Editor's Note: Our live chat with Mark Cuban is now concluded. Read the transcript of the conversation below. 

Whether you're just starting up or a seasoned entrepreneur, you always have to be ready for opportunities to pitch your business to potential investors. It's all about standing out in a crowd and growing your business -- even when the economy is still sputtering. Yes, we know it's tough out there, so we asked billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban to help you by joining our live chat series.

If you're a user of any of Google's services -- including Gmail, search, Calendar, YouTube and Google+ -- then you probably received a notice this week explaining that the search giant is consolidating more than 70 privacy documents into one and making some significant changes to its privacy practices. Namely, Google said it may combine information users provide from one of its services with information from any of its other services.

In its announcement, Google said it wants to treat you as "a single user across all our products," and provide "a simpler, more intuitive Google experience."

While the changes have some users and lawmakers in a tizzy over how the company will store user data and whether this actually makes it more difficult for consumers to protect their privacy, there seems to be at least one bright spot for business owners who advertise with Google. Sharing user data across its products should enable it to target users more specifically with advertisements, in turn providing more effective results for the businesses that advertise, says web sales expert Perry Marshall.

It's been a tough new year for some once-golden brands. Hostess filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization Jan. 11, followed a week later by the bankruptcy filing for Kodak, the company known for capturing the 20th Century on film. Remember those Kodak moments?

These brands had both achieved the dream of most companies. They were household names, and their products were universally known and well-regarded. Now, they are struggling to survive.

What happened? Times kept changing, and so did technology. Neither company kept up. They probably aren't the only big brands we'll see fall this year, either -- check out this list of 17 more at-risk brands.

How did Kodak and Hostess go so wrong? Here are four ways to avoid their fate:

Google issued a new warning to webmasters that it is updating its algorithms again, this time targeting websites that choose to display ads that run above the fold -- that is, the section of a webpage visible without scrolling.

And before you start griping that Google just won't leave well enough alone, this change is a good thing for everyone who values accuracy and well-written content. What this latest algorithmic improvement does is cut out the riff-raff, leaving the door open for well-designed, high-quality pages that attract visitors with their content instead of various SEO tricks, ploys and greediness.

Here's what happened: Google began hearing complaints from users who said they were growing weary of having to scroll down a webpage past a forest of advertisements in order to find the content they were seeking in the first place. Consequently, as a result of the search engine's algorithm action last week, these ad-riddled sites might not rank as highly as they once did.

Everywhere we turn these days, online and off, we're being sold. It's a din of sales messages.

For business owners, everywhere you look there's another course or Webinar or blog you should read that aims to teach you how to sell better. But after watching a preview copy of this week's upcoming Shark Tank episode, I wonder if entrepreneurs might do better to learn one overlooked skill: When to stop selling and close the deal.

On this Friday's episode, one of the entrepreneurs blows a chance to have Shark Mark Cuban invest in his business. (You'll have to tune in to see what type of business it is...I'm sworn to secrecy.) After hearing his pitch, Cuban offers the business owner $90,000 in return for a hefty equity stake in the enterprise. 

Have you had a nice side income selling stuff on eBay or through PayPal? Sales you maybe conveniently forgot to declare at tax time?

Well, that party is officially over.

Thanks to our revenue-hungry, debt-strapped government, the IRS is now keeping tabs on what you've been selling on eBay, Amazon or your own company's website. If you've used PayPal or other popular payment-collection tools to sell products or services, you may see a crisp new 1099-K form from your payment provider. This change is a biggie.

"Small business" and "entrepreneur" weren't the most popular terms in President Barack Obama's State of the Union address last night. But that doesn't mean they haven't been a priority during his three -- going on four -- years in the White House.

Though largely ceremonial, State of the Union addresses are meant to serve as a guidepost of the administration's agenda during the year ahead -- or the next four years, depending on when the address is delivered. So if certain issues get highlighted, there's a good chance that the President will push Congress to act on them.

In his third State of the Union address last night, Obama called on Congress to offer legislation on everything from immigration and tax reform to rooting out financial fraud and continuing tuition-assistance programs. Specifically, for small business, he requested new legislation that would extend for a full year the payroll-tax holiday that gives consumers a tax break of $40 per paycheck on average. He also called for a reduction of regulations that prevent would-be entrepreneurs from landing the financing they need to startup and grow, as well as tax relief for businesses that raise wages and create jobs.

McDonald's is tapping social media to help introduce the human faces behind its vendors, notably farmers who supply the beef, lettuce and potatoes for those Big Macs and fries.

But social media being a two-way street, consumers have been talking back loudly -- and in some cases obscenely -- via the Twitterverse.

As part of its "Supplier Stories" campaign this month, the fast-food icon promoted the #meetthefarmers hashtag on Twitter, linking to YouTube videos that feature folks like cattle rancher Steve Foglesong of Black Gold Cattle Co. in Astoria, Ill.

In "Raising Cattle and a Family," a guitar plays softly as picturesque images of Foglesong are shown, such as the rancher on horseback, in cowboy hat, rounding up cows and later enjoying a McDonald's takeout lunch on the tailgate of a truck.

