"A billion here, a billion there. Pretty soon it adds up to real money"

Happy Birthday to me! Happy Birthday to me! Happy birthday dear Wild Wild East Dailies! Happy Birthday to me!

It's my 100th post and what more fitting a way to celebrate 100 that to look to the sky and just contemplate a billion for a few minutes. Wow, a billion. Seems not so long ago, in the mid 1960s, Senator Everitt Dirkson of Illinois mused the title to this post and in fewer than 50 years we've taken to regarding a billion as just a bunch of zeros on paper. How many billion for Iraq? And how many billion for the "mother of all bailouts" and how many billion for Katrina? And how many, many billion can the Chinese lend us? The following two stories put an interesting spin on what billions mean, the first from the Huffington Post and the second, sent to me by Tom Nelson in Minneapolis, in one of those usually-annoying-but-not-this-time chain emails.

From the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/22/dirty-secret-of-the-bailo_n_128294.html

A critical - and radical - component of the bailout package proposed by the Bush administration has thus far failed to garner the serious attention of anyone in the press. Section 8 of this legislation is just a single sentence of thirty-two words, but it represents a significant consolidation of power and an abdication of oversight authority that's so flat-out astounding that it ought to set one's hair on fire. It reads, in its entirety:

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

In short, the so-called "mother of all bailouts," which will transfer $700 billion taxpayer dollars to purchase the distressed assets of several failed financial institutions, will be conducted in a manner unchallengeable by courts and ungovernable by the People's duly sworn representatives.

All decision-making power will be consolidated into the Executive Branch - who, we remind you, will have the incentive to act upon this privile

ge as quickly as possible, before they leave office. The measure will run up the budget deficit by a significant amount, with no guarantee of recouping the outlay, and no fundamental means of holding those who fail to do so accountable.

Is this starting to sound familiar? Robert Kuttner cuts through much of the gloss in an article in today's American Prospect:

The deal proposed by Paulson is nothing short of outrageous. It includes no oversight of his own closed-door operations

. It merely gives congressional blessing and funding to what he has already been doing, ad hoc. He plans to retain Wall Street firms as advisors to decide just how to cut deals to value and mop up Wall Street's dubious paper. There are to be no limits on executive compensation for the firms that get relief, and no equity share for the government in exchange for this massive infusion of capital. Both Obama and McCain have opposed the provision denying any judicial review of decisions made by Paulson -- a provision that evokes the Bush administration's suspension of normal constitutional safeguards in its conduct of foreign policy and national security.

The differences between this proposed bailout and the three closest historical equivalents are immense. When the Reconstruction Finance Corporation of the 1930s pumped a total of $35 billion into corporations and financial institutions, there was close government supervision and quid pro quos at every step of the way. Much of the time, the RFC became a preferred shareholder, and often appointed board members. The Home Owners Loan Corporation, which eventually refinanced one in five mortgage loans, did not operate to bail out banks but to save homeowners. And the Resolution Trust Corporation of the 1980s, created to mop up the damage of the first speculative mortgage meltdown, the S&L collapse, did not pump in money to rescue bad investments; it sorted out good assets from bad after the fact, and made sure to purge bad executives as well as bad loans. And all three of these historic cases of public recapitalization were done without suspending judicial review.

Kuttner's opposition here is perhaps the strongest language I've seen used, pushing back on this piece of legislation, in any publication of repute, and even here, Section 8 is not cited by name or by content. McClatchy Newspapers also alludes to Section 8 with concern, citing the "unfettered authority" that Paulson would be granted, and noting that the "law also would preclude court review of steps Paulson might take, something Joshua Rosner, managing director of economic researcher Graham Fisher & Co. in New York, said could be used to mask previous illegal activity." Jack Balkin also gives the matter the sort of attention it deserves on his blog,Balkinization.

But elsewhere, the conversation is muted. The debate over whether Congress is going to pass the Paulson bailout package, or pass the Paulson bailout package really hard seems to have boiled down to a discussion of time and concessions. The White House has made it clear that they want this package passed yesterday. Congressional Democrats seem to be of different minds on the matter, with some pushing back hard, and others content to demand a small dollop of turd polish.

