At their best, blogs offer insight and intelligence, none moreso than Seth Godin’s daily brain dumps. Seth goes futher than most in that he often throws out free business ideas and free ebooks.

I’ve not had a chance to digest all of his latest offering but it looks similar to his usual fare: short, digestable, direct and thought provoking. Even better is the fact he got 70 odd important people to contribute “important ideas… including Tom Peters, Jackie Huba and Jason Fried…”

Just read Tom Asacker’s post on frustration and I needed to rebroadcast:

Marketers, we need you now, more than ever, to be the voice of value creation for the benefit of your organizations and other brand constituents (customers, suppliers, communities, et al). So please don’t let the frustration, and persistence, of the Social Web ecosystem cause you to aimlessly invest those scarce resources in “following,” “friending” or “tweeting.”

Some are proving there is a benefit to social media but don’t forget Twitter, Facebook, etc are all tools. Merely tools, not the whole ball game itself. If your business is using them successfully then kudos to you. If you’re employing them but not gaining value, then you must realise they’re no longer tools, they’ve become toys.

Does anyone rave on about email, fax or telephone use in business anymore? When did you last hear someone brag about their team’s wonderful clearing of their inboxes? All very useful, but tools nonetheless.

Well, that’s my prediction. They’ll stop burning dollars acquiring paper mills and fork out $750+ million for Twitter.

Twitter is the most popular and certainly the most talked about social media tool of the moment, yet there’s no clear indication on how they’ll monetise the whole shebang. They raised another $35 million in venture capital last month but to what end?

If you concede that Google want to know far more about you and your digital habits along with the world at large, this source would make an obvious acquisition. The speed at which trends and news appear on Twitter is unmatched elsewhere on the web. Google could leverage this into their algorithm and gain much more real-time searching (certainly opposed to Google News).

Of course, we’re not privy to the magic that’s being created right now in Mountain View where Google’s rocket scientists wave their wands over the web with reckless talent. Have they got a Twitter-killer waiting in the wings? Personally I doubt it. And if they have, will it be another Google Video which was always the poor cousin to YouTube – remember Google later bought YouTube purely to get that online video foothold?

They’re into harvesting strategies and don’t need to monetise everything immediately. Again, YouTube teaches us that. So the lack of income at Twitter won’t be such a problem; the data is the treasure worth the capital outlay. Although, Twitter wont keep its monopoly forever – when you show the market what’s it’s capable of, it rarely stands and applauds for long. Immitation is immenant.

Then again, others might get to the buy-out first. Facebook is reported to have offered $500 million and Carol Bartz could do with creating some buzz about Yahoo other than dismal reports of staff exoduses. Either of these firms would be salivating at the thought of gaining those 6 million Twitterers and all that live data.

What do you reckon? Do you think Google will crush Twitter, buy Twitter or just look at it like a play-thing in the corner?

Plenty of bloggers are spouting New Year’s resolutions. Most are quaint rehashes of being less avaricious, and showing greater care to one’s fellow man and the weighing scales simultaneously.

Forget resolutions, try predictions. J.K. Galbraith said ‘there are two types of forecasters: those who don’t know and those who don’t know they don’t know’, but there’s always Tom Asacker. He hits it right between the eyes with his article, “Nine Predictions for 2009.” As ever, he is articulate, succinct and on the money (at least that’s my prediction).

Newspapers are in their twilight years. With every print run, they step closer to oblivion. Of course, you’re smart and you know full well that they exist for advertisers, not news, and there lies the rub: ad revenues are dwindling at an alarming rate. Oh, but what to do with that high brand equity and shrinking readership? Go online, right? Surely they’ll read us [insert major name] on tinterweb and we can sell banner ads instead of print ones?

If they’re half as committed to that oversimplified strategy as I believe they are, why don’t they help us digest their content more easily? Granted, they’re much better than they were (understanding that we don’t want to log in to read was a real boon) but much boundary pushing is needed if they’re going to carve a real niche out of the net.

Next to Google Earth, RSS is the best thing about the Internet. It’s simple and brilliant. Instead of typing in dozens of web addresses to check out what’s new, you can tell the web which sites you’d like to read and watch them all come into one page (or reader) as and when they refresh themselves. Instead of buying a paper or magazine which will have a good proportion of waste (i.e. I won’t read) Google can deliver 100% relevant content to any desktop or mobile device I choose – for free. Helpful. Genius. Time saving. Wonderful.

Not so the experience you’ll find online at most of our British newspapers. Check out this article by Timothy Fadek at the Guardian.co.uk (note: no RSS in their address bar). Where is the feed for this page? There’s the usual social networking buttons, but what about a longer term buy-in? Sure, you can subscribe to the RSS feed from the business home page and get hooked up. The trouble is, it feeds you the whole of the business section (approx 270 posts per week) not the daily missives of your chosen journo or subject.

Telegraph.co.uk and timesonline.co.uk (what a dreadful URL) help you a wee bit by offering a selection of feeds, but they’re insufficient. You’ve got more chance of most writers cooking you dinner tonight than giving you an easy to find RSS feed. It’s a genuine shame that their technology is missing such an opportunity to gain attention and eyeballs.

A 20 second brainstorm on what could be better:

• Allow us to plug in to ANY correspondent/writer;
• Allow us to filter the feed by keyword or tag e.g. I want Brian Moore at the Telegraph.co.uk (actually possible if you’re persistent in your quest) but only on international rugby, not his club rugby, football or general pieces;
• Allow us to skew to excerpt or full text (don’t force me to your site to read a whole article – it’s just tight);
• Allow us to take the feed live, daily, weekly or monthly (as a magazine would arrive);
• Allow the feed on keyword only but across all sections e.g. Lewis Hamilton could be in several areas other than F1 sport; and,
• Allow a matrix of any the above.

