The question is whether it will be a game changer?

Google has officially launched its Apps marketplace this week. These are third party applications progammed to integrate with everything else you or your company has sitting on the Google cloud (i.e. Gmail, Google calendar, Docs&Spreadsheets, etc.).

The Good

These apps are built to seamlessly integrate with other Google offerings (like Gmail, for example). Ideally you can do all your work in one universe with one password. How handy!

The Bad

These apps are built to seamlessly integrate with other Google offerings (like Gmail, for example). So, what happens to your business when Google has another one of their day-long or even 3 hour outages?

The Ugly

These apps are built to seamlessly integrate with other Google offerings (like Gmail, for example). As the video below demonstrates, it is as easy as pie to set up an app on your network. Step one: give the third party app maker carte blanche access to all your Google accounts (that’s Gmail, the calendar, files, etc.) so that it can do all that promised seamless integration.

((insert the souind of a car screeching to a halt))

The idea is to hand over the keys to your data kingdom to a thirdy party company (two college drop-outs working out of their parent’s basement).

What about network security?

What about compliance?

If someone isn’t already doing it, how long will it be before all the bottomfeeders who create elaborate phishing schemes and DNS attacks think to create apps just to get access to company information?

The stereotype startup guy or gal is a high energy, always schmoozing, hard pitching and hand-shaking go-getter. But since 50 percent of the population are identified by psychological studies as introverts, that stereotype might need some examining.

But most people believe there’s some sort of stigma about being an introvert, according to Nancy Ancowitz, author of Self Promotion for Introverts and blogger for Psychology Today. Ancowitz is a self-proclaimed introvert with a history in both large companies and her own enterprises. Many introverts, she says, “make great entrepreneurs.” Introvert stereotypes include being more considered, looking inward for approval and guidance, and researching problems looking for perfect answers. These same characteristics can make great business leaders.

What advice can help the introvert succeed in a startup? Ancowitz says “When selling as an introvert, use your abilities as a good researcher to really know audience, know what matters to them, and figure out a product match before you go in. You’ll be meeting with people, so rest up before social interactions with those you are selling to or speaking in front of. Prepare and practice because as an introvert you will think before you speak - as opposed to extroverts who speak as they think. So having a few lines ready, or thoughts composed in advance will be beneficial. Rest, prepare and practice is the magic formula because of the way introverts are wired.”

That seems to work for Adelaide Lancaster, co-founder of In Good Company Workplaces, a community and workspace for women entrepreneurs in NYC that provides events, consulting, shared desks and meeting rooms. As a graduate student in a psychology program, Lancaster found out she was an introvert. In 2003 she formed a consulting practice helping women in professional transition. It was research and data driven. “As an introvert it was more comfortable being a resource instead of being in an interpersonal mode all the time. Now I’m in business now with an off-the-charts extrovert. Our focus is on entrepreneurs, and our consulting led into creating the workspace.”

Lancaster gave me a tip for startup introverts. “While putting your business model in place, feedback is a critical component, but introverts may close themselves off to that - it might not occur to them to ask others for advice. They need opinions and iteration.” Lancaster didn’t talk to lots and lots of people, but she strategically chose 5 people to check in with and get advice from. She also notes “There’s an opportunity cost if you’re not connected to other business owners - if you over-emphasize research it can prevent you from finding easy solutions to your problems right, in your business network.” Lancaster uses Twitter and LinkedIn groups to connect with business resources and share tips.

This connects well with Ancowitz’s advice to “Get known as an expert, and build deep and meaningful relationships. Introverts do well with deep relationships and conversations rather than chit-chat. Be generous in introducing people to each other as well. Then it’s easier for you to ask for introductions from your good contacts.” She also notes “if you’re an introvert there may be activities you’ll like more than others, like writing or speaking to one person at a time. There are many ways to market with quiet activities like blogging, using Twitter, writing for newsletters, and doing guest columns that can help you promote yourself.”

