Katrina: catastrophies always bring out the opportunists

Since watching the awesome and rather frightening satellite imagery from the National Weather Service as Katrina slowly but inexorably made her way into Louisiana and Mississippi, I've been rather overwhelmed at the human cost of this tragedy. It's another instance of what I refer to as the Hammer of God, when we're reminded that however much technology we have, however much we smugly conclude that we've mastered the tectonic and meteorological nuances of our planet, we're still just feathers in the cosmic winds...

As I have in the past, I strongly encourage everyone to eschew going to a movie, skip a frappuccino or two, and even have a sandwich at home instead of a fancy dinner out, sending your money, even just $20 or $30, to a reputable and legitimate charitable organization to help out those people devastated by Katrina and its aftermath.

But here's what I find most depressing about the aftermath of natural disasters: for every person who tries to help, there's another trying to exploit our desire to help those in need, to steal just a tiny bit of limelight for themselves.

Let me tell you about some of the email I've received...

Corporate America specs out the job of Blogger, EarthLink-style

Starting out as one of the million alternatives to the America Online corporate monolith, Earthlink has slowly but surely evolved into a powerhouse of its own, an Internet service provider that actually understands the Internet and Web. it's not sexy or cutting edge, but helping people who aren't tech savvy or uber-geeks have a safe and successful experience online is a pretty important job anyway. Further, if you're interested in the so-called Digital Divide and how to make the Internet more accessible to a wide range of people, the spyware blocking, anti-virus and anti-spam efforts that seem to comprise the bulk of EarthLink's effort are quite important.

What I wanted to point out, however, is that EarthLink is looking for a professional blogger to join their team and manage their own blogging efforts. EarthLink already has a Blogging Area for customers, but it also has a sporadically interesting weblog of its own, EarthLink ProtectionBlog.

But you'll want to read the description to see what Corporate America thinks about when it contemplates the wild and wooly world of the blogosphere...

While local video rental stores fight over inventory, the industry moves on...

Here in Boulder, Colorado, there's an interesting business battle playing out both in the DVD players of residents -- many of whom are students who attend The University of Colorado at Boulder -- and in the pages of the local newspaper.

The latest volley in the battle between local video rental shop Video Station and the newly opened branch of national chain Hollywood Video came today in our local paper The Daily Camera. In an article entitled Video Wars: Video Station girds for battle against Hollywood Video's "film library" the basic dispute is laid bare...

Ideologi: Tackling the challenge of democracy in the online world

I recently came across a fascinating a developer who has been working for rather a while on trying to model genuine democratic processes in the online world and wanted to share what he's done. Going by the name "Mykljonzun", he's built Ideologi and his description of how it works and what he's trying to accomplish is darn interesting. Most of the rest of this article is his writing on the subject, not my own words.

Imagine that there are a thousand remote users, registered at a site (not ideologi.com, but a site running software that allows them to run "an ideologi exchange") to enter a contest to, say, "Create a new design element or feature for a next-generation iPod."

To sweeten the deal, the host of the contest (called an Initiator in Ideologi terms) puts in a pot of $25,000 for winners. Here's what happens next...

What fraction of Web pages are original content?

While perusing my RSS subscriptions in NewsGator this evening, I bumped into what sounded like it might be an interesting article at Lockergnome. The piece was two paragraphs of commentary followed by a link to the "source article" at RealTechNews. But that wasn't the origin of the story... the trail actually goes further and further back until the original piece is finally unearthed. Here's the trail I followed for this article "Ten signs your son is a hacker":

• Is Your Son a Hacker? Ten Signs to Look For at Lockergnome, linked to
• Is Your Son a Hacker? Ten Signs to Look For at RealTechNews, linked to
• Is Your Son a Computer Hacker? at Albino Black Sheep, linked to
• Is Your Son a Computer Hacker? at Adequacy.org

What I find so interesting about this is that time and again instead of people tracking to the original source and then linking to it, in what I'd describe as a "wheel and spokes" model, Web authors are instead linking in more of a "daisy chain" fashion, perhaps never going all the way back to the original source (where it'd be quite clear that it was written back in December, 2001 and obviously a deliberate attempt to provoke the hacker community into a debate).

