A while ago, I attended a networking event for business owners organized using Meetup.com. I always enjoy meeting new people, and if they are business owners it is an additional bonus.

The topic of the day happened to be a marketing one, and a common question I found myself fielding was, “everybody always says networking is important, but I don’t really get anything out of it, got any tips for me?”

A study, titled the Online Journalism Credibility Study, has just come out that shows a gap in how newspaper editors and readers feel about anonymous comments being posted on news articles.

The Results

The editors, overwhelmingly (70%) felt that anonymous comments harmed proper journalism, most likely due to the flood of factual corrections and emotional rants they get in these comments, neither of which seem to make them smile. Only 45% of readers, on the other hand, felt that allowing anonymous comments was bad journalism.

Most of us are not lucky enough to know what career we want to go into until quite late in the game. With everyone talking about a bad economy coming our way, that choice never seemed more important. Want to narrow down your choices based on the job market conditions? There are quite a few ways to do this.

Last time I posted about jobs, I mentioned the value of search optimizing your resume, and gave you an easy way to discover the most recruiter-searched resume keyword terms. I also discussed the reason many people end up hating their job, and how to avoid it.

Seth Godin put up a great post about how Borders Books has cut inventory yet increased sales. Borders accomplished this by carrying less titles, but showing them in a more creative way. Essentially, Borders quit trying to show you what you can buy, and started helping you make that decision by showing you the books it was most likely to convince you to buy.

It was a smart move by Borders (not just because of my fabulous 20/20 hindsight), because they realized that their brick n’ mortar store could never compete on the dimension of variety with online bookstores like Amazon. Instead of chasing a dream, they decided to use one of the huge advantages a brick n’ mortar store has over the internet - better control over what you see.

I first discussed the rumored Google interest with TV ads last year, and Google seems to be near ready with their product almost one exact year later.

Google invited some Adwords members to test out Google TV Ads Beta, which lets advertisers upload or mail a 15, 30, 45, or 60 second TV ad to be run on regular TV sets.

This development comes after Google entered the newspaper ad placement and radio ad placement business, and is the natural next step.

Here are some important notes about the TV ad industry before I jump into the features  of Google’s new system.

As an avid movie watcher, I have had my share of instances where Blockbuster forgot to unlock a DVD case for me. Now, I don’t know about you, but the only thing more frustrating than taking out a bad movie, is taking out a bad movie that you can’t even watch - because it’s case is locked. After the last time this happened, I figured out a way to open it with a corkscrew (desperation breeds ingenuity).

I was reading through Automotive News last week and they were profiling a very successful dealer group owner named Rick Hendrick. He managed to build up a dealer empire of 60 dealerships, 80 franchises, and over $4.3 billion in revenue last year. But the path to there has been filled with hardship, including: a plane accident killing his son and several relatives, a felony fraud conviction, and leukemia.

How did he manage, despite all of the challenges, to build up one of the largest dealer groups in America today? Rick swears by his 10 Keys to Success:

I know what you did last week (assuming you don’t live under a rock). If you were one of the millions who watched the Super Bowl this past Sunday, you more than likely were wondering what some advertisers must have been thinking (ahem, SalesGenie) to run a certain ad.

Well, your humble host wondered the same thing, and set out to find the truth about what a company can expect out of a Super Bowl appearance.Interestingly, once a company advertises on the Super Bowl, they find it very hard to do without it the next year. It’s almost like a drug habit. Partially because they become part of the tradition of that memorable time (think Bud Light ads), and partially because they want to believe their investment the previous year was a wise one.

The Super Bowl was a great game, but, given my profession, I paid a bit more attention to the ads, seen by over 97.5 million fans- the most ever. You may recall my review of Super Bowl 2007 Ads last year. 30 second spots cost about 7% more this year, averaging $2.7 million a piece. Overall, I think last year was a better year for the ads, and I was actually a bit disappointed with some companies this year. Which ads succeeded, and whose flopped? I tell all, below.

A while back, I covered the three rules of recovery customer service, which a company should use when they have messed up. Sadly, very few stores keep to them, and consequently lose a lot of longtime customers over rather trivial incidents. Just the other day, I had an opportunity to revisit that idea at ShopRite.

I went into ShopRite, my favorite supermarket, to go food shopping. Walking around, I noticed a price label for 32 oz. of Norwegian Salmon that was surprising - $2.99 (after Price Plus card discount). Excited, since this item usually costs $20.53 for just one pound, I looked around for the right package, only to find that none existed. It was then that I realized they made a labeling error, and guessed that all of them were bought up already by someone with a sharp eye.