Home-based businesses have been steadily earning more respect from the business world for the powerhouse businesses many are building from their back bedrooms. In the past week, CityMax.com announced winners of its Homepreneur of the Year contest. These are home-based e-commerce business owners who've seen rapid growth straight through the downturn. If you need a little inspiration, here are their stories: read more...

That is not a joke headline. It blows my mind, but last year, an Ad-ology study found, 46 percent of small businesses surveyed said they did not have a website.

What are they waiting for?

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After the champagne is drunk comes the hard work of the new year--figuring out how to survive while the economy slowly, slowly, begins growing again. There's no shortage of advice out there on how to do it, but since you're short on time, I've gathered the best of it into this handy compilation.

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Why look at individual 2010 forecasts elsewhere when you can see a whole bunch of forecasts herded together and presented to you in one convenient blog, right here on the Daily Dose!

Because late December always brings with it a veritable hailstorm of forecasts, I'm organizing these by topic for easier digestion.

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Every marketing expert you've ever met has probably encouraged you to start a blog on your website to help drive traffic and get your company site good search rankings. But be warned that you'll want to watch what you say on both your own and others' sites, as new laws governing online speech took effect last week.

Why should you care if you shoot your mouth off on the internet? Because the rules of defamation and slander apply to what you write online just as they do to newspaper articles or any other form of speech, notes New York City attorney Nina Kaufman of Ask The Business Lawyer. Folks are getting sued for making up lies about people online, and they're getting hit with big fines, too.

Besides the longstanding rule--don't say things that aren't true--what are the new rules?

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I usually let Mikal Belicove handle the social-media analysis around here, since he's the expert. But at the moment he's busy on a book...and this week the interesting new free social-media tools were just raining down. So Wednesday Web Resources presents: A reputation-management tool by Marchex, the return of free online business listings at Citysearch, Google's latest local angle, and Microsoft's new online encyclopedia of people. read more...

Google filed a lawsuit Monday to try and stop companies from allegedly using the company's name and logo to promote fraudulent work-at-home money-making schemes.

"Thousands of people have been tricked into sending payment information and being charged hidden fees by questionable operations," Google said in a blog post today.

Along with several other unnamed companies, the search engine giant sued software development firm Pacific Web Works in a Utah District Court. The lawsuit cites trademark infringement and dilution, unfair competition, federal cyberpiracy and violation of consumer sales practices.
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Once again, it's Wednesday, and the Daily Dose brings to your attention a few useful online tools and ideas that may help your business. This week, it's a shopping site that brings together online browsing with offline retail inventory, a piece of free pricing analytics software, and a chance to test-drive a new visual social-media site.

Milo is a free Web site that compiles local-level retail merchandise information so you can look onilne and find what's available near your ZIP code. Sounds handy, given how many shoppers browse online before deciding to patronize a local store--a 2007 Accenture study showed 68 percent of shoppers do just that, and JupiterResearch estimates $1 trillion in purchases will be made this way by 2011.

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Google recently released a new toy: Wave--a tool for virtual collaboration in real-time. Right now Wave is still in preview, but yours truly has had a bit of time to play around with it. What's the verdict?

So far, the only thing I've seen Wave used for is chatting and discussions about what Google Wave can be used for. Lifehacker even compiled a list of the best uses for Wave. But it's apparent what Google's intentions are for this application and that is to be used for getting things done; not social networking.

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Today's edition of Wednesday Web Resources wanders about the Internet, finding mind-stimulating information to help your business succeed. These three companies' ideas touch every aspect of business operations, offering a new approach for vetting vendors, a creative way to envision your business, and new data on how to value your online social networks. read more...