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Social Media Predictions 2009 – a bunch of them from top bloggers, all consolidated in one free download! Cool. Thanks for the link, Joe Jaffe!

Writer’s Toolbox – 35 best tools for writing online. You’ll be familiar with a bunch in the top half of the list, but the second half has some less familiar resources.

Brands don’t belong on Twitter! Brands absolutely do belong on Twitter! Point – counterpoint, from the Mashable blog. What do you think?

ROI and Social Media. Here’s an interesting take, from the training world – a 4-point framework for measurement, based on Kirkpatrick (I’ve been involved in the training industry for years, so this is an interesting spin). From Mel Aclaro. Plus, is it easier to measure ROI from social media as opposed to traditional media? Thought-provoking post from Jacob Morgan.

Chris Brogan addresses the whole blow-up over sponsored advertising on a blog post. Really, folks, take a deep breath. The guy practices full disclosure, he experiments with new methods for advancing on-line business – what’s the problem here? Are we chasing some mythical ideal of the pure Oracle (sorry, Larry Ellison – not your Oracle) that will speak to us from on high with no taint of personal bias, no worldly interests, no brushes with the horrible and impure practice of commerce? If that’s what you’re looking for, then you’re after some Kool-Aid that you’re not going to find anywhere in the blogosphere – or on planet Earth, for that matter. Social media (or any type of media outlet) is not populated with angelic beings practicing “pure” journalism, “pure” conversation, or “pure” anything else. I have enough to keep busy striving toward some level of personal purity of heart, let alone imposing unrealistic expectations of “purity” on other bloggers. Sheesh…!

PLUS – an example of clear communications (under 140 characters!) from a 7-year old.

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Story vs. Slogan. Some thoughts on the relative effectiveness of stories vs taglines, from Spike Jones (riffing off a recent Chip and Dan Heath article). Now I’m a both-and kinda guy. Both are potentially powerful ways to transmit and embed a message. A good story and (as Jay Ehret would say) a good tagline together.

OK, so keeping on that theme, David Reich asks if Rudeness is Good Marketing. Including story. Plus, here’s a nightmare customer “service” story for you – from Anne Simons at Brandeo. AT&T really doesn’t want you to leave, without more scars in more places! My tagline to sum it up: I’m in no mood for your rude. OK, so maybe the stories are more effective…

Most E-mailed News. All on one page. Pretty nifty. Hat tip: The Swiss Miss.

I know, I know…it’s so 3 weeks ago. But I figured I had one final word to put in on Personal Branding. Actually, two words. Can Personal Branding be summarized with only 2 words? Tell me what you think.

Using social media to put out the fire (with Scott Monty at Ford as an example). From Noah Mallin.

PLUS – some brief, straightforward common sense from John Jantsch – Social Media is a Tool, It’s not a Religion. Refreshing.

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Five in the Morning 121108

John Moore (Brand Autopsy) begins a series sharing thoughts from Inside Drucker’s Brain (IDB Project). Intro here, first post here.

27 Practical Ideas that will Transform Every Organization. Distilled wisdom from Tom Peters.

The Catchup Lady breaks up with UmbrellaToday.com. Why? Well, you just gotta deliver the goods…

Kirsten Wright shares the ABCs of creativity. Well, 25 of them. Can anyone help her with “x”?

Blogger’s Choice winners for Open Web Awards. Actually, that post isn’t terribly interesting, now that I look at it. So why not visit Olivier Blanchard‘s rant on business cards?

PLUS – Are these folks just amazingly creative, or do they simply have too much time on their hands? Either way, it’s cute, and worth 1 minute and 20 seconds of your time! And while we’re at strange on-line holiday celebrations, have some fun Destroying a Fruitcake.

