Philippe Matthews Show Guru Advice, Author Reviews, Tech Reviews, Entertainment News

Landlords are becoming more understanding--even baking Airbnb language right into the lease--but you've got to be honest with them. Yesterday, Brooklynite Chris Dannen told the tale of how he made $20,000 from renting his spare rooms out on accommodations marketplace Airbnb --that is, before his landlord hit him with a restraining order.

Ticketmaster, which recently merged with Live Nation, dominates the multibillion-dollar ticketing industry. But these companies are looking to steal the show

Field organizers and volunteers are being issued Jack Dorsey's Square to take credit card payments. Mobile credit processing start-up Square picked up a high-profile endorsement today–from Barack Obama. The president's re-election campaign will use the San Francisco-based company's square attachment to process credit card donations.

BizBuySell report reveals that, gradually, it's becoming a good time to be a seller. For the second year in a row, sales of small businesses crept up in 2011, according to a new report.

A study says commenters with pseudonyms leave the most high-quality comments. Quick, guess who leaves higher quality comments: those with pseudonyms, anonymous commenters, or those with real names? It's those with the aliases, according to a study from commenting platform Disqus

Chris Lindland, CEO of San Francisco-based Betabrand , has built a thriving company by designing clothing around urban trends and stereotypes. For the urban bicycle commuter, there's the Bike-to-Work pants (khaki and reflective--"from the bike to the boardroom!"). The discerning foodie can make sure his eggplants don't crush his eggs by carrying the world's first farmer's market backpack .

In just nine months, the photo sharing startup hit 150 million pix and more than 7 million users who upload about 1.3 million photos daily (15 per seond).

The number has reached 2008 levels, but the news isn't all good. Sales of small businesses with revenues of about $350,000 rose eight percent in the second quarter of 2011 over the same period last year, but the news isn’t quite as good as it sounds. Although sales of businesses have hit the highest level since the end of 2008, a lot of sales are because owners are accepting that their businesses aren’t worth what they once were

How companies like Roku boost sales with referral marketing Roku was one of the first companies to bring online movies to people's living rooms. Three years ago, the Saratoga, California-based company started selling remote-controlled devices that can stream online media content, such as Netflix movies and Pandora radio, to TV sets.

Four years ago, investors gingerly handed over seed money to Lumosity, a startup creating brain games. Today they're happily tossing the same company $32 million

Algae has been a hot topic in the clean energy community for years; it can be used to produce biofuel efficiently, with minimal water use, and without taking up arable land.