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

Whether you love him , hate him , or are just a little jealous of his newly minted multi-billionaire status, you have to admit that Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook , has made some visionary leadership moves. In less than 10 years, Zuckerberg’s taken an idea for an online social network from his Harvard dorm room and delivered it into the homes, offices, pockets, and purses (via mobile phones) of 845 million users around the world. Last year, more than half of Facebook’s users logged in every single day, spending a whopping 4 hours and 35 minutes posting, reading updates, and “liking” more than 2 billion posts a day

Here's why your marketing team and your sales team can't get along. Hint: The sales team is probably right. The war between Sales and Marketing is both legendary and debilitating.

Last year saw the explosion of deals companies trying to duplicate the success of first-mover Groupon.

Andrew Mason dishes on both the company's big financial goof & its successful email strategy. Groupon CEO Andrew Mason has admitted that the daily-deal start-up made a "bush-league mistake" in misstating its revenues before it went public late last year

So, you've landed a huge enterprise client. Here's how to close the deal without getting stuck in a legal maelstrom over the contract. It's bound to happen.

Most small-company business development managers are newbies, even if they don't realize it. Here are six types of deals to stay away from

Breaking news from your editors at Fast Company, with updates all day. Nokia Eyes U.S. With Lumia Windows Phone .

The founder of FamiliesGo!, a travel website, describes the ins and outs of choosing the right affiliate marketing partners. I've been exploring affiliate programs this week, to compare the Amazon and Eversave programs I've been using with other affiliate programs from Google, LivingSocial, and other "daily deal" providers

The startup Womply recently brought us Groupon-like "effortless offers." Today it launches Loyalty Cloud, hoping to slice through the messy customer-loyalty market with the "simplest loyalty program ever for local merchants." Last month a new startup, Womply , launched to bring "effortless offers" schemes to local merchants--coming with an impressive pedigree because it's co-founder Brandt Squires was formerly GM and Head of Sales at LivingSocial . Just weeks later, Womply has an additional offering--Loyalty Cloud--that promises the same sort of effortless experience but for customer loyalty schemes, rather than Groupon -style "special offers." According to the new sitei, it's simplicity rests on the fact that, "Merchants create offers that reward customers for repeat visits and Womply handles everything else, from marketing and remitting offers to customers, to providing analysis and insight on the amount of revenue generated as a result." To this end, Womply's new Loyalty Cloud is trying to be a complete one-stop shop for local business loyalty schemes: Simpler even than stamping a rubber stamp on a collector card, and providing deep customer analytics that would be tricky to get any other way. It manages this by being seamless from a customer and merchant point of view, with the transaction happening "in the cloud" via "Womply's high-tech platform that enables the company to spot credit and debit card transactions at participating merchants and to push cash credits to customer payment cards." The whole thing is designed to be merchant-centric, rather than focussing on the deals or the end-user customers.

There is a lot of money riding on the daily deals phenomenon.

In the beginning, music industry watchers hailed subscription streaming services such as Spotify , MOG, Rdio, and Rhapsody as saviors of the industry, an alternative for listeners and labels to the tyranny of the 99-cent iTunes download. But artists weren't singing the same happy song.

It's going to be a wild ride on Friday when Groupon launches into the public markets. Here are three things to keep in mind as you watch the price race up and down.

These new tech tools can improve the flow of your business operations, help you attract new customers or develop new loyalty programs, and directly impact your monthly sales. You might notice something different about the sales receipt at Burgerville, a chain of 39 burger shops in the Portland area. Using a technology developed by SmartReceipt (www.receipt.com), the chain shows customized nutrition information about your specific order, news and trivia, and marketing information.

Call it a barometer of the Herman Cain brand: Calls to a slew of Godfather's franchises across the country suggest Cain's celebrity has failed to stimulate sales of Sicilian or pepperoni slices. Can Cain move voters if he can't move pizzas

Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan is is the legislative equivalent of Subway's $5 footlong campaign or Domino's 5-5-5 deal. It's sharply marketed to the fast food nation (just don't look too close at what's inside).