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Five in the Morning 121008

Lists, lists, lists. It’s that time of year – lots of Top 10s. Louis Gray has a nice summary of Top 2008 web services (and their prognosis for 2009). Meanwhile, Rick Turoczy at ReadWriteWeb sums up the Top 10 Consumer web apps of 2008 (quite diff list from Louis’). And then, of course, there’s Time.com‘s Top 10 Everything of 2008. Plan on spending some time here…

Should bloggers/social media types self-promote? Mack Collier started up this discussion. I also chimed in, as did Lisa Hoffmann. Read the posts and the comments – what do you think?

Matt Dickman with some thoughts on HR in the age of Social Media.

Not Everyone likes Coffee. Consider your audience and their tastes as you serve “your stuff” up. Good thoughts from Jon Swanson over at Levite Chronicles. (Jon – strong! Cream and a little sugar…).

The Only Important Thing is….what??? You’ll have to let Doug Meacham tell you!

PLUS – Sarah sold me on Opera – sorta. How one voice can bring you into a new genre. AND – this Spouse 2.0 concept is just bizarre. Really. Don’t do it!

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Five in the Morning 120808

Upgrade your brainstorming! Paul Williams over at MarketingProfs Daily Fix shows us how.

Does your brand pass the CUB test? From the good folks at Brand Aid.

Right on, Target. One smart little move by Target makes a better shopping experience – and earns them more cash.

Buyology. Ivana Taylor reviews an interesting-sounding book on why we buy.

You’re read about the Zappos (shoe retailer) social media success story. Now, take a pictorial tour of HQ, courtesy of Guy Kawasaki. Never seen nothin’ like this before!!

OVERDOSE ON WOODRUFF BONUS – if you missed it at the end of the last week, the latest StickyFigure spoof: Social Media Museum has Bloggers All A-Twitter. Plus, on my personal blog (Steve’s Leaves), a Sunday Muse: Finding Grace. (And, Ann Handley just told me that my new MarketingProfs Daily Fix post is up: I’M PURSUING (niche) DOMINATION! This is probably the only time you’ll have a “Five in the Morning” trifecta – Woodruff links on three different blogs…)

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Five in the Morning 120508

The Brand Chef is a Jerk! Hey, I didn’t say it, Andrew Clark did – and he’s the Brand Chef! Making the best of an awkward networking reach-out…

When 2 companies merge that have disparate brands, does it make sense to smoosh them into one? Or is there a middle ground, preserving 2 brands within a company? The NameWire guys are wondering about Qantas and British Airways. My take – keep the two identities, but create a subtle “flag” identity that overarches both (“part of the Imperialistic Empire Airline Group…”)

Straight from the mind of Armano (sounds like an ad for and Italian suit designer, I know…). The Paradox of Please. Take 45 seconds and absorb. Brilliant.

As promised, CB Whittemore has launched a series on Bridging the Old and the New with Social Media. First up: Mack Collier. Having met both of these individuals, I wholeheartedly recommend that you follow them on their blogs and via Twitter. Good people.

Lead Yourself. Valeria Maltoni on Dr. Srikumar Rao, with video included. And you know what I said above about CB and Mack? Same for Valeria. Good people.

The guys from Heath (Chip and Dan) take on sloganeering in Fast Company. Are your taglines and slogans made to stick, or made to stink??

Ever wonder if you really belong in your role? My personal confession: I am not a Salesman.

OK, time for a little Friday fun. Happy skies, part 1, part 2.  Really bad timing.  Templar University (great for enhancing your personal brand!)

Don’t forget to Be Happy today (look at the collateral effects!)

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If you Twitter, you’re probably wondering about some of the potentially “corrupting” trends. Here, Paul Chaney opens up a discussion about Twitter automation – as you’ll see in the comments, I am not in entire agreement. What do you think?? (btw, if you’re not following Paul, you should be: @pchaney)

Want to do free press releases? Dana Willhoit has the list of sites that do just that for you!

Tom Peters recommends two books on Design.

