The BrandingWire blog had an excellent discussion about auto dealers, and how to improve the customer experience. Few topics conjure up instant feelings like thinking about car dealerships, and I am often fascinated by what occurs in that retail location. One response by a commenter named Janet, was particularly interesting, since it was written from a car dealer’s point of view.

If I might, I’d like to explore Janet’s comments.

It’s easy for either side to complain – dealers about customers, and customers about dealers.

It seems that nearly every week there is an automotive article griping about a lower sales outlook. Many times the writer of the article or the interviewed auto industry representative blames the economy. While the economy has certainly had an effect on car sales figures, there are a host of other reasons why new car sales are dropping that I don’t feel are being discussed much.

You’ve heard before that eyes are the window to the soul, I’m sure, but did you know that eyes can actually be important indicators of your health? Many general health conditions appear with symptoms that are visible on the eyes. I’ve gathered up some tips below for what to watch for.

Yellow eyes

This occurs when your sclera gets yellow. Yellow eyes are generally not an eye problem; rather, they tend to indicate a liver problem, such as hepatitis, or the result of alcoholism. It is important to go see an internist.

Blogging is hard work, and I’m not just talking about the writing part. Keeping your blog looking good and running smoothly is a real challenge, and I thought I would share some improvements you can make to your blog to make it more effective and easier to read.

1) Make sure to use paragraph headings, and just being bold isn’t enough

Headlines need to be darker and larger to stand out – people jump from section header to section header.

Marketers have always wanted to know what you are thinking, and thanks to several tech companies, they may have just gotten a step closer to having their wishes fulfilled. In December of last year, the Wall Street Journal reported on how Emsense sensors were being used to extract feelings toward candidates in the political race.

That same company, Emsense Corporation, has used their technology to give marketers a step up on the competition (such as other advertisers – and you, the consumer).

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.