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.

George Clooney’s character in Up in the Air didn’t want his days on the road to end, and despite complaining about the hassles of business travel, most women secretly feel the same way. (And not because they might meet Clooney.)

Nearly three-quarters of female business travellers said they enjoyed having someone else clean up after them, in a Hilton Garden Inn telephone survey of 1,020 travellers; just 58 percent of men responded the same way. Sixty-two percent of women said they also appreciated having someone else make breakfast for them, and just over half said a perk of travel was having the bed to themselves.

The women may enjoy the travel more because they do it less: Men average 10 trips a year while women went on three trips on average. One in three Americans travelled for business at least once in the past year, and Monday is the most frequent night business travelers spent away from home.

On the road, men were more likely to miss a home-cooked meal (36 percent of men compared to 16 percent of women), while women were more likely to miss their own beds (43 percent versus 29 percent).

It’s doubtful Clooney’s co-star Vera Farmiga walked away with the Hilton bathrobe she wears in one scene, but more than two-thirds of travellers admitted to helping themselves to a lot more than an extra piece of fruit from the breakfast buffet. Among the not-exactly-complimentary items swiped: 8 percent admitted to tucking towels or bathrobes in their suitcases, 3 percent took pillows, comforters, blankets or sheets, and 2 percent took the iron, alarm clock, lamps, or artwork. One percent of travellers owned up to breaking one of the 10 commandments to walk off with – wait for it – the Bible.

The survey also culled advice from experienced business travellers for first-timers on the road.

The top tip: Nearly three-quarters of respondents suggested travelling the day before a morning meeting instead of trying to get up at the crack of dawn (or in the middle of the night).

Sixty-one percent suggested confirming the hotel has Wi-Fi/Internet access, and more than half (53 percent) advised setting two alarms the day of an important meeting. About half recommended making sure the hotel has a meeting space, and 35 percent said to stay at hotels that offer rewards points.

What — if anything – do you like the best about business travel? What tips would you offer first-timers? (And have you ever swiped a ”souvenir” from a hotel stay?)

Thanks to iTunes, Web radio, and sites like Pandora, more computers are doing double duty as stereos. Can these speakers do your music justice?

Bell chimes and cymbal crashes on a U2 song were loud and clear on these speakers, which have 112 watts of combined power for lots of volume. Touch-sensitive volume buttons were easy to adjust, and the casing, made from the same material as bulletproof glass, makes a bold statement. COST: $1,000

Our second choice, these speakers had less-distinct bass than the Harman Kardons, even with a separate subwoofer, but they reached a higher volume, thanks to 88 extra watts of power. On the downside, the dial on the volume controller was hard to turn. COST: $199

These speakers sync with your computer wirelessly using a USB dongle, though they connect with wires to a subwoofer that plugs into an outlet. The speakers have a peak power of 200 watts, but the sound was a bit fuzzy, perhaps because of wireless interference. COST: $199

These small speakers, which are just 2 inches tall, produce surprisingly distinct sound and feature handy touch-sensitive volume controls. But with a combined peak power of just 10 watts, they have the least oomph of the test group, and they look a bit flimsy. COST: $130

The “real” story on Facebook’s founding. On Friday, Silicon Alley Insider published the results of its two-year investigation into the controversial founding of Facebook. Among the new details to emerge is this purported IM from Mark Zuckerberg to a friend right before Facebook’s launch, in which Zuckerberg suggests that he is intentionally delaying the launch of a similar site, HarvardConnections, which he had previously agreed to work on. “I feel like the right thing to do is finish the facebook and wait until the last day before I’m supposed to have their thing ready and then be like ‘look yours isn’t as good as this so if you want to join mine you can…otherwise I can help you with yours later.’”

How to start a company when you still have a job. Over at a Smart Bear, Jason Cohen tackles the subject of bootstrapping a start-up using your salary. He recommends picking a slow growth business–you can afford this because you already have a salary–that doesn’t require you to answer emails or phone calls during normal business hours. “Remember, your immediate goal isn’t to make millions of dollars, it’s to build a business just solid enough to quit your day job,” he writes. You also have to make sure you don’t get sued by your employer. To avoid this, Cohen suggests being upfront about what you’re doing and getting a signed letter from a company representative that gives you the go-ahead to work on your business on your own time. “When it comes to company property, be paranoid,” he writes. “Assume everything you do on the Internet is recorded, cataloged, tagged, and monitored continuously by a methamphetamine-powered slave-army.” (Via Hacker News.)