RSS is chronically underused; newspapers could blow it open to become one of their saving graces. Of course, their content (and their contributors) is another matter entirely.

If you and your peers needed $25 billion from the government because your misguided business is going belly up, how would you travel from Detroit to Washington? By private jet of course. Separately. After all, you’re too powerful to share. One congressman asked if they couldn’t have downgraded to first class?

Tom Peters rants about it best, but I think a massive PR opportunity has been missed. Imagine one of them had driven the 520 miles across the US with a small team and a camcorder explaining via short films and blog posts the reasons behind the begging bowl. They could’ve done it in a hybrid or some semi-solar powered prototype as a metaphor for the future of Detroit. He could’ve spoken openly in diners along the way with ordinary folks in Fords. That would’ve given him an opportunity to explain his thinking behind ethanol use rather than alternative energy, union pressures, pension commitments, federal restrictions, global forces, (not) going green… the whole nine yards.

They could’ve gone all web 2.0 about it: Gmapping the route and twittering as they went. The blogosphere would’ve exploded with the news and traditional TV would’ve followed – no press releases, just unadulterated, raw PR. More than a sliver of humble pie would’ve been needed and it would’ve been called for the obvious PR stunt it was, but a single point in the plus column would be better than the abundance of own goals this reckless trio are scoring.
[GM have since tried to block corporate jet tracking by the US Federal Aviation Administration.]

When Congress asked if they’d work for $1 a year, Chrysler’s Nardelli agreed (although he took home $210 million for being fired from Home Depo!). “I don’t have a position on that today,” said GM’s Wagoner (2007 earnings: $15.7 million). Ford’s Mulally (2007 earnings: $21.7m) said, “I think I’m okay where I am.” You almost want John Wayne’s ghost to walk over in a cowboy outfit and horsewhip him.

Irresponsible, selfish, unethical egomaniacs.

Stuff ‘em – corporate America needs to realise capitalism means being accountable for one’s own destiny. Mulally et al will believe themselves even more infallible. Yes, the fallout will be enormous and terrible but (semi) nationalising every conglomerate simply isn’t viable. What’s next, Hollywood? The NFL? The market must level itself to a greater extent or it ceases to be a free market.

Bail ‘em – if these three go bust the financial tsunami will be felt for decades (did anyone say depression?). Their supply chain is enormous and the ramifications for the world are literally immeasurable. They are simply too big and too important to fail simultaneously. A nuclear disaster may well have less impact on the West than this fiscal Armageddon.

It’s the very definition of an impossible situation.

UPDATE: excellent piece here by Sir Evelyn de Rothschild

Messrs Ross and Brand have given BBC executives many a sleepless night of late (and too many P45s) but my vote for the beeb’s employee of the month goes to their business editor, Robert Preston.

Mr Preston’s opinion has been called on more in recent weeks than George W. was asked about the two presidential candidates. The indomitable Preston is carted out on an almost daily basis with the BBC news’ 1, 6 and 9 o’clock shows loving his analysis every bit as much as Radio 2 and 4 does.

Robert used to write for Management Today and they recently wrote “Robert, an ex-MT columnist, has friends in very high places and is regarded as a safe pair of hands into which to let slip unpalatable news.” Evidently so, considering his double scooping of Northern Rock last year and the more recent Lloyds TSB/HBoS emergency merger.

The guy is good. Very good. His blog was a compelling read long before the words crunch and credit became synonymous with one another. And heaven forefend I disagree with his superior economics, but could somebody please coach him with regard to his diction. Surely the beeb’s producers are hearing the same dull tone, full of awkwardly slow sentences, pregnant pauses and more ‘Ums’ than a 14-year-old would use lying to his teacher?

The guy’s got a wonderful mind, why not help him express it a little better?

Since the Yahoo! and Microsoft will-they, wont-they saga I’ve taken a closer interest in uber-investor, Carl Icahn. That most capitalist of papers, The Wall Street Journal, recently wrote a very non-flattering piece about him.

Mr Icahn has blogged his thoughts on the article, tearing the journalist’s (though I doubt he thinks she’s worthy of the noun) opinions apart with fact, insight and obvious relish. All in all it’s a lesson in dressing down with style. A couple of snippets for you:

“…the article was so wrongheaded that I am surprised that it was afforded an appearance in a premier business newspaper. I hope better academic guidance is provided for students in California than that exemplified in the editorial.”
“To imply that these companies’ balance sheets are anemic and debt-strapped is simply not the case. I truly hope Ms. Stout reviews the facts and corrects this kind of distortion that is used to bolster her already weak arguments… Motorola has approximately $7 billion in cash on its balance sheet.”

Reading his blog, you get unbridled access to his thoughts (granted on limited subjects) and are left with the clear impression that this is no absentee businessman. I’m sure he plays golf, or sails, or collects art like others who can afford to, but I bet he knows every inch of his organisations’ KPIs – he probably wrote them.

A website’s goal is all about the end user: buy this, download that, sign up here, register there, watch this, read that… That goal needs two separate but overlapping strategies for human and robotic eyes. A blog certainly takes care of the former (and if used shrewdly can assist the latter).

On the human side, a blog helps demonstrate prove empathy with the user, your customer. You get a chance to show you know about wine from South Africa, or that you’re a clued-up tech geek, or that you’re into bicycles. You gain an opportunity to engage with (NOT sell to) your customer. You’re not a teenager in his bedroom scraping credit card details (surely people’s No.1 fear online) and you’re not just a suit who’s got the money to build a site and take orders – you’re a fan of the same things your customers are.

How valuable is that?