Robert Lesser talks us through Lead Generation using Web 2.0 approaches. From MarketingProfs Daily Fix blog.

Demogirl – now this is a cool service, pointed out by Greg Verdino. Quick, distilled “how-to” screencasts. Good, basic, useful implementation.

Extras – today only! Click before midnight and get 2 links for the price of 1!!!

Say – what does Steve Woodruff/@swoodruff/StickyFigure actually sound like? Find out! Four bloggers share in the latest AOC2 podcast.Thanks to Jay Ehret, @themarketingguy!

Hot off the blog presses – 40 Ways to Deliver Killer Blog Content. From Chris Brogan. Here’s my #41 – Aggregate Information that People Want.

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I hope you had a great Thanksgiving weekend (for my U.S. readers – well, for everyone, actually!) The break was nice; however, we’re back to blogging at Five in the Morning!

Like eBooks? The fine folks at Social Media Today have collected links to 25 top (free) downloads for Social Media eBooks. BONUS: Lee Odden‘s list of top (“real”) books on social media marketing.

Naming a new business? Check out Martin Jelsema‘s focused blog on that topic (Business Naming Basics).

Social Means More than One. (“Enough about me, what do you think about me?”). From Geoff Livingston.

5 Ways to Gain Notice Without Losing your Shirt. A guest post on Drew’s Marketing Minute blog (which should be in your Top 10 Blogs, btw).

How Alltop Powers Bloggers. Nice stuff from Chris Brogan.

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(Five in the Morning will take a break for Thanksgiving…be back on Monday!)

Geoff Livingston with some pithy lessons learned after 10K tweets on Twitter. Good stuff here. Geoff calls it likes he sees it.

Sticking with a Twitter theme, Pistachio‘s blog on Twitter means Business (with brief case studies).

Louis Gray makes the case that sharing and self-promotion in social media are a 2-way street. Good perspectives here. Plus a link to his earlier post on 35 tips to get started with social media.

Common Mistakes in Starting a Blog. From that recent transplant from the great Northeast to the wilds of South Carolina, Matt J McDonald.

An interesting customer service (or lawsuit avoidance, or…) initiative by Infiniti, from Jason Baer. Would you resist this bribe? Quite a story…

PLUS – So you suffer from Idea Heartburn? -from Jeff Pulver. And, a feeble attempt at a one-sentence summary of the financial meltdown (strange things come to mind when you awake in the middle of the night, I know!)

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From Jennifer Laycock – the influence of Twitter links to grow blog conversations. Twitter is like that outgoing guy or gal at a party who draws others into the convo… (btw, Jennifer’s blog posts about Twitter finally got me off my duff and into Twitter. I owe her.)

WebSuccess Diva (Maria Reyes-McDavis) gives us 10 Sinfully Good Social Media Marketing Diva blogs. Ah, but then Toby (Diva Marketing) Bloomberg spotlights 31 Social Media Marketing Communities for Women. It’s a diva y diva link fest, and everyone wins! Gender fairness would lead us to the conclusion that we need 15 Smash-mouth Marketing Maelstroms for keyboard-pounding Men – but I haven’t seen it yet…

Jim says: 37 Marketing Ideas in 140 characters. You tweeted it, Jim Connolly collected it.

The “Re-Tweet” and WOM marketing, from the always-thoughtful Jeremiah Owyang. One reason I re-tweet – I do not assume that all my subscribers are following everyone I follow. It’s a very time-effective way to expose your network to different voices.

Laura Fitton, aka Pistachio, is assembling Twitter for Dummies. And you can help!

PLUS – are you way geeky? Like, you really want to know what strange and hard-to-pronounce techie stuff is on the 2009 horizon? I thought so. This is for you.

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How NOT to: Build your Twitter community. Good tips from Sarah Evans. Oh, and the other side of the coin – How TO.

