ReadWriteBiz

For small businesses and startups, the selection of Web-based tools available for things like communication, productivity, finance and IT is seemingly limitless, with new products launching left and right each week.

In a recent survey, business app advice startup BestVendor asked 550 startup executives and managers which tools they most preferred for a variety of business-related functions.

It seems as though the minute the iPad was announced, innumerable light bulbs went off as developers and entrepreneurs everywhere came to the same realization: "We could totally use this device as a digital whiteboard!" Indeed, a search for the word "whiteboard" in the App Store returns a whopping 170 iPad apps.

Although the device's 10-inch screen may not compare to a full-sized, physical whiteboard, it can be quite handy to use a virtual whiteboard with team members remotely, and the iPad's form factor suits itself quite well to exactly that.

When setting up Google AdWords campaigns, it can pretty difficult to guess which ad copy is going to perform the best. Sometimes even the tiniest, most unexpected changes can have a dramatic impact on ad performance. But how do you know what will be most effective?

A new Y Combinator-backed startup called MixRank wants to help take some of the guesswork out the process. The self-described "spy tool for contextual and display ads" offers businesses a glimpse at AdSense campaigns being run by other companies and shows which ones had the best performance.

For small, local businesses using Facebook for social marketing, building up a fan base is important, but only so far as the people clicking the "like" button actually live nearby.

While some businesses can sell their products and services online to customers regardless of location, truly local businesses who serve a particular locale need to narrow their social marketing focus down to ensure they're connecting with the people most likely to actually spend money with them.

FuzeBox wants to make telepresence a less proprietary, boxed-in experience for businesses. To do this, they've begun integrating Fuze Meeting, their cross-platform online meeting product, with high-end telepresence systems like Polycom, Tandberg and LifeSize.

This move lets companies hang onto their legacy teleconference solutions while easily extending their functionality onto smart phones and tablet devices.

If you're like most modern professionals, you conduct a lot of discussions over email. We don't often realize it as we go about our day-to-day, but the information contained in some of those emails can have some long-term value to the organization.

Even with a system of stars and labels such as what Google Apps users are accustomed to, important emails can easily get buried several pages deep. In the event that an employee leaves the company, that knowledge can disappear with them.

When it comes to writing a business plan, there's no shortage of online tools and tutorials to help entrepreneurs turn their ideas into a realistic goal. but how many of those tools automatically generate the text of your business plan and then use a predictive algorithm to score the likelihood of the business's success? Well, at least one.

Enloop is a site that just went into public beta this week and promises to do all of the above. After you sign up for an account, which is free during the beta period, Enloop will ask a series of questions about your business idea, its intended industry, products, marketing, operations, personnel and finances.

For startups and small businesses operating online, one of the biggest headaches can be setting up the ability to accept payments from one's Website.

The latest attempt at relieving this pain point is PintPay, a Web app created by former Scribd developer James Yu, who also authored a JavaScript API for Gmail called Gmailr.

For online marketers and other content creators, the need to optimize one's content for search and social media is now well-known. What's less clear for many is how to go about it. Which keywords are best to use? How frequently should you use them?

It was with these questions in mind that Eightfold Logic created InboundWriter, a new social writing Web app that analyzes the keywords in a given block of written copy and provides feedback about how to more effectively optimize that content for search and social.

Whether you meet with colleagues in person or from remote locations, there's still a need to keep an accurate record of what was discussed and what next actions are required. You could go the old school, pen-and-paper route, but those notes will still need to be typed up and shared with colleagues.

To simply the process, you might want to try minutes.io, a Web app that lets you take meeting minutes online and easily share them with others.