SEO Book's Aaron Wall sued over comments on his weblog

SEO Book's Aaron Wall was sued earlier this week by Traffic-Power.com for alleged inaccuracies and lies appearing in comments other people have left on his blog. If this case goes to trial, it'll set an important precedent in the blogging community and the Internet at large, answering a critical question, particularly for business blogs: are the comments others leave on your blog a legal liability?

Some background: Aaron Wall runs SEO Book.com, a site focused on search engine optimization strategies and on selling his smart ebook of the same name. In a discussion venue of that nature, it's no surprise that community members talk about different SEO firms, positively and negatively, and one company that's been the frequent recipient of negative comments on Aaron's blog is Traffic Power.com.

Earlier this week Aaron was surprised by a certified letter from a Nevada Attorney's office notifying him that the parent company of Traffic-Power.com was suing him for the content of his weblog.

A Key Professional Networking Question: Quality or Quantity?

One of the discussions I've been watching with great interest in the greater LinkedIn community and with professional networking sites in general is whether it's a better strategy to have a small number of quality connections, or a large number of relevant but varied connections.

This discussion is so common, in fact, that some people have started to abbreviate it as QvQ.

But what are the pros and cons of each strategy? Let's have a look...

First off, like much else in life, the connect / don't connect decision is one that you have to consider anew for each potential professional connection, regardless of your individual connection criteria. Specifically, even if you decided that you'd only link to very high quality people (that is, people who you have know for at least X years, or worked with on at least Y projects) you're still placing yourself on a continuum of networking connection restrictions where one extreme is that you won't connect to anyone and the diametric opposite extreme is that you'll connect to everyone, their Mom and their dog.

Listen to me talk about Podcasts on BBC Radio 1

My previous article - and podcast - on Why I don't like podcasts has been picked up by the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Beeb, and incorporated into their newly released documentary program Radio Anyone.

Here's how they describe this interesting and quite listenable program:

"From CB radio to pirate radio and now the internet, supergeeks and superfreaks will find any means possible to get themselves heard over the airwaves. Whether it's to broadcast an amateur radio show or merely post up ramblings, there's a wealth of fascinating, geeky, and downright weird stuff to be heard if you know where to find it."

After careful consideration, I still think PR is Dead

After my well-received Business Blogging 101 workshop at the Blog Business Summit in San Francisco last week, my strong exhortation to the audience that PR is Dead was the buzz of the Summit. Even publications like the San Jose Mercury News and InfoWorld were talking about it, even though I'm certainly not the first to propose that the traditional job of public relations has been supplanted by the blogosphere.

The most interesting discussion I had on the topic, however, was with Doug Free, Group PR Manager for Microsoft and Lynann Bradbury, Senior VP of Microsoft's PR agency Waggener Edstrom. To set the scene, Lynann greeted me with "Hi. I'm not dead yet!"

But as we talked about the impact of blogging and, more generally, findability and the online world on traditional public relations, something became very, very clear...

Learn Blogging from me this Saturday, at Blogger Boot Camp!

I've enjoyed working with Thomas Frey and the rest of the da Vinci Institute on various events, and am excited to be co-hosting the Blogger Boot Camp this Saturday - August 27th - just outside of metro Denver, Colorado.

Please keep reading for a special discount code and lots more information about the Blogger Boot Camp event...

Earliest online buyer promotion or points program?

I'm digging back into the history of online electronic commerce -- a task I'm particularly suited to do as the founder of The Internet Mall, the first and original online shopping directory, launched in 1994 -- and am interested in hearing from anyone who might have specific data about online frequent buyer programs, even if it's from AOL, CompuServe or similar.

Specifically: what's the earliest online frequent buyer or buyer points program you can recall and what documentation (receipts, email messages, whatever) do you have to back it up?

A useful definition too, just so we're talking about the same thing: I'm defining a frequent buyer program as a promotion where if you buy two items, you get a third free, if you buy $x worth of merchandise you get a free discount, or even that you gained "points" for each purchase you made, accumulating over time.

Cool Job or Open Source Pariah?

My colleague Jim Minatel, over on his The Average Joe: A Book Publisher Blog, shares that Wiley is looking for an Acquisitions Editor for Open Source Topics. Acquisitions editors are the folk that pay attention to the particular market segment, identify the thought leaders, and communicate with them about the possibility of them writing books for the publisher (Jim Minatel has a must-read piece about The Role of the Acquisitions Editor too).

