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The Internet has opened up a whole new world to golf enthusiasts, but also to golf pros, and it would be hard to find many who have taken advantage more than Jeff Ritter, who has been providing instruction at the ASU Karsten Golf Course in Tempe since 2000. [from 3/28/08 Arizona Republic article Many golfers looking online for lessons ]

Jeff currently operate 2 sites on Near-Time, his corporate website Jeff Ritter Golf and his subscription-based golf instruction site Golf by Design .  Capitalizing on his success, plans were just confirmed for a third site on the publishing and collaboration platform, My Golf by Design.  The new site, expected to launch in June, will allow subscribers to upload video of their golf swing and receive online lessons and consultation from Jeff.

"I've been shocked by the response," said Ritter, who also writes for two golf magazines as a result of his postings and has seen sales of his golf instruction book climb. "We have so many good instructors in the Valley, and that creates a lot of competition for instruction, so to attract clients from outside the area is a nice bonus and at the same time gives our golf community valuable exposure."

New Customers Leverage Built-in e-Commerce Functionality to Launch Commercial Publishing and Collaborative Marketplaces 

Chapel Hill, North Carolina July 23, 2007 – Today Near-Time announced new customers of its paid membership service Near-Time Premium.  Near-Time Premium is a hosted Web 2.0 collaboration and publishing platform that enables groups and businesses of all types and sizes – including authors, publishers, consultants, trade and membership organizations—to rapidly build and create their own online commercial marketplaces without investing in hardware or software infrastructure. Premium customers come from diverse industry areas spanning financial news (http://www.mergerguru.com), business technology consulting (http://www.peoplewerx.com),  sports instruction (http://www.golfbydesign.net) and music (http://www.wholeoctave.com).

With Near-Time Premium, community builders can benefit from integrated e-commerce services that make it easy to monetize content and user interaction.   Site owners can flexibly craft pricing plans based on their preferred business models and the income they want to earn from collaborative relationships and published content.  Paid members can be charged monthly, yearly or pay a one time fee. Near-Time’s cloning capabilities enable customers to quickly create commercial communities. Each month, Near-Time Premium delivers 80% to 90% of the revenues to Near-Time Premium customers.

“Premium is creating a whole new business model for our customers,” said Near-Time CEO Reid Conrad.  “The diversity of the Premium customer base speaks to its game changing potential. Premium is developing new ways to enable businesses to derive value high margin revenues from their expertise and build vibrant, compelling and profitable marketplaces. We are well on our way of having hundreds of marketplaces up in the coming months.”

Here are some examples of the variety of storefronts Near-Time Premium has generated for online businesses:

Merger Guru:   An Online Place for the Meeting of the Minds
Mergers and acquisitions expert and independent consultant Tom Taulli, author of “The Complete M&A Handbook,” and columnist for AOL Money and Finance selected Near-Time Premium to build Merger Guru (http://www.mergerguru.com), a site dedicated to buyers and sellers of companies and professionals such as investment bankers, CPAs, attorneys, consultants and others who participate in merger and acquisition deals.  The site currently tracks and provides basic information about recent mergers and acquisitions for free, but will begin making available more detailed analyses of merger & acquisition deals on a membership basis in the near future.  

“Near-Time Premium is an excellent platform for organizing content and presenting it to the public in a way that best makes sense,” said Tom Taulli.  “Near-Time’s expertise reaches way beyond programming into true community building.  And, it’s an easy and intuitive experience for users like me.”     

PeopleWerx:  Monetizing Expertise in Technology
PeopleWerx (http://www.peoplewerx.com) is a knowledge 2.0 performance company that provides online business strategies, Web and social media tools to help individuals and businesses maximize productivity.  Mark Palmer, the CEO and Founder of the eight-year old company, plans to launch several Near-Time Premium Web sites during the next twelve months.  The first site, Teknowledgey, is slated to go live in August.

“After evaluating other products on the market, we chose Near-Time Premium because of its unique monetization capability,” said Mark Palmer.  “These sites will allow me to creatively monetize my expertise and meet my research objectives with users and the community at large.”

Jeff Ritter Golf Instruction:  Breaking Out of the Mold of Trading Time for Money
Nationally recognized golf instructor, presenter, and author of Golf by Design, Jeff Ritter is a small business owner who wanted a way to quickly and creatively reach consumers with his message and product.  Ritter’s wiki book (http://www.golfbydesign.net) leverages Premium’s content monetization component to drive revenue.  Through the site, he offers golf lessons and learning programs for golfers of all ages and levels of engagement, customized golf events, golf tips, mental training and physical conditioning information.   

“As a professional golf instructor, my challenge is to be able to generate income when I’m not on the lesson tee,” noted Jeff Ritter.  “After going through the process of trying to publish several instructional books, I found that in the age of the Internet, it can be just as powerful and lucrative to control and sell content through my Near-Time site.”

Whole Octave:  Fostering a Collaborative Community of Musicians 
When piano teacher and performer Susan Capestro created Whole Octave (http://www.wholeoctave.com) as a global community and educational site for keyboard enthusiasts of all ages, she initially thought that it would be an information-based site. Thanks to Near-Time Premium, the site has evolved into a serious, interactive teaching tool. Content includes rich media and interactive wikis.  Now many of their members are engaging students in online collaborative composition activities.  Capestro charges $30 a year – or $5 a month – for a subscription. 

“I chose Near-Time Premium because it is a hosted platform with blog and wiki interactive functionality – and, above all else, it is so simple to use,” remarked Capestro.

About Near-Time Premium
Near-Time Premium is a hosted service that enables users to create revenue opportunities with customers and business partners by quickly setting up commerical Internet marketplaces. Near-Time Premium offers an alternative to ad-supported web content by giving business professionals a way to package and sell expertise and content via paid access to online collaborative web sites. With integrated Wiki and weblog authoring tools, and file sharing and task management capabilities, groups can foster rich environments for commercial interaction.  Near-Time Premium’s patent pending ecommerce engine allows the provisioning of user subscriptions by type of content access. Subscriptions can be based on monthly, annual, or one-time fees. Advanced analytic functionality enables users to track member usage in terms of the most popular content, most frequently edited pages, and the most active readers in the space.
 
About Near-Time
Near-Time is the leader in cross organization collaboration. Near-Time integrates weblogs and Wikis to enable groups to work together more effectively in a secure, hosted platform.  Near-Time users can securely share information, files and create group calendars.  Near-Time is in use in over 40 nations by thousands of businesses, academic institutions, government agencies, and non-profit organizations, to maximize internal and external collaboration.

Near-Time Premium is Creating Online Businesses