Any introverts out there? Share your tips and tricks in the comments below.

(Disclosure: I am quoted in Ancowitz’s book as an expert and an NYU colleague. We both teach at NYU SCPS, but I did not hire her or have a business relationship with her. I report on the book not because of my quotes in it, but because it’s an important guide for those who may have trouble promoting themselves, and that’s why I agreed to be interviewed.)

Happy Birthday Craigslist. The schlubby classified ad site, which managed to blow up the newspaper business by behaving decidedly unbusinesslike, was founded nearly 15 years ago, according to a blog post from the site’s eponymous founder Craig Newmark. He digs up what he calls “the earliest archaeological find” from the site’s early days. It’s a message directing users of the Well, an early social network, to Newmark’s new home page. “My focus, on this page, is on events around San Francisco that involve arts and technology, privacy rights, local writers and artists, and any other item that strikes my fancy,” he wrote. “The approach is as minimalist as I could make.” PSFK, which flags the post, puts it in perspective, “From that simple start, today the site serves over twenty billion page views per month, putting it in 37th place overall among web sites worldwide and 11th place overall among web sites in the United States.”

When is it okay to check your cellphone? If you’re having dinner with your spouse and your phone buzzes with a text, do you reach for it? If you reach for it, do you text back? In Farhad Manjoo’s house, that would be verboten (at least not without asking permission). In fact, one shouldn’t text at all when having a face-to-face conversation, according to Slate’s attempt to set the ground rules for cell phone use. On Twitter last week, young technophiles like the New York Times’s Nick Bilton argued the opposite. When Bilton’s lunching with his boss he leaves his phone alone, but around other tech-savvy people his own age, he texts without compunction. We’re hoping the bit about his wife texting him to get his attention during dinner was a joke.

Google begins selling business software. Apple’s iPhone App Store has created a billion dollar opportunity for small businesses that develop applications and games for the popular gadget. Now Google is trying to pull off the same trick for business software, which could be great news for business-to-business companies in need of customers. TechCrunch reports on the release of the Google Apps Marketplace, which allows companies to sell web-based business software that integrates with programs like Gmail and Google Docs. The app strategy will undoubtedly improve Google’s already impressive (and free) software offering. But it could also be an opportunity for entrepreneurs. “For…small startup developers, it means instant access to more users than they can likely imagine,” TechCrunch writes. “It also potentially means something more important: money.”

How to handle employee turnover. Entrepreneur turned venture capitalist Mark Suster posted on his blog, Both Sides of the Table, about how the difficulty of moving from one job to the next. On A VC, Fred Wilson responds by breaking down the issue from every side: the employee, the current employer, and the future employer. One recommendation: If a key employee leaves suddenly, it’s worth exercising some patience before bringing an outsider onboard. In that scenario, a “battlefield promotion” might be the best option.

Charting the Facebook economy. We’ve written in the past about the dangers of building your business on someone else’s platform. But many companies, undeterred by that risk–and attracted by the prospect of hundreds of millions of potential customers–have built business models that rely heavily on Facebook. The Guardian takes a stab at estimating the size of the Facebook economy, figuring that among a slew of companies such as Playfish, Zynga, and Plancast, the social network’s broader economy is easily worth several billion dollars. The article asks “whether [Facebook is] a viable ecosystem, a bubble or a house of cards.”

How to simplify your phone system. Can’t get an invitation to Google Voice, the free service that transcribes voicemails and rings multiple numbers? (Read more about Google Voice here.) A start-up called Phonebooth.com is attempting to pick up the slack, Mashable reports. The website is now offering Phonebooth OnDemand, which is a full-featured phone service that will set you back $20 a month per user. The no-cost version, which is called Phonebooth Free and is aimed at small businesses, will give you a local number with up to five extensions, call-forwarding to multiple sources, and voicemail with transcription.

