Facebook Demystified: Profiles and Pages and Groups (oh my)

Depending on what kind of "entity" you are, you have 3 choices for how to create a presence on Facebook. As I mentioned in A Guide to Social Media Tools and their Uses, many of the social tools handle "entities" differently. The kind of presence you would set up for a business vs. a person in LinkedIn is not the same as what you would set up on Facebook, which makes for a very confusing experience for someone just trying to understand how to get started.

So in keeping with my "start at the beginning" methodology — I'm going to break down what the 3 different choices are for Facebook, how they're different and how each can be used.

The Facebook Profile — essentially intended as a personal page for an individual. You use the page to stay in touch with friends.

The Facebook Page — in Facebook's own terms, designed for celebrities, bands, businesses and other kinds of entities. The idea is you are using a Page for promotional purposes, to generate buzz around a public brand.

The Facebook Group — a way of congregating Facebook members around a topic, idea or entity. You can have a Profile and a Group. Or a Page and a Group.

Before we go any further, it is vital for your own sanity to understand that only the Facebook Profile can exist on it's own. In order to create a Group or a Page you have to attach it to someone's profile. For a Page that attachment is hidden, for a Group that attachment is public.

Places where Facebook Profiles, Pages and Groups are the same

I think the reason why it's so confusing to figure out which one to use is because most of the things people want to do on Facebook can be done with all three.

They all enable you to:

create a page describing yourself, business or groupput a main picture or logo on the pageadd photo albumsget people to "join" the pagecreate and promote events associated with the pagesend both individual and mass messages to all those who have "joined"have updates appear on the pages of those who have "joined"

At first glance this may seem like all you'd want to do with Facebook which is why it's hard at first glance to tell the 3 presence types apart. But the features that differentiate a Profile from a Page from Group, while usually not top of mind for most users, can become important as your usage of Facebook becomes more sophisticated.

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Differences in Facebook Profiles vs. Pages vs. Groups

Audience Terminology — this one's quite simple. For each type of presence the people who are connected to you are called something different to help underscore the purpose of that presence. People connected to your Profile are your "friends". People connected to your Page are "fans" and people connected to your Group are "members".

Custom URLs — Facebook has just recently announced that you can now create "pretty" URLs for your Facebook presence.

For example, my old Facebook page was:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1002729552281

My shiny, new, custom URL Facebook page is now:
http://www.facebook.com/maishawalker

But these custom URLs are only available for Pages and Profiles. It is currently not in the plans to give Groups this feature.

Facebook Apps (Applications) — if you want to use any of the applications that are available on Facebook but not already part of the Groups functionality, you're out of luck. For now at least, Facebook Apps are limited to Profiles and Pages. Also note that some Apps only work in Profiles.

Individual Membership Control — of course in your Profile you have the ability to decline any friendship invitation you're sent. In Groups you also can use settings to allow you to accept or decline anyone who tries to join the group, i.e. creating a group focused on alumni of a specific company or school. Facebook Pages do not give you that ability. You can only control fans in large groups by age and country, not on an individual level.

Discussion Boards — if you want lively discussions that aren't swept away by the speed of your friend's updates, you'll want a Group or a Page so that you can use the "Discussion" feature.

Delegation & Shared Credit — although each of us has at least two people who technically share in the credit of our existence, Facebook isn't in the business of forcing those connections on your profile. You cannot delegate your Facebook Profile within Facebook, nor can you make someone else a "point person". Pages on the other hand have to have an "Administrator" — someone who has a Profile and is fully responsible for maintaining the page. Groups have to have an "Administrator" as well, but they go a step further. Groups also allow you to create "Officers" who have no ability to maintain the Group but are listed for recognition and perhaps as a point person for the group.

Visitor Data — only Pages give you access to information about who is visiting you.

Messaging Ability Limitations — currently, Groups that have more than 5,000 members do not have messaging ability as a way of preventing spam abuse.

Connection Limitations — you can't have more than 5,000 friends on your Profile but you can have an unlimited number of fans on your Page or members in your Group.

So'

Profiles — are for an individual. You are limited in the number of friends you can collect.

Pages — are for promoting a public brand. You must attach it (not publicly) to a profile that will administer the page.

Groups — are for organizing people based on criteria you define. You can interact with group members in a very limited number of ways since you can't install additional Facebook Apps, but Groups do give you the ability to accept members based on your own criteria (or whims).

You can also read up on how Facebook defines Pages and how Facebook defines Groups in their FAQs.

