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

Google's mobile ads let consumers click a phone number and immediately call an advertiser. You'd be surprised who's using it. A year ago, the Google ads team launched a new feature for mobile phones called Click-to-Call, which, as its name would suggest, lets advertisers include a phone number in their ad that users can click to place a call.

Se Ri Pak has reason to feel comfortable going into this week's Avnet LPGA Classic at Magnolia Grove's Crossings Course.

It's a speech we've heard time and time again: A corporate CEO or entrepreneur will take the stage and proclaim "Our greatest asset is not in our inventory or our sales or our products—but in our people." True, but times have changed. In order to fully realize—and leverage—an employee's full value, a successful company needs to find creative ways to tap into its employees' networks (both online and offline).

For small business owners , choosing which vehicles you will drive or which cars to add to your commercial fleet can be tricky. On the one hand, you want cars that are comfortable and can accomadate the long hours your sales staff may spend in them, for example

You give a clean, mean, 30-second elevator pitch. Then what

Many business executives have not found sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Myspace, and Linkedin useful in making money.

1. What disruptive forces threaten our business? Every business faces external forces that are disruptive or threatening to success or, even, viability

"What our clients are struggling with is: How big a deal are social media and location-based services, and how much of it is just sound and fury?" says a senior VP of Applied Predictive Technologies, which runs data analytics for Starbucks and Subway. "You've got your Groupon and Living Social , and your Foursquare and Facebook Places," says Jonathan Marek. "What our clients are struggling with is: How big a deal are social media and location-based services, and how much of it is just sound and fury?" That's the question on the mind of most every marketer and retailer--and Marek might finally have an answer

Job hunting can be a bit easier when someone else is helping out. Temp agencies and staffing services have shown an 18 percent year-over-year growth rate, according to AnythingResearch.com.

Start-ups and small businesses are always looking for ways to sell what they have more effectively. SalesSpider CEO Russell Rothstein knows this, and created a small business social network for early stage and growth companies. SalesSpider is the largest networks of its kind, with over 750,000 members, and a growth rate of 20 to 30,000 users a month

Prospecting, Sales, Marketing – oh my! It can all feel quite overwhelming and frustrating at times, can’t it? Recently, I spoke with an acquaintance who has been in the job market for over a year. I noticed a pattern in John’s marketing of himself that I’ve seen in many business owners as well.

THE PROBLEM In our September 2010 issue , we wrote about Capterra , an online directory of business software vendors. Company co-founders Michael Ortner and Rakesh Chilakapati faced a dilemma: whether to include reviews of their vendors' software on their website. Users of Capterra's online directory were clamoring for reviews to help them assess the software products listed.

On the whole , Inc. 500|5000 CEOs are upbeat. More than 80 percent reported that their businesses are in strong or very strong shape and are poised to grow in the months ahead.

WHAT'S HOT, WHAT'S NOT Sales increase for fitness and sports centers, the small-business sector with the strongest growth from 2009 to 2010: +13.62% Sales decrease for car washes, the small-business sector with the weakest growth from 2009 to 2010: -12.18% Sageworks TRENDS Among people who text, the average number of text messages sent per month: Men: 555 Women: 716 The Nielsen Company State of the Media 2010 THE WORKPLACE Area, in square feet, of workspace lost by the average office worker from 1994 to 2010: 15 International Facility Management Association HIRING The portion of small businesses hiring in 2010 that said they added fewer workers than they needed: 42% Reasons for hiring: Replace an employee who left: 41% Support growth or expansion plans: 21% Some other reason: 18% Don't know: 1% Revenue or sales has increased: 13% Economy is getting better: 5% Tax credit for hiring unemployed workers: 1% Wells Fargo/Gallup TAXES Lowest and highest overall tax burdens for entrepreneurs: South Dakota: 1st New Jersey: 50th Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council REALITY CHECK Retail price, per gallon, of black ink in the average printer ink cartridge: $4,371 PC World THE ECONOMY Increase in the sales of trucks and cargo vans—considered a useful indicator of small-business activity—in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared with a year earlier: 24% Edmunds.com

Charging sales tax on Internet purchases can be a messy, nebulous issue. Case in point: You can buy the latest Stieg Larsson novel on Amazon.com without paying any tax. But order the same book from Barnes & Noble’s website, and you'll still pay the 9.5 percent tax you would have paid at a store location in San Francisco, because any company with brick-and-mortar operations in California must collect sales tax online.