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CNN just published an article on a prototype that is being developed in London that could forever change the way we drive and consume resources. Volvo is working with Imperial College scientists to develop a car that would use composite materials to act as its own battery. Aside from the enormous cost savings for consumers, this would also help to reduce carbon footprints and natural resource consumption.

This is not the first attempt that has been made in this area. In 2008, the Paris Motor Show unveiled “The Eclectic,” a self-powered electric car that had been designed by French carmaker Venturi.

It does not look like a bastion of safety.

Curt’s company has software that helps the accidental project manager.

A Loan Extension: Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, called last week’s loan extension “a good first step.”‘>

The clock is ticking if you want to apply for bank loan with a Small Business Administration guarantee.

The incentive program – consisting of a 90 percent government guarantee on the SBA’s flagship 7(a) loans for start-ups and small businesses, as well as a trim or total cut of the fees on 7(a) and 504 loans – was set to expire February 28. President Barack Obama signed an extension through March 28 into law last week.

Though Obama has proposed keeping the loan breaks through the end of the year, it’s best not to wait another minute to apply – the deal runs out when the funding does. If that’s not enough to get you moving, consider that the program has proved so popular that the agency has twice run out of money to supply it, first in November and then – despite Congress’s last-minute infusion of cash in December – on February 22. So with the $60 million last week’s legislation handed the SBA, the agency today starts working through a waiting list of the 652 loans totalling some $231 million that piled up after February 22. Before the Senate passed the bill, Senator Mary Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana, spoke of a small-business owner on the waiting list who told the senator she’d have to lay off 27 workers if she did not obtain new financing.

Money for the original program – which helped to lend $22 billion to some 55,000 small businesses – was included in last year’s economic stimulus bill. The 90 percent guarantee – up from the usual 75 percent – made the loans less risky for lenders, while also attracting borrowers through lower fees.

SBA Administrator Karen Mills said the program led average weekly loan approvals to leap by 87 percent compared to the weekly average before the passage of last year’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The SBA estimates the new funding will support $1.8 billion in small business lending. 

Got a non-Recovery Act 7(a) or 504 loan and wondering about cancelling or resubmitting to take advantage of better terms? No can do. Nor can you have the fees waived retroactively. 

The extension doesn’t affect other SBA Recovery Act programs, including the America’s Recovery Capital Loan Program, which offers up to $35,000 in short-term relief to help small businesses ride out the recession. The ARC currently still has money, and will hand it out until it runs out or September 30, whichever comes first.

Landrieu, the chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, said after last week’s bill was passed that the extension “is a good first step to providing our small businesses with the tools they need to keep their doors open and growing.”

“I look forward to working my colleagues in the Senate to ensure these programs receive a longer extension,” she said.

Today, Vook released a multimedia version of Seth Godin’s Unleashing the Ideavirus, which was originally published online ten years ago. I’ve been reading a lot about mixed media books designed for tablets and e-readers, so I thought I’d check out the new take on Godin’s book, which Vook is calling Unleashing the SUPER Ideavirus.

The e-book, which costs just 99 cents for an online version or iPhone app, has a uncluttered, crisp design. You can choose to view it as text only, video only, or a mix of both text and video. Each section features text and accompanying videos. For example, the section about the decline of “interruption marketing” includes a video case study about the Little Miss Matched sock company. Some of the terms in the text are linked, so you can click on GeoCities, for example, to read about the company on Wikipedia. Of course, there are pictures and plenty of graphs that help illustrate Godin’s ideas. Another cool feature of the vook is the ability to click on the “connect” view to comment on the book on Facebook or Twitter or go to Godin’s website and blog.

It might take a while to adjust to toggling back and forth between the videos and text, especially if you’re viewing the vook on your iPhone. But the concept makes a lot of sense now that more and more books are being read on tablets and e-readers. In particular, the multimedia approach works well for instructional books such as Godin’s. I think I’d rather read my Jane Austen the old fashioned way, though.