To tie it all together, I'm putting together a Facebook comparison chart. Contact me if you'd like my Facebook comparison chart for free when it's finished.

Related Articles:

A Guide to Social Media Tools and their UsesThe Weakest Link - Your Social Media Marketing "Killer App"The Marketing Skills You Can Learn from ObamaGetting Good Rank: Search Engine Primer for small biz

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The Weakest Link - Your Social Media Marketing "Killer App"

I have this unrelenting suspicion that people deeply, innately, in every fiber of ourselves need to be connected. Radical, I know.

This weekend I went back to Princeton for my college reunion and spent 48 hours either with people I hadn't seen or spoken to in many years and yet because of Facebook and LinkedIn still felt oddly knowledgeable about, or with people I had actually never met but again felt oddly knowledgeable about through the sheer quantity and intensity of the virtual communications we shared. As inevitably strange situations and new sensations came and went at my reunion (because reunions are kind of wonderfully odd), I couldn't escape constant little reminders of how the new technologies we've so quickly become immersed in, are playing a role not only in our need but also our ability to be connected.

While I was on campus, I gave a lecture on social media marketing (and giving a "lecture" at my alma mater was certainly odd for me in so many ways). We looked at the Susan Boyle phenomenon. Note that according to The Telegraph the episode of "Britain's Got Talent" in which Susan Boyle debuted (it was the show's season premiere) had was viewed on television by 11.8 million people. But in just a few days, the video of that same show on YouTube had generated more than 80 million views. That's TV 11.8 million, YouTube 80 million. Anyone who grew up with television as the quintessential mass medium may need to take a moment just to absorb that fundamental shift.

And more and more people have a nagging suspicion that things like Susan's YouTube video are stark examples that social media tools really are changing the way that we communicate, and wondering what to do about it.

I agree with this suspicion because I think such change is inevitable.

What we now call "social media" are just the latest in a long and continuing evolution of communication tools. From smoke signals to Morse code to radio to television, each new tool we invent changes the way we communicate.

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If you imagine with me for a moment, communication tools shifting over time in four respects:

who sends the communicationwho receives the communicationthe ease of communicationwhat's in the communication

we seemed to have had a long progression toward an ever increasing number of recipients from tools like Morse code (only a few people can send complex messages to a few other people, so presumably senders and recipients are chosen carefully as are the messages they send) to tools like television (once the infrastructure is built, a few people can send messages to massive quantities of people relatively easily and so senders are chosen carefully while the recipients not so much & the messages can be drivel or not).

But Social Media seems to have taken this progress on a new path where we are growing not just in the numbers of recipients but also of senders. Large numbers of people can now relatively easily reach large numbers of people, as if we are each our own publishing house.

But the tools go beyond that too. In the past large numbers of recipients meant one-directional messages -- you could reach lots of people but they were passive recipients of your information. Now, these large numbers are also interactive. You can reach out to lots of people and every single one of them can immediately reach back. Instead of controlled, one-directional messaging, these tools enable a constantly evolving, living dialogue on a huge scale.

In it's novelty, just the fact that the power to create large scale dialogue is in the hands of individual people is kind of amazing. As a business owner though, the fact that you can now communicate interactively and regularly with 10 or 1,000 times more people can seem overwhelming.

There is a middle ground.

In the 1970's a sociologist named Mark Granovetter introduced a concept called "the strength of weak ties." It is the idea that as we reach beyond our closest friends and families, we have "weak" but vitally important ties that connect us to other people and their networks and the important information and opportunities that those networks hold. It is far more often through the networks of our "weak ties" for example, that we get referrals for business and find opportunities for new jobs.

What's amazing for small business owners about these new social media tools is that they are incredibly good at empowering individual people to efficiently and inexpensively maintain a far larger number of "weak ties".

Half the battle of being a successful business is just making sure people remember your business and what you offer when it's time to make a purchase or a referral. Through social media tools, a business can stay connected to a larger number of "weak ties" and the networks they belong to, have access to the information and opportunities in those networks, and do it better and faster.

By helping you maximize those weak ties Social Media Marketing provides small businesses with a powerful tool that doesn't need an overwhelming amount of complexity to be useful. Its power is based on the simple human desire to be connected and the tools that now exist to enable you, as an individual to fill that desire.

Here are a few steps for how to maintain your sanity while using social media tools effectively.

