For the first time, more small businesses are now advertising online than are advertising through traditional media such as newspapers, magazines, radio and cable TV, according to The Kelsey Group, a media research and consulting firm.

Results of Kelsey Group’s latest Local Commerce Monitor study, conducted with research partner ConStat Inc., are stunning. Of the small and medium size businesses surveyed, 77 percent now say they are using digital or online outlets to market their businesses while 69 percent are using traditional media. Read the full entry

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Dear Dan: Call us crazy, but my partners and I are planning to start a new business in spite of the recession. We’re short on funds, but long on enthusiasm. Are there places that offer free help to startups?  -Crazy Startup

 Dear Crazy: America’s nationwide network of Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs) – which offer free help to business owners and startups – is seeing an uptick in entrepreneurial activity. Despite the recession (and sometimes because of it), more people are moving forward to start their own ventures.

“We’re certainly still seeing individuals interested in starting businesses, and I can’t say we’re surprised,” says Christian Conroy, State Director of the Pennsylvania SBDC, a network of 18 university- and college-based centers providing help to new and existing businesses in that state.

Helping new businesses start is a hallmark of the SBDC program, which counts roughly half of its client base in the startup category. On-Site Heavy Equipment Repair in Clarence, PA is one example of a startup that forged ahead despite a dubious economy. Husband and wife team Don and Coleen Reese began their business just after the collapse of Bear Stearns in 2008. Working through the Penn State University SBDC, the Reeses received help developing a financial model and doing market research that helped them secure startup capital. Read the full entry

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When it comes to understanding FACTA Red Flags Rules — new anti-fraud legislation that will require millions of credit-granting businesses to implement identify-theft safeguards — chaos reigns.  For the third time in a year, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has delayed the effective date of FACTA requirements; now to November 1, 2009.

The problem is this: Mass confusion over what businesses are covered, with FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz now suggesting that Congress may simply have written the law too broadly. FTC delayed enforcement again in response to a loud outcry from small businesses that fear they’ll fall under FACTA’s onerous Red Flags Rule (read as: Red Tape Rule). Leibowitz wants his staff to beef up its efforts to educate businesses about compliance and provide more clarity on which businesses are covered, and what they must do to comply. Read the full entry

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