Hey internet entrepreneurs, celebrities are encroaching on your market. Thanks to flexible technology and an abundance of developers, web start-ups are practically the new must-have accessory for Hollywood types, reports Business Insider. Check out their list of the 10 companies to watch. There are the A-listers like Ashton Kutcher’s Katalyst Media and Will Ferrell’s FunnyOrDie. But did you know that Ludacris and Will.i.am have social networks? Or that Peter Gabriel came up with a Pandora-killer and Kim Kardashian launched the Netflix of footwear?

Big numbers from Tumblr. We’ve periodically sung the praises of blogging start-up Tumblr, which boasts slick technology and an entrepreneurial prodigy of a founder. Today, via Mashable, Tumblr announced some serious traffic growth: 1 billion pageviews and 15,000 new users joining everyday. Meanwhile, Mashable reports that Tumblr, which has operated thus far without a business model, “plans to launch a two revenue generating features next month.”

Advice for first time CEOs. Bijan Sabet deals with a lot of neophytes but he doesn’t mind (via peHUB). “In consumer Internet companies, first time CEOs are the norm - perhaps even encouraged and preferred,” says the general partner at Spark Capital. He has two nuggets of advice for greenhorn CEOs: 1) Share bad news with your board and investors early and 2) always be planning for contingencies. “The ‘what if’ exercise is incredibly valuable and tells me that a CEO is thinking extremely strategically and not afraid to admit that things sometimes do take longer.”

Another acquisition for giant vacation rental company. When HomeAway raised an astounding $250 million in a single venture funding round back in 2008, CEO Brian Sharples told Inc.: “There are going to be some great opportunities [for acquisitions] the next couple of years.” Now, TechCrunch reports that HomeAway has bought the publisher of AlugueTemporada.com.br, Brazil’s best known vacation rental site. This is at least the third acquisition the company has made since its last funding round and the first outside of North America and Europe.

How not to kill your start-up. ReadWriteWeb has put together a list of core principles entrepreneurs should internalize in order to keep their start-ups from biting the big one. One thing the post says to dodge is the tendency to become caught up in the allure of modern technology. “Consider other sources of competitive power than just technological sophistication, such as superior customer experience or service, exclusive distribution partnerships, or other market-based advantages.” The most provocative, and perhaps, pertinent piece of advice? “Remember that sometimes start-ups need to be killed, for their own good — or yours, at least.”

Apps for TV have yet to catch on It is estimated that by the end of 2010, Americans will own more than two million Web-connected TVs. And in 2009, Yahoo! announced that Samsung, Sony, LG, and Vizio televisions would come with its Connected TV software, which is open to all developers. However, unlike the Apple App store, which had more than 3,000 programs just two months after its debut and more than 140,000 by 2010, apps for TV haven’t taken off. Only 35 full-featured apps are available on the Yahoo! service. BusinessWeek reports one reason apps for TV have yet to take off is that the approval process for television apps is more difficult than for their online counterparts. After Yahoo! approves the App, each individual TV maker must also approve the app. Some TVs cannot run certain types of code, and TV makers are reluctant to take on the risk of being blamed for an app that disappoints.

Selling your business? A lawyer can help. Over at the New York Times’ You’re the Boss blog, lawyer Harry Styron offers pointers on selling a business and when to get a lawyer involved (hint: not until the decision has been made to sell, ideally not out of necessity). Especially for family run businesses, Styron says, “if the decision to sell is a result of a key family member having died or become ill or if the prospect of selling the business means some family member is going to lose a good job or a good income, the decision to sell was made too late.” Now all you need to know is whether your lawyer should specialize in entrepreneurship.

