Several readers commented on my previous post about Linkscape, including Dave Oremland, who asked about my take on all of the controversy surrounding its launch. I’ll finally weigh in.

Just finished reading Eric Enge’s interview with Rand Fishkin about Linkscape. It is a terrific, objective interview where Rand finally gets a chance to put forth SEOmoz’s perspective on the controversy in more than just a few soundbites.

Fear not, dear readers, ’tis not I in need of employment. But a colleague on the SEMpdx Board, Scott Orth, has felt the pain of this economic downturn–earlier this week he was laid off by his employer.

Just got an email in my inbox from iBegin, the baby of Ahmed Farooq. Like BOTW Local, iBegin is a very well-structured directory that is just a no-brainer for small businesses to get themselves a local citation.

Hopefully Ahmed won’t mind me copying-and-pasting from the release :)

It’s been a few months, but the time has finally arrived! You can submit your business here: http://www.ibegin.com/business-center/submit/

I recently came across this amazing article on TIME.com. For those too lazy, or without the time, to click the link, here’s the opening paragraph (emphasis mine):
Argentines clicking on the local version of Yahoo in search of information about their country’s most legendary soccer star (and current national team coach) are in for a [...]

No, I am not all of a sudden flush with gobs and gobs of cash. But a good friend of mine, Neil Patel, recently launched a community of early-stage entrepreneurs in Seattle, called Founder’s Coop. Neil’s post promoting the launch answers more questions than I ever could, but if you have a great business idea but don’t know how to fund it in this economy, here is your chance!

I was among about 80 small business owners to attend the brilliant Learn About Web conference this Friday in Tri-Cities, Washington. Craig Sutton of Bright Web Marketing arranged an amazing lineup of speakers which included Matt McGee, Jennifer Laycock, and Stoney DeGeyter. It was incredibly refreshing to be among small business owners for whom this was the first time they were hearing this information. It was also eye-opening, and a great wake-up call, for where we are as an industry among this very important contingent of prospective customers.