Small businesses remain unsure about the impact of social networking on reaching customers, and are conflicted about the use of social media for business. Those are the findings of a new survey that provides more evidence of the wide open business market that social networks have yet to tap, or vice versa.
Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews. 
In a busy startup environment, computer security can sometimes become an afterthought, but now there’s no excuse for not protecting your machines and your network. Starting in October, Microsoft’s widely lauded Security Essentials software will be available for free to small businesses.
Under the current license, Microsoft’s streamlined no-nonsense anti-virus and anti-spyware suite for Windows is available free to home users only. Next month small business owners will be able to install Security Essentials on up to 10 PCs.
There are plenty of other computer security suites out there, some more powerful, and some with more features, but when you’re on a startup’s budget, it’s hard to argue with free.
It may only be a licensing change, and I suppose the software suite could theoretically be used on business machines right now, but we know our readers would never violate a software licensing agreement.
A study of over 1700 small and medium businesses (SMB) finds that those with owners who have deeper Internet involvement have greater market share than companies with less web-savvy owners. The study was conducted by American City Business Journals (ACBJ) and released by its affiliate Portfolio.com. Leading applications used by SMB owners are travel planning, researching and buying business products and services, accessing business news and keeping in touch with friends and colleagues. Read more