But while being an AE in just about any market space is nothing unusual - there are lots of them, from health to romance, sports to construction, working for hundreds of different publishers - but there's something a bit different about the Open Source community, and that's the long-running undercurrent of information wants to be free.

Mac OS X Tablet PowerBook Coming Soon?

And then I remembered that a key technology is already built in to Mac OS X -- handwriting recognition -- and that with the addition of people hacking the latest developer release of Mac OS X that's hardware compatible with Intel computers, we might well be able to hobble together a Mac tablet, uhm, PowerTablet today!

For the hardware, I think I'd go for the Toshiba Portege M200. For the OS, Mac OS X Tiger + Intel, of course. For the needed handwriting recognition? A slick little capability that's already in your own Mac called Inkwell.

Anyone already pushing these bits and wires around to try to get one of these up and running? Any shareware authors building note taking and drawing applications for this sort of environment?

I want one of these computers. Today. :-)

Update: I've spent a good few hours thinking about the name of this possible device and decided that if Apple releases something like this - and they will - that it'll be called PowerPad. Think about it: A super-notebook for students? iBook, part of the PowerBook line. Oh, and once this is out, I also expect one that's a hybrid, maybe a 6x9 screen and lots of neato iPod functionality built into the unit too. And that one? How about an iPad?

Merck's Vioxx Liability: The Death of Big Pharma?

A staggering verdict was found in Angleton, Texas against pharmaceutical conglomerate Merck & Co. when the jury today handed back $24 million in actual damages plus an additional $229 million in exemplary, punitive damages for the widow of former Vioxx patient Robert Ernst.

The background story is that triathlete Robert Ernst had been on the prescription heart drug Vioxx and then died of what the coroner later described as "arrhythmia" or an irregular heartbeat. Ernst's widow's attorney argued that Vioxx had led to a heart attack that had caused the arrhythmia, not the direct death.

While Merck voluntarily removed Vioxx from the marketplace last September after studies linked Vioxx to a higher rate of heart attacks and strokes after taking the drug for 18 months, it was too late for thousands of potential victims. Ernst is the first of over 4000 lawsuits alleging injuries from Vioxx.

The Critical Business Value of Attending Conferences

I'm a strong proponent of virtual professional networks like LinkedIn but I'd like to talk a bit about why it's still important to remember that to be plugged in to your industry and market, you need to also attend workshops, seminars and conferences.

But here's my tip for you: conferences aren't about the sessions, the talks, or the demos, and it doesn't really matter if you attend the vendor exhibition. Conferences are all about the breaks, the dinners, the bar at the conference hotel after the day's done.

Why? Because the so-called educational aspect of a conference is something you can often receive by simply buying a book or a training DVD. That's not enough to get me to travel to another city. To me, the most important aspect of attending a conference is the opportunity to meet people that I wouldn't have otherwise ever met. It's the random, the chaotic, the unexpected, unplanned discovery.

Business Blogging Tip: It's a Jungle Out There

One of the things about business blogging that has a tendency to surprise corporate people who are used to a world of control, of polite and professional interaction, of carefully managed interaction, executive "handlers", and planned messaging: bloggers can be a pretty merciless bunch.

Ask anyone who has been involved in the blogosphere for any length of time and you'll hear stories about a few words taken out of context, a single sentence out of a 650 word essay that is misinterpreted and then takes on a life of its own.

The best gadget I own: The Sony PSP

But a few weeks ago I bought a Sony Playstation Portable device, more commonly known as a PSP, and only today did I get a chance to see what an amazing device it really is...

Ten Dangerous Myths About Strategic Planning

I bumped into this terrific article in Mike Johnson's sales newsletter (Mike runs Sales Solutions) by Rick Seaman of Strategy Implementation and was glad when Rick consented to me republishing it here on my weblog...

Owners of small businesses often seem to believe in myths surrounding the subject of strategic planning and implementation, myths that can prove dangerous to the health of the organization and their personal goals.  (The “myths” in quotation marks are actual statements from CEO’s.  The rest were unstated but implied by their actions.)

Myth #1: “We don’t need a strategic plan!”
The truth is that every organization needs some form of plan to guide its actions during turbulent market conditions or it will simply respond to, and be controlled by, events outside the firm.  It is just too easy to “drift off course” in a chaotic tactical environment.

