Keeping up with every RSS feed item and tweet is hard enough for anybody, let alone someone trying to run a business. That’s why at the end of every week, ReadWriteBiz rounds up the week’s most important tech news and insights for small and medium-sized businesses.
On Tuesday, Fortune magazine writer Seth Weintraub discussed the availability of Google Voice to Google Apps business customers, and what it may mean for companies big and small. Weintraub compares the significance of Google Voice for businesses to that of email, and suggests that “a frugal business can now forgo the purchase of a phone entirely, instead relying on Google Voice.”
Rumors are swirling that Facebook plans on launching a “Gmail killer” email service early next week, and WebWorkerDaily’s Simon Mackie used the occasion to point out why email is still a driving force in modern communications and is unlikely to go away anytime soon.
Here on ReadWriteBiz, we reviewed two new services geared toward small business users. Network Roulette is a Chatroulette clone designed for professional networking, although it doesn’t utilize users’ Web cams like Chatroulette does. It’s brand new, so the user base isn’t huge yet, but assuming it takes off, it could become a new way for professionals to meet in spite of geographic boundaries.
Geckoboard is a new all-in-one dashboard for monitoring business data, including Web analytics, social media stats, CRM, project management, and much more. The site is still in private beta, but ReadWriteWeb readers can get early access by entering the invite code READWRITEWEB10.
Our most-read post of the week was our take on how small businesses can benefit from real-time analytics. With affordable price points and more up-to-the-second insights than standard Web analytics, real-time user data is quickly becoming a necessary asset for small businesses to have.
