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The budding online cannabis industry has a long way to go before it delivers bumper crops. The market for both recreational and medicinal cannabis has been plowed and pre-seeded by the previous underground market and the impetus of state laws legalizing its use. Still, the cannabis industry is almos...

When it comes to business, you're only as good as your reputation. Indeed, your reputation is your brand. It is the substance your logo represents; it is the glue in customer brand loyalty. In a word, reputation is everything. Yet it's not entirely under your control. That doesn't mean you are helpl...

When it comes to business, you're only as good as your reputation. Indeed, your reputation is your brand. It is the substance your logo represents; it is the glue in customer brand loyalty. In a word, reputation is everything. Yet it's not entirely under your control. That doesn't mean you are helpl...

Google has built a new marketing model around "micro-moments." Many other companies are following suit. "You have to make that conversion happen right on the spot once customers have looked at your website or mobile app," said Bret Bonnet, president of Quality Logo Products.

It's one thing to ship books and electronics across the U.S. -- but it's quite another to get fresh fruit, baked goods, meat, fish, prepared meals, raw meal ingredients, and other perishables to consumers' front doors in prime condition. Once perishables are delivered to a customer's door, they ofte...

There's no question that books have gone digital. Sure, there are still paper books aplenty in a smattering of brick-and-mortar bookstores -- and available online as well -- but there's no escaping the proverbial writing on the wall that book-selling behemoth Amazon now sells more electronic books t...

Movie studios and TV networks increasingly are turning to social media for help with generating buzz about their upcoming releases and programming. Communities are building around favorite movie franchises like the Twilight and Avengers series and TV shows like Downton Abbey and The Walking Dead. Ha...

The FTC recently updated its guidelines for online advertising to address the growth in mobile and social media marketing. Now a paid tweet has to begin with the word "ad," as obvious disclosure now must be included with all commercial speech. Is the link you're tweeting from an employer? A client? ...

Victims bilked of their money by fake online ads are not the only ones hurt. "Blatant fraud, like the fake-news diet promotions and other online scams that have sprouted in recent years, only serves to undermine consumer confidence and eventually marketers and business as a whole," said attorney Bil...

You've seen the ad a thousand times on the Internet: "1 Tip for a Tiny Belly" says the hand-lettered headline above the crudely drawn swelling-and-shrinking belly. "Cut down a bit of your belly everyday following this one weird tip," it goes on to say. If starvation caused by having funds continuous...

Empty office space litters skylines, freeways and office parks. Once-busy hives of cubicles have become empty steel and concrete caverns. Their previous occupants met with a variety of fates: Some were victims of a deep recession; others were washed away by tsunamis of cheap labor in foreign lands; ...

Until recently, a phone was just a phone. Sure, it got cooler when it lost the rotary dial, the cord, the wire and its voice-only restrictions. Still, it was just a phone. Businesses knew that the sound of its ring usually meant money (for what company with silent phones is profitable?) -- but few w...

Every year since 2001 has been hailed as the year of mobile. But after years of hype and over-revved anticipation, the year of mobile may never come to be. Instead, it looks as though this is the year mobile will morph into something else entirely. In the years after the mobile generation, content w...

Empty office space litters skylines, freeways and office parks. Once-busy hives of cubicles have become empty steel and concrete caverns. Their previous occupants met with a variety of fates: Some were victims of a deep recession; others were washed away by tsunamis of cheap labor in foreign lands; ...

There's a rumor that honor exists among thieves, but outside of Robin Hood, no one considers them a bunch of do-gooders. Yet there may be a bright side to their shadowy work, at least in terms of enterprise software. Why has Microsoft, a company known to be almost brutal in its license-protection pr...

Lacing a shoestring budget with enough green to get your startup up and running takes some finagling. Still, it can be done. If you can't find investor backing right now, then turn to alternative funding routes. You may want to start with your own hidden assets to find the cash you need. One example...

Funny thing about economic disasters: They tend to spawn a bevy of new businesses. It's not that a recession is the best time for pie-in-the-sky thinking; rather, it's when pie-in-the-mouth issues become most pressing. "The tantalizing successes of some startups, coupled perhaps with the rise in une...

Big businesses often use big bucks to go green. Small businesses, on the other hand, haven't a dollar to spare even for a good cause like saving the environment. Shouldn't they just pass on the whole green scheme -- at least until the economy improves? Not necessarily. "Effective power management is...

Big businesses often use big bucks to go green. Small businesses, on the other hand, haven't a dollar to spare even for a good cause like saving the environment. Shouldn't they just pass on the whole green scheme -- at least until the economy improves? Not necessarily. "Effective power management is...

A rose by any other name can raise quite the stink, making the act of localizing Web sites to fit foreign cultures all the more thorny. Even if the product is as sweet as ice cream, it's possible to leave a bitter taste in consumer's mouths. "Ben and Jerry launched their 'black and tan' flavor of ic...