Pay Me To Blog About Your Product or Service

There's an interesting discussion just starting to surface - finally - here in the blogosphere about whether bloggers should accept payment or any other compensation for choosing to write about certain products, services, or events on their blogs. What I'm finding interesting is that the discussion I've seen is currently being framed as an ethical issue, not a practical or pragmatic discussion.

Two quick examples: In his article Blog Junkets, Jeff Jarvis says "That quid pro quo [event tickets for blog coverage] — especially if not disclosed — can tell the public that blog coverage, if not the blogger, can be bought.", and "I hope we don’t find ourselves in a position where people give things to “get blog.”' Of course we are already seeing just that, Jeff. Stick with me, though, because I think it's good, not bad.

And in his article Reasons for developing paid blog post ethics, Tom Raftery writes: "Blogs are a trusted medium - as we read someone’s blog, we develop a relationship with that person. We can converse with them, we come to know them, and largely, we trust them - they become friends" and "More and more we will see bloggers being used to push review products - hence the importance of the original discussion and the need to agree the ethics around ‘paid’ blog posts.". I don't agree. At all.

Crafting the Ideal Business Blog Comment Strategy

After working in the computer industry for decades, I'm used to the most seemingly benign topic exploding into a passionate - and sometimes even vitriolic - debate, from which editor you use to what operating system, programming language to which HTML mark-up standard you work towards.

In the blogging world, surprisingly, the big debate isn't about what blogging tool to use, and it's not about design or layout. It's not really even about whether to include advertising or not, as far as I can tell. The two big hot-buttons are about RSS feeds, whether to have a "full feed" or a "partial feed", and about your blog comment policy.

In this article, I'm going to talk about the latter topic, and I promise I'll address RSS feeds in a different piece (and at length in my Blogging 101 workshop at Blog Business Summit).

How Not to Connect on LinkedIn

This is a general topic, actually, not one specific to LinkedIn, and I'll call it "how to network electronically" for lack of a better phrase.

When I receive LinkedIn "Invitation to Connect" email, they have a specific message written by the requester. Sometimes they're smart, intriguing messages that make me want to connect since I can immediately see the mutual value of our connection, but too often I get the following instead:

I found you while I was searching my network at LinkedIn. Let's connect directly, so we can help each other with referrals. If we connect, both of our networks will grow. To add me as your connection, just follow the link below.

I can personally guarantee that if you request a connection from me with this generic message, or request a connection on another networking site with its default message, that I'll never connect with you.

Are you a Blogger who uses LinkedIn?

One area that's seen lots of churn is social and professional networking. From net.singles, the Usenet group later morphed into soc.singles in The Great Usenet Renaming (and, yes, I was part of the "cabal" that came up with the seven primary categories) to Friendster, Orkut, Ryze, and even O'Reilly Connection, lots of smart people have tried to find the magic mix of technology, interface design and fairy dust to create a truly compelling electronic networking venue.

Share your thoughts on CEO blogs and fake blogs!

Why CEO's Shouldn't Blog

Fake Blogs: New Marketing Channel or Really Bad Idea?

I have some thoughtful opinions on both topics, and have already started to draft up notes and some specific points I want to make, but in the spirit of an open dialog, I would like to invite you, my faithful readers, to add your own thoughts on these two topics too!

You are welcome to agree with my position, disagree vehemently, or even just point to weblogs that you think are fascinating or wicked cool examples of the specific topic.

In a week or two I'll begin pulling my articles together and will hope that I can quote at least a few of you therein (with links to your own sites, if you'd like: indicate as such in your comment if that's something that appeals to you) either supporting my position CEO blog-wise, or offering a smart perspective on so-called fake blogs.

So.... what do you think about CEO blogs and fake blogs?

University of Phoenix becomes ecumenical, spurns non-Christian faculty

A while back, I wrote about the blossoming partnership between University of Phoenix Online and Lutheran High School of Orange County in an article titled University of Phoenix Expands into Religious Teaching. In that article, I noted that the University had sent out a solicitation message asking for instructors interested in getting involved with an online high school venture from LHSOC.

Today the proverbial other shoe dropped, with an email message sent out by the contact person at the University of Phoenix about the program. The letter starts out reasonably enough:

Thank you for your interest in teaching with Lutheran High School of Orange County. It is greatly appreciated. At this juncture, we would like to provide you with some additional details associated with becoming a faculty member in the delivery of online education to students at Lutheran High School of Orange County.

