Topping the News This Week: Snapchat Hacked, Privacy Remains An Issue


Topping the News This Week: Snapchat Hacked, Privacy Remains An Issue

Don’t miss any of the top stories or trends important to small business owners and entrepreneurs. The Small Business Trends editorial team has you covered with this roundup of our top news for the week:

Online Privacy

Snapchat gets hacked. It’s another privacy issue. The popular photo and message sharing site sees the personal information from about 4.6 million of its members exposed. The worst part is that the company was apparently warned ahead of time.

Privacy online revisited. Comedian Jack Vale plays a prank on random strangers by finding out how much he can learn about them just by looking at their social media accounts. Some may find this more disturbing than others. But check the tips on better online privacy.

Investment & Finance

Less regulation for VC investment sought. Hey, but don’t hold your breath. The Small Business Capital Access and Job Preservation Act H.R. 1105 did pass the U.S. House. But with resistance from the White House and other quarters, it may not get much further.

Examples of the mobile lending trend. A lender serving online sellers, a company supplying financial products to credit unions and a peer-to-peer lender are among many who have entered the mobile lending space. It will be interesting to see what this means for small business.

Tech Trends

HP Chromebook’s charger replaced. Concerns were raised last month about the charger overheating — and melting according to some complaints. But it seems sales of the device can now move forward with  a new charger.

These glasses want to beat Google. The company is called Athere Labs and, at last report, they had raised almost $83,000 out of a needed $100,000 to create two pairs of new smartglasses. They are the Athere One and the company’s “Developer Kit.” Both should be out later this year.

AllThingsD is no more. It’s truly the end of an era. The iconic tech news site is no more. Tech guru Walt Mossberg and journalist Kara Swisher move on to a new site called ReCode.net. Small Business Trends publisher Anita Campbell has more.

Green Business

This bed and breakfast is amongst America’s greenest. Kurt Kessner and Alline Anderson, owners of Milkweed Merchantile Eco Inn and Organic Cafe, have found there is a market for environmentally friendly business. Every small business owner can probably learn something from their story.

Employment & Entrepreneurship

The truth about self-employment. You may have heard about the rebounding economy. And employment is coming back as well. But that doesn’t include the one kind of employment probably most important to the health of entrepreneurship. Scott Shane has more.

Last Year’s Top Stories

Did you check out our top stories of 2013? On the eve of the new year, Anita Campbell took a moment and looked back at the stories most important to the small business community. We’d love to hear if you have any to add.

Top Trends for 2014

A checklist for startups in 2014. It’s another year and another opportunity to start a small business. Nellie Akalp gives you a checklist of what you’ll need to start your company this year.

Top franchise trends in the new year. Maybe you don’t want to start a business from scratch. That’s OK. Our franchise correspondent Joel Libava has a run down of the big franchise trends for 2014, too. Read on to learn more.

WordPress website trends for the new year. And finally if your business is online and your website uses the WordPress platform, you won’t want to miss this. It’s the top WordPress website trends you’ll need to know for the coming year. Megan Totka gives us the details.

Couple Reading News Photo Via Shutterstock

5 Comments ▼
5 Reactions
  1. Busy week as always! The Snapchat thing is what got my attention, it seems like hackers are everywhere now days.

  2. That makes me question if your online properties is really that safe. You may try to employ all the security measures you want but there are still no guarantees that it will be 100% safe. Makes me paranoid that I may lose my site sooner or later.

  3. The story about the green bed-and-breakfast stood out for me last week. It’s good to see there are people out there really bearing the environment in mind, doing something about it, and also being acknowledged and rewarded for it.

  4. Privacy? I think this word will completely disappear from dictionaries very soon. The topic is getting so hot, that it will explode.

    • Either that or there will no longer be such a thing as online privacy. It’ll merely be a mirage, a memory of how things used to be.

      Or maybe privacy will be charged at an extremely high premium in the future if it’s something that’s so difficult to maintain.