifts and changing trends.
  

• Here is where you can make you move, slip right past them. Be the first, get ahead of them in a new trend or idea. Again, you don't have to be the best, just the first. Find those ideas and investments that are a first.
  

• This is where FUTURECents.com comes into action. Our entire business is about providing you with the information and the tools to make the smart moves.  
  

• We are about providing ideas, directions and probable outcomes to improve your financial well being in the future.

Rule Breakers In Action

Tribalization

Listen to Outsiders

OpenIPO

The Rest of the World is Catching Up

Domain Names

Our Crystal Ball

• Tribalization - In our move towards Globalization, many people are identifying towards Tribalization. The "specialty" niche is an up and coming trend during this information overload period that we are encountering.  Find an investment that recognizes the indicators and you've got a "first".  Here are a couple of articles that indicate the consumers move towards Tribalization.  
  
  - High Tech Without High Touch
  
  - Vortals  The next trend to grow out of Web Portals. 
  
  

• Listen to Outsiders - Get out of your field to see what outsiders are doing and saying. That's what FutureCents attempts to provide through our Online Future Tool Kit. 
  
  

• OpenIPO - IPO( Initial Public Offering ) allocations are for the most part given only to the high rolling investors. An IPO is when a stock becomes available for purchase on the open market for the first time. Brokers almost always offer first crack at the IPO's to their biggest and most active online preferred customers. Good luck to the smaller investor getting a decent shot at buying in at the offering price. 
  
  Here is an IPO rule breaker in the making - another industry's time-honored way of doing business being radically altered by the Web. These firms level the IPO playing field so the small investor can get into the game by offering a service called OpenIPO.  
  OpenIPO uses what is called a Dutch auction to issue shares.
  
  What is the OpenIPO auction?
  WR Hambrecht + Co’s OpenIPO auction is a new way to take companies public that increases access to IPOs. Based on an auction system designed by Nobel Prize-winning economist William Vickrey, the OpenIPO auction uses a mathematical model to treat all qualifying bids in an even-handed and impartial way. It is similar to the model used to auction U.S. Treasury bills, notes and bonds. 
  
  Just like a typical auction, the highest bidders win in an OpenIPO auction. But there are important differences. In an OpenIPO auction, the entire auction is private, and winning bidders all pay the same price per share – the public offering price.
  
  How does the OpenIPO auction work?
  An OpenIPO auction is typically open for bids for 3–5 weeks prior to the effective date of the offering. Once the bidding concludes, the OpenIPO auction assembles the bids and, working from highest to lowest, finds the first bid price that will sell all the offering’s shares. This is the “clearing price” and will be the maximum price at which the issuing company will offer its shares.
  
  The issuing company and the underwriters then decide the price at which the company will offer the shares, taking a number of economic and business factors into account in addition to the clearing price. The company may choose to sell shares at the clearing price, or it may offer the shares at a lower offering price.
  
  All participants bidding at or above the offering price will receive a pro-rated amount of shares for which they bid. In most cases, more than 100 percent of shares will be spoken for even at the maximum offering price, so nearly all bidders will experience some pro-ration.
  
  Here are three firms that offer OpenIPO
  
  wrhambrecht.com - W.R. Hambrecht operates OpenIPO
  
  netvest.com
  
  
  

• The Rest of the World is Catching Up.  Right now, North America accounts for two thirds of e-commerce spending. This is predicted to change as the rest of the world catches up. The playing field is anticipated to be one third North America, one third Europe and one third the rest of the world. Global e-commerce is expected to increase twenty fold by the end of 2004. This translates to projected world wide revenues at $7.2 trillion. So what does this all mean? Opportunity, Big Time!
  
  Think about this........the world wide web is predominately the English language. How arrogant of us to think it is going to remain this way forever. Very soon the rest of the world is going to catch up, and not everybody understands English. Complete translation of web based sites and online real time translation is going to take off. Here is a first mover, a "Rule Breaker" that has recognized a way to penetrate non English speaking countries.
  
  FreeTranslation.com  
  The fastest, web-based language translation service. And it's Free! 
  FreeTranslation.com is an easy-to-use site for rapid translations where you can get the "gist" of foreign language text and web pages
  

  Babylon.com offers free, online, single word and phrase translation in nine languages. It is far from perfected, but it sure gets you thinking outside the box real quick. We are not yet at instant, real time, entire web site translation....but it's going to come. 
  
  Free Translations - Worldlingo.com  Where web translation objects are available FREE to web site owners allowing their visitors to view their website in a different language. 
  Advantages of Worldingo.com's service includes:
  
  * Visitors don't have to leave the site, increasing the "stickiness" of the site 
  
  * Worldlingo.com offers Chinese, Japanese and Russian machine translations as well as French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish
  
  * Worldlingo.com's FREE transparent e-mail translation service can facilitate communication with foreign visitors in their native language.
  
  * Instantaneous machine translations with a patented automatic quoting system for human translations.
  
  * A worldwide team of specialist native speakers who can translate to and from over 40 languages
  

  Translate this page:

  French German Italian Portuguese Spanish

• Domain Names - Something To Consider
  There is no doubt that having a domain name with the extension (.com) is the Cadillac of our current e-commerce world. But, we're running out of names and this is driving the secondary market prices up. You have to ask.....Will they ever expand the domain name extensions?   Did the State of California add an extra digit to their license plates? Did we ever run out of 1-800 numbers?
  
  Our point is this, is it worth buying a trendy domain name on the secondary market, like Drugs.com for $823 -thousand (U.S.)?  Or, Business.com for $7.5-million ( U.S.)?  Or, would you be smarter to invest in a two or three word domain name that could also attract traffic and brand recognition?

  Good question, if you are mega company with lots of money, then one word, secondary market is where you will probably shop.   The rest of the world will have to really do their research before they spend big dollars on the secondary market.  Remember, the average consumer is getting overloaded with trying to remember the millions of domain names out there. Brand recognition is a big science and there are many components to consider. So, invest in domain names wisely on the secondary market.
  
  

  NEWS FLASH! Domain Name Regulations Change.  Longer Domain Names Now Allowed. Up to 63 characters are now allowed in domain names.  Until recently, the regulations only allowed 26 characters.  Over 4 million dot.com domain names up to 26 characters have been registered to date.

  Are There Any Advantages Of Longer Domain Names?

• Many of the experts say yes.  Placing keywords right in your domain name can give your site a major boost on search engine positioning.  In other words, a keyword stuffed domain name can be used as a "doorway" page to boost additional traffic to a web site.  Placing strategic keyword phrases that were previously too long can now be registered.  Which means they can be placed directly in the path of the search engines.
  
  We found a "rule breaker" that allows you to hold domain names that you think might fit your future plans at the best price on the market. They have no hidden costs and no scams ( and there are a lot of domain name registration scams out there!). It is probably a good idea to grab a few domain names as a future investment before they all go. Example: you register five domain names at $70.00 usd, good for 2 years and each additional year is $35.00 usd ). Sit on them and see what happens, that is being risk sensible. Lets say, a new trendy e-commerce extension is added or something new captures the market in web addresses, you have not lost your life savings if you change gears to stay with the trends. Remember the rule......"When the rules of the game change, everyone starts back at zero. Your past means nothing"
  
  

• Our Crystal Ball.....Endless Possibilities

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