But if we make it through this week with nobody in the press specifically informing the public about the implications of this single sentence - in the middle of a complicated bill, in the middle of a complicated time - then right there, you have the single largest media failure of this year.

What's a Billion?

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but here are some interesting ways to consider it:

A. A billion seconds ago it was 1959.
B. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.
C. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.
D. A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.
E. A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.

Looks like I tagged the real value of this deal months ago right here on these pages!

$57 Billion USD in Vietnam FDI: Show me the money!

SEP 25, 2008
Vietnam Business News

Vietnam attracts over 57 billion USD in nine months Viet Nam attracted 57.12 billion USD in FDI over the past nine months, a five-fold increase on the same period last year, the Foreign Investment Agency (FIA) has said.

According to the foreign investment watchdog, foreign investors were very keen on investing in industry and construction as they poured a staggering 32.3 billion USD into 484 projects in those fields during the first nine months of 2008. The FIA estimated that investment in projects in the fields of industry and construction accounted for 57.48% and 54.68% of the total FDI and the overall number of projects, respectively. The service sector attracted overseas investment of 23.7 billion USD for 361 projects while the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors drew in just 1.12 billion USD.

The FIA reported that Malaysia has climbed into first place on the list of 40 countries and territories who have invested in Vietnam in the past nine months. The Southeast Asian country has registered 14.8 billion USD for 37 projects, accounting for 26.45 percent and 4.1%, respectively, of the registered FDI and the number of investment projects.

The second-largest foreign investor was Taiwan, with 8.6 billion USD and 116 projects, followed by Japan, Brunei and Canada. In the past nine months, 8.1 billion USD in FDI was disbursed, an increase of 37.3% over the same period last year, according to the FIA.

Notes: Stay out of the fish business. And who's to know if these numbers are even close to real. The government here is well known for just manufacturing numbers when it's convenient and sells well. But then again, it beats the US where the numbers are real and in the negative billions. In the US you can't blink an eye without another bank going bust or Sarah Palin saying something dumber than Dan Quayle, while in Vietnam a new bank pops up every day looking to get a start in a market where only 10% of the population currently participates in the banking system.

"Ignore Everybody" : A plug for Hugh MacLeod

Next spring Hugh MacLeod from Gapingvoid.com will publish, in book form, his manifesto, "Ignore Everybody" and it will not have been an overnight success. He has been working on parts of the ideas for well over 10 years. Following is a response I sent to Hugh on one of his posts a few months ago. It would do you well to read his post first, here:

"When your dreams become reality, they are no longer your dreams"

and then my response, second, here:
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This smells charmingly like the last chapter in "How To Be Creative". Touche!

When you've realized your dreams the only thing to do is to come up with new dreams. (Screenplay?)

When I started in the advertising business the first thing I realized was that I had turned a hobby (writing and drawing) into a business. It was no longer fun. Who said I had to "feel" creative at 9am in an office cubicle beside an expressway in Dallas? I didn't. But like all good working stiffs, at least I knew it wasn't a steel factory and that this job was better than a lot of people would ever have the chance to do – so I proceeded to churn out "product", today called "content" and then cherry-pick the best of it for my portfolio.

Who really thought that I had a deep creative desire to find the underlying meaning and subtleties in the Texas real estate and banking markets? No one, fuck all. I was doing a job and I knew it.

So I set about developing other hobbies outside of the office. I learned to shoot dove in West Texas (very near to you). I picked up sailing on Cedar Creek lake from Pat Beckman and his 25ft Catalina. I became Tower Records best customer by weekly stoking my collection and I developed a serviceable reading jones at the hands of Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Robbins, Brautigan, Vonegut, John Irving and so on. And life balanced out.

I never had any misconceptions that I was writing the great American novel aside from my work to hawk toothpaste, laundry powder or video games. I married, bought a few houses and became a weekend warrior on a 100 year-old money pit in Michigan. Life was good. Yet, like you, it was all random.

