http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/business/smallbusiness/27sbiz.html?ref=smallbusiness

Many businesses are struggling to make sense of Twitter, but even if it strikes you as an enigma or hype, consider this: many of your customers are already there.

Twitter has more than 100 million users and is becoming a free forum for business. Companies are using Twitter to engage in highly personalized interactions — sometimes right to the phones in our pockets. Twitter recently introduced a program of “promoted tweets” that will display ads in some search results, although this program remains limited to a select group of Twitter partners, including Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull and Sony Pictures. Eventually, Twitter plans to offer advertising more broadly, but until then small businesses can continue to make productive use of the service.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danny-wong/e-commerce-is-booming_b_642159.html

Now, why is e-commerce so interesting to entrepreneurs? The vast reach of the World Wide Web, affordable domains, web servers and programming, and the elimination of a physical storefront make e-commerce an easy industry to get into. Of course, while there will only be a select few from the 80,000 new e-commerce businesses each month that will ever become million dollar companies, scrappy entrepreneurs are willing to take their chances, especially because it is easy to bootstrap online operations since your overhead is minimized.

Consider the successful startups that have done amazing things in e-commerce. The notable giants of today are Amazon and Zappos which are titans in consumer products. There is also the very familiar eBay, which changed the way people bought and sold goods from each other.

The new-age e-commerce entrepreneur is doing a lot of interesting things in cyberspace now. There is Threadless (given, they are an older company, their way of business is pretty unique and awesome) that crowd sources t-shirt designs and sells only the best designs on their website. Then there is Gilt Groupe, which is a flash sales site that offers exclusive (and pretty heavy) discounts on designer clothing in limited quantity. SocialBuy is a group shopping website that is giving visibility to local entrepreneurs and products at heavily discounted prices, with a minimum buyer count before the discount may be received by all shoppers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/business/economy/26earnings.html

By most measures, Harley-Davidson has been having a rough ride.

Motorcycle sales are falling in 2010, as they have for each of the last three years. The company does not expect a turnaround anytime soon.

But despite that drought, Harley’s profits are rising — soaring, in fact. Last week, Harley reported a $71 million profit in the second quarter, more than triple what it earned a year ago.

This seeming contradiction — falling sales and rising profits — is one reason the mood on Wall Street is so much more buoyant than in households, where pessimism runs deep and joblessness shows few signs of easing.

Many companies are focusing on cost-cutting to keep profits growing, but the benefits are mostly going to shareholders instead of the broader economy, as management conserves cash rather than bolstering hiring and production. Harley, for example, has announced plans to cut 1,400 to 1,600 more jobs by the end of next year. That is on top of 2,000 job cuts last year — more than a fifth of its work force.

As companies this month report earnings for the second quarter, news of healthy profits has helped the stock market — the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index is up 7 percent for July — but the source of those gains raises deep questions about the sustainability of the growth, as well as the fate of more than 14 million unemployed workers hoping to rejoin the work force as the economy recovers.

“Because of high unemployment, management is using its leverage to get more hours out of workers,” said Robert C. Pozen, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School and the former president of Fidelity Investments. “What’s worrisome is that American business has gotten used to being a lot leaner, and it could take a while before they start hiring again.”

And some of those businesses, including Harley-Davidson, are preparing for a future where they can prosper even if sales do not recover. Harley’s goal is to permanently be in a position to generate strong profits on a lower revenue base.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/08/business/smallbusiness/08sbiz.html

HONEST TEA makes juices and teas with natural sweeteners, including the pouch drinks Honest Kids. In early 2008, Coca-Cola took a 40 percent interest in the Bethesda, Md.-based company, which had revenue of $47 million last year. Coke has an option to buy the whole company next year.

THE CHALLENGE Maintaining Honest Tea’s integrity while adjusting to a new relationship with a financial backer that has a different way of doing business.

THE BACKGROUND Seth Goldman, now 44, left a mutual fund job in 1998 convinced that he could develop a wholesome alternative to sugary drinks that never seemed to quench his thirst. He joined forces with Barry Nalebuff, a professor he knew from the Yale School of Management, to start Honest Tea.

For Mr. Goldman, coming up with new products and flavors like Pomegranate White Tea or Black Forest Berry is the entertaining part of the beverage business. The grittier part is getting the product distributed on a profit-making scale. Mr. Goldman scored Honest Tea’s first notable sale, to Whole Foods Market, by carting in several insulated containers of teas and a sample bottle — an empty Snapple container with a makeshift label — that persuaded the grocer to order several cases.

Then Mr. Goldman spent nearly a decade trying to build distribution. That meant lots of trade shows, cold calls and nights at modest motels, where he and other Honest Tea employees doubled up to save money while they marketed the company’s drinks and signed up independent distributors. “You can build a great brand, but you can’t ship this through the mail,” he said. “Beverages have a high turnover, and you’re out of the game unless your product is being restocked and on the shelf.”

http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/06/celebrity-fashion-lines-lifestyle-style-clothing.html

Madonna is known for constantly reinventing herself, but her latest incarnation--fashion designer--might be the riskiest one yet. On June 22 the musician (along with her daughter, Lourdes) debuted sketches of a glam '80s-inspired line of juniors clothing called Material Girl, which will go on sale at Macy's this August. But celebrity fashion lines (like many celebrity recording careers) often have the lifespan of a gnat, no matter how well-promoted or designed.

Celebrity clothing brands are particularly volatile, because their success is closely tied to one person whose popularity can fluctuate violently. "There's a lot of coming and going, because as their popularity wanes it affects everything else," says independent brand consultant Alycia de Mesa. "Sometimes it's a flash in a pan."

Endorsement deals in the health and beauty industry are rarely more than two or three years, says Rick Dunaj, creator of Dunaj Agency LLC, which brokers deals between stars and the fashion industry. Popularity tends to evaporate at that point. "We know the life of being tied to a celebrity," he says, "and it's not long."