Mitch Goldstone, CEO of ScanMyPhotos.com, won a $7.25 billion settlement against credit card companies in favor of merchants.

While politicians have been arguing over who's doing more for small business, one independent businessman with no campaign agenda has dedicated the last seven years of his life to pursuing a lawsuit advocating for merchants like himself. Mitch Goldstone, the CEO of ScanMyPhotos.com, became a small business hero last week when he won a $7.25 billion settlement—the largest private antitrust settlement in U.S. history—that promises to put large sums of money back into the pockets of millions of businesses that accept credit cards.

Goldstone, of Irvine, Calif., was the lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit filed in 2005 that alleged that Visa and MasterCard illegally fixed interchange fees—the so-called swipe fees that U.S. merchants pay the card companies for the privilege of accepting consumers' credit payments.

Yahoo! Small Business Advisor spoke with Goldstone as he celebrated his legal victory last week.

Yahoo! SBA: This is a real David vs. Goliath story. How did it start?

The Olympics officially start today - in fact they have already started. So it isn't surprising that even the business news is dominated by sports or that other issues are getting pushed to the back pages. But the Olympics can also be a big opportunity for small business and we ran a short article with some tips on how a small business can make the most of Olympic fever - and yes, it isn't too late to try some of them out. Take a look at Five tips for Olympics-related sales. Other stories we highlighted on Yahoo! Small Business Advisor included a couple of stories about the recent fuss around daily deals and coupons. We take a look at some of the affected businesses and suggest a list of ten tips for working with daily deals and coupons. Another po

Success

pular article from Yahoo! Small Business Advisor looked at one of the real secrets to success in life.

If you haven't taken the plunge yet, hopefully some of these articles give you the impetus to start your own business — and if you do,

Holiday Gift Guide[This article was originally published on Meylah]

Imagine if tens of thousands of people could see your products all at once. They can if you're featured in a magazine's holiday gift guide. While getting your products in magazines may seem difficult, I can tell you from first hand experience that it's actually very simple once you know how.

You might think the holidays are far way, but in fact now is the best time to get started. Here are 3 simple tips to get you on the right path!

First, make a list of story ideas. Magazines receive mountains of product pitches every day. Stand out from the crowd by sending a story, rather than a sales sheet. Tell the story of a problem your product solves or an event that involves you. Whatever your story, make sure it's catchy. Journalists and editors are busy people, but if you can hand them a fully formed story, they'll be interested.

Next, make a list of magazines. Make the most of your time by choosing only magazines that are suitable and have

Daily deal promotions are not sustainable marketing strategies for most businesses

Many business owners who offer "daily deals" promotions wind up losing money, failing to win new customers, or driving away loyal patrons when the coupon crowds descend. Nevertheless, the marketing trend is here to stay. That's the opinion of Utpal Dholakia, professor of management at the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University, who has become something of an expert on the expanding industry that includes companies such as Groupon and LivingSocial.

Dholakia, who first began researching and writing about small businesses' use of discounted online coupons two years ago, says he was pessimistic about their sustainability. "People are offering their products at half price and only getting one-quarter of the revenue," Dholakia tells Yahoo! Small Business Advisor. "I wrote an entire article this time last year looking at specific deals, and I was extremely negative."

A year later, however, Dholakia says he has found some business owners who are happy with their returns on daily

chequeGold is on people's minds a lot right now. No, not THAT kind of gold - Olympic gold. And the regular kind of gold too - because for small businesses the bottom line is critical.Besides the usual financial news of public company quarterly profits and the slow and steady implosion of various European economies, there is still time for some concrete advice. On Yahoo! Small Business Advisor we highlighted stories about small businesses finding new ways to get cash and funding, seven strategies to make the most of your budget as a startup, how to tell that it's 'time to kiss your boss goodbye and become an entrepreneur,' and (unfortunately) how small business owners aren't finding themselves able to take vacations this Summer.

If you haven't taken the plunge yet, hopefully some of these articles give you the impetus to start your own business — and if you do, we have tools to help. Besides our domain name, web hosting and ecommerce products, we also have just added an innovative marketing

Of business owners who take vacation this summer, most will work while away.

Nearly half of small business owners say they don't have time to take a vacation this summer. And a large majority of those who do, will work while they're away.

According to a national survey of more than 1,200 small business owners conducted in June and released today by the online small business community Manta, 7 in 10 small business owners will be checking work email and documents on their mobile devices from vacation spots this summer. A majority say they're working more this year than they did last year, and most also say that having a mobile device along will actually help them enjoy their summer break.

But that might be because they'd go through the pains of withdrawal without it. In the office, small business owners say they use their mobile devices frequently. Online communications--email, IM, Skype, and social media--are the most common method by which small business people communicate with customers, vendors, and partners. Just 26 percent interact with customers in

workerbeeEven though we are in the middle of the traditionally slower business months of Summer, there's plenty going on to interest the small business owner and entrepreneurially minded. On Yahoo! Small Business Advisor we highlighted stories about President Obama's ideas to help small business, looked at how to tell if you are entrepreneurial, discussed why Mark Zuckerberg might not be a good role model, provided seven lessons from the first year of a startup and visited the Waldorf-Astoria along with 250,000 new guests as part of a new business venture.

If you haven't taken the plunge yet, hopefully some of these articles give you the impetus to start your own business — and if you do, we have tools to help. Besides our domain name, web hosting and ecommerce products, we also have just added an innovative marketing dashboard that you can try for free even if you don't use our other products.

There was also a ton of good small business information from elsewhere on the web.

7 Steps To

Gregg Fairbrothers teaches Dartmouth business students to be entrepreneurial.

How can a business owner be more entrepreneurial? That's one of the questions Gregg Fairbrothers tackles in his book From Idea to Success: The Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network Guide for Startups. Fairbrothers managed and started oil and gas exploration and production companies on three continents before switching gears to teach entrepreneurship as an adjunct professor at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business. He wrote Idea to Success with Tess Winter last year to walk readers through the process of launching a new company, product, or service from concept to business. Now he pens the Ideas to Success column for Forbes with Catalina Gorla to further explore ideas about what makes a startup successful.

This week, Yahoo Small Business Advisor spoke with Fairbrothers about small business owners and entrepreneurs, which are not necessarily two terms with the same meaning.

YSBA: Not all small business people feel that the term "entrepreneur" applies to them. Do you consider anyone who has