The call to go top Korea was about as weird as I thought things were going to get – until two years later when I started my own company in that odd and foreboding land. Random? But, not really. Over time I've just learned to accept the twists and turns as gifts from above and make them work for me. To stay a perpetual student and maybe, after time, to be able to teach others how to run the maze.

The trick, I've found is in being able to decide, quickly and decisively, what it is you "do not" want to do. That skill will keep you from wasting time on things that just aren't going to work out anyway.

Hugh, you say the business card cartoons have been going for ten years but I beg to differ with you on that count. I can remember as long as we have known each other, you working with this format. You really were doing it in the early 90s in Chicago, after UT. It's what has kept us in contact all these years. When you first put up Gapingvoid, I was on your mailing list. And then, this last year, when I finally got a real chunk of my book Wild Wild East, on the net, you were one of the first to respond and link me in. And that fueled my current blog and got me into a weekly 3-post diet.

Now, I've got writing, drawing, blogging and marketing all working together in one of the oddest symphonies I ever could have imagined. This week, I met an American who works in the Internet industry and has moved to Vietnam, who found me because of my blog. Next month, a woman from Singapore will come to HCMC, who had also found me from my blog. Last Saturday I had a date with a woman who has been a loyal reader and this Friday I will attend an industry function and meet another woman who has been following the writing.

Niche, what niche? Okay, it's not "Cartoons drawn on the back of business cards" but if "Smart-assed marketing guy in the bowels of a communist country" is a niche, I've got that baby sewn up!

The Internet has given us previously undefinable types the opportunity, to, if not go mainstream, go "slipstream" into sideways and previously uncharted social marketing and networking philosophies that have probably always existed, but never had a reachable platform.

Being paid to be exactly who we are has got to be the ultimate reward and measure of the word "success". Million dollar checks don't often come with that, but million dollar smiles really do.

Rock on, Hugh.

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And if you like what you've read from Hugh, you can download a PDF of the work from www.ChangeThis.com, or better yet, buy a copy of his book next spring. Only too bad it won't be available for Christmas shopping this year.

For more on digital marketing and social networking see:

Xing vs. LinkedIn: Round II
Trial and Error: The New Normal
What's Wrong With My Social Networking? Xing vs. LinkedIn I
Low Tech Germany. Who Knew?
Advertising People and Blogs
How to Write the Best Blog in the World
What If Gutenberg Had a Blog?
If Blogs Are Free Does That Make Them Worthless?
Detri-Viral Marketing II: The Top 10 Social Media Blunders
Bright Lights, Big Internet and the WWED
Saigon Digital Marketing Conference Successfully Avoids Plumbers Convention
A Tale of Many Marketing Conferences
Detri-Viral Marketing I: How Web 2.0 Can Go Against A Brand
Marketing Predictions for 2009
Barcamp Saigon 2008
"Ignore Everybody" is Born: A Plug for Hugh MacLeod
Are the Bloggerati Missing the Market? Asia has Risen,
Into the Gapinvoid - Web 2.0 Social Networking Born 20 Years Ago

The Browser Wars

Okay everyone, for all of you Giggly over the launch of yet another "amazing" Googly product, here are the stats on the usage of the new "Chrome" browser in comparison with other popular browsers in use today as recorded on my blog here in Vietnam. For the record my users come primarily from the United States with Vietnam a close second and Canada, Korea and the UK after that. And remember, you can always click on an image to make it larger should you really want to read the fine print.

	139	27.80%	MSIE	7.0
	110	22.00%	Firefox	3.0.1
	93	18.60%	MSIE	6.0
	81	16.20%	Firefox	2.0.0
	31	6.20%	Safari	1.2
	26	5.20%	Chrome	0.2
	7	1.40%	Opera	9.51
	5	1.00%	Firefox	3.0
	3	0.60%	Mozilla	5.0
	2	0.40%	Opera	9.52
	1	0.20%	Firefox	1.5.0
	1	0.20%	Opera	9.27
	1	0.20%	Firefox	3.0.2

As you can see, Microsoft Explorer 7.0 is still the winner, even on my blog with 27.8% usage. Firefox follows with 22% and then good (bad) old Explorer 6.0 with 18.6%. Apple Safari logs in with a respectable 6.2% and finally Chrome with 5.2%.

