LinkedIn Acquires New Service, Microsoft Pulls Some Support


LinkedIn Acquires New Service, Microsoft Pulls Some Support


From new acquisitions to changes in support on important business products, there are big changes afoot affecting small businesses. You don’t have time to follow them all. Don’t worry. The Small Business Trends editorial team has you covered. Here are our top small business news stories of the week.

Software & Services

LinkedIn Buys Newsle. Is LinkedIn CRM a Possibility? LinkedIn has bought Newsle. The service lets you import your contacts from both LinkedIn and Facebook and then scan for mentions of people in your network on the Web. Newsle will continue to operate as a stand-alone service, but will also be further integrated into LinkedIn’s other products.

Is Microsoft About to Stop Supporting Your Favorite Product? Earlier this year, Microsoft ended support for at least one past operating system, Windows XP. Now, Microsoft announces some additional products – including one other operating system – will reach the end of their support cycles either later this year or early in 2015.

Chekkt: A Place To Discover Business Management Software. You’ve probably encountered this problem. You are searching for a software tool. Let’s say you’re looking for project management software. You go to Google or Bing. After an hour of jumping back and forth between the search engine and a handful of websites, you’re confused. Some sites talk about time tracking. Others talk about milestones. Still others talk about collaboration suites.

Mobile & Hardware

Selling an Android Phone? Your Data May be Recoverable. If you’re thinking of selling your business smartphones because you’ve upgraded or switched to new ones, you’ll instinctively think to wipe the data first. Most phones have a simple means of restoring the devices to factory settings. But a new study finds that that’s likely not enough to completely wipe some phones clean.

Netgear Offers Storage Alternatives to the Cloud. Netgear ReadyRECOVER, a new storage platform backing up data every 15 minutes, has just been announced. But for small businesses the company may still be best known for its ReadyNAS system. It’s a box that offers data storage onsite starting as low as $200. Multiple devices can be linked to replicate copies of your business data without the need for cloud storage.

Online Marketing

Google Improves AdWords Express Program. Three years ago this month, Google introduced a streamlined version of its famous AdWords advertising program. Called AdWords Express, the advertising program made it easier for small businesses unfamiliar with pay-per-click advertising to get started. AdWords Express also cuts down on the time commitment with running AdWords campaigns.

Hacking of Google Maps May Have Killed This Business. Technology is a wonderful tool to boost our businesses…until it isn’t. In the wrong hands, something as innocuous as a listing on Google Maps can cause irreparable damage to small businesses.

Video Ad Service TubeMogul Hopes to Raise $93.4 Million with IPO. With news that video will account for 79 percent of online traffic by 2018, it’s clear the format is heating up. The question is how businesses and marketers can effectively target this huge audience in the coming years. And one solution is online video advertising. TubeMogul is among the platforms allowing businesses to buy video ad space in multiple formats globally.

T-Shirt Company Acts Fast, Catches Trend of King James’ Return. Early Friday afternoon, news broke that NBA superstar LeBron James was leaving the Miami Heat after four years and returning to his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers. We won’t turn this into a basketball article by any stretch, but to set the tone remember the history.

Training & Education

When Teen Entrepreneurs Go to Summer Camp. It’s summertime, which means that school is out and many young people are off to camp. But for those dedicated to a career starting or running a small business, even summertime can be a time to learn more. For those young people, there’s the Teen Entrepreneur Academy.

New Online Marketing Courses Showcased At Lynda.com. Small business owners are dedicating more time in a week to marketing than ever before. But a lot of that time is likely lost to learning how best to market their businesses and learning the skills to do the job right. It was to meet this need that Lynda.com recently launched its Marketing channel. The site already has dozens of training and tutorial videos dedicated to online marketing.

Social Media

Twitter’s Strategy To Dominate Mobile Advertising Now Includes TapCommerce. TapCommerce is a venture-backed mobile technology company headquartered in New York City’s Union Square – and it is also now in Twitter’s nest. Twitter has reportedly acquired the mobile advertising technology firm for $100 million to position itself to boost its mobile advertising capabilities, with a focus on advertising retargeting technologies.

Facebook Manipulation Experiment Stirs Twitter Frenzy. There are a few things I understand about media, after being an active member of it for the past 20+ years: It can only thrive because it understands it’s users. Everything it does is based on what it knows about its users. It’s constantly gathering insights, trends and habits about its users.

Reactions Mixed On Google Dropping Photos From Authorship. No one can ignore the importance of Google in our search and marketing, or how we show up when someone is trying to find us, something we write about, or specific content they are interested in.

Startup

Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends: Lessons Learned Building an Online Publication From a Blog. If you are reading this you already know how important Small Business Trends is in providing expert small business advice, while helping us all keep up with the latest news and developments. But some may not be aware that Anita Campbell started Small Business Trends as a personal blog using Blogger in 2003 to help her share expertise with her small business clients.

Making a Business Out of Juggling and Funny Faces. Can you make a business out of juggling and funny faces? David Beach has for years. Beach originally became interested in the entertainment business when he appeared in a play back in elementary school. Since then, it’s been his goal to make a living as a film and TV actor.

E-Viable Offers Analysis For Business Startups. Look at the serene room above. This is where the nine employees at 4-month-old startup E-Viable.com go to chill out and clear their heads. For more on why they need all the relaxation – read on in this weekly Small Biz Spotlight!

Policy

House Wants to Ban Tax on Internet Access. The U.S. House of Representatives wants to ban tax on Internet access at the state and local level. And they took the first step toward doing so this week. Moratoriums on state and local tax for Internet hookup first imposed in 1998 and extended since then are made permanent under the Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act. The bill was passed by the House in a voice vote.

Mobile business tablet via Shutterstock


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  1. Thanks for the round-up. The one that really stood out for me was the post about David Beach. As an artist myself, the fact that he’s able to make a living from what he does is inspiring.

  2. For me, what stood out are the social media news – Facebook manipulation and Google authorship suddenly getting removes is like saying that our lives are now controlled by these companies.

    • Ah, the Facebook one stood out for me too, Aira, but I learnt of that news a few weeks’ ago. It does make me wonder if other social networking platforms are doing questionable things we’re unaware of. I hope not, but I won’t be entirely surprised if so.