Business and Marketing

A documented content marketing strategy can lead to more success, says a CMI study.

Marketers who jot down their strategy rate themselves eight times more effective than those who operate sans strategy.

Marketers should heed rapper Notorious B.I.G.'s advice: Relax and take notes. According to the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), marketers who take the time to document their content marketing strategy are more effective than those who don't.

CMI and MarketingProfs published “B2B Content Marketing: 2015 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends—North America,” which concludes the following: A verbal strategy is a good starting point, but exerting the time and effort to document the strategy is imperative in taking the next step.

“This research is incredibly important so that savvy marketers can benchmark their content marketing strategy, processes, and budgets against their peer group,” says Joe Pulizzi, founder of the CMI. “Content marketing has been around for over a hundred years, but it's an immature industry. Marketers need as much reference information as possible so the industry can continue to grow.”

There are two factors that separate the “good from the great” content marketers—boasting a documented content marketing strategy and following it to a tee. Of the 83% of B2B marketers who have a content marketing strategy, only 35% have it documented. What's more, 14% of respondents don't have a strategy at all, and 3% are unsure whether they do.

Marketers who jot down their strategy also rate themselves eight times more effective than those who operate sans strategy and consider themselves less challenged with every facet of content marketing.

Finally, only 21% of respondents can successfully track their content marketing program's ROI, while the number balloons to 35% for marketers with a documented strategy.

Business Breaking News: Workers Want Say in Technology Adoption

Thinking about implementing new communication tools in the workplace? You may want to consider how they fit your employees’ needs first.

Seventy-seven percent of employees say they’re not consulted before a new communication tool is implemented in their office, according to new research from technology solutions company Softchoice. Fifty-eight percent said they’re not consulted on how useful a new communication tool is after it has been rolled out.

And not consulting your employees first could cost you. Employees who are not actively consulted about communication tool rollouts are twice as likely to be dissatisfied at work, and three times more likely to not see themselves at their current employer long term.

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Spot.IM launches what it calls the "first distributed social network," free for downloading and instant activation on websites.

After two years of development and beta testing with publishers such as Red Bull and Time Out, a Tel Aviv-based company called Spot.IM today releases what it claims is the “first distributed social network,” allowing publishers and brands to cultivate their own social communities without side-trips to Facebook or Twitter. Users can avail themselves of the free service by visiting the company's website, downloading two lines of code, and making some customization adjustments.

“We've learned that more than 30 percent of sites have their own communities, but they don't reveal them. They have to build them with Facebook,” says Spot.IM CEO Nadav Shoval, pictured at right above with cofounder Ishay Green. “Then, on Facebook, your posts get shared with only 10% of your community and you have to pay for the rest.”

Sua Musica, a Brazilian music website that is one of the beta testers, has a Spot.IM pop-up on its homepage (left) on which visitors can post comments and pictures of themselves. It currently has 44,000 members. Tom White, product director of the local entertainment publisher Time Out was one of the first to try out the owned network in the U.S. and says he sees it as a “key feature in our digital strategy, a unique opportunity to engage more effectively with visitors to our site.”

Red Bull installed a network on its cliff diving site, using it as a tool to unite visitors and divers. “Via a live chat with the divers and the users we have built a live conversation and raised the profile of the project and the sport,” said Red Bull Web Editor Chris Stanton in a testimonial of his beta test.

“We're not trying to replace Facebook,” Shoval says. “Publishers and brands see millions of users a year on their websites and we're trying to help them reach 100% of them through their own networks.”

Shoval says the free-use model will continue for at least the next 12 months in an effort to enlist publishers and websites. Once scale is reached, he says, Spot.IM plans to introduce some revenue-sharing models.

Business Breaking News: 4 Critical Mistakes to Avoid When Hiring Gen Y

As more millennials continue to enter the workforce, employers are increasingly turning their attention to recruiting them. But if employers think Generation Y workers will respond to the same old tactics they used in years past, they may want to think again: Millennials aren't always the easiest to recruit.

"[According to a Kauffman study], 54 percent of millennials either want to start a business or already have started one," said Ryan Jenkins, millennial keynote speaker and author. "As technology and the Internet enable new avenues for entrepreneurship, not only do recruiters have to compete against other companies wooing young talent but now have to also compete with millennials' passion and entrepreneurial aspirations."

