Time to readjust your budgets - minimum wage increases today. Anyone over 22 gets £5.80 an hour, up from £5.73. (18-21-year-olds get £4.83 and those between 18 and the compulsory school leaving age receive £3.57.)

The 1.2% increase is the lowest since the wage's introduction in 1999. Business lobby groups are, accordingly, generally happy with it. British Chambers of Commerce director general David Frost told BBC News when the rise was announced in May: "We pressed for a freeze to the minimum wage because of the severity of the downturn and the daily loss of jobs.

"We are pleased that the increase is only a modest one, and it shows that the Low Pay Commission [who advise the government on minimum wage] and the government have largely understood the seriousness of the situation."

John Cridland, deputy director general of the CBI, said: "This moderate increase recognises that many businesses are struggling, and helps protect jobs at a time of rising unemployment.

"The inflation-busting rise some unions had called for would have hit firms hard and put many lower paid workers on the dole."

More worrying for small businesses is the fact that many simply don't know about the new legislation. Research carried out by Bibby Financial Services last month found 31% of small businesses surveyed were unaware of the change. The figure went up to 44% among employers with four or fewer members of staff.

This is particularly troubling as the government is planning hefty fines and 'name and shame' tactics for business owners who pay below the minimum wage. This may help protect staff, but it risks penalising vulnerable businesses who simply haven't heard about the rise.

So start telling all the other small business owners you know (you can use the social bookmarking buttons at the bottom of this post as a short-cut). An extra 7p per hour is nothing compared to the thousands of pounds fine they risk otherwise.

Poor Rupert Murdoch. For a man who was once ‘hailed as an internet genius’, looking at the ruins of his once-mighty web empire must be a painful experience.

First, his company News Corp announced a £2bn loss on advertising revenue, which prompted the mogul to vow he would charge for online content before the end of 2010. “Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalising its ability to produce good reporting,” he said.

The comments prompted widespread criticism from those at the top in the tech industry. “In general these models have not worked for general public consumption because there are enough free sources that the marginal value of paying is not justified based on the incremental value of quantity,” said Google chief executive Eric Schmidt, while Guardian columnist Roy Greenslade, political blogger Guido Fawkes and  former nytimes.com general manager Vivian Schiller all called the vow a ‘huge mistake’.

Now Merrill Lynch equity research analyst-turned-technology blogger Henry Blodget has dubbed MySpace, the social networking site News Corp acquired in 2005, as ‘pretty much worthless’.

In a post on US website Business Insider, Blodget pointed out when News Corp first bought the site, the deal was hailed as a coup for Murdoch. “[It] was cited again and again as evidence that Rupert Murdoch had something no other mainstream mogul had: Brains enough not to get taken to the cleaners when it came to buying internet properties,” he wrote.

But with ‘shrinking revenue, losses, declining market share, loss of mojo and market leadership’ in the face of weed-like growth from competitors Facebook and Twitter and users abandoning the site in their droves, MySpace is rapidly becoming a dead duck.

“If MySpace follows in the footsteps of other internet relics [such as Lycos, Inforseek and Excite], how much might it actually be worth right now?” asked Blodget. “Next to nothing."

“Rupert has his work cut out for him.”

One in two small businesses downsizing or closing have cited red tape as a major reason, new research shows. And 27% of those who want to expand are put off because of bureaucracy, a survey from lobby group the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) found.

It's urging the government to simplify processes and scrap any plans for more regulation ahead of the Conservative Party Conference this week. According to the government figures, 60% of small companies believe excessive paperwork inhibits success.

FSB national chairman John Wright said: "We cannot and must not underestimate the burden that unnecessary regulation puts on small businesses."

The lobby group reckons 258,000 jobs could be created if businesses were more able to flourish, free of the bane of red tape. A further 55,500 could be saved.

"The FSB is urging the Government to give the UK's regulatory environment a strategic overhaul, to provide it with what will amount to a second economic stimulus, to boost growth and employment," said Wright.

The group is calling for a moratorium on business regulation. It says 'to boost the chances of job creation, the government must halt all new regulation during the recession and for the first 18 months after recovery'.

It also wants 'accelerated simplification of current laws: employers are currently confused and put off by maternity and paternity law; discrimination law; and health and safety legislation. All of these must be immediately simplified'.

We hope the government - present or future - starts implementing these simplifications as soon as possible. Small businesses simply cannot wait any longer.

It's rainy, it's Tuesday, and it's nearly winter: doom, gloom, misery. Cue trade minister Lord Davies, whose plans to allow businesses to secure trade credit insurance from the government for the first time in 18 years might cheer you up.

The plans will give banks a guarantee they will be paid if they issue confirmed letters of credit to British exporters trading with overseas companies on contracts due to be settled within a year.

