SBA Expands Web Services

The Small Business Administration (SBA) has updated its Web site, adding new content and providing additional search features. The revamped site is supposed to make it easier for small business owners to find the various sorts of governmental and regulatory information they need.The site not only provides federal resources, but has added access to thousands of local government Web sites that offer the forms, licenses, permits, and so on a small business requires. It also offers information on how to comply with governmental regulations, and that information should now be easier to find.

The site is now a "mashup" of public information drawn from various government Web sites combined with Google-based Web services such as Google Maps and its Custom Search Business Edition. According to the SBA, this makes it possible to obtain results targeted to a specific region; as an example, a business owner could search for "business license Tampa, FL" to get results from the city of Tampa and state of Florida Web sites.Tampa Bay Business Journal