If used correctly social media can be used as one of the most effective marketing tools available.  In the old days entrepreneurs would have to drive their business the old fashioned way, through pure hustle.

I have a neighbor who was a very good networker even before social media.  In fact we can't go anywhere without him knowing at least someone.  Brian Hart owns Frame de art and has really created a nice business which grew through word of mouth.  The interesting part of Brian's booming framing company is that he is consistently selling frames in any economic environment.  His product speaks for itself and his store is gaining in popularity by the day.  He has complimented his networking skills with facebook and a few other sites he uses to stay in front of the majority of the Denver Metro Area.  This is a great example of someone working very hard to market their business through social networking.  But the key here is the hard work he puts in.

An article in the USA Today has a different take on social media.  The article points out that social media might be distracting to students.   (As if we needed an article to point this out)

Students who said they used Facebook reported grade-point averages between 3.0 and 3.5; those who don't use it said they average 3.5 to 4.0. Also, Facebook users said they studied one to five hours a week, vs. non-users' 11 hours or more.

To narrowly stereotype students might be a stretch, it can be distracting to adults as well.  I'll admit, I try to keep my facebook closed down during the day for fear it will absorb hours of my work day.

I am sure this is true for many adults.  An article in UPI.com it said, Facebook's popularity is growing most quickly among women over 55, says Inside Facebook, which tracks Facebook's growth.

There are about 1.5 million female users older than 55 on the Web site, a 550 percent increase over six months ago. By comparison, membership among people younger than 25 grew by less than 20 percent during the same period, the site says.

Facebook and Twitter although seem to be similar, I approach them very differently.  I make sure to keep my Twiiter up all day.  I make a point to find new people to add to my Twitter every day.  Twitter is not something to be worked passively.  It is certainly a useful marketing tool.  But the key here is it takes work to make it useful.

Bottom line is although social media does allow people to reach whole other nations of people they would not have had access to ten years ago, the fundamentals of business still apply.  It is important to put in the work, to execute, to focus and to stay sharp, because in today's business world if you lose any one of these it could be deadly.

Cloud computing has the potential to be so much bigger than SAAS.  It is a perfect storm for cloud computing.

As technology becomes more efficient, companies are finding they no longer need to purchase their own dedicated colocation, dedicated servers, dedicated bandwidt.  They also do not have the need to hire a full time body to support these services.

The push toward "cloud computing," so named because data and software is housed in remote data centers rather than on-site servers, is the latest consumer technology to migrate to the ranks of government. Companies such as Amazon and Salesforce, which do not typically sell services to the government, want a piece of the business.

Cloud computing is a perfect storm of Software As A Service, Utility Compute and Infrastructure As A Service.  It may have finally solved some of the incomplete messages from all three services and made one very intriguing virtual service.

Not only does the efficiency add dollars to the bottom line it is extremely great for the environment.  According to the Washington Post "Getting rid of one server is the equivalent of taking one and a half cars off the road for a year," said Aileen Black, director of federal sales for Palo Alto, Calif.-based VMware. "Imagine the impact of taking 450 servers away."

Now that is a cause to get behind.  Saving the environment and the economy??

The next question should be who might be a good candidate for this new cloud computing push.  A possible might be your local government agency.  They need to save tax payer dollars, they need to save the environment and since everything is going virtual, they will have the online business to be had.  From a vendor stand point they are a great target for all of these items just listed.

The U.S. Census Bureau is using Salesforce's cloud to manage the activities of about 100,000 partner organizations around the country. But it will store personal information gathered from citizens on its own private servers.

Another great candidate would be anyone who just took down Venture Capital.  The V.C.'s will be looking for the C.E.O. to focus on their day to day to maximize their talents, which in turn will maximize the return on investment.  The last thing anyone wants to see is a newly funded corporation looking to overspend on colocation infrastructure and support.

The pay as you go model is ideal for start ups as well as any company looking to run as lean and mean as possible.

As bad as this is going to sound, the sky is the limit for cloud computing.

So… what does 5 nines of reliability mean, anyway?  It means your unplanned downtime would only be up to 5.26 minutes per year (yes, YEAR). Here’s a quick look at what your SLA really indicates for your business.