Growing through delegation/outsourcing – valuable thoughts here from Chaitanya Sagar. I’ve walked this same path and probably have other decisions to make in the future…and I agree that outsourcing (rather than do-it-all-yourself or hiring) is a very valuable and important strategy. There is potential business strength and growth on both sides of this equation.

Drew McLellan on the Best Way to Grow your Business. You might be surprised at his answer – but then again, I hope you’re not. Plus, this poignant remembrance of an effective leader.

42 Content-building ways to Attract and Retain Customers. From Joe Pulizzi over at Junta 42 blog.

Building your Brand through Networking. Walter Akana interviews Liz Lynch, author of just-released book Smart Networking: Attract a Following in Person an Online.

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Well, I’m back from a 2-day trip to Chicago, and it looks like my little experiment in time-queued blog posts and tweets for Five in the Morning worked OK (yes, the last 2 days had been prepared in advance on Tuesday). I know, I know, this is hardly a cutting-edge technology advance, but I’m of a generation that still marvels a bit when stuff like that actually works!

So, without further ado, some fresh posts for your Friday:

I have lived in New Jersey for many years (still cannot bring myself to say I’m “from NJ” – sorry, but I’m from Connecticut). Anyway, there’s a lot that happens in this state that can make a resident grind his/her teeth into gnashing nubs, but Spike Jones points out this fabulous – and creative – and really helpful – promotion by the New Jersey Nets. Wow – now that’s how to take care of your fans!

The AdverGirl (Leigh Householder) has a series going on How Companies are using Social Media. A number of posts are already up – this link is to the first one. Tune it!

Legendary customer experience marketer and wanna-be rock star Doug Meacham has begun his own series on the Transaction vs. the Customer Experience (in retail). Here’s the first entry.

Seek criticism. From the creative David Airey. Sound counter-intuitive? Not if you want to keep improving!

Mack Collier writes a helpful post about GE’s initial foray into blogging/Twitter. What I want to point out here is Mack’s tone of helpfulness and his call for patience. After the Motrin fiasco of the past week, I think we all need to take a deep breath and be sure not to crucify companies that dip their toes in the social media water. Mistakes will be made, initial forays will be incomplete or askew. Let’s follow Mack’s example and be helpful, instead of battering newcomers and scaring them off. It’s a supportive tone of understanding and support (which has always marked our community) that will grow utilization. We all stumbled our way into this not many months/years ago, right…?

PLUS: Every blogger will understand why this is funny! Do not sip coffee before reading lest you snort it all out on your keyboard…

Oh…and did you know that you’re owed a free Dr. Pepper?

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You do know that Social Media is not a Fad – Right? From Dawud Miracle.

CMOs – Time to Evolve. From MarketingVox.

15 Rules for Business Bloggers. Good review of the basics, by Ian Lurie.

How to be the Social Media Champion at your Office. Good stuff by Jason Falls.

Toby the Diva asks: What would you do if you could Just Do It? And here are the answers.

PLUS – you know your brand is successful when…(you’ll chuckle at the pictures)

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One of my favorite local (NJ area) bloggers, CB Whittemore, on Social Media, the Elections, and what it all means for Marketing – Part 1 and Part 2.

At MarketingProfs Daily Fix, a post which is probably closest to the heart of what makes me tick – maybe more than anything I’ve previously written. What’s your Value-Add?

Amber Naslund says, Give it Away. Good stuff.

Everything is risky. Truthy thoughts and a great graphic from David Armano.

Will Twitter start to charge for Tweets?

PLUS…of course you’ve always been annoyed at how Starbucks names their cup sizes. This quick video (quite well done!) pokes a little fun. From the Swiss Miss.

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Taglines. Examples of the good, the bad, and the ugly. From Brandsinger blog.

Anna Farmery does a podcast with “Director Tom” (Thomas Clifford) on Bringing Brands to Visual LIfe.

From the NY Times – the Brand-ness of Strangers. How does seeing logos and brands among the teeming masses impact us?