How to get a better night’s sleep. Having trouble keeping your eyes open? Couldn’t wind down after all that Oscar excitement last night? You’re not alone. Seventy-five percent of Americans report having problems sleeping a few nights a week, which can lead to missed workdays, errors on the job, and even diminished job satisfaction. Web Worker Daily has some tips for better sleep in honor of National Sleep Awareness Week and we . 1. Go to sleep at the same time every night. 2. Keep your room in total darkness. 3. Don’t drink tea, coffee, or soda late in the day. 4. Avoid sugary foods later in the evening, and opt for snacks with tryptophan in them instead, like bananas, sunflower seeds, or low-fat yogurt. Lastly, experiment with a little white noise.

A plea to abandon ad blocking. As more businesses grow increasingly dependent on a solid Web presence for survival, tech-related news site Ars Technica writes that there’s one menace threatening to snatch away the crutch: ad blocking. After observing over a period of time that a substantial amount of users were using software to block the site’s advertisements, founder Ken Fisher decided to explain to readers exactly how and why ad blocking can hurt your favorite websites. “If you have an ad blocker running, and you load 10 pages on the site, you consume resources from us — bandwidth being only one of them — but provide us with no revenue,” the post says. Fisher, who goes on to compare ad blocking to “running a restaurant where 40 percent of the people who came and ate didn’t pay,” also detailed a 12-hour experiment to make content disappear for visitors using a specific ad blocking program, which was met with mixed results. While it was a technical success, Fisher says he found out that most ad blockers were not doing so with ill intent, which raises an important question for business owners and developers alike: Is it ethical to block content for users who block your ads?

Apple nixes “cookie cutter” apps. In its latest crackdown on the appsphere, Apple is reaching out to companies that build apps from a single template, writes TechCrunch. Apple isn’t opposed to these app generators categorically, but just wants to weed out apps that are little more than RSS feeds. Still reaching out to companies individually and suggesting that they add more features seems like unproductive micromanagement to us. See these 15 CEOs on their ways to be more productive and check out the best iPhone apps for business.

Pandora’s potential IPO. In the past we’ve written about Pandora’s near-death experience, and how it was saved by it’s loyal user base. Now the Internet radio start-up that got 347 no’s before it landed it’s second round of funding is being wooed by a slew of investors, writes The New York Times. The company’s success in the mobile sphere has piqued VC interest and though it says it is focusing on growth rather than going public, it hired a new CFO Steve Cakebread who held the same position at Salesforce.com when it went public.

Wi-Fi phones for China. China Unicom, one of three Chinese state-owned telecommunications carriers, is working with Apple to introduce iPhones with Wi-Fi capability to China, the Wall Street Journal reports. Up to now, government regulations have forced the companies to disable Wi-Fi capability in the iPhone, which makes the phone less attractive than fully functional iPhones that are resold in China from other markets.

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After surviving the bust at the end of the ’90s, online retail has done quite well in the first decade of the new millennium. From being just 0.6 percent of all retail in early 2000,online commerce has now grown to account for nearly 4 percent of all retail in the United States. In this article, we review some technology trends that are likely to further accelerate this trend. Our focus will be around looking at technologies that help consumers find the right product easily as well as help retailers put the right merchandise in front of customers.

While most of these technologies trends apply to a wide spectrum of applications, their impact on online commerce deserves a special mention. Many of these technologies have been around for a while, but it’s only now that they are gaining wide adoption.

Semantic Web and structured data

The semantic Web and structured data will make product search dramatically better. Last year, Google made two subtle announcements that have the potential of completely transforming how users search for products.  The first affected Google’s organic (or unpaid) results, when the company launched what it called rich snippets, using microformats and Resource Description Frameworka (RDFa) standards. Google was late to the game, as Yahoo had already announced similar support a year ago. The second change applied to Adwords, Google’s paid search program, when the search engine started listing richer product listing ads from retail advertisers, displaying an image of the product, the price, and many other attributes. These ads will be priced on a “cost per action” basis, as opposed to the standard “cost per click” model that’s offered for all other Adwords advertisers.

It is interesting that Google’s rich snippets were first rolled out only for 2 applications, one of which is closely related to online commerce:

• Providing a summary of reviews, when searching for products or services.• Distinguishing between people with similar names, when searching for a person.  Similarly, Google’s CPA program was also rolled out only for product searches.

Search-engines are already a very important tool for online shoppers, and a Nielsen study had found that more than one third of shoppers use search engines. Richer snippets and richer ads will make search engines even more important to shoppers, and consequently to retailers. According to Yahoo, “enhanced search results” drive 15 percent more clickthroughs for many websites.  With results like that, it’s no wonder that adoption is picking up among websites. In the same blog post, Yahoo reported an increase of more than 400% in the RDFs structured data driven by Search Monkey. Best Buy recently released their entire product catalog in RDFa, perhaps becoming the first Fortune-500 company to join this trend, and has reportedly seen strong results.

Recommendations and personalization engines

Recommendations and personalization engines are now available as plug and play components. Outside of search, one of the most important ways for shoppers to discover products has been through recommendation engines. Personalization and recommendation engines have been around for a while and have been a strong driver of sales. For example, Amazon’s recommendation system was said to account for up to 35 percent of sales in 2006. Recently, the adoption of recommendation engines has increased substantially because of the emergence of third party services that are easy to plug into your ecommerce store. For instance Urban Outfitters has seen a triple digit percentage increase in sale by using a solution offered by Baynote. Other companies like Mybuys and Certona also deliver hosted solutions for personalization.

Creating application programming interfaces (APIs)

Creating APIs that distribute products across the Web is easier. Over the last few years, the Web is increasingly becoming a collection of Web services that can be accessed through APIs. Retailers like Ebay and Amazon have for a long time used APIs to expose their data to the external world, primarily to affiliates and partners who then sell these products at other places on the Web. Now many traditional retailers are jumping into the fray, utilizing services that make it easier to create and manage APIs.  For instance, Best Buy recently launched Best Buy Remix powered by API management infrastructure from Mashery.

In addition to these, in one of my previous columns I had written about how the real time Web is becoming an increasingly important tool, and how companies like Dell are using it to increase their online retail sales.

The increasing adoption of these technologies sets up online commerce for an exciting new decade, for shoppers as well as for retailers.

Vijay Chittoor is a co-founder of Six Times Seven. He was previously director of product management at Kosmix. A former McKinsey consultant, Chittoor is a graduate of Harvard Business School and the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.  He shares his thoughts on technology at his blog.

As applications for the 2010 Inc. 500 | 5000 arrive, we thought it would be worthwhile to shine a spotlight on some of the companies that are vying to appear on our ranking of the fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. (For more information and to apply, go to http://www.inc.com/inc5000apply/2010/.) One that caught our eye was Seattle-based Twenty20.The front tire of the motorcycle tilts at an impossible angle on the ice as it pulls through a turn and toward an opponent who is blowing a stream of snow powder behind him. You watch in horror as the man ahead suddenly swerves to the ice and out of the video frame, only to appear smiling and waving from a stretcher in the next shot. This is just one of many moments in Motorcycle Ice Racing that was made recordable by co-founders Marc Barros and Jason Green’s wearable camcorder business, Twenty20. The company makes two versions of a tube-shaped, high-definition camcorder called the ContourHD that can be attached to helmets, goggles, handle bars, or cars to capture adventure sports from the perspective of the participants. “There’s been everything from paintballing to cooking,” Barros says. “Anything where you have your hands on the wheel, on the pole, or on the gun, and you want to record video.”