Now being an Apple man myself, I'm still partial to Camino, a Mozilla browser for the Mac and that is what is showing up here as "Mozilla" with a lowly .6% but in my comparison usage of Chrome this last week, I relate it closely to Opera in look and function but above all else in operating Google apps. My mail and blog load furiously fast in Chrome and over time I'll get used to the clumsy "thumbnail view" at opening. I've also had a chance to work on a Windows Vista system the last few weeks with MS Explorer and all I can say about that experience is that you don't need it. Microsoft needs more than Hugh MacLeod's Blue Monster or a Jerry Seinfeld commercial to pull its own head out of its ass.

And Chrome? It was only good for 70s furniture, lamps and car bumpers previously. No telling where this version will go.

He Would Have Shot Me 40 Years Ago - Perspective XI: The Little Things V

O A bus is a bus is a bus - or Gertrude Stein would have said about Vietnam today. And there are a lot of buses, but the #4 is a little one, what you might call a shuttle bus, and although it goes past the airport, this is not the one, one would take to actually get to the airport. It goes much farther than that and generally carries the Vietnamese to their homes after a day of toiling in a low pay job or selling something on the street downtown in District 1. Businessmen do not ride this bus. O And I've yet to see a foreigner, aside from myself on this route. The entire trip from the big station at Ben Thanh Market takes roughly 45 minutes to one hour, depending on the traffic. And it's as efficient a trip through a construction war zone as a skilled driver can make it. The road to the airport is a collection of obstacles from a bazillion motorbikes to large green metal-sheeted barricades in the center, in the midst of a citywide hole digging project for a drainage system, and the odd pedestrian, lady with a cart of chickens or motobike deliveryman transporting large sheets of glass or mirrors with the help of an assistant riding on the back to hold the glass. O The Vietnamese bus of today is the urban equivalent of what an American tank might have been here 40 years ago. They just don't give a shit and dutifully plow through whatever happens to be lying before them. It is an absolute damn sight to behold. These drivers should be given a medal just for surviving a day in this transportation firestorm. And so I board. O Once on the bus the biggest choice is one of seats and considering that I start at the start of the route, I'm happy to have a choice. I choose the copilot's chair right to the right of the driver with a big clear-screen view of the road in front of me and all the chatter that he and his ticket-taker care to banter throughout the trip - and that can be considerable, considering - I'm just a man on a bus going from point A to point B- and not in the market for any more Vietnamese entertainment than the 20 cent ticket entitles me to. Sit your ass down white boy. You must be this tall to get on this ride. O And so I plop down next to the older man who rides shotgun in the furthest right seat. And he immediately says, "hello" with an accent and confidence that makes me immediately understand that he learned his English during the war here, so many, many years ago - an occurrence that is not unusual at all. So as the #4 gets underway we begin to converse, in the kind of small talk that pervades all participants of diverse cultures on the way to finding out what might be common to them both. The old "Where are you from - how long have you been here" questions ensue, peppered by the old pleasantry or linguistic peace offering. "Thank you", I say to him in response to a compliment about New York. "Interesting", I say to him in my response to his telling of a French proverb that roughly translates into "You can't take it with you". His name is Hanh and he has told me that he is 73 years old. And he is quite obviously not wealthy. He clutches a plastic shopping bag that I see is full of VCDs, the old cheap Chinese equivalent of a DVD, no longer a medium of use today to even the most basic Vietnamese. And he opens his bag. He presents to me some VCDs of traditional Vietnamese music and historical dramas and implores me to look at them. I do. An opening of the cover and brief scan of the language and visuals is all I am able to accomplish but it is of obvious proportion that he feels their cultural worthiness so much more than I. It's pretty old stuff. I can't imagine that he has much luck selling these to even people of his own age and even at that, not for a cent or two over whatever he paid for them. O And the bus trundles on. He explains to me how happy he is that the war is long over and that the country is now "open". The Americans and the French and god knows all sorts of countries that the Vietnamese could never have imagined are pouring money into building projects and infrastructure and education and whatnot making this man's post-war world of 73 a virtual fantasy land that Speilberg and Lucas together could not have created. The road we travel is a living breathing organism of every single day of his life rolled into one 45 minute trip and encapsulated into one blink of this man's eye as only he can see it. And I am a blind man - on the ride with my Vietnamese seeing eye dog with an eye towards the peace that all people long for far beyond the shortsighted actions of their respective governments at any one point in time. "I would have shot you forty years ago", he says, "but today we ride on a bus together. I am very happy for that", he bookends. He goes on to explain that during the war he worked in medical supply and carried medications to needy soldiers in the field. "I no ever carry gun. I no ever shoot anyone. And no anyone ever shoot me", he says, with just a hint of a wry smile - as if he could have seen this bus ride so far into what would have been his future. O He explains further that he has had ten children and that two of his daughters live in the US and two in Europe - so much pride and peace in his ideas. He goes back to the French proverb meaning "you can't take it with you" and recants it for me in impeccable French. I apologize for my miserable Francais. "But you and I, here today", he finishes, "and much money no make us better men", as he clutches the plastic bag. He looks quite softly into my eyes after I have informed him that my stop will be coming up and I must depart. "You good man", he says, "You good heart in eyes", as we shake hands in farewell. O The #4 always overshoots my actual stop, but today not at all. I know I arrived historically at just the right place and time. It's fucking perfect. O