How to cope with changes at the workplace. From budget cuts, to massive layoffs, to new management techniques, there are plenty of reasons why changes at the office can stress out employees. A recent survey conducted by Right Management, a career management consulting firm, shows that 31 percent of employees have trouble adapting to changes in the workplace, Boston.com reports. The Boston.com team has also come up with five tips on how to deal with change in the workplace, which include taking time to get to know a new boss in order to develop a good working relationship, staying on top of the latest skills that employers expect when seeking out job candidates in your field, and having an open flow of communication with your manager if you feel too bogged down by your workload.

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This week, Olmstead Williams Communications, a public relations agency in Los Angeles, launched a new division that charges a flat monthly fee for a full range of PR services.

PRTechConnect is geared toward tech start-ups with limited marketing and PR budgets. The News Release Package, which costs $999 a month, includes services such as the creation and maintenance of a master list of media contacts, customized news release templates with tips for making announcements stand-out, targeted media pitching for 20 news release per year, and basic wire service distribution to Google News, Internet search engines, and RSS feeds. Companies must commit to at least three months; a $1,500 set-up fee will be waived if you commit to six months.

A pricier Industry Expert Package, which costs $1,999 a month, includes extras such as filtered email delivery of journalist queries, custom pitches, and follow ups with reporters. There is a minimum three-month commitment; a $500 set-up fee is waived if you commit to six months. If you decide you need additional services, the firm will bill at regular hourly rates.

Last week I had the honor of interviewing International Media Specialist, Sally Shields. Sally was incredibly generous with her “insider publicity secrets” to becoming a bestselling author and I have her permission to share them here. This is only a small portion of what Sally shared on the Million $ Mindset shows so if you missed it this week, make sure to download the podcast. Sally’s advice is great for any kind of publicity – even if you’re not an author!

Q: Sally, what is the #1 secret for authors to gain PR on television, newspapers, on-line publications and magazines?

A: Be timely, and have a great Hook! Here are two examples of how I got booked by being timely:
First I was quoted in MomLogic.com, which is an offshoot of AOL Living, with this pitch during the presidential primaries:

Joe Biden’s Mother-in-Law Dies
How to Make Peace with Your Mother-in-Law, Before it’s Too Late!

I also got booked on nationally syndicated, The Daily Buzz with this one:
October 26th is Mother-in-Law Day
How To Turn Your Mother-in-Law From Your Biggest Critic into Your #1 Fan in 3 Simple Steps!

And, (Marla’s personal favorite) I got booked on Fox & Friends with this tweaked pitch:
Barack Obama’s Mother-in-Law to Move into White House
How to Create a Lifetime of Peace With Your In-Laws!

Q: Many people would benefit from having a celebrity endorse their book. How does one go about doing that?

A: The key is to make it as easy as possible for them to reply. Your request should include the following:

- Cover letter
- Copy of your book
- Self-addressed-stamped envelope
- Sample testimonials that they can use as a template
- Table of Contents, chapter titles and a sample chapter

Getting a good endorsement or testimonial can take time, but if you do not hear back from them in two or three weeks send a follow-up letter or email.

To find contact information for many celebrities’ representatives, visit www.whorepresents.com or www.contactanycelebrity.com . www.CelebrityBlurbs.com will tell you the key agents or PR people you need to get in touch with to contact any celebrity. It’s just $1 for a seven day trial.

Also, do not discount the value of endorsements from your fellow authors! The endorser does not have to be known in order to make a tremendous impact. The fact that they are an author in and of itself carries great weight.

Q: How about Bloggers? Can you give us an example of how you can get others to build a buzz about your book? What‘s in it for them, and why would they do this?

A: Bloggers need material all the time. Offer to provide them with a prepared Q&A, or a short article about your topic or area of expertise. Offer your book as a giveaway, either a real book or an eBook version. During holiday time, I got about 40-50 bloggers posting my book on their site. How do you find these bloggers? Simple - pick a keyword that applies to your topic. For example, I googled, “Wedding Blogs” and got a list of over 50 million blogs. GASP! Of course, you might want to stick with the top ones with the highest traffic count. You can check a blog’s popularity by going to Alexa.com and checking its ratings.