Learn the differences, know what each tool is good for
Each social media tool has its own personality, its own community of enthusiasts, its own speed and frequency. Take the time to learn them. Log on, create a personal profile and "lurk" for a while. Invite a few close friends and start to interact. Join groups that are of personal interest to you and watch how people share information. Learn first-hand how the tool is used by others before using it for your business.
Stay focused on your goals and know your audience
While social media tools can reach millions of people as they did with the Susan Boyle video and for the Obama campaign, for most small businesses, reaching millions of people is just not the point. Don't get sucked into the hype and forget that. Perhaps you need to find and build a few key relationships, or reach a few tens of thousands depending on the scale of your business. Figure out who & what you're looking for and stay focused.
Don't reinvent the wheel (yet)
What's already working for you? You don't necessarily need to use social media in a completely different way if you're not trying to reach a completely different audience. If you know what works with your audience now, start by figuring out how to achieve similar results but within the context of these new tools.
Don't spread yourself too thin
You don't necessarily need to be active in all places at once. While Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are the hot spots of the moment, spend some time figuring out which ones will give you the greatest access to your audience and start there.
Don't sweat it and don't rush it
Honestly everyone is still figuring out the best way to use social media tools. Heck, the sudden explosion of these tools themselves shows that people are still figuring out how best to use the Internet! Don't give in to the feeling that you've missed the boat and rush into something that you'll have to back pedal on later. Take the time to learn and do what's right for you and your business.
Live Event

I will be leading a live Social Media Marketing Hands-on workshop on June 16th in New York City.

You can get more details about the workshop and sign up here.

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Entrepreneurs in the News

Bob and Charlee Moore, founders of Bob's Red Mill Natural Foods, donated $5 million to Oregon State University to launch the Moore Family Center for Whole Grain Foods, Nutrition, and Preventive Health. "At our age, it's very important for us to see the results of our efforts," Bob says....Jonathan Abrams, founder of Friendster, has launched with three partners the Founders Den, a shared office space and private club for start-ups in San Francisco. "There will be a lot of serendipitous networking," says Abrams....Restaurateur and former Aquavit chef Marcus Samuelsson has opened Red Rooster Harlem, a New York City restaurant that serves up American comfort food and live music. "I wanted a place that would appeal to both the old and new members of the community," says Samuelsson, who named his restaurant after a popular 1940s neighborhood eatery....Steve Kiene, founder of eSellerate, has launched Nebraska Global, a Nebraska VC fund and incubator. "A lot of kids here grew up with parents who were entrepreneurial ranchers or farmers," says Kiene, whose fund has raised $20 million. "They've got the raw talent; they just need the confidence to start a business."...Jane Wurwand, founder of the skin care company Dermalogica, is teaming with the microfinance platform Kiva to launch FITE, a provider of microloans to women. "I was lucky enough to start my company," Wurwand says. "Many women around the world don't have those chances.

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Revolutionizing the Restaurant Business

Each day, Inc.'s reporters scour the Web for the most important and interesting news to entrepreneurs. Here's what we found today.

The next generation of Groupon competitors? Since Groupon launched just three years ago, the Chicago-based company has attracted scores of "me-too" competitors offering similar discount services. But many small businesses that use Groupon question its actual value, says Mike Periu in a post today on OPEN Forum. "There have been many well-documented horror stories of mom and pop stores being flooded with “Groupon groupies” that lead to thousands of dollars in losses," he writes. Enter Village Vines, a New York-based start-up that takes an alternative approach to selling: they partner with restaurants, who then are able to offer discounts to customers in off-peak hours through their service. The goal? Fill excess capacity. "Unlike Groupon, your restaurant won’t have 500 people knock down your door at once to obtain the 90 percent discount on your appetizer special," Periu says. "You are selling your excess reservations. Once they are filled, there is nothing more to sell."

Apple sues Amazon over "App Store." What's in a name? On Tuesday, Amazon's Appstore went live and it appears Apple is less than thrilled. "Last week, Apple sued Amazon in a California federal court, asking a judge to block Amazon from using the term "Appstore," CNN reports. "Three years ago, Apple applied for—and was granted—a trademark on its own "App Store," an online software emporium that now offers more than 350,000 applications for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch and has delivered more than 10 billion downloads." Apple claims that customers are likely to confuse the difference between the two "stores," but it's also easy to imagine Amazon's frustration. After all, it doesn't take a marketing guru to come up with the simply-named "App Store."

The best education for an innovator. Is it engineering or the humanities? Vivek Wadhwa, a professor at the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University, weighs in on the issue on TechCrunch. Wadhwa once agreed with the hard-science teachings of Bill Gates, but now supports the logic of Steve Jobs, who once said, "It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough — it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing and nowhere is that more true than in these post-PC devices." While Wadha acknowledges the the role of the liberal arts in technology, he also notes that jobs for liberal arts majors are harder to come by. Ultimately, he advises people to study the subject that appeals to them most. After all, many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs came from fields other than engineering and mathematics.