For more on the "Perspective" or "Little Things" series, click below:

My Morning Wake-Up Call - Perspective XX: The Little Things XII
We'll Have A Gay Old Time - Perspective XIX: The Little Things XII
"Rolled Foggy Disposed Ricepaper" - Perspective XVIII: The Little Things XI
Joyeux Noel - Perspective XVII: The Little Things X
Lunch With Obama - Perspective XVI: The Little Things IX
One Motley Crue On The Bus Today - Perspective XV: The Little Things VIII
Attraction vs. Conversion: How To Power Your Blog - Perspective XIV: The Little Things VII
A glass box full of deep fried chicken heads - Perspective XIII: The Little Things VI
Seoul Searching - Perspective XII
He Would Have Shot Me 40 Years Ago - Perspective XI: The Little Things V
Chomsky on Colour & Sleep - Perspective X: The Little Things IV.2
Running With Scizzors - Perspective IX: The Little Things IV
Henry Miler II - Perspective VIII : The Little Things III.1
Henry Miller - Perspective VII: The Little Things III
Big Brother - Perspective VI: The Little Things II
This Carnival of Life! - Perspective V
The Art Walk - Perspective IV: The Little Things
Bentley #5 - Perspective III.2
Bentley vs. Vespa - Perspective III.1
Bentleys Invade Vietnam - Perspective III
Death Of A Colleague - Perspective II
Perspective

Vietnam's second proper Advertising Institute

Today, with a small flourish, I am happy to announce the formation of Vietnam's second Advertising Institute in Ho Chi Minh City, ARTI - the Advertising and Research Training Institute of Vietnam. I was able to meet with the director and key staffers yesterday after their opening ceremonies and can't tell you how happy I was to be in a room surrounded by storyboards and prints of absolutely excellent conceptual design work as we spoke. This is an atmosphere that has been sorely lacking in the business environment here. Their website follows, but is unfortunately only in Vietnamese at the current time: http://www.arti.edu.vn

Hopefully, as time passes I will have an opportunity to bring my WPP Advertising Educational Foundation idea and this school together. I'll have more reports to follow for sure.

For more on Brand Marketing Training in Vietnam, go here <.

Kim Jong Il, Ill after threats by Palin!

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea's Kim Jong Il had brain surgery after a stroke last month and could have partial paralysis on one side, media reports said Thursday.