Lewis Green on Why Social Media isn’t a Requirement for Every Marketing Campaign. A lot of valuable links to high-impact bloggers included in this post.

It’s been updated and expanded. Do you want to see a large number of Marketing/Branding/Social Media/PR blog feeds, all in one visually engaging interface? The Marketing Bloggers Portal is for you!

Just for fun – check out the tongue-in-cheek design work at this coffee shop. I love offbeat humor as an attention-getter! Plus, 10 Half-baked Advertsing Ideas.

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Discard this ACE

I saw a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal this week. The prominent logo provoked a feeling that was so contradictory to the company purpose and message that I was flabbergasted.

One glance at the logo make me immediately think of two things:

1. Disorder; and

2. Toys R Us

Unfortunately, the ad is for a global insurance company. And in these days of financial instability, I don’t think that a financial services/insurance company should give the impression that it is not serious. Yet that is what ACE Insurance does with this awful logo.

Surely these folks make enough money to project an image that connotes stability, seriousness, heft. This thing looks like it was whipped up in Powerpoint in 10 minutes by a Muppets designer. Please.

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Six ways to Build your own Personal Developmental Network. From the smart and always-helpful Liz Strauss.

What is Passion anyway? From those folks with their Brains on Fire.

Laura Ries on It’s the Category, Stupid. What do you think of her thesis here?

Free Social Media for Small Business e-book, put together by John Jantsch and Microsoft. Cool!

A simple reminder from Drew McLellan.

Discard this ACE. From Stickyfigure blog (ummm…that’s me).

New e-mail tool: AwayFind. Reviews by Chris Brogan and Sarah Perez. I could see this being very useful for some folks…

Just for a little Friday fun – nice looks can deceive! 50 very strange buildings. And, from TechCrunch, an imaginative way to get some exposure, if you can spare a shirt and $75!

And big congratulations to Ian Schafer!!

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The headline is lying today. WAY too much good stuff this morning to restrict it to 5 posts. Enjoy!

Comments are not ads. A good reminder from Shannon Paul.

Jim Kukral goes live with his new business model and branding. Plus video launch.

C.C. Chapman‘s interesting take on the recent Pepsi new logo social media campaign.

The Catchup Lady on lessons from Mars Rover on Twitter.

Doug Karr asks – and attempts to answer – how many words per post is “right”? The answer(s) may surprise you.

Chris Wilson wants you tell him: Who was listening in 2008?

So you’ve decided to follow me on Twitter? My Twitter Full Disclosure.

What’s in your Marketing Arsenal? Which tools? Toys? Tell Jay Ehret!

Big Changes for Microsoft Live – now a social network! Plus, a great photo sharing service launched.

PLUS: 15 stunning images using blur. Yahoo testing new front page (and – new Yahoo Deals). A little fun from Todd And: PNG vs. JPG. One graphic tells all!

BONUS: Check out the new BusinessWeek on-line app, Business Exchange. I did a search on Social Media Marketing. Here are the results.

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Hey! Do you think we’re stupid? Drew McLellan‘s just askin’…

Why Start a Blog and 25 Tips to make it work. From the esteemed Valeria Maltoni. Great stuff here!

Ann Handley takes off on 5 in the Morning, with a 9 in the Morning! And these are some great posts…check them out!

Straight from the Web Success Diva herself, Defining your Business Goals in Social Media. Ripe thoughts here – definitely see what Maria Reyes-McDavis has to say.

From the Idea Sandbox – Create Customer Excitement with Traditions.

FRIDAY BONUS: A quick and timely reminder, from the camera of David Armano (while you’re there, check out this lovely shot also).

Oh, and on a positive note – Lego provides a great customer service story. Close to home, for us. Way to go, Lego!