Entrepreneurs test the waters. Water shortage is a truly global issue: The World Health Organization's report last year found about 884 million people worldwide lack access to satisfactory drinking water. Increasingly, entrepreneurs and business leaders are finding ways to make water usage more efficient, and maybe even finding some profit in between. According to The New York Times, entrepreneurs, innovators, and investors are stepping up to solve some of the most prevalent issues in the water industry, such as micropollutants, leaks, and aging infrastructure. Start-up companies like Seattle's Hydrovolts, Philadelphia's BlackGold Biofuels, and Toronto's XPV Capital are all working on solutions to utilize water power and even putting "waste water" to use. "The ways we solved water issues in the 20th century are not going to work in the 21st century," David Henderson, a partner at XPV Capital, told The Times.

The birth of boomer start-ups. Rates of entrepreneurship are 50 percent higher for people between the ages of 55 and 65 than people between 20 and 34, according to a study by the Kauffman Foundation. But why? The Wall Street Journal ponders that question, after publishing questions about working during retirement. So, are start-ups by "mature workers" born out of creativity, curiosity, and boredom ... or out of necessity—say, a layoff, or the sour economy. What do you think is driving entrepreneurship among baby boomers these days?

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4 Ideas From SXSW: StartupBus Edition

Monday night was game time for the aspiring entrepreneurs who have spent the past three days furiously programming and designing start-ups on the road, plus four days perfecting their pitches. Seven teams—at least one from each bus from Chicago, Cleveland, Miami, New York, San Francisco, and Silicon Valley—faced off before a panel of judges that included entrepreneurs and prominent investors such as Dave McClure of 500 Hats, Naval Ravikant of Angel List, and Greg Veen of TypeKit. It came down to a nailbiter, with the panel unable to decide between TripMedi and WalkIN, teams from New York and Silicon Valley. Here are the highlights from a packed Hilton conference room last night where the StartupBus competition came to a close:

1. Bouncr: Bit.ly for e-mail. Built on a bus in three days, this idea stood out for its simplicity and ease of use. Paste an e-mail in a field on the Bouncr.com homepage, and a short, anonymous address is generated. By Monday night, 2,700 e-mail addresses had been processed by Bouncr. What's the use? "Imagine the inbox of busy venture capitalist Dave McClure…" the team's representative said, proposing the anonymous link as a way to weed out contacts that might otherwise spam your mailbox, or pass on your e-mail address to spammers. The site, built by programmers from the San Francisco bus, garnered buzz last week including an article on Mashable.com, and was already working on a revenue model: "You'll notice that on the confimation page there's a little ad, and an ad means revenue." The judges said: Bouncr is useful, practical, and already up and running: all strong positives. But due to the team introducing future plans to diversify products, including e-mail newsletters and a URL shortener, the funders cautioned against spreading energies too thin. The result: The site was named a finalist.

2. MyNewman: The "anti-social" network. In short, MyNewman is a social network that uses game mechanic to foster the use of virtual goods. In practicality, it's a bunch of puns put to life (it has "crapps" instead of "apps," which are virtual goods or jokes users can play on one another; a user can network with "frenemies" and "worthy foes.") What's so clever here, and what gained a huge round of applause is that the site targets 18- to 34-year-old men, "this group is very good at what is called prankster culture," the presenter said. The MyNewman team plans to launch something of a hacker dojo, meaning it will have a clever enough user base to populate it with "crapps," but also, MyNewman provides a place for hackers and trolls to interact online, "so they're spending time on MyNewman, and not on your site. The judges said: "On the bright side, you don't have much competition," one said. "Have you considered making a Facebook app?" Others noted that there's definitely a market for "humor at others' expense," they weren't sure the place for that is a social network. The result: Finalist.

3. TripMedi: Yelp for medical tourism. The idea sounds brash, but the presentation was thoughtful, and proved that there's a wide-open market for delivering useful information to people who cannot afford surgery in the United States. According to TripMedi's data, three million people a year travel abroad for medical care and, in the U.S., that translates to a $20 million market poised to grow 15 percent a year. That's due to the nearly 50 million Americans lacking health insurance, the TripMedi team says. With a logo created by Yiying Lu (of fail whale fame), the site design is minimalist and sharp. "When people look for medical tourism right now, they find some weird, weird stuff," the presenter said. "It's not sexy, but it's a billion-dollar industry, and we believe this is a disruptive service that can change how this is done." Check out the current TripMedi site here. The judges said: While the judges commended the team for doing something that could actually save peoples' lives, they also criticized the site's user interface. "It looks pretty, but I had trouble trying to decipher it," one judge said. Still, McClure told the team they "rocked" their presentation. The result: Co-winner.