Please read everything very carefully. Because we received such a large response to our initial email, if you remain interested, you MUST resubmit your resume to address masked . Please include your area of interest in the subject line of your email.

It's what appears subsequent to this introduction that I found so surprising...

Today was quite a day in history...

Just in case you think that the problems and challenges we face today can't be any worse, this article offers a quick spin back through time to consider a few events that happened today, 9 August, in years past. They'll help keep things in perspective, I think, but, be warned, it's depressing reading too, because as much as we try to lift ourselves up, people can be terrible, just terrible, to each other.

August 9, 1974, U. S. Vice-President Gerald Ford was promoted to President of the United States of America when Richard Nixon admitted culpability in the Watergate scandal by resigning his presidency.

August 9, 1969, Charles Manson and his weird followers gain national headlines with the terrifying, ritualistic killing of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and five of her friends in a mansion above Los Angeles.

August 9, 1945, American forces drop an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan only three days after shocking the world - and forever changing warfare - by dropping the first A-bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, to terrible effect.

Read on for more details on these events...

Why don't publicists get it?

I get a fair amount of email from public relations experts, publicists and marketing folk, but every so often I get something that just makes me gasp with amazement at how poorly this person has done their job. It's not that it's full of typographical errors - though that certainly doesn't reflect well on the sender or the product being hyped - but more that the basic idea of publicity, of marketing, is that you need to appeal to your target audience and that the more you can engage them the more likely they are to read your material.

That's not rocket science, is it?

But how do you explain this message I received today?

No One Ever Buys a Product: The Innovator's Edge

I'm always happy to receive a copy of The Colorado Innovation Newsletter from my friend Gary Lundquist, and often find it my most thought-provoking email. Here's the latest issue, about how to establish your Innovator's Edge, and it's well worth your time too...

Would you go dancing with your feet tied together? Or sightseeing with blinders on? No? If not when relaxing, then why would you wear mental blinders at work? Perhaps you don’t, but people and organizations compete every day while hobbled by their own mindsets. Even simple misunderstandings can blunt our edge and weaken our performance. And worst of all, we rarely know that such problems exist.

I lost an INC 500 company because I didn’t know. It was a rocket ride to the stars that crashed without warning, in large part because the whole company had mindset problems. I’ve been driven ever since to look for the blinders and hobbles we wear because we just don’t know any better. Frankly, the problems are endemic. Almost everyone has them.

That opens a big door to opportunity. You can develop better products with higher productivity and then create greater impact on your markets. All it takes is acting on three very fundamental concepts. Let’s call them "The Innovator’s Edge^tm"

Learn All About Business Blogging @ The Blog Business Summit

Less than two weeks from today, some of the brightest and most successful business bloggers will be meeting in San Francisco to both share what they've learned -- good and bad -- about business blogging, and to explore future directions for weblogs and how blogging can benefit companies large and small.

Speakers at the Blog Business Summit include DL Byron, Molly Holzschlag, Robert Scoble, Darren Barefoot, Rebecca Blood and Anil Dash. Oh, I'll be speaking there too, and debating best practices with Robert Scoble.

If you're just coming up to speed on business blogging then you already know that reading Growing Your Business with Google is a superb way to get the basics, but for many people, a more focused workshop, face to face, is a better strategy. If that describes you, then you'll be quite interested to learn about the dynamite Business Blogging 101 workshop I'll be leading on the 16th of August too.

There's no better way to spend three days learning about weblogs, business blogging, and how to keep track of the blogosphere buzz than to make plans now to attend the Blog Business Summit at the historic Palace Hotel in San Francisco, August 16-19. Register now while there's still space.

And if you'd like to check out my business weblogs, then pop over to The Intuitive Life Business Blog and Ask Dave Taylor.

I hope to see you there!

LinkedIn announces InMail, gives entire site a facelift

For two years, we’ve been building a new kind of business tool, one that lets you benefit from and enhance professional relationships that matter. This summer, we’re taking several more steps toward making LinkedIn an essential resource for you.

New Name Search: All of LinkedIn for Every User.

