According to a recent survey by Intuit Corp., the vast majority of small businesses have not benefited from the stimulus plan—nor do they expect to.

Everyone is in customer service. All of us have the responsibility to help customers. In large companies, though, it can become a struggle to find a real live person to help with a problem.

Jeffrey Hayzlett, chief marketing officer at Kodak, talked at the 140 Conference in New York about how large companies are using Twitter to put customers in touch with a real live person to get them help with their products. Corporate management may ask, what's the return on investment on Twitter? Hayzlett replies, well, what's the ROI on ignoring customers?

The National Venture Capital Association recently released its first-quarter 2009 analysis of venture investing. Not surprisingly, the number of venture investments was substantially lower than in recent years. 

In Q1, there were only 549 venture deals adding up to a bit over $3 billion in funding. This was the lowest number of Q1 deals since 1995. 

Many see reduced venture funding as a huge problem. But others believe that the industry investment rate of $25 billion to $30 billion per year over the past decade is way too high and that the venture capital industry needs to be restructured and to shrink.

The Newspaper Association of America recently hosted a meeting of the nation's top newspaper executives to discuss charging for online content. Several San Francisco Bay area newspapers, including my local paper, have already announced plans to charge for news. They are joining a number of online content providers attempting to charge end-users for content.

The reason for this shift is straightforward: Advertising-supported content providers are having a hard time making money. This is especially true for traditional media companies, which tend to have higher cost structures because of their legacy offline businesses.

Many start-ups and small content companies have already recognized the need to move to fee-based business models. Open Table, for example, charges restaurants a fee for each reservation made through its service. Its recent IPO success has resulted in even more interest in fee-based services.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, better known as the stimulus package, was signed into law by President Obama in February. It amounts to $787 billion in government spending, incentives, and tax cuts designed to kick-start the economy and create or save 3 million to 4 million jobs over the next two years.

There has been much debate about the merits of the stimulus package, especially as it relates to small business. But regardless of how you feel about the stimulus package, it is starting to create opportunities for small businesses.

These days, clean technology is the rage among the political elites. And there is a great deal of support in Washington for companies developing these technologies. Unfortunately for the politicians, the venture capital market doesn't respond strongly to political rhetoric.

According to data recently released by NVCA, the National Venture Capital Association, investment in clean-technology start-ups fell 84 percent from the last quarter of 2008 to the first quarter of 2009. The decline in clean-tech investment was much higher than the overall decline in venture capital investment, bringing clean-tech investment activity back to levels last seen in 2005, before the clean-tech investment craze began.

I think that even if you've been living in a cave, you've probably heard about Susan Boyle. She is the amazing singer who has become an international celebrity after her show-stopping performance on the Britain ' s Got Talent TV show.

The online success of the clip of Boyle singing is simply amazing. According to the online video measurement firm Visible Metrics, in less than five days, clips of her singing were viewed more than 47 million times and generated more than 125,000 comments.