4. WalkIN: Killing the wait for dinner. Inspiration struck for this one when the Silicon Valley team of nine was asked to sit and wait for their name to be called at a restaurant. They thought: Why not use cell phones and QR codes to eliminate the need to stand around until a table opens up? Hence, WalkIN. When guests enter an establishment, they can use a smartphone to scan a QR code, ideally located at the host's stand. They'll then receive a message when their table is ready, freeing them up to go for a stroll, and (one can only hope) being the death of those flashing-light buzzer devices used by chain restaurants. The current WalkIN runs in HTML5, so no app upgrade is necessary. From the restaurant's side, an iPad or any single screen can be used to monitor the list. Monetization could occur through nearby recommendations, incentives, or even a way to sell one's spot in line. The judges said: The name was praised as thoughtful and "inspirational." Another urged the team to make sure there are ways built in to the service that allowed the restaurants to make money from using the service as well. The result: Co-winner.

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8 Tips on Preparing Your Family for Entrepreneurship

No more regular 9-to-5 gig working for someone else and playing by their rules. You have a great idea for a business and you are ready to be your own boss. Before you can spread your wings and fly solo, you need to prepare your family for the entrepreneurial path. Your spouse and your children need to be engaged early on in the process about what's involved with the transition from having a job to running a business.

When you start a new business the entire family is affected and not always in a positive way. Becoming an entrepreneur can be emotionally draining and time consuming. It can turn into a very stressful situation for you and your family. This problem is exacerbated when family members are unsupportive or resentful of the new business. This is why it's important that you are very professional in handling business matters from the on-start. Your family must give you the respect, support, and trust you need to succeed.

While it might sound counter intuitive, start out with an exit strategy, says Don Schwerzler, a family business expert and founder of the Family Business Institute, headquartered in Atlanta. Meaning is this going to be a family business that is passed down from generation to generation. Or do you plan to retire in 25 years and sell the business. Will your children share in the assets of the business if it's sold or when you die, even though they may never work in the business or claim any ownership stake, he asks. What if you get divorced, how will this impact the business. If your children start out working in the business, what steps will be taken so that they can leave the company without interfering with the family dynamic. You need to draw up a shareholder agreement and a buy-sell agreement, suggests Schwerzler.

This may sound a like a paperwork brain drain. "I would err on the side of having too much documentation than not enough," Schwerzler says. There are going to be issues regardless of whether or not you have family members working in the business. But troubleshooting in a family business becomes more trying because it is like being in a room full of mirrors, he adds. "Each reflection or memory is slightly altered for every member of the family." For instance, what if your spouse gives you $10,000 to start the business; is this a loan? Or what if your spouse works for you free of charge or contributes to refining the business idea. Once the business starts making money, will you payback your spouse? It's smarter to have all of that laid out in writing, says Schwerzler.

Here are some things you can do to better prepare your family for entrepreneurship.

Dig Deeper: Why So Many Entrepreneurs Get Divorced

1. Secure your family's support.

Small business experts say that significant tensions arise in the household when the family doesn't share the same expectations as the entrepreneur with regard to the direction of the business. Even more so if the family believes you are indulging a pipe dream and that the business will not succeed. They may tolerate your business in the beginning but grow resentful down the road. If your spouse doesn't believe your business is a serious venture, there will be conflict in the relationship. Say that you buy equipment for the business; your spouse has to understand this is a necessity and not view it as you wasting money.

2. Be strategic with your finances.

Unless you have come into a cash windfall, you are moving from a two-income family into a situation where you may not be making any money, says Augustus McMillan, a business consultant in Baltimore. If your spouse earns enough money to cover the household expenses, he or she might be agreeable to a reduced income from you temporarily. If not, you will need to build up enough savings to cover the loss of income for the first several months. How quickly do you see revenues coming in? "Most families are just living up to their means rather than below their means. You want to make sure that the bills can get paid as you are building the business," says McMillan.