We’re introducing the best professional search on the Web. Now when you search for someone by name, you’ll get results from the entire LinkedIn Network of more than 3.3 million registered professionals. And we’ve improved People search, too — you’ll see not only matching professionals in your network, but also the top results from the entire LinkedIn Network. Introductions: Greater Trust and Speed

Hollywood Foreshadows Death of Testimonial Marketing

Walking around, looking at all the boxes of the new DVD releases, it struck me rather forcibly that the marketing types at movie studios have made reviewer testimonials so omnipresent that they no longer help sell movies. I was looking at some movies that I thought were just awful, truly appalling films, and they sported upbeat, enthusiastic, "best film of the year" testimonials just like the superb films next to them.

New Book: "Growing Your Business with Google"

This introductory note is from my just-published book The Complete Idiot's Guide to Growing Your Business with Google. If you're reading this, I just bet you'll be darn interested in my new book. Tom Peters, Chris Pirillo, Debbie Weil and lots of others experts have already stated how much they like it, and Guy Kawasaki liked it enough to write the foreword.

You know that there's been a dramatic change in how companies are doing business, a change that probably made you wake up in a cold sweat, wondering if your company will survive the transition. You might think that it's about building a Web site, but just as a few popsicle sticks can't build the Eiffel Tower, so a Web page or two won't help you rethink your business for the new online world.

In the 21st Century, successful business will be focused on findability, about creating an online and offline presence that helps your customers find you. Business and marketing used to be characterized by efforts to brand your company and get in front of your customers, but that's not what's propelling the hot new companies, the entrepreneurs who are already striking it rich in this new world.

When A Business Should NOT Blog

Everyone likes to wax poetic about the million reasons why a business should get into blogging, and why a weblog is the cornerstone of a smart Web site. Heck, even I'm not immune, I've been writing - and lecturing - about this for years now.

But sometimes, truth be told, there are businesses that shouldn't be blogging, and there are people in businesses who shouldn't be writing entries for the company weblog, and even specific topics that just are not appropriate for a corporate weblog. Let's have a look, shall we?

Who decides what weblogs are "important"?

Jim Grisanzio of Sun Microsystems has an interesting article up on his site this morning, a reaction to the recent Fortune article Blogs that Matter, in which Jim says: "the media doesn't get to choose "who matters" for us anymore. We do."

My gut reaction was "You go, Jim!" but upon reflect, I think Jim's wrong in a quite important way, actually.

Here's the problem: the most important weblogs are those that have credibility, and credibility comes both from having something smart and coherent to say and being granted marketplace credibility from other credible sources citing or linking to your blog. It's a chicken and egg problem, because I think it's phenomenally difficult to get credibility in the online world without the help of other sources, other already recognized industry experts being involved.

Inside the FTD florist business with Flowersfast

I've been friends with Bob Rankin, owner of online florist Flowersfast, for years, and was pleased when he consented to be interviewed about the reality of the online florist industry. Here's the result.

Q: Flowers? Aren't there, like, a million flower shops online? What makes yours different?

We try to make our mark with ease of use, competitive pricing and excellent customer service. Our customers often remark that our site was very easy to use and the prices were better than other places they looked. And when problems arise after the sale, we look upon that as an opportunity to win their business for life by going beyond the call to make sure they are satisfied. I'm convinced that many businesses fail because they never learn the lesson that unhappy customers have the choice to take their future business elsewhere.

Q: What are some of the more unusual reasons you've seen people send flowers?

The Latest Issue of "Dave Taylor Author News"

With twenty books on the market, I have a lot of people who not only read what I write, but are enthused enough to sign up for my author newsletter. Smart idea: I often have freebies, giveaways, information on special discounts to events I'll be attending, industry insider scoops and fun general chitchat. Even better, I only send out a newsletter sporadically, so it's typically at least a month between issues. With a few pieces chopped out (see, you should subscribe!) here's the latest issue to whet your appetite and give you an update on my latest ventures.

Hello everyone! I hope your summer is going well. For us, it's day after day of heat here in Colorado, with late afternoon storm clouds that typically blow off without giving us a drop of rain.

Fortunately, my office has air conditioning, so I've been darn busy writing and working on various book projects. Allow me to give you an update, particularly since a book I'm quite excited about is coming out this very week!

GROWING YOUR BUSINESS WITH GOOGLE

Let's start with The Complete Idiot's Guide to Growing Your Business with Google: it's due out tomorrow, actually, from Penguin/Alpha and it's a solid and invaluable business book for every online entrepreneur, whether you're part of a larger company or just someone seeking to get higher search engine ranking and more visibility for your hobby site.