Is having a social media presence for your small business worth the effort? According to the results of a survey quoted in USA Today, perhaps not.

Manta.com, a social networking site for small businesses, reports 61% of those businesses haven't seen any return on their investment in social media activities. At the same time, however, half of those surveyed said they increased their time working on the social media side of their business, compared to a year ago. Just 7% said they had cut back on that time.

Keeping up a business' social media channels can be time-consuming. Another Manta study says more than one in three small-business owners spend up to three hours a week managing their social media, with 10% spending more than 10 hours.

 

Are members of Congress trying to exempt themselves from a key part of Obamacare? 

Politico says "yes" and The Washington Post's Ezra Klein says "no." Confusion over the controversial issue will only stoke the public's unease about the key accomplishment of the Obama Administration.

According to Politico, leaders in Congress are holding "high-level" confidential talks about exempting themselves and their aides from joining the health care exchange, those government-regulated​ marketplaces for insurance plans they are required to join under Obamacare.

The stakes couldn't be higher, according to the website. If lawmakers exempt themselves, "they risk being dubbed hypocrites by their political rivals and the American public," Politico notes in what may be the understatement of the year. 

Virgin America, you're about to make some of your passengers feel slightly uncomfortable.

The airline has debuted a new service that lets fliers flirt with each other and send each other cocktails. Yes, that's exactly what a bunch of strangers want when they're already seated in each other's personal space.

Virgin empire founder Sir Richard Branson has no qualms about what this service intends to do. In a video posted to Virgin America's Facebook page, he offers his "guide to getting lucky" at 35,000 feet. "I'm not a betting man, but I say your chances of deplaning with a plus-one are at least 50%," he says.

The new service, available on Virgin's domestic flight, is called Seat-to-Seat Delivery. 

Hoping to turn that recent volatility in the gold market into some quick cash? Sorry, but the U.S. Mint is done cranking out your get-rich-quick dreams for now.

 

The Mint has halted sales of its 0.1-ounce American Eagle gold bullion coins after investors took advantage of gold prices that sank to two-year lows earlier this month. It's the first time the Mint has stopped selling gold since November 2009, and the 179,000-ounce run on gold so far this month already rivals the record-high 231,500 ounces the Mint sold in December 2009.

 

Those fortunate enough to buy on April 15, when gold prices dropped to $1,321 per ounce, saw a nearly 7% return on their investment through Wednesday. Gold miners, however, aren't so keen on gold's volatility, leading Barrick Gold (ABX) to scale back operations as bullion prices fluctuate.

 

When gold prices plummet and folks like G. Gordon Liddy and Glenn Beck start advising investors to hoard like Yosemite Sam, there's a voice that cuts through the commodity fever to the heart of the matter: Jon Stewart's.

Back on April 15, gold prices dropped to $1,321 per ounce and hit their lowest point since cresting $1,920 per ounce in September 2011.

As convicted Watergate conspirator Liddy shilled for gold in commercial breaks and Beck blamed the slide on a shadowy cabal of government, media and otherworldly forces bent on stripping Americans of their precious gold and damning them to a life of slavery, Stewart used the pulpit on Viacom (VIA)-owned Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" earlier this week to suggest it might just be a market correction.

 

Obamacare's impact is expanding to the ivory tower, with some adjunct faculty members finding they're caught up in the turmoil surrounding the national health care insurance overhaul. 

More colleges are limiting the hours their adjunct faculty members can work, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. Why? The colleges want to avoid having to pay for health insurance coverage for the adjunct professors, given that the Affordable Care Act requires large employers to cover staffers working more than 30 hours a week. 

But as the Chronicle points out, adjunct faculty members are rarely paid by the hour. Instead, the norm is to pay them by the course, which makes it complicated to estimate how many hours each professor or lecturer requires to prepare and manage a class. 

 

If your daily commute by car seems worse lately, take heart: Experts say that's a sign of an improving economy.

INRIX, a global provider of traffic information and driver services, says traffic congestion is rising this year, after two consecutive years of double-digit declines. According to the firm's sixth traffic scorecard annual report, the 4% overall increase in traffic for the first three months of 2013, compared with the same time last year, suggests a better financial landscape that's in line with rising employment data.

So far this year, according to the report, 61 of America's 100 largest cities have experienced increased traffic congestion. That's a big jump from 2012, when 94 of those cities had declines. But Bryan Mistele, INRIX president and CEO, says we're not yet back to prerecession traffic levels.

 

If the fast-food business held a popularity contest, Wendy's (WEN) would win hands down.

According to data from Technomic, a food industry market researcher and consultant, the Dublin, Ohio-based chain was preferred by consumers over Burger King (BKW) and McDonald's (MCD), in food quality and taste and flavor. It wasn't even close.

Wendy's was rated excellent by 50.9% of consumers for food quality compared with 44.2% for Burger King and 37.4% for McDonald's, according to Technomic Consumer Brand Metrics. The numbers for food taste and flavor were just as stark. Wendy's scored 56.5% in that category, surpassing Burger King's 49.4% and McDonald's 40.7%. The data are based on interviews with consumers who have visited the chains within the last 30 days.