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Did you endure the Olympics opening ceremony? I really liked the tribute to that great English invention, the rave party. It has, however, been dubbed the first Olympics in the social era - the Socalympics, if you will. Social media featured throughout the aforementioned rave sequence. So, no matter which way you look at it, this is going to be the social Games. Many of the mass market social media tools are banned in China. The Beijing Games were a Twitter free event. This means that the London Games will set the standard for how social media supports, reports and rolls along with the Olympics.

Founders Sarah Taylor and Jeff Dusting realized how time consuming and unsatisfactory it was to locate, book, and pay for home, health and beauty services, and how few service providers had access to efficient low-cost online trading.

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What Yellow Pages has done with this campaign is spend (undoubtedly) an enormous amount of money reminding you that it exists. In the process, it may have also unwittingly demonstrated the strengths of its competition.

The enemy shall be known by the name ... People-who-have-to-use-big-words-to-sound-smart-even-in-marketing-copy-where-the-point-should-be-to-sell-rather-than-to-be-liked.

I spent a lot of time at the start of my business trying to conform to what I thought I had to be to succeed, with limited success. I found that when I let go, started uncovering my tattoos at presentations and generally being myself, “all of a sudden” my business exploded. But where do you draw the line?

Two months ago, we trialled an event in Sydney called our Young Entrepreneurs' Night Out. The premise was simple; Create a networking event for young entrepreneurs to mingle, learn from peers, drink some booze, make new friends and get inspired. It’s baaaaaack! (But slightly different.)

After re-working our older Avian terrain system we have come up with some new innovations to make it even better. The largest set of enhancements are in the reduction of the file size; we have cut our existing engine’s file size in half, making larger worlds for games more possible.

I couldn’t get my grout clean after my gorgeous Himalayan cat Dudley spilled his bloody roo meat. I tried all the cleaners on the market without success, so with a bit of nouse created my own.

This innovation came to life when we realised a gap in a developing segment in the telecommunications market. With telecommunications becoming commoditised, many entrepreneurs have joined the groundswell of companies offering innovative product mixes in voice, Internet, data, PBX, and hosting segment. While there are plenty of wholesale providers of these services, No one in the market has delivered an end-to-end BSS/OSS platform (front, middle, and back office solution) for these innovators. Utilibill Lite empowers such players to be competitive and offer first-class service while minimising overheads that were previously required to set up a telco.

You’ve heard all the pros and cons for social networking. So, I’m not going there again. If you hate social media, run away. Now. However, for those of you who are hooked, there’s a whole new world of words and phrases that you need to be across. So, I felt it was time for a dictionary for our new, social media age.

Papyrus Australia founder Ramy Azer previously sold traditional papyrus in Europe and realised the demand for this environmentally-friendly paper was greater than supply. After completing a Mechanical Engineering degree in SA, Azer investigated alternative fibre resources readily available in Australia and various manufacturing processes. Following a detailed research and selection process, banana trunks were identified as an ideal choice. Papyrus’ pilot plant was established in Lonsdale, South Australia in April 2007. In February 2008, Papyrus established its first commercial manufacturing facility at Walkamin in Far North Queensland. In November 2009, Papyrus successfully began continuous production of its banana fibre products.

We have spent almost fifteen years working in the Victorian education sector, teaching everything from Outdoor Education to Science to History to Geography. After seeing firsthand the increasing frustration felt by many teachers trying to find the best educational opportunities for their students, and how this was matched by an inability by many providers to successfully advertise their products to schools. Having identified a big gap in the market, we looked around at the technology available, decided upon ones and zeros as our medium, and after many sleepless nights and cups of coffee -- Cursions was born!

Every year, Anthill selects its Cool Company Award judges from a variety of fields, from venture capital to intellectual property. They are chosen for the diverse range of experiences and the different interpretations they bring to the concept of 'cool'. Meet Malcolm Thornton, Yvonne Adele, Marion Di Benedetto, Jack Delosa, Jacinta Coyne, Trevor Young, Justin Absalom and Devita Pathi.

More Great Reads from Beyond the 'Hill

Age has never been a restriction when it comes to entrepreneurship and that certainly rings true in the case of Perth entrepreneur Lachy Groom. Already a serial entrepreneur at the age of 15, he is the founder of a recently launched voucher card trading business that looks set to go places.

If you find that you can't get enough of yourself, why not have a totally unique polymer clay doll created in your likeness? Sculpted by Cyndi Safstrom and made to order.

If you thought equipment leasing was just for computers, server systems or high tech IT equipment – think again. For many start-ups and small business owners, signing up to lease technology is a great way to get their businesses off the ground. Leasing a computer meant you could spread out the cost of the equipment over a longer period of time and you could conserve your precious capital for other uses as marketing or getting the word out.