When the overall economy is slumping, as it currently is, people begin to focus just on surviving—success is simply defined as the ability to pay bills on time. So, why is now actually the best time to start a business? Well, for one thing, there is less competition during recessionary times. Too many people are focused on surviving, not thriving. Challenging times actually create new opportunities since shifted priorities mean new needs must be filled. New businesses that can adjust to and overcome these difficult times have the great opportunity to enjoy a head start for gains when the economy…

One of the biggest problems faced when businesses try to use social media as a marketing tool is that there are simply too many social media sites. A day doesn’t go by when I’m not asked about this new site or that old site and whether or not they can be used is marketing. Most can. However, most simply do not have the reach to make them worthwhile. For the majority of businesses, if they stay focused on four current social sites, they’ll have the vast majority of their marketing covered. Some big sites were excluded. It’s not that Tumblr doesn’t have its place or that Foursquare is useless. It’s that the…

The folks at Team BlackSheep put together a “Christmas Special” video with their quadcopter and GoPro camera. While there are few details about the group, the equipment used, or whether or not the French police are investigating, it’s fun to watch as they land on a truck in traffic, hover close to the street with people taking pictures, and follow a French police car up until the point when they are apparently spotted. Then, they make their hasty retreat. Check it out: Here’s a separate video of a cool homemade quadcopter with a GoPro attached: Related articles ‘Team Black Sheep’ Troll French Police…

The automation of Twitter for businesses continues to become the norm. As microblogging, interaction, and expression get replaced by RSS feeds, Facebook feeds, and post scheduling that is all dominated by links, links, and more links, the power of Twitter is being replaced by the easy alternatives to actually, well, using the service. This is a huge mistake for most. There are some who are simply overwhelmed by social media and internet marketing in general and anything that they can check off their list with minimal or zero effort is a good thing. For those who actually want to find success on…

Every few months, it seems that Klout makes changes to try to bring its importance to a higher level and push itself into the mainstream consciousness. Every few months, the changes that Klout makes push them further into obscurity and away from mainstream consciousness because they try too hard to appeal to the people that simply don’t care. When they do this, they reduce the very thing that could actually make them better known and talked about more often: overall usefulness. The last algorithm change seemed to set “caps” on how “influential” people could be based upon their position in the real…

One of the initial promises of the internet was realized when social media started taking hold a few years ago. Constant communication and the ability to reach out and engage with others around the globe became more than just a dream once sites like MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook opened the doors for our lives at every level to be detailed for anyone to see. The options to keep it personal are still available but so many have chosen to give access to anyone willing to take it. Lives are recorded in fine detail on social media every day. That’s nothing new. What has really been emerging in the…

It takes more than having great ideas to make a startup work. It has become a part of Silicon Valley culture to understand that being first and blazing a trail may not be the best path to success. Some companies such as 3DFX Interactive, Napster, and Wang Laboratories began and built amazing technologies that would eventually become huge components of many of our lives, yet didn’t last to see their dreams fulfilled. Others stepped in and made it happen. Let’s take a look at their stories below. Thanks to Visually and Milwaukee Ford Dealers for pointing this infographic from Total Bankruptcy out…

“I sit down at the computer and think of things to post on social media.” This is the problem. It’s the challenge that faces many companies as they try to explore new ideas to post about on social media. They have “social media time” set aside, and while this is good to schedule and maintain, it also allows people to miss some of the best opportunities available in social media. It’s what happens in the day to day affairs of a business, the things that come to us when we least expect it, that really makes for strong social media posts. Businesses all too often try to come up with their social media posts while…

I had thought the days were behind us. Call it a hope, but I believed that the majority of businesses who were active on social media had pushed beyond the plague that once filled our feeds – the worthless post. I was wrong. It was while auditing an account that followed numerous car dealers on both Twitter and Facebook that I came across the reality of the situation. There are still plenty – over half from the sampling of several hundred that I examined – that were posting the type of “content” on social media that drives people to unfollow, block, or simply ignore them. Recently I’ve been posting some…

Defamation. Freedom of speech. Honesty and transparency versus lies and coverups. These and other gray matters are all in play in a $750,000 lawsuit filed by a Virginia contractor against a former customer who left a scathing review on review sites Yelp and Angie’s List. If it gets settled in court, the ramifications will be felt by both the review industry as well as millions of small businesses around the country. If Christopher Dietz, owner of Dietz Development LLC, wins the lawsuit, many consumers will become fearful of posting reviews that call out businesses. If Jane Perez, the woman who…