The New Year is quickly approaching.  Most people set up new goals and ideas for the New Year.  Some of those plans and goals might even include opening up a franchised business of your own.  When considering the route to take and the type of business you are looking for there are certainly things that you have to keep in mind.  Not all businesses will succeed and not all types of businesses are as successful as they may have been in the past.  So for the year 2012 which will be here before we all know it, here are some franchise rules and guidelines just for you.

Facebook is becoming increasingly important in the online social media marketing efforts by businesses hoping to capitalize on this growing wave.  Facebook lets any business create a space to interact with their fans, mix and mingle with potential customers and form a lasting and meaningful community.  Using Facebook Ads, companies can reach exactly who they are aiming for, and who they want most, with ads that target interests, age groups, and more.  Custom apps and plugins allow business Facebook users to transform their own company websites into an integrated social networking environment that blends Facebook functionality with the existing design.  No wonder so many businesses use it regularly.

It is inevitable that when you run a small business you will encounter stress at some point and time.  You have probably learned to work through it only to find that you feel even more stressed when everything is said and done.  Why do people continue to live with such stress?  If you really want to run your business smoothly and effectively, then eliminating or drastically reducing your stress may do more for you than you would care to think.  People have even admitted that stress lowers their productivity, so why not do all you can to stay away from stress?

What did we all do before the iPhone and iPad?  How could we make it through the day without our apps to keep us in check and ready to rock and roll?  It is amazing hwo quickly people have learned to depend on their technology and especially certain apps.  There is pretty much and app for everything.  Do you want to lose weight?  There’s an app for that.  Do you want to see a movie tonight?  There’s an app for that too.  There are even awesome apps that you can use for your business.  And there is no better way to take advantage of apps for your business than by using the iPad.

Today, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, best known as founder of the Netscape Web browser in the 1990s, made a statement regarding prolific rumors about a new dot-com bubble.

“”I don’t see a bubble,” Andreessen said.  ”I think people are confusing success with a bubble.  Maybe stuff is just working.”

Maybe stuff is just working, indeed.

Fourth Quarter Earnings Soar

On Tuesday, Barnes & Noble reported it sold three times the number of digital books through its website as it did physical books during the fourth fiscal quarter of 2011.

The rise in sales of digital books through the company’s website and corresponding decline in sales through its physical bookstores during the fourth quarter follows a report from February, in which B&N announced it was selling two times more ebooks than physical books. Despite the ratio of ebook sales to physcial book sales, the physical books still get the most sales volume.