The opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs hoping to launch a business are virtually limitless. A story from the Wall Street Journal this week reported a growing number of young entrepreneurs taking advantage of the popularity of beer pong, a drinking game prevalent on college campuses. While the game typically doesn't require much in terms of equipment, Northwestern University graduates Andy Wright and Mike Johnson started selling rubber mats designed to prevent cups from toppling over and spilling precious beer. But it doesn't stop there. The story described several other beer pong business ventures from current and former college students, including portable tables and apparel.

While at least a dozen universities across the country have prohibited these and other drinking-related products, the beer pong craze is still going strong. Billy Gaines and Duncan Carroll, grads from Carnegie Mellon University and the creators of bpong.com, hosted the first World Series of Beer Pong last year.--Kevin Manahan

Wikipedia's editors aren't always so friendly. If you try to submit an entry about yourself or notable friend, there's a good chance they’ll deem you "not notable enough." Well, with SquidWho from, who else, Squidoo, you can post Wikipedia-like entries about yourself, your friends or anyone else.

Seth Godin, famed entrepreneur, writer and the site's founder, calls SquidWho "the people-powered open who's who online." You know that on the internet anyone can be famous--and this'll give you yet another arena outside your social networking site profiles and company sites to show the world how great you are.

The movie industry is cracking down on DVD bootleggers, but not with the kind of crime busters you might expect. While it's not uncommon for dogs to be trained to detect drugs or explosives, the Motion Picture Association of America has sponsored two dogs to take a bite out of the illegal DVDs.

Lucky and Flo recently helped bust three retail outlets in Queens, according to Queens District Attorney Richard Brown. The dogs, which are trained to find bootlegged discs based on chemical scents, helped uncover thousands of counterfeit DVDs during the raid, which led to three arrests. "Man's best friend has become a DVD counterfeiter's worst nightmare," the district attorney said in a statement.

  Earlier this year, the dogs helped investigators discover $6 million worth of illegal DVDs and disc-replicating equipment in Malaysia, where worried bootleggers reportedly offered a $29,000 bounty on the dogs.--Kevin Manahan

Trying to appeal to a younger, web-savvy audience, Playboy announced plans to launch Playboy U, a new social networking website along the lines of immensely popular MySpace and Facebook.

Playboy U includes the basic features of its competitors, such as the ability to write comments on other users' profiles and to post photos. But unique to Playboy U is the user base; the site is restricted to college students only, and Playboy U plans to monitor the site to ensure that school faculty, staff, parents and anyone else without a student e-mail address aren't able to access user profiles. Users can even find events and other information specific to their university while still accessing adult-themed message boards, photos and other content, although nudity is banned.

"It's a very lucrative market," said senior media analyst Michael Kelman of the Susquehanna Financial Group. "The college kids, they're going to be better-educated and have higher disposable incomes. [But] it's been a very, very tough audience to grab."

Playboy has been struggling with decreased profits in recent years and hopes Playboy U will give its company a much-needed boost. After posting a $47.6 million loss in 2000, Playboy has slowly recovered as a result of new ventures including a popular cable TV show and a satellite radio channel.--Kevin Manahan

Need a unique advertising method--or money to fund one? Paying everyday people to ad-wrap their cars with a 3M-produced vinyl material that actually preserves car paint is growing in popularity according to this article in The New York Times . Advertising agencies like FreeCar Media in Los Angeles coordinate businesses with people that consistently drive routes that would give the car ads high visibility. Depending on who the deal is coordinated with, drivers of ad-wrapped cars can make as much as $800 a month. 

But the advertising method isn't always limited to big-budget companies, as Brian Morris, owner of a pool construction and repair business in Phoenix, knows; he has had 30 vehicles wrapped with ads for his business. 

What sorts of things do you do online? You probably e-mail, chat, shop, read news, share photos, do research, post reviews, conduct business and more--and all these elements make up your digital identity.  

I found a neat, graphical digital identity map by Fred Cavazza on  Conversation Agent that organizes the different ways we use the internet and how close they are to our real identity. 

Some aspects of your digital identity include:

• Details--how and where you can be contacted personally
• Publication--what you share via sites like Flickr, YouTube and Del.icio.us
• Opinion--your likes and dislikes, shown through reviews and sites like Digg and Stumble Upon
• Audience--who you know through social networking sites

What about your customers or target market? When you think of them, can you create a similar map of their online activities? It could help you better reach them and understand where they're coming from and where they're going.