It's clear that millennials have different values than previous generations when it comes to work, and if employers want to attract this group, they need to put themselves into the millennial mindset. Here are four critical mistakes companies make when recruiting Gen Y, and what you should do instead. [The 5 Places Millennials Want to Work Most]

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A British website seeks voters' help in striking clichés from the stump speeches of political candidates.

Remember the Iraqi parliamentary elections of 2005 and all the photos of citizens proudly thrusting forth indigo ink-stained fingers marking them as participants in the democratic process? Eighty percent of eligible voters turned out for that election, despite the fact that justified fears abounded over being blown to pieces by lining up outside polling venues. Without question, Iraqis had compelling reasons to cast their votes.

But that's not the case here in the cradle of democracy. With the midterm elections a mere two weeks away, and Democratic candidates (who always do better with a bigger turnout) on the verge of losing control of the Senate, only about a third of franchised Americans will bother to line up at the local school polling station. Even though they can play video poker or tweet selfies of themselves waiting on line in their old cafeteria, at least 60% of them are expected to take a pass. While more than half of voters typically show up for presidential elections, midterms seem to just bore us. The last two drew 38.4% and 37.3% of registered voters, respectively.

Unlike the Iraqis, many Americans seem to think that there's not a compelling reason to cast their ballots. But while it's too late for this election cycle here in the U.S., a new website started in the UK is hoping to change that sentiment with a grassroots effort to make politician's speeches less boring. Pollifiller.com invites people to elect worn-out stump speech phrases to a “Hall of Shame” to influence candidates to program the list into their speechwriters' computers and excise them from future drafts. Amazingly, the clichés are nearly interchangeable both here and across the pond. Leading Hall of Shamers include: “We hear you”; “difficult choices”; “zero tolerance”; “there are no easy answers”; “the previous administration”; “tough on crime”; “build a better future”; and the always cringe-inducing “let me be absolutely open and honest.”

Personally, I have a bias against candidates who talk about hope. We give a pass to Bill Clinton, who was from Hope, AR, but it's not a word that stirs confidence in voters. At a recent rally with Sen. Barbara Boxer in San Francisco, President Obama said that “the thing I need right now is votes,” and that “my hope has not wavered.” That's to say nothing of the hopes of Democratic Senate candidates who are running from the President like he's a guy with a fever and the sniffles who just got off a plane from Liberia. When Barack said the other day that the candidates shunning him “are all folks who vote with me,” pundits said he'd virtually handed three Senate seats to the GOP.

Jobs are always a good thing to talk about to local crowds on the stump, as Alaska Sen. Mark Begich did a few weeks ago when he told voters in the Kenai Peninsula that his appointment to the Appropriations committee was a “powerful opportunity” and that “it means jobs in the community.” Begich got right down to brass tacks: If you vote for a new guy, it'll take him 10 years to get this kind of clout. Playing the job card is effective, but does it carry enough momentum to rally a bored electorate to the polls?

Polifiller is asking folks to enter hackneyed political phrases into their database in an ongoing (but, sadly, hopeless) censure of idiotic political discourse. If speechwriters installed the filter, they'd be forced to elicit original thoughts from their candidates on a regular basis. Impossible. I can only offer up what I'd like to see more of in political campaigns: something high-concept that will play in a YouTube age, something like the bit that played out at a Kentucky barbecue featuring 70-something Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his young and attractive challenger, Alison Lundergan Grimes. “What a huge crowd for Senator McConnell's retirement party,” Lundergran said to the 5,000 folks in attendance. “Thirty-five is my age, and that is also Mitch McConnell's approval rating.”

Ba-dump-bump. When in doubt, do shtick. Political handicappers call the Kentucky race a toss-up.

Business Breaking News: 4 Critical Mistakes to Avoid When Hiring Gen Y

As more millennials continue to enter the workforce, employers are increasingly turning their attention to recruiting them. But if employers think Generation Y workers will respond to the same old tactics they used in years past, they may want to think again: Millennials aren't always the easiest to recruit.

"[According to a Kauffman study], 54 percent of millennials either want to start a business or already have started one," said Ryan Jenkins, millennial keynote speaker and author. "As technology and the Internet enable new avenues for entrepreneurship, not only do recruiters have to compete against other companies wooing young talent but now have to also compete with millennials' passion and entrepreneurial aspirations."