Dig Deeper: 7 Rules for Avoiding Conflicts of Interest in a Family Business

3. Understand what family sacrifices will be made.

It is important to have a family understanding and agreement on what each member has to give up like entertainment, vacations, eating out, and luxury items. McMillan says to examine what extent are you putting the family resources and assets at risk for the business, such as using the family home as collateral for a business loan or tapping into the funds of your 401k plan? If the business fails, the family's savings could be wiped out; the home foreclosed; and even the college education funds for the kids or your retirement money depleted.

4. Talk openly with family members.

If you are a home-based business talk to the people you live with. This can be your spouse or your parents, for instance. "They may have no idea what is going on or how hard you are working once they leave the house," McMillan says. "You don't want them making up stories in their heads about what you do." So, keep them abreast of what is happening with the business. "If you get a new client, a new development, or a new prospect tell them about it." Even if your spouse or children are not directly involved with the business, they need to be in the loop. What happens if you suddenly die, your family needs to be able to make well-formed decisions about what next to do with the business.

Dig Deeper: How to Hire Family Members

5. Hold regular family meetings.

Just like you need a professional management system for the business, "I recommend that you formalize a communication system for the family," says Schwerzler. You shouldn't be having conversations in the hallway or the bathroom. There should be scheduled, structured family meetings with a written agenda. Also, you want to have rational problems and rational decisions rather than irrational problems and emotional decisions. For instance, "you may have a situation where dad is more rigid in thinking but mom is focused more on what's best for the children. So, she may dismiss why the children are showing up late at work." You want to avoid a breakdown in communication or a situation where parents are pitted against each other, he adds.

6. Teach your children about the business.

Be candid with your children about the business. Explain to them concepts like cash flow—money coming in and money flowing out of the business. But don't force them to work for the business, says McMillan It is a great idea to expose children, especially young kids, to the principals of entrepreneurship such as hard work and dedication. If your children aren't interested in your line of work and find it boring, find something that they like to do. If they like design, then you may have them work on your web page, he explains.

Dig Deeper: My Husband's Next Business

7. Create a family business plan.

Ideally, you will want to establish three sets of plans: a family plan whereby members determine the overall goals of the family and the resources needed to achieve those objectives; an individual one that helps each family member determine his or her own personal goals and how to balance those needs with the family's and business's needs; and a business plan, which addresses such issues as ownership and management control, family involvement in the business, and overall strategic direction of the business. Schwerzler says use the family plan to drive the business and manage expectations, especially if you plan to have your children who are married and their spouses involved with the business.

8. Balance family life with entrepreneurial life.

It is very tough running the business and running a household. Everyone will have a different level of commitment to both tasks. But it is important that you spend enough time with your spouse, your children, and yourself, Schwerzler recommends. "When you are starting a business there are such limited resources. Money is scarce. Time is precious. You have to put in long hours. Stress levels run high when you are expecting a check to come in and it doesn't show."

McMillan says most new entrepreneurs fail to realize how many hours (which could be as much as 70 to 80 hours a week) they have to put in to make the business successful. "You can't have an employee mentality. The work isn't going to come to you, but you have to pursue the work." If you used to work only 40 hours a week as an employee, that means the time spent on other things, including family, is sacrificed and now eaten up by the business. You need to schedule in bonding time with family and other relationships.

Dig Deeper: 10 Tips for a Happy Marriage

A final word of advice is to make sure that you set benchmarks for your new business. What do you plan to achieve one month from now, two years, five years and so on. Schwerzler says, "You always have to make sure that you are working on your business and not just in your business."

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Twitter Developers Gain Access To Easier ?Tweet Embedding? (Blog Herald)

It has been nearly a year since Twitter announced embeddable tweets and since
that time very little development has gone into making those tweets easy to
embed via users websites. In fact most users require a third party solution
such as Blackbird Pie for WordPress which in it's best case use creates a
screenshot of [...]

Share With Friends: | | Internet - Blogging Stories, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

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How Linux Web Hosting India Can Benefits Small Business

Linux web hosting is one of the most common budget hosting platforms used in present days.

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Making Location Awareness Simple

Last year’s South By Southwest festival was a tipping point for location-based check-in services. I wrote about companies like Foursquare and Gowalla and the idea of "check-ins" in the article "Mobile Location, Location, Location at SXSW." This concept, then popular, has grown exponentially. Those companies have also been joined by the current leader in that space, Facebook Places. This year it was amazing to be at SXSW with a large early adopter crowd and be able to track friends and be aware of events via a mobile device in real time. But what about other, non "check-in" ideas?

Imagine a world where the apps on your mobile device knew not just where you were, but knew the context around your location—the weather, the time of day, the neighborhood, and more—and delivered customized information based on those factors. This year an even more potentially game-changing idea is the use of location awareness in any mobile application—providing a layer of information that's relevant in the context of your location, neighborhood, time of day, and more, at the time you use a tool.