There's been no shortage of news these days about companies getting in trouble because of what they or a third-party marketers have done when taking to the socially-powered airwaves.

A common theme among those who find themselves caught in the crosshairs of the National Labor Relations Board, the Federal Trade Commission or even a company's own employees is that the companies involved usually don't have a social media use policy in place. Or if they had such a policy in writing, they didn't do enough to educate their staff about the costs associated with ignoring the rules.

If you're confused about why your company needs a social media use policy, I recommend reading "Social Media and Your Company's Acceptable Use Policy." If you're gearing up to create a social media use policy of your own, here are ten steps:

President Obama will deliver arguably his most important speech of the year tonight at 9 p.m. EST, and small-business owners and entrepreneurs will be listening closely to hear if their concerns will be addressed. 

Tax policy, access to credit, health care, unemployment and government regulation top the list of political issues that will have the biggest impact on business, according to a January survey of 1,022 small-business owners conducted by Manta, an online small business community. (See these stats in the infographic below.) 

Molly Buchanen, for one, would like to see some relief in the cost of health care, federal and state taxes and the still tight credit markets. But the co-owner and vice president of Buttercup Cheese, in Central Square, N.Y., is skeptical that Congress will act even if Obama touches on these issues tonight. “It is kind of hard for President Obama to get anything done,” said Buchanen whose grandparents started the cheese distribution company in 1969. "Nobody wants to work together; they are all sitting on their own side of the fence so to speak." 

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month, while many were partying on the strip or schmoozing at the convention center, I was lucky enough to hang out with Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos.com.

These days, when the "Delivering Happiness" author isn't fending off hackers like those who recently lifted personal information from 24 million Zappos.com customers, he is attempting a takeover of his own -- of Sin City, that is.

Though he is in the midst of building his company's corporate headquarters out of Las Vegas's existing City Hall, Hsieh -- always looking to innovate -- isn't satisfied. As is, the city doesn't have the amenities like yoga studios, bookstores and galleries of his company's current home in Henderson, Nev., nor does it have the cultural vibrance of San Francisco, Zappos's former home.

So like the uber entrepreneur he is, Hsieh is hoping to build it. As chief pioneer behind the Downtown Project, a group dedicated to the rehabilitation of Las Vegas, he wants to make the area more livable and a hot spot for entrepreneurship. 

Hiring a celebrity spokesperson is a proven way to drive sales. It's also frightfully expensive and has the potential to backfire. Consider all of the brands that had Tiger Woods signed up as pitchman when his marital scandal hit and his golden career suddenly imploded.

A better way to go for many brands may be to get a celebrity to either use your product or even to just appear with your brand for a brief time. Here are three ways to involve celebrities in your business that are lower cost and have less downside risk if your chosen celeb has a breakdown:

China may be growing at a jaw-dropping clip, but the U.S. has a far more developed ecosystem for entrepreneurs -- a difference that carries implications for anyone seeking to startup in the world's most populous country.

On a recent trip to Hong Kong and Singapore, I brought along 25 Babson College MBAs to check out the entrepreneurial ecosystem of China. While we were not in mainland China, both countries derive much of their business from their relationships there.

We sought to debunk the conventional wisdom that says neither Hong Kong, Singapore nor China have any venture capital for startups, and that people there have an aversion to startups because of the risk of failure. Given the overwhelming social sanctions against failure, no one in their right mind would get involved with a startup, right? Not quite.

I've sometimes heard from business owners that "nobody" uses the SBA's 900 field offices known as small business development centers or SBDCs. Turns out that's just not true.

With funding for SDBCs on the chopping block at both the state and federal level, the SBA has documented the SBDCs' impact in a new report. It appears entrepreneurs definitely visit the SBDCs -- more than 500,000 of them in 2010, the study found -- and the business owners report the resources there helped their businesses thrive.

One of the biggest advantages users of SBDCs gained was knowledge of how to get a business loan. There's also good crossover with business education, as many of the centers are hosted on college campuses.

But the whole system is under threat, in part because of cuts in education at the state level. Supporters worry that no other organization will arise if the SBDC network goes away that would share the SBA's commitment to minority and women business owners and distressed inner-city neighborhoods where new business creation is desperately needed.

Sean Broihier adds new meaning to the term "bootstrapping."

Operating on sweat equity alone, in 2007, Broihier launched Fine Art America, an ecommerce marketplace for works of art. Artists upload digital images of their artwork to fineartamerica.com and offer them for sale as frame prints, canvas prints, greeting cards and more. Once a purchase is made, Fine Art America outsources the printing, framing, matting, stretching, packaging, shipping and insuring. Then, the company processes the buyer's payment and sends the profit to the artist. That leaves the artists time to do what they do best -- create art.

Broihier's Santa Monica-based company competes with such funded giants as art.com, allposters.com and cafepress.com -- and he's outperforming them all. Last year, Fine Art America earned $1.5 million and the site offers more than 2 million items for sale -- all the while competing for market share against enterprises with hundreds of employees.

So how does Broihier do it? Here are his five tips on how to bootstrap a business: