Starting in 2008, you can no longer deduct your cell phone bill as a business expense unless you already have a landline and the cell phone is used exclusively for business. This is new rule will be a rude awakening to many people. More and more people have been avoiding landlines in favor of cell phones to limit expenses. And as more people are using the iPhone which costs $1,000 or more per year, the loss of this deduction is certainly significant.  What is solution?   Get a subscription to a  VoIP (Voice over IP) provider like Skype.  For $3 per month, you can have a Skype subscription make and receive calls from your computer with great audio clarity and that will satisfy the requirement to have a dedicated landline. Skype also has international plans to make or receive calls when out of the country. You can get a “Skype to go” number if you are going abroad.

Web 2.0 Expo was surprisingly low-key and there was a mixed bag of exhibitors but a few new tools had some cool-factor. That said, a few categories had multiple representation. Cloud computing, customer communities, out-sourcing, and new site analytics tools.  Odesk.com helps you find freelancers and contractors - of any kind - to do specific project tasks. Clients pay the service providers directly and odesk takes 10%. Oneeko.com had a slick, concise demo of their product which allows screen sharing - no downloads require - runs in Flash and you can have up to 8 users at a time. You set the ‘window’ to limit what part of your screen is shareable and it can automatically conform to fit a specific application window. They’re Skype certified so, you can be on Skype and immediately add people to your screen share session.