The proposals follow a call by business secretary Lord Mandelson for businesses to trade more oversea.  Addressing the Economist Emerging Markets Summit in September, he said although businesses were having problems securing credit insurance, they should be planning 'for the long term'.

"Businesses should be strategic about their exports," he said. "Many emerging markets are outperforming developed economies and are expected to grow strongly for years to come."
In June, the government  extended its credit insurance scheme after a 51% rise in trade credit insurance claims meant a significant reduction in the number of businesses being offered credit insurance by private companies.

Although the scheme prompted criticism from business organisations, who said it should have been backdated to April 2008, Lord Mandelson was positive about it at the time: "We are acting decisively to... allow businesses the breathing space to adjust their business models in response to the current climate," he said.

But until Lord Davies' plans come into force, things don't look hopeful: HMRC's  quarterly UK Trade Estimates showed UK exports were feeling the twin effects of recession and currency fluctuation: in the 12 months to June, exports had fallen by 1.4%, while the value of exports from the UK fell by 1.2%.

"There's not as much government prioritisation and support as there used to be," says former Institute of Export director Ian Campbell in this morning's Telegraph. "The approach of the treasury is that any support is a subsidy - that is until the banks get into a mess."

Many people overlook how much business acumen they pick up in everyday life. Stretching out a pay packet in those longer months, organising a big group of mates to make a trip to the other side of the world, setting up and managing the finances of a sports team – all require core business skills (budgeting, project management, and using initiative and bookkeeping respectively).

Sport is, in fact, one of those areas where would-be entrepreneurs flourish, often without realising it. Organising, motivating, leading and managing teams imbues you with a good dose of the skills needed to run a business. So it was with much enthusiasm that Smarta went last night to the Swiss Embassy for the inauguration of this year’s BBC Your Game All-Stars.

These eight 16-25-year-olds have been chosen from thousands across the UK to head up the programme, which is all about promoting social inclusion, training and opportunities for young people through sport, music and media.

Your Game has organised festivals in Belfast, Cardiff, Glasgow, Hull and London to bring young people together and showcase the huge range of training, educational and employment opportunities available to them. To a background of football games, hip hop and graffiti, young people from less well-off areas were introduced to new possibilities in life and given avenues into training that could well one day see many of them running their own businesses.

The eight All-Stars chosen by the BBC and the Swiss Embassy who we met last night have won the chance to do an apprenticeship in Switzerland to showcase how businesses work with young people and to develop their skill sets. And all of them that we spoke are planning to run their own business in the future – or are doing so now.

Ex-offender All-Star Theone Coleman from Bournemouth, for example, is already running her own social enterprise, offering recording equipment to young people.

It’s great to see initiatives such as Your Game encouraging young people into entrepreneurship and helping foster the skills they need to make it a success. We hope to see more of the same soon, and wish all the All-Stars the greatest of success in the future and over in Switzerland.

• Read more about young entrepreneurs.
• Check out the All-Stars' progress on the Your Game website.
   

Even though we wrote about it, last week's findings that businesses are now spending more promoting themselves online than they are on television advertising came as little surprise to those in the know - the outcome was so predictable, in fact, that one blogger managed to fairly accurately forecast it back in January 2008. And they didn't even use a crystal ball.

Another report on advertising, though, has yielded less anticipated results: according to figures out today, it turns out when it comes to return on investment (ROI), you can't beat advertising in print.
Even more surprising is who the report is by: the Outdoor Advertising Association (OAA) - they of the billboards and tube posters. And, more to the point, direct competitors to print media.

The figures, though, appear to speak for themselves. For every £1 retailers spend advertising in newspapers or magazines, they get a £6.23 return. Compare that to £3.57 for TV and outdoor advertising, and just £2.23 online - although it's worth noting that this was only for 'bricks and mortar' retailers.

Of course, the results could be down to the fact the recession has seen a collapse in demand for print advertising, with many businesses opting to go for the more quantifiable - and therefore justifiable - online option. This has forced many publishers to slash their prices or accept low offers from potential advertisers.

Sadly for businesses, though, while print advertising prices may never fully recover, they are still likely to rise above the record lows we have seen over the past few months. If a 600% ROI is enough to convince you, Smarta suggests you get in there fast.

The announcement the government is to sell off £16bn worth of ‘non-financial’ assets to reduce the budget deficit has been greeted by little more than a shrug by almost everyone except the Conservatives, who managed to muster enough interest to grumble something about cutting public spending before returning to the much more important matter of how to avoid repaying their expenses.

Gordon Brown said the portfolio, which includes such assets as the Dartford crossing, the Channel Tunnel rail link and the student loan book, will help finance new investments and reduce the debt burden.