Almost 50,000 cameras were sold in more than 50 countries last year, and more than 25,000 videos have been uploaded to the Twenty20 site. But Barros and Green didn’t imagine they would have such success when they began Twenty20 as students at the University of Washington. At the time, they simply liked to ski and wanted to show their friends what they were doing. They won their start-up capital in a business plan competition. “We got third place, and the prize was 20 grand, so it was either a keg party or a company, and we decided company,” Barros says. From there, they cold-called a designer who they eventually convinced to create a hands-free camera. The original version could be worn on a helmet, but needed to be attached with a wire to a video recorder in a backpack. Sales weren’t exactly taking off, the pair was working from a garage with no heat, and Barros’s mother asked him when he was going to get a real job.Things turned around when Twenty20 launched the first wireless wearable camcorder in January 2008, which made it possible for adventurers to film hands-free with the flip of one button and to easily share their video on the company’s website. In 2009, the company released two HD versions of the product and received a tremendous response that facilitated the growth of the company to 25 employees. Revenue tripled within a single year, and the days of working in a cold garage and living off of PBJ seemed further away than ever.”The company took off like a rocket ship,” Barros says.

So you’ve purchased Windows 7, Microsoft’s latest and greatest operating system, and found it to be fast, stable and full of features to support your small to mid-sized business.

Critics agree the Redmond, Wash. software giant have their mojo back, after delivering the much-maligned Windows Vista a few years back.

To get even more out of the leaner and meaner Windows 7 for your growing business, here we provide a handful of productivity-enhancing tips and tricks — with some help from the experts.

One-click access

Windows 7 lets you “pin” large icons to the taskbar for a one-click launch of your favorite applications or files. To do this, simply right mouse-click on a file or program icon and one of your options will be to “Pin to Taskbar.” Run your mouse over these taskbar icons and you’ll see a live preview of what’s inside as a thumbnail image — and even multiple websites open as “tabs” in your browser.

“A lot of people rave about this feature as it’s a fast and easy way to manage and access documents and other files you need,” says Microsoft’s Sandrine Skinner, a director within the Windows 7 small business group. “I know a manager of a personal staffing company, for example, and she uses pinning to prepare the desktop for temp workers.”

It’s a snap

You’ve got a widescreen laptop or computer monitor, so why aren’t you taking advantage of this added real estate?

Windows 7 makes it easy to do just that by letting you view multiple files or applications at the same time. Called “Snap,” simply open a couple of programs — such as Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer 8 — and then hold down the Windows key (beside Alt) before using the right or left arrow keys to snap them beside each other. You can also drag and drop content from one to the other (such as a website photo into Paint or highlighted text into Word).

Lock it up

Your employees likely carry around a laptop, netbook, or USB thumbdrive with company data on it, but what happens if the computer or drive is lost or stolen? The Enterprise and Ultimate versions of Windows 7 include “BitLocker” protection that can encrypt files or folders — preventing anyone from accessing them unless they know the password. Simply right-click on a drive letter (such as F:) in Windows Explorer to enable BitLocker protection.

“This reduces the risk in case the device goes missing, and makes up for the fact that employees, consciously or not, don’t always put data security at the top of their to do list,” says Carmi Levy, an independent technology analyst based in London, Ontario. “With the BitLocker To Go feature activated, however, nothing gets copied unless the target device is encrypted.”

Kick it old school

It’s not secret Windows Vista was plagued with software and hardware compatibility issues, therefore Microsoft made this one of the top priorities in Windows 7 — including an optional “Windows XP mode” for those businesses who need it.

“We’ve heard companies tell us ‘this software here is my bread and butter and if it’s not compatible with Windows 7 I won’t upgrade,” explains Skinner. “We listened.”

To serve and protect

No computer should ever be powered on unless it has at least some protection against malware — such as viruses, spyware, rootkits and the like — especially for computers used for business.

“While full-blown security suites from market leaders like McAfee and Symantec do a better job, the free Microsoft Security Essentials tools, along with Windows Defender and Windows Firewall, are more than adequate, and should be activated no matter what other solutions you have in place,” advises Levy.

Get outta my way

If things get too cluttered because of multiple programs open at the same time — such as a Web browser, word document, calculator, e-mail, and sticky notes — simply grab hold of the program you want to see clearly, by clicking and holding on the top bar of the window, and give your mouse a shake left and right. This will automatically minimize everything else. Do it again and it brings back all the apps that were minimized.