At SXSW 2011 I spoke with the founders of SimpleGeo, a company providing this data. CEO Jay Adelson is most well known for co-founding Digg, Internet web studio Revision 3, and data center company Equinix. The company was the result of a brainstorm from the 2009 SXSW conference when co-founders Joe Stump and Matt Galligan thought about the idea of augmented reality games that could exist "on top" of the real world. Galligan told me he quickly figured out that games weren't his forte, but the location infrastructure required to create such a game would be valuable to a range of companies. In other words, he could build a database of place and location data that others could then innovate around.

Adelson says: "Application developers should be able to focus on creativity of their own products. Storage and scale is not what they should think about." Adds Galligan, who is chief strategy officer, "Four or five years ago, everyone was concerned about building social graphs [the connections between friends on networks]. Now it's just assumed that you can have someone log in via Twitter or Facebook and give you that information." SimpleGeo is working on a similar service for app developers now—so that location data about an area is assumed—and developers can just make what they need.

In fact, SimpleGeo is so passionate about the location data being available to all developers that their database of places is free to other developers. They’ll make money by charging for use, and by allowing others to store data about these places that are unique to the service they’re creating.

As an example, travel site Hipmunk uses the data from SimpleGeo as a local business information database. "We look up bars, restaurants, and nightclubs and then create our own "heat maps" based on SimpleGeo data and other data to determine where the items of interest in a city are located,” said Hipmunk co-founder and CEO Adam Goldstein. You can see this very clever filtering in its app (described in their blog) that helps searchers find the kind of hotel that also has the amenities and neighborhood atmosphere that makes them comfortable.

Adelson says: "The problem we're solving is, give us the coordinates of a device, we'll give you the data and make it relevant. We also want to provide some of this data free and unencumbered." SimpleGeo raised $10M in funding between seed money and Series A, and now has 24 employees. Its founders have an interesting take on a marketing strategy; Galligan reports they’ve been marketing the company to consumers and techies, rather than as an "infrastructure" play. They're working on a "Powered by SimpleGeo” effort to generate credibility for their service as well as the apps that work with them.

For small businesses just starting up, I think this trend in location awareness is important as it emphasizes the need to have a great online presence in places like Google Local and similar sites, so that companies like SimpleGeo will find you and include you in their database. Does the idea of a location database that leads customers to your business appeal to you? Do you have app ideas that need location? Let us know in the comments below.

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The Case for Boardroom Bullies

Each day, Inc.'s reporters scour the Web for the most important and interesting news to entrepreneurs. Here's what we found today.

Should workplace bullying be legal? Business Insider's Suzanne Lucas thinks so. It's not that Lucas thinks bullying is right, it's just that she believes the anti-bullying legislation currently being considered in New York and Maryland would be bad for business. For starters, she writes, it would make hiring a nightmare. "Since almost every person who has been fired for poor performance feels like their boss is being mean, i.e. bullying, that means companies will be less likely to hire if they can avoid doing so," Lucas writes. "Restrictions on firing=restriction on hiring." Lucas also takes issue with the fact that bullying, itself, is tough to define, and just because it's illegal doesn't mean it won't happen. As Lucas puts it, "A law won't make a bully stop and say, 'Gee, I was going to torment my coworker, but since the new law is in place, I shan't!' Bullying in the workplace should not be tolerated, but the companies should have the freedom to decide what that means."

Google gets geeky with new data mag. Watch out, Wired, you may have some new competition. Google has just launched its first online magazine, Think Quarterly, whose first issue is devoted entirely to the subject of data. Although the publication is aimed at Google's partners and advertisers, Mashable notes "that it's a visually stunning piece of work" and contains "thought pieces about major business and technology topics." It's not exactly clear how many magazine editions Google will release, but it does mention upcoming issues in May, July, and October. The reason behind the new venture? "We know that the faster we deliver results, the more useful people find our service," Think Quarterly notes in its introduction. "But in a world of accelerating change, we all need time to reflect. Think Quarterly is a breathing space in a busy world. It's a place to take time out and consider what's happening and why it matters." Check it out here and let us know what you think.

Walgreens snaps up Drugstore.com. The drugstore giant is plunking down roughly $409 million for the perfect URL...about 13 years too late. Founded in 1998, Drugstore.com did more than $456 million in sales last year. Walgreens says it will maintain Drugstore.com's office in Bellevue, Washington, and also acquire the company's other sites, Beauty.com and SkinStore.com, TechCrunch reports.