The stroke was apparently triggered after Sarah Palin stood on the tip of the Aleutian Islands and pointed a rifle at North Korea.

"WTF?", Kim reportedly said before collapsing.

Foreign doctors, possibly from China and France, performed the operation on Kim, 66, said the newspapers Dong-a Ilbo and JoongAng Ilbo. Kim's condition has improved and he is not suffering from slurred speech, a disability often associated with a stroke, the reports said. However, he has suffered from sporadic spasms, an intense craving for anchovy pizza and the need to watch endless showings of "Team America" according to South Korea's largest newspaper, Chosun Ilbo

Kim is the object of an intense personality cult in the totalitarian nation and the sight of him suffering spasms before a massive crowd would be an embarrassment that could undermine that status. He missed a parade Tuesday commemorating the communist state's founding 60 years ago and stayed home to watch a Dragnet box set. "I only hope that any situation happening in DPRK should not affect negatively what has been going on in terms of de-nuclearization process" U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told a news conference on Thursday at the United Nations. "That soccer mom's gotta be watched", he continued, "She's a real loose cannon!" The McCain camp said little regarding the incident. "John thought she looked hot in that bikini and the flag motif and firearm are consistent with Mr. McCain's foreign policy objectives", they said. "Hell, she didn't pull the trigger", they emphasized, "Kim's just a pussy".

South Korea's main spy agency declined to comment on the reports, only repeating a previous statement that Kim's condition had much improved from an unspecified circulatory problem.

A North Korean news source had this to say: "Our dignified republic exists because Dear General exists," the paper said, referring to Kim, according to the official Korean Central News Agency. "All party members and workers should further unite around the revolutionary leadership."

A cerebral hemorrhage can result in death, paralysis, difficulty in speaking and other disabilities, although if it is minor, recovery is possible without long-term affects. It can also make your pecker really small. Surgery is generally only considered in the most serious cases, he said. Palin's camp would not confirm nor deny any re-constructive surgery on the candidate's breasts before donning the star spangled bikini. "We think they're real", they said, "You just can't make up a Bio like this woman's and we think that means bio-logy too".

For more in Political Satire and Satire see:

White House Party Crashers Board Plane Loaded!

Pope Prays For Embattled Putter's Promiscuous Pecker: Tiger Woods Pardoned

Obama Sends 30,000 Troops to Tiger Woods' House!

Obama's Puppy in Rehab After Just a Week

Recession Profit Stategies II

Recession Profit Strategies I

Bush Surveys Presidential Disaster Area

MENSA Endorses McCain/Palin

Putin Hot As Hell Over Palin

SNL Palin/Hillary Open

Cheney Delivers 1 Billion in Aid to Georgia

Obama Splits Ticket - Boots Biden

Belgian Prime Minister Quits Over Budweiser Purchase

Obama Brandishes a Bud for the Bubbas

American Foreign Policy Since WWII

America Overseas - Citizen Mekong to the Rescue

Dear Technorati & Guy Kawasaki: WTF?

Riddle me this Batman? Why, twice in the last two weeks, have I been credited with mentioning both Guy Kawasaki's blog and Kevin Miller's blog by Technorati? Why are both these people getting a "blog reaction" from me when I haven't written a darn thing about either of them recently? Now don't get me wrong, I have nothing against either man and I don't think there's anything nefarious going on but Technorati.com, the self proclaimed authority on blog tracking, seems to think that I am mentioning stories from both these guys in my blog and that, just simply, hasn't happened. Here's the link to Guy Kawasaki's blog that I supposedly mentioned.

As always his blog is interesting but I didn't say squat about this post...and www.Technorati.com sez I did. Hmmm. Here's also a link to Kevin Miller's blog.

Now, Mr. Kawasaki and I have never met, although we do have a mutual friend in Hugh MacLeod, but Kevin Miller and I did work together at American International School (AIS) this summer.

So here's the riddle: Is it possible to actually "manufacture" a perceived reference to an article or has Technorati messed