Is there still a chance for the Internet Cafe Industry in the Philippines to evolve itself into something new? This business used to be so lucrative because it was a portal that gave access to something people wanted in on, The Internet.

Even Netopia, the country’s biggest internet cafe chain with 154 branches and 75% owned by PLDT, failed to eke a profit in 2008 as it reported a loss of P8 M. In 2007 they had even bigger losses totalling P29 M.

I remember a friend who started their business around 1997. To begin he ponied up 1 Million. The P1 Million covered the server, the furniture, the licensing and the bank of computers. He said that within a year he was able to recover the cost of the P1M and was looking to expand even more.
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One of the “must ask” questions when starting an online freelance career are how much should I charge for my services?, How much should be my billing rate?, How do I determine my bill on a per project basis?

If you work as a software programmer, web developer, data entry encoder, virtual assistant, translator, pro blogger, and copy writer one could easily acquire that information by looking at the rate distribution of Odesk providers.
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Although initially the online jobs posted by buyers at Odesk were all Information Technology (IT) related, recently we’ve seen a flourish of non IT jobs cropping up. Which is of great benefit to all industries as it allows them to tap into the competitive rates offered by overseas companies and providers.

If you look at it from a macro perspective, it fulfils the aims of IT, which is as an enabler and equalizer, where people will be freed from the confines of their four walled cubicle as well as the limits that geography imposes on us. More importantly it gives us the benefit of Choice.
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Odesk, a business matching site, touted the Philippines and it’s independent providers as the fastest growing market provider in their site. This they announced recently via their outsourcing statistics report.

How to sign up for Odesk and work as a freelancer, is shown in this post.
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Paypal is probably the most popular payment system in the planet today. Only recently have they started to allow the Philippines to register for their service as well as withdraw money locally.

Paypal in the Philippines opened further the gates of globalization to the common Filipino, because Paypal is an established brand that offers secure and easy transactions online. Other nationalities now will have confidence in transacting with Filipino’s because of this too. I myself prefer to transact with companies that accept Paypal as a payment because of the benefits mentioned below.
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