Ever wonder why you can't stop reaching for those Hershey Kisses during your workday? A new study shows that sugar is actually more addictive than cocaine. According to food blog Slashfood, rats tested in the study were given a choice between sugar water and cocaine and an astonishing 94 percent chose the sugar water.--James Park

It may be hard to believe that it's already been two years since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast. To mark the second anniversary since those tragic events, Microsoft is launching a program to help the more than 125,000 small and medium-sized businesses that were affected by the storm. The company announced today that it will provide a year of licensing at no charge for Microsoft software purchased by affected small businesses. Some of the eligibility requirements include having fewer than 200 employees and having been in business prior to Hurricane Katrina's and Hurricane Rita's landfalls.--James Park

As today's younger generation casts it aside as technology of the past, the compact disc marked its 25th anniversary  this month after years of rollercoaster success. Since its introduction on August 17, 1982 by co-producers Philips and Sony, the CD quickly replaced its predecessor, the cassette tape, as the mainstay medium for the music business.

However, the CD began showing signs of age after the turn of the century and has been running out of steam ever since. CD sales peaked in 2001 with 712 million discs sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan figures. Last year's sales topped off at 553 million, a 22 percent drop from the CD's heyday. Several efforts have been made to prolong the CD's influence, including a DualDisc format and recent attempts to package bonus material with the discs.

But if the many iPod-toting kids of today are any indication, the CD will likely continue to lose its luster. MP3 players and digital downloads can "absolutely" replace the CD, admitted one of the disc's creators, Philips' former optical research head Peter Kramer. "You never know how long a standard will last," Kramer said. "But it was a solid, good standard and still is."--Kevin Manahan

You know you should exercise regularly. You want to look good, feel good and be healthy. But now researchers are saying that exercise can also help increase your brainpower.

Neuroscientists at Columbia University found that when their subjects worked out for one hour, four times a week, they ended up pumping more blood to the part of their brain that controls neurogenesis--the creation of new brain cells--than the control group did. The part of the brain affected is also important for creating and processing memories--and predictably, the subjects who exercised did better on word-recall tests than the control group, too.

While this study was performed on subjects between the ages of 21 and 45, there have been similar studies on school-age children and the elderly that have produced the same kinds of results. It kind of makes you want to rethink the stereotype of the dumb jock.

So if you're looking for some motivation to get moving--or just want to see how your fitness routine stacks up against that of other entrepreneurs, check out our article, "The Pedometer Challenge," where we tracked four entrepreneurs for a week to find out how active they are compared to people with desk jobs. 

If you haven't learned to double-check your Wikipedia.com research yet, now would be the most entertaining time to do it.  Thanks to the advent of the Wikipedia Scanner, built by CalTech grad student Virgil Griffith, anyone can find the identity of the people who edit and input information on each entry.  Several governmental, corporate and media employees have been revealed as deleting unfavorable information since its release. One of the more humorous examples of editing was traced to someone at The New York Times who inserted "jerk, jerk, jerk" repeatedly into the article on George W. Bush. In another case, a CIA agent edited the lyrics to a song that appeared on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  WIRED magazine's article takes a more in-depth look at the Wikipedia Scanner.

Yesterday, Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), both of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, urged the Small Business Administration to comply with a law to make renewal grants available for Women's Business Centers nationwide. "Unless the administration acts quickly to get funding to these Women's Business Centers, some of them may be forced to cut key services or possibly shut down entirely," said Kerry.  

Originally, Congress planned on implementing the renewal grants program immediately to ensure centers received the necessary funding by October 1. But since that didn't happen, the centers would have to wait another year for funding. Kerry and Snowe are asking the SBA to make a compromise regarding its grant-making process so those centers can receive the grants by January 1 instead.

On Friday, we told you about the rise of the quinceañera market, and now, two California-based entrepreneurs are announcing the fall launch of a new Spanish-language home shopping network called TeleGalería. TeleGalería executives say it's not just a network for pitching products, but for creating programming with a focus on the Hispanic lifestyle. "By embracing the language, culture and preferences of Hispanics, TeleGalería will connect brands to the Hispanic consumer's lifestyle," said TeleGalería CEO Frederick Ackourey.

The nationwide network will broadcast programming weekly and online 24 hours a day. Shows like Cocinado a Moda Latin will feature guest chefs and culinary artists, while Unicos will showcase one-of-a-kind jewelry.

In May, we told you about the UPS Best "Out-of-the-Box" Small Business Contest, boasting a grand-prize of $25,000 in cash. You still have until September 1 to enter. To qualify, your business must have 2006 revenues of at least $250,000 but not exceeding $10 million. Sound like your small biz? Then submit a 500-word essay explaining why your business is original and successful. In addition to $25,000, the first place winner will also receive an IBM small-business package valued at $2,000 and become part of an international UPS publicity campaign related to the contest.

If you're an on-the-go entrepreneur, you'll want to check out this latest printing technology from Hewlett-Packard. Cloudprint is a free service that makes it possible to print documents on any printer just about anywhere in the world. With Cloudprint, users can store and print documents using a cell phone. The technology allows travelers to take their documents with them, no matter where they go, simply by bringing along a cell phone and access to a nearby printer. Don't know where that local printer is? The service will also offer a directory displaying the location of the nearest available printer on Google Maps.