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“Income Security” – an interesting thought from Jason Alba (he of Jibber Jobber fame). What do you think? Oh, and part 2 is now up, with a bunch of good input from the clowd. (the virtual crowd, the cloud, get it? Never mind…)

You DO know about Mack Collier’s “Viral Garden Top 25 Marketing and Social Media Blogs” – right? If you don’t, go there NOW and find out where lots of the cool blog readers hang out.

Facebook, and Obama’s success. Some numbers shared by Louis Gray.

Into Logo design? The you probably want to check out LogoDesignLove. Just sayin’…

Interested in SMR (Social Media Releases)? Of course you are! And so is Todd Defren. So find out from him if they work…

BONUS – Way to LIght up Your Booth. What was the most creative booth promotion I saw at Ad-Tech this week? You might be very surprised…

PLUS – Want an insanely complete start page portal? Check this beastie out!

HEY! Have you found – or written – a Five-worthy post? Feel free to suggest entries for the next day’s Five in the Morning (stevew at stickyfigure dot com) or DM me via Twitter (@swoodruff)

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It’s over. And I’ll bet a lot of folks aren’t getting up anywhere close to 5 in the morning!

Truth be told, I wasn’t up then either. Closer to 6 am. But here are your 5 fresh posts to start the day…

MarketingShift brings us two interesting lessons. British Airways finds out about the power of social networking (and not in a good way). And, by seeking to “do good” with free election day giveaways, did some companies “do wrong”? Didn’t see this one coming…(I did get a free cup of Starbucks yesterday…does that make me and a few million others accessories to a felony?)

Rohit Bhargava gives us a nice visual on how one Obama branding strategy was quite effective. I agree with him, though I am usually more of a branding/logo “purist” – what do you think?

Rick Turoczy drinks some Juice. Have you tried it yet? I plan to!

Seth Godin summarizes some interesting marketing lessons (yes, with “tribe” angles) from the U.S. election.

The speed of Twitter. An interesting example from Mack Collier, along with a link to a good post from Mike Sansone.

PLUS: The power of a simple graphic. Really neat. From Todd And’s blog.

Ad-Tech NY Tues. Mid-day

Context is King – Publishing in the Digital Age Roundtable

Intro

- Search is a blunt instrument

- Increase relevance! Pool of information is massive.

- Internet users increasingly skeptical of user-created content

- Context – must be relevant, must resonate, must be actionable

- Role of professional editor evolving

- Inside out and Outside in – the new mantra for aggregating content.

Moderator-Pam Horan, President, Online Publishers Association

Betsy Morgan, CEO, Huffington Post

John Byrne, BusinessWeek.com

Vivian Schiller, NYTImes.com

David Morris, CBS Interactive

Robin Steinberg, MediaVest

- Vivian S – Curating the entire web to aggregate content from many realms, including other publishers (Topic pages). LATER THIS MONTH – NY TImes will launch NYTIMES.com TIMES EXTRA – an alternate home page you can choose to see a much broader base of web content. Also TimesPeople – a semi-social network area you can sign up for.

- John B – new initiative called BusinessExchange was launched in Sept. Allows community to decide what you want to create and follow. A conceptual mashup of wikipedia, digg, Flickr. Engine pulls web info together on your chosed topic of interest. No preference to BW content. Content organized around people, who form communities around their interests. Community determines what content rises to the top. Already 700 topics. Seeing what others are valuing. Links to your LinkedIn profile, imported in to your BE profile. Great advertising performance because of targeted audiences. Well-indexed by Google.

- Betsy M – 2,000 bloggers contribute to HuffPo. Mix of curated news and blogs. All they do is curate. Big News page for major people/events (such as Sarah Palin – using her as a prime case study). Huge number of views of Couric/Palin interview from this Big News community. The Palin angle lives on in lots of buckets – not just Politics, but Style, etc. From 3 mill to 22 mill unique monthly visitors to HuffPo from October-October. HuffPo is there to feed people’s Obsessions.