It's clear that millennials have different values than previous generations when it comes to work, and if employers want to attract this group, they need to put themselves into the millennial mindset. Here are four critical mistakes companies make when recruiting Gen Y, and what you should do instead. [The 5 Places Millennials Want to Work Most]

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Ensighten's purchase of the analytics company is about giving ultimate ownership of data to marketers, says CEO Josh Manion.

Ensighten CEO Josh Manion

Omnichannel data provider Ensighten has acquired analytics platform Anametrix, a marriage pledged to arm marketers with proprietary data sets and more options in how to use them, says Ensighten CEO Josh Manion.

“We saw an opportunity of solving problems with each other,” Manion says. “Both companies are designed to give ownership and actionability to enterprises they've never had before. It's about developing first-party data owned by the enterprise, applied in an open marketing platform.”

Using third-party data owned by outside suppliers, Manion explains, usually limits marketers to working with only one ad network. “But with this platform, you're incented to use more than one network,” he says. “You're providing the data profile to them and that allows you to review results from different networks and make smarter decisions with your marketing.”

Ensighten, which acquired TagMan earlier this year, assists marketers in tracking and using customer data across all channels and devices. The Ensighten Agile Marketing Platform is used by clients including Captal One, Microsoft, United Airlines, and Walmart. The Anametrix platform uses predictive analytics to uncover trends and hidden correlations in customer data.

“The way we look at it, it all starts with the data,” says Anametrix President and CEO Pelin Thorogood. “We keep it open for our clients. They can use other solutions and plug in data sets from their CRM systems or call centers.”

The merged companies, Manion says, will retain their individual corporate identities and clients while exploring new ways to work together over the coming months.

Business Breaking News: ASUS PadFone X Mini: A Phone Tablet Hybrid for Business

Interested in a prepaid smartphone for your business? How about one that also converts into a tablet? The Android-powered ASUS PadFone X Mini is coming to the U.S. later this month, exclusively on AT&T's GoPhone prepaid service. Here's what the phone and tablet hybrid has to offer small business users.

The good

A follow-up to the PadFone X that was introduced in June, the PadFone X Mini is, as its name implies, a smaller version of its predecessor. It features a 4.5-inch screen and docks into a 7-inch tablet, whereas the PadFone X has a 5-inch screen paired with a 9-inch tablet. The PadFone X Mini is the better choice if you want a compact tablet for better portability.

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Our experts set the record straight.

When it comes to email marketing, separating fact from fiction isn't always easy. Statistics, reports, and media each can paint extremely different pictures—rather than setting clear standards and practices for email marketers. To help sift out the truth, here's a demystified look at eight of the most common email marketing myths.



1. Email is dead: Marketers have been wrestling against this assertion for years. This declaration, however, is nothing more than folklore, say both Alex Lustberg, CMO of digital marketing solutions provider Lyris, and Angel Morales, cofounder and chief innovation officer of email marketing automation provider Smarter Remarketer. In fact, more than 87 billion consumer emails are sent and received every day, according to research firm The Radicati Group; analysts predict that this figure will to surge to more than 88 billion by *2016.

2. Everyone who opts in wants to receive email: There are a number of reasons subscribers opt in, Lustberg says, and the desire to receive a slew of brand emails isn't always one of them. A customer, for instance, may provide an email address to see a company's inventory or simply to download a whitepaper, he says.

“[An] opt-in shouldn't be an all-or-nothing proposition,” Lustberg explains. “This is where the importance of progressive profiling and preference centers comes [into play].”

3. Marketers should implement a frequency cap: When it comes to email frequency, some marketers draw the line at a few emails per week. But unless they're sending batch-and-blast emails, marketers should hold off on setting frequency limitations, says Coleman Easley, email marketing manager of loyalty program provider Excentus Corporation. Putting a cap on email communications, he says, can restrict marketers from optimizing and personalizing from one campaign to the next.

4. Advancing from batch-and-blast, to segmentation, to personalization is the way to go: Although many marketers abide by this widely accepted evolution in email marketing, Graeme Grant, president and COO of personalization solution provider CQuotient, says that it's actually easier to skip segmenting by groups and go straight to automatic personalization.