They're in the money! Venture capitalists are pouring millions of dollars into social networking start-ups, and the one of the biggest moneymakers is a phone-based social network called Color Labs. The Wall Street Journal reports Color Labs received an astounding $41 million from venture-capital firms excited by the start-up's idea to use "a phone's location-sensing abilities [to] build a user's social network for them, allowing users to share photos, video and messages based simply on the people they're physically near." The moral of the story? If you're looking to start a new business that will get funding, mobile social networking is probably the way to go.

SCORE scores funding. SCORE, a non-profit organization based in Herndon, Virginia, dedicated to mentoring and training entrepreneurs and small businesses, received a $285,000 grant from Deluxe Corporation Foundation to help grow its mentoring base, according to The Wall Street Journal. In a statement, SCORE chief executive Ken Yancey said the grant "will enable us to attract new, highly qualified mentors and improve our ability to match them with small businesses, [and] help us achieve our goal of helping to grow one million successful small businesses by 2017."

The tax man cometh. To Connecticut. Yoga studios in Connecticut were in for some bad news this week when state Gov. Dannel Malloy announced that they'll soon be required to pay the mandatory 6.25 percent business tax, which, until now, has been waived for commercial yoga studios. The Wall Street Journal notes that "Mr. Malloy calls the new taxes part of his plan for "shared sacrifice." But consumers and business owners say the levies on everyday items come at a time when they're already stretched for cash."

The importance of start-up teamwork. The team is the only thing that matters, says Mark Suster, a VC at GRP Partners in a blog for Techcrunch. Before you go out and recruit a team, heed the advice of this two-time entrepreneur. Suster says he'll only hire the "A" players, and he'll never stop recruiting fresh talent, even it means you can't pay them initially. Read more on Suster's tidbits of wisdom for assembling a start-up team.

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An SBDC Helping Businesses to Export

San Antonio Small Business Development Center
501 West Durango Blvd.,
San Antonio, Texas, 78752
SASBDC Website
210-458-2958
Contact Email

Name of Director: Morrison Woods

No. of employees: 20

Hours spent with clients: 12,427

Capital Infusion: $19 million in 2010

What's Noteworthy: Facilitating relationships across the Mexican border has helped generate $81 million in exported goods.

San Antonio is growing at a dizzying pace, with a booming population and a lively, diversified economy that relies not only on the military, but also energy, tourism, finance and technology. Poised to add nearly 30,000 jobs this year, the city is swaggering while the rest of the country is still getting back on its feet.

Local entrepreneur Kyle Gish reckons the San Antonio Small Business Development Center has much to do with the city's metamorphosis. "The SBDC has been a darn good vehicle for growth," he says, noting it played a major role in transforming his company from a backroom air filter distributor to a multimillion-dollar enterprise with more than 20,000 square feet of warehouse space in San Antonio and Houston.

Gish, a former navy pilot, had limited business experience when he inherited his father's firm, called Dustless Air Filter. So he enrolled in the center's "Building Business Excellence" program—designed for companies that have hit a growth ceiling. The months-long course brought Gish up to speed on topics ranging from leadership to financial literacy.

And a well-connected advisor hooked him up with an SBA lender, who supplied $1.3 million in working capital. Gish used the funds to open warehouses and add capacity to his distribution business.

"This SBDC is like a concierge service for businesses," he says. "It's phenomenal."

Affiliated with the University of Texas in San Antonio, the center caters to businesses across a large swath of land near the Southwestern border of Texas. Naturally, it specializes in cross-border trade and boasts access to the International Trade Center, which was created to serve all chapters in the South-West Texas Border SBDC network. Housed in the same university building as the San Antonio SBDC, it is the largest trade assistance center of its kind in the country.

"Who are the buyers in a particular country? What kind of tariffs are you facing? What are the regulations involved?" says Doug Smith, the trade center's assistant director. "We help business owners tackle all those issues."

Smith, who has helped companies export goods ranging from construction material to dried lentils, says the trade center spent more than 5,000 hours consulting businesses and accounted for $81 million in exported goods last year.

In a throwback to the missions of old San Antonio, staffers helped the Mexican government set up SBDCs south of the border, where there are now more than 90 chapters. The idea is to work with SBDC counterparts in Latin America to help connect—and facilitate trade between—companies on either side of the border.

In addition to trade, the SBDC's advisors are well-versed in government contracting, veteran assistance programs and a host of other areas, says director Morrison Woods.

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