- Robin S – the emotional connection of trust. Lots of magazine brand sites have not kept up, or do not provide the right type of experience (compared to more progressive environments like those above). Need to take a diff. editing philosophy – this isn’t about getting monthly or weekly readers, it’s DAILY. Contextual targeting is the big winner.

How to creatively create new engaged communities? How to connect consumers with each other (and advertisers) around shared interests?

[SW - the tools are out there, and growing. The content is out there. I think the new value-add people are going to be the on-line "community organizers" and content aggregators, with connections to highly relevant advertising and action-taking opportunities. This is really a new business model. This is what was happening with the presidential campaign.]

Ad-Tech NY – Monday

Ad-Tech NY starts today, with no keynotes or workshops – just exhibits.

It’s bewildering!

Because the event is taking place in a mid-town hotel, there is not a large exhibit space. Therefore, exhibitors are scattered over 3 floors. If you get claustrophic, this is not the place for you!

Most of the booths/displays are 10 or 20 foot, and they are tightly packed in hallways and ballroom areas. For those involved in SEO, widgets, on-line advertising tools, PPC, affliate marketing, and the like, this is nirvana.

I’m actually on the hunt for new and cool social media applications – things that would appeal to my branding/marketing StickyFigure audience, and well as apps that might have relevance to my pharma Impactiviti audience. The major challenge is the signal-to-noise ratio!

I’m pretty obsessive about critiquing booth design and outreach at trade shows. With all the companies that are here, ostensibly involved in marketing and advertising, I’m struck with how few of them seem effective at grabbing and holding attention. So far, Casale Media gets my nod for the best booth design – a clean field of white with a very simple red logo presentation. Memorable. A lot of companies still seem to be struck in the describe-everything-that-we-do mode, instead of crafting a single compelling message.

I’m anticipating that once the sessions start tomorrow, there’ll be a lot more to share. In the meantime, a few companies that have caught my eye so far:

Izea (connects up bloggers and advertisers) – anybody using this service to review products and get paid? Your thoughts?

Blockdot (on-line game development) – anyone have experience with this outfit? Your thoughts?

Telligent (social network platform) – this platform can be used both publicly and internally, to deploy social networks (including forums, wikis, blogs, etc.), and has a robust reporting back-end. It’s built on Microsoft enterprise tools (and Microsoft uses it). Mzinga competitor. I see a lot of potential here – anyone have user feedback about Telligent?

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Ways to get new Blog Readers. 10 great tips about using on-line presence strategies, from Problogger.

Is that a whiff of Lanolin around your marketing? Don’t follow the sheep, says Jonathan Kranz at MarketingProfs Daily Fix.

A roundup of top blog search engines. From Ann Smarty at Search Engine Journal.

Steve Rubel predicts the future regarding smart phones and cloud computing. I think he’s pretty much on-target. What do you think?

Free e-books from Chris Brogan. As in, FREE. Fish Where the Fish Are. Personal Branding. Grab ‘em!

PLUS – I love being a Dad. From C.C. Chapman. Yeah. And, for a quick Monday visual, Tel Aviv sunset from Jeff Pulver.

I’ll be at Ad-Tech NY for the first part of this week…will try to get out Five in the Morning each day, but no guarantees! Visit here for live updates on the conference, however, M-W.

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10 Branding brownie points, offered by Ed Roach (of the Brand Corral blog). Not high-tech stuff; just simple ways to add significant value.

Laura Ries, on How and When to Attack (in Marketing). With good/bad examples.

Small Business Trends introduces Jim Kukral as a (video expert) contributor. Here is his post on how and why a small business should use Twitter, including a screencast (Jim is good people, by the way. Be sure to follow him if you’re not already).

Why I blog. From Susan Murphy (SuzeMuse). I think Suze speaks for many of us.

Dan Schawbel interviewed at MSNBC website. Theme: social networking and business.

PLUS: Free Wi-Fi at locations nationwide for iPhone users? Sweeeet!