“If you go directly to what that customer is after, by definition, you bypass segments, and you've gone straight to what's most relevant to that individual—which is better than a segment—and can be, with the latest technology, executed as a single blast,” Grant says.

Marketers, however, shouldn't abandon segmentation altogether. Grant says that segmentation can be useful for trend reporting and internal communications.

5. The bigger the list, the better the revenue: In slight contrast to Grant's claims, Lyris' Lustberg places a little more emphasis on segmentation, especially when managing lists. Although Lustberg acknowledges that marketers can still obtain a return on investment through spray-and-pray techniques, he points out that emailing smaller, more segmented lists generate more revenue. He says that's because batch-and-blast emails so often produce less engagement and result in less deliverability.

“It's the quality of your list,” Lustberg says. “It's not necessarily the more email you send.”

6. The most creative emails should reflect marketers' personalities: Marketers love to show off their creative chops. However, Excentus' Easley says the most effective email copy is determined by data and technology, rather than marketers' personalities.

“Let the data direct the final touches of personality that this email is ultimately going to have when it reaches everybody,” he advises.

7. Behavioral targeting is always reactionary: Sending personalized messages in reaction to customers' behaviors is a common practice, Grant says, such as with shopping cart abandonment emails. But today's marketers don't have to wait for customers to make the first move. Grant says that marketers can pair behavioral data with other customer information to send messages such as product recommendations that are informed by predictive analytics.

8. Shorter subject lines are best: When it comes to subject lines, short and sweet are often preferred. However, Lustberg warns that this method isn't written in stone.

“A subject line needs to be engaging; it needs to be meaningful; you should test it,” he says. “But a short subject line doesn't necessarily give you better results than a long subject line.”

Corrected: Originally stated 2018

Business Breaking News: Leadership Failures: 5 Stumbling Blocks for Bosses

Leadership isn't about having a C-level title, a corner office or the power to make important company decisions. The best leaders know that their success or failure depends on their ability to inspire and guide their teams. Meanwhile, official corporate culture statements often highlight traits like "integrity" and "collaboration" as core values from the top down. But do today's executives truly practice what they preach?

According to a recent study by the Center for Creative Leadership, nearly 40 percent of new chief executives fail outright within their first 18 months on the job, and even more of them fail to live up to the expectations of those who hired them. Roxi Hewertson, CEO of Highland Consulting Group and AskRoxi.com, said this failure rate results from a flawed process of leadership hiring and support.

"Organizations are not set up to support their leaders well, nor [are they] clear about expectations of behaviors and actions related to that new leadership role," said Hewertson, author of "Lead Like It Matters … Because It Does" (McGraw-Hill, 2014). "Too often, the way they are held accountable is to be told they have failed. The system is fundamentally broken in too many organizations, and it takes a lot of good people down with it."

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If you think Microsoft's search engine is a nonentity, think again. It delivers higher revenue per visit to retailers than Google, or anyone else for that matter.

Google dominates headlines and mind share in the marketing space with a seemingly endless parade of new services, and Microsoft's Yahoo/Bing alternative gets little respect as a result. Perhaps it's deserving of more, according to the Adobe Digital Index's Q3 Digital Advertising Report.

Adobe decided to add search to what used to be its quarterly social media report and uncovered a revelation. Among all-important retail advertisers on the Web, Bing delivered by far the highest revenue per visit in the third quarter of a little more than $3. Google, by comparison, returned around $2.50 and Facebook less than $1.50. It's not a new phenomenon, either. Bing delivered retailers a buck more per click-through than Google last year, as well.

“Bing does have a lot of cool widgets, like its airfare price hook-up tool. They've done some interesting things,” says Adobe Senior Analyst Joe Martin. “We're telling marketers in search to look to maximize their Bing spend first, especially if they're getting high quality traffic there. By looking at the revenue per visit, focus on the clientele giving you a better conversion rate.”

Martin points out that the search business, while seemingly mature, is still growing and evolving. Global ad spend in search was up 22% for the quarter, and while Google claimed most of that cash with a 70% share, that was a 1% dip from last year. Bing's total ad revenue, meanwhile, increased by 39%. In the U.S., Google was up 3% while Bing rose 28%.