But the portfolio also includes Wigan-based bookies Tote. Inquisitive souls might wonder what on earth the government is doing with high-street betting chain – and why Gordon Brown thinks he can make money by selling a chain which, hit by the triple whammy of recession, the rise of online gambling and the smoking ban, has seen its number of shops decline by almost 10% in the last year.
According to its website, the Tote was set up by an Act of Parliament in 1928 to offer on-course pool betting, rather than starting-price betting with bookmakers.

The government has been threatening to privatise the company since 2001, when it was part of the Labour Party manifesto, and since then it has been something of an albatross. Privatisation was mentioned in the 2006 Budget, and then again in 2007, when the government invited the company’s staff to bid for it, but the offer was thrown out by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. A 2008 attempt to sell the company on the open market failed again, when an audit forced the government to retract the offer.

Who will take control of the chain? As the smallest of the high street’s ‘big five’ bookmakers, Tote could easily be swallowed up by one of its competitors – but considering William Hill has seen its profits drop by nearly £20m in the last 12 months; Coral’s owner, Gala, has had to write off £540m of debt and even today, Ladbrokes has seen its shares drop to an eight-month low, a deal like that seems unlikely.

More likely is that the business will continue to stay in the hands of an increasingly frustrated government, who, every time they need to look as though they are doing something to repay debt, will dust the idea of selling it off, put it on the news agenda for a few days, then quietly mothball it and hope no one notices.

He’s done it again. Sir James Dyson, king of inventors, has transformed the way air moves in yet another everyday appliance. Not satisfied with transforming old-style vacuum cleaners (they sucked) and overhauling the design of the lowly hand-dryer (nothing but hot air), Dyson has turned his entrepreneurial eye to the table-top fan.

His new Air Multiplier is quite unlike, well, anything you’ve ever seen in the air-blowing market. Air is sucked up from the heavyweight base (which also stabilises it) then moves around the big loop, drawing in surrounding air. (That's thanks to an effect known as inducement, for those among you with a passing interest in physics.) It thus multiplies the force of the air-sucking mechanism by a factor of 15, nigh-on-magically.

Dyson explains the advantages of his new model as avoiding the ‘annoying buffeting’ effect of normal fans: the way they chop air to make it feel like a pulse hitting you rather than a constant stream. The Air Multiplier is apparently more eco-friendly, and safer, since there are no blades to chop off kiddies’ fingers. And it’s easier to clean. The inventor points out this is the first time fan technology has been properly looked at since circa 1880.

It's not cheap, with prices starting at £199. But it certainly is an impressive bit of kit.

• Find out more at the Air Multiplier microsite

Smarta founder Sháá Wasmund was on GMTV's sofa this morning to explain why unemployment could be the perfect opportunity for young people to start their own businesses.

We spoke to the CEO of image library iStock, Kelly Thompson, to find out how to make your website's design user-friendly and appealing, even when you're on a budget.

"As design and publishing software has become increasingly accessible, tech-savvy customers have come to expect clean and consistent presentations. The dark days of cluttered and primary-coloured Geocities pages are now firmly - and thankfully! - in the past, and newsletters with rainbow-striped WordArt headings just won’t cut it anymore. Getting your design right doesn’t mean using a dedicated design team, though – following a few basic rules can have you effortlessly headed in the right direction."

Be aware of copyright rules

"While the web is awash with content, it all ultimately belongs to someone. Be aware that using images off Google can lead you into copyright and image quality issues, and logos can be another tricky area to navigate."

Inspiration is there for the taking

"Good ideas are everywhere, and it’s madness to begin any project as a shot in the dark. Look at how others in your space are trying to do similar things, and take inspiration from the best elements of each example. Think about how others have used images to create an effect, and whether you want to duplicate that or go in a different direction entirely."

Choose an aesthetic and stick with it

"Try to keep things looking consistent – it’s often a good idea to use a series of images from the same contributor within an image library, as they often have a similar artistic feel. The biggest bear trap to avoid is mixing photographs with illustrations, a combination which generally looks awkward and jarring."

Use media as a guide, not a distraction

"Well-chosen images, sounds and video are crucial in keeping your customers engaged and attentive, but only if they’re used effectively. A well-chosen image can show a web-user just where to click, draw the reader’s eye to an article or neatly illustrate a key point. Music which auto-plays on a website can be irritating, and lengthy animations can have users scrambling for the skip button. If your use of multimedia distracts from the text, it can take your project a step backwards."

Give designs a personal touch – but take advice on board!

"The best designs have an overarching direction to them, and for that there’s no substitute for having one person in control. But at the same time, remember that your design is there for your users, not for you – make sure you ask widely for opinions, and don’t be defensive of your decisions. If your audience doesn’t like a layout, it’s not doing its job."

• Find out more about iStock