Bing exhibited a steeper climb in cost per click than Google, too, rising 12% to the search leader's 4%. “It could be because of a little more competition for keywords in Bing due to the quality of its traffic,” Martin observes.

Bing commands a 30% share of search engine ad spend to Google's 70%.

Business Breaking News: Money Isn't the Only Reason Many Parents Work

While many parents feel as though they need to work, most actually want to work for reasons other than income, new research finds.

A recent survey from online job service FlexJobs found that 89 percent of parents report needing to work, but 64 percent of those parents said they also want to work because their careers contribute positively to their overall life satisfaction.

And an overwhelming majority of parents expressed optimism about balancing work and parenting. Ninety-two percent of parents said they could simultaneously be both great employees and great parents, and 6 percent said they were hopeful it could be done. Only 2 percent of respondents said they didn't think itwas possible.

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Demandbase's Sales Accelerator provides buyer alerts via Salesforce.com, which has made an investment in the company.

Demandbase, a tech company that helps B2B firms ID high-value prospects, today launched Sales Accelerator on the Salesforce App Exchange. Salesforce.com, in turn, announced its first investment in Demandbase, whose clientele tend to be big users of the cloud-based CRM company.

Built expressly for B2B sales and marketing teams. Sales Accelerator automatically pushes account insights from digital advertising and website traffic onto the Salesforce1 platform. B2B sales reps tend to stay locked into their CRM platforms, and the new app unifies results from across a company's marketing stack and presents them with alerts on pre-buying activity of key accounts on their dashboards. By leveraging the Salesforce1 mobile app, Sales Accelerator can deliver the alerts to reps' mobile devices, as well.

"Despite all the marketing tech investments B2B companies have made over the past several years, they still face a challenge in aligning sales and marketing initiatives," says Demandbase CMO Peter Isaacson. "Sales Accelerator ties together all the advertising and website activity and delivers it to the sales organization and alerts them to what they should care about most. In short, it identifies high-quality selling opportunities before the hand raise."

The app can also deliver new business teams alerts on prospects that are not currently in an enterprise's CRM system, since the company uses an IP address identification system that can pinpoint a product researcher's company.

The size of Salesforce's investment in Demandbase was not disclosed.

Business Breaking News: Most Small Business Owners Already Pay Above Minimum Wage

Where do small business owners stand on minimum wage? According to this year's Small Business Success Study by insurance company The Hartford, the majority are in favor of increasing it, and many already pay their employees more than the minimum.

Sixty-six percent of small business owners support increasing the federal minimum wage, the study found. And many small business owners wouldn't need to make any changes to meet an increased minimum; 58 percent would not or do not need to take any action if an increase were enacted, according to the report.

And of the 51 percent of small business owners that pay their staff hourly, 81 percent already pay above the current minimum wage, and 67 percent favor the proposal to increase minimum wage. [Minimum Wage Hikes: 4 Ways to Prepare Now ]

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The Postal Service takes advantage of new dimensional pricing to seize commercial package and shipping business.

Ever since UPS announced it would join Federal Express in a move to dimensional weight pricing, the Postal Service has been itching to capitalize by pitching itself as the low-cost option in the package and shipping business. This week, the pitching began in earnest.

A direct mail piece mailed to U.S. businesses pictures a one-foot cube box said to contain a pound of merchandise and warns senders they'll get charged for 11 pounds if they use the “wrong shipping company.” That's a veiled reference to FedEx and UPS, which will move from weight to size-based pricing at the end of the year. Eleven pounds is the maximum weight that can be shipped in a cubic foot box, according to a standard industry dimensional factor.

As Mike Comstock, executive director of Ursa Major Associates, remarked when FedEx and UPS announced the dimensional pricing changes, “If you're shipping dumbbells the new pricing system works fine. But things like boots and diapers will be much more expensive to ship.”

“Starting in 2015,” reads the copy in the Postal Service mailer, “you may pay for dimensions rather than actual weight with FedEx Ground and UPS Ground.” An accompanying chart spells out the potential cost savings of shipping with Postal Service. Priced by size, a kid's backpack would ship for $9.11, but would only cost $7.17 by weight with USPS, a 27% savings. Toy trucks would merit up to a 32% savings, and toasters as much as 35%.

The piece includes a tear-off business reply card offering a free shipping kit and an invitation to speak with a USPS sales agent.

Business Breaking News: Using Promoted Tweets? Advice from Twitter

Twitter's Promoted Tweets is one of the most effective ways to run a Twitter marketing campaign. It's affordable, easy to use and gives you access to a wide range of targeting and ad-management tools that let you reach the right customers at the right time — all while staying in control of your ad dollars.

But with more than 271 million Twitter users worldwide, countless competitors and only 140 characters to convey your message, how exactly does a business make the most out of Promoted Tweets?

To answer that question, Twitter analyzed nearly 200,000 Promoted Tweets to uncover what works and what doesn't for small businesses. From how long your tweets should be to what type of content ultimately drives the most engagement, here are Twitter's guidelines and best practices on how to use Promoted Tweets to grow your business. [Twitter Marketing: 4 Ways to Engage Customers]

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That's a compound annual growth rate of 13.7%. Offline advertising, meanwhile, will limp along at about 1% a year over the same period, according to Forrester.

Driven by the steep growth rate of online video and mobile display, online advertising will grow from this year's $19.8 billion to $37.6 billion by 2019, according to Forrester Research's “North American Online Display Advertising Forecast” released this week. That 13.7% annual growth rate compares to a mere 1% annual increase for offline advertising, though traditional channels will continue to dominate the landscape with expenditures expected to hit $239 billion in five years.

Rising investments in mobile, video, and programmatic buying are fueling online's upward trend. Four fifths of 18- to 34-year-olds watch online video monthly, as do two thirds of people between 35 and 54, Forrester reports. To improve performance of video ads, marketers are increasingly turning to more expensive targeting methods that will push CPMs for online video over the $25 mark. Online video itself will grow in excess of 20% a year, ultimately accounting for more than half (54.6%) of online display revenue by 2019.

In dollar terms, online video spend will escalate from its current $4.9 billion to $12.6 billion in the next five years. At the same time, rich media (excluding video) will edge up from $6 billion to $7.4 billion, and static display will decline from $4 billion to about $3 billion.

Mobile adoption underlies nearly all increases in the online ad arena. By 2019, 323 million smartphone and tablet owners will swell to 427 million and, as a result, mobile display advertising will grow at a compound annual rate of nearly 25%. “It is in that context that marketing leaders will have to rethink how they distribute spend across devices to match consumers' increasing consumption of content on mobile devices,” says Forrester analyst Samantha Merlivat, author of the online forecast report.

Finally, programmatic buying will increasingly become the advertising operating system of choice among marketers in the coming years. The core of the display market—performance-based impressions—will shift toward programmatic trading at a rate of 11.4% annually, according to Forrester. Premium publishers have begun to put aside their initial rejection of programmatic, with 90% of them saying they've seen their CPMs increase since they started working with exchanges and supply-side platforms. Plus, exchanges have opened their doors to the panoply of media options, such as video, social, and native.

The move to online comes not without complications, Forrester cautions. Marketers still await breakthroughs in mobile targeting and measurement. New metrics such as time spent on videos will replace traditional barometers like click-through rates. And programmatic pluses come with some minuses.

“While advertisers are keen to invest more in online display ads, the issues of ad fraud and viewability loom large,” says Merlivat.

Business Breaking News: Gaming Is Key to Marketing to Gen Z

Good news for entrepreneurs trying to serve Generation Z: Kids are already spending a ton of money on gaming.

In fact, in 2013, U.S. kids age 6 through 12 generated more than $2 billion in gaming revenue, according to a new study from consumer market research company Interpret. The research was done on behalf of the Digital Kids Summit, an event dedicated to brand owners, game developers, marketers, producers, and other professionals seeking to engage children online and through digital devices.

Over 12.8 million children in the United States own at least one smart toy, according to the findings, and on average, kids spend 12.1 hours per week gaming. They spend 3.2 hours of that time gaming on smartphones or tablets, findings showed.

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Jeter waits a few days after his final at-bat to introduce The Players' Tribune, a digital media company connecting fans with players.

On Sunday, Derek Jeter walked off the field at Fenway Park and into the Hall of Fame, but the journey will come with a detour to becoming a digital media mogul. Back on his home turf in New York today, Jeter announced the launch of The Players' Tribune, a website that promises to connect fans to players directly via news, podcasts, videos, and pieces written by players.

Though none were yet named, all-star athletes have been enlisted by Jeter as contributors, and Jeter promises many more to come. “I realize I've been guarded. I learned early on in New York…that just because a reporter asks you a question that doesn't mean you have to answer,” Jeter wrote in an introductory letter on the website today. “I do think fans deserve more than 'no comments' or 'I don't knows.'”

Backing the venture is Legendary Entertainment, the film and television company that produced 42, the Jackie Robinson biopic, as well as The Dark Knight, Clash of the Titans, and the Hangover series. The company's CEO, Thomas Tull, is a board member of the Baseball Hall of Fame and an owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

“[Jeter's] idea of providing athletes with a platform to communicate directly with their fans and the world at large is a forum that we are excited about,” Tull said in a news release.

Perhaps his best idea, though, was holding back his best stuff from reporters the last 19 years.

Business Breaking News: 5 Live Chat Solutions for Small Businesses

Want happier customers? Using live chat software can keep customers satisfied, while helping you grow your business online.

Live chats provide fast, on-demand customer support right on your website, giving you an opportunity to immediately address customer concerns, answer questions and even close sales before customers click away. In addition to speeding up customer support, live chat systems let you monitor visitor behavior to provide personalized service, convert browsers into paying customers and improve your website to increase sales.

Many live chat solutions, however, aren’t made for small business. They primarily target large enterprises, making them too complex and unaffordable for startups and entrepreneurs. Instead, here are five live chat solutions that offer big business features on a small business budget. [Customer Service 2.0: Satisfying Customers in the Digital Age]

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It also points to advertising mail as the key to growth, making a subtle case for the continuation of exigency.

In a succinct portrait of the U.S. Postal Service's decline since 2007, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) cites the Retiree Health Benefits Fund (RHBF) as the chief culprit and cast bulk mailers as the heroes that could save the faltering agency. The report also notes that USPS's annual $90 million congressional appropriation is mere comic relief in the plot, amounting to just 0.1% of revenue.

The villainous part played by the Postal Service's mandated pre-funding of RHBF has been made crystal clear during the first three quarters of fiscal 2014, CRS contends. Operational losses of $4.1 billion were almost entirely encompassed by the annual $4.3 billion charge for the retiree health benefits.

CRS also makes note that USPS's revenues are “derived almost entirely from postage paid for the delivery of mail,” and that the mail mix has shifted dramatically in the past decade from First Class to advertising mail. In fiscal 2013, sales of market-dominant products such as the Standard Mail class used by direct mailers was $53.5 billion, accounting for 80% of revenues that year.

CRS concluded that, for postal reforms to be successful, they must address the punitive payments to the RHBF and “place the USPS on a long-term trajectory where the agency's revenues could be expected to meet or exceed expenses.” Further noting that advertising mail yields lower profits than other classes, CRS's recommendation could be interpreted as backing the installation of the exigency rate as the new base going forward.

Other points of note in the report:

Between 2004 and 2013, USPS had three profitable years followed by seven years of losses. The string of deficits began in 2007, the first year the Postal Service was required by the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act to make payments into the RHBF. That year the agency's revenue rose $2.1 billion, while expenses grew by $8.4 billion.

Despite the cataclysmic effect of the RHBF contribution to USPS's bottom line, the CRS report notes that the Postal Service would have run deficits between 2009 and 2012 even if it weren't required to make the payments. Minus the health benefit contribution in 2013, the Postal Service would have posted a surplus of $800 million—a modest gain, yet indicative of the operational costs slashed by Donohoe and company over the past half-decade.

Business Breaking News: Accepting Apple Pay: 3 Things You Need to Do First

Is your business considering accepting Apple Pay? Staying on the cutting edge of mobile payments technology is one of the wisest investments a small business can make. But is your business ready for Apple's new mobile payments service?

Rumored to launch this Fall — Oct. 20, to be exact — Apple Pay is one of the most anticipated technologies for consumers and as well as businesses. Not only will the technology finally let customers pay for purchases with their iPhones, but industry analysts also expect it to change the mobile wallet landscape by pushing widespread adoption of mobile payment systems. And if you're a small business, accepting Apple Pay can give you a competitive edge by giving customers what they are looking for.

To help you prepare for Apple Pay, Jim Salmon, vice president of business services at Navy Federal Credit Union, one of a select few financial institutions and the only credit union to offer Apple Pay, shared the following tips for small businesses planning to adopt Apple Pay. [Apple Pay: Top 3 Features for Small Business Owners]

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Have distinct recipes for video content, be adventurous with mobile, and sprinkle liberally with hashtags, social executives recommend.

Google's Kristina Hahn

Facebook's consumer packaged goods (CPG) business lead Eric Berman told a group of beverage marketers yesterday that there were many marketing techniques he and his colleagues just couldn't do during his years working at Unilever. “The Unilever paradigm was that the closer you got to the point of sale, the crappier your options were. But those limitations are now lifted,” he said. “If you love marketing, these are the golden days.”

Berman was joined at the eBev Conference in Atlanta by Kristina Hahn and Brad Keown, his CPG counterparts from Google and Twitter, respectively. They shared their thoughts on some of the key digital tactics of the day:

Video: “It drives me nuts when people put their videos in only one place,” Hahn said. “If it lives on Twitter and Foursquare, you can find it on Google. Use more placements to drive more views.” She went on to suggest that marketers develop content strategies for their video campaigns. “You can't just take your Super Bowl ad and run it on YouTube. We suggest the three H's of ‘Hub, Hero, Hygiene,' with Hub videos focusing on product, Hero being the Super Bowl ad, and Hygiene comprising regular content like recipes.”

Hashtags:All three felt that marketers were not making maximum use of hashtags to get more bang for their bucks. “When people tweet about something, they could be served an ad based on the hashtag,” Keown said. “It's a way to control the conversation. I highly recommend your putting hashtags on everything, even if it's not on Twitter." Hahn concurred: “Hashtags are not just a Twitter thing, they're an Internet thing.”

Mobile: More and more, it's becoming the medium that links the previous two tactics. “The amount of video people can consume online is mind-boggling,” Berman said when asked to name mobile moments of truth by moderator Adrian Parker, VP of digital marketing for Patron Spirits. “Most of us wouldn't have jobs if people didn't love brands and marketing." Keown urged marketers to become more adventurous with their mobile efforts. “Some are really trying to figure it out, others just want to follow,” he said. “But if you're not experimenting, you should be.”

Business Breaking News: 11 Collaboration Tools for Small Business

From online meetings to remote tech support, technology has made communicating with employees easier and more affordable than ever — so much so that even small businesses are prioritizing their communication strategies.

A study by IT association CompTIA revealed that small businesses plan to implement several communication tools in 2014, such as social media, video conferencing and Voice over Internet Phones (VoIP). These tools make it easier to engage not only with team members, but also with clients, customers and prospects. Here are 10 such tools to consider for your small business.

Whether you need to make voice calls or video calls, or simply chat and send multimedia messages, Google Hangouts makes all types of group collaboration super easy — regardless of your team members' locations and devices. From desktops to Android and iOS mobile devices, Hangouts lets you connect with up to 10 people from all over the world. You can make voice calls straight from your computer (calls to the US and Canada are free), as well as hold videoconferences and even live-stream meetings and events. The service also lets you keep a history of your Hangouts, so you can always go back to old conversations for reference. Google Hangouts is free. Paid subscriptions are also available to increase the number of people you can connect to in a single session. [8 Mobile Apps for Business Collaboration]

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Business Breaking News: Are You a Workaholic? Tips for Getting Your Life Back

Do you find yourself spending more and more time in the office? Have you given up on hobbies and leisure activities you once enjoyed because you're constantly doing work? Do you throw yourself into your work to avoid issues in your personal life? If you answered "yes" to these questions, you've just confirmed what you probably already knew to be true: You're a workaholic.

In 2012, researchers from Norway's University of Bergen (UiB) and the United Kingdom's Nottingham Trent University developed the Bergen Work Addiction Scale, a simple test to determine an employee's level of work addiction. The test asks workers to rate the following seven work habits on a scale of 1 ("never") to 5 ("always").

Answering "often" (4) or "always" (5) to four or more of the seven criteria may indicate "workaholism," a problem that's growing among employees around the world. [Are You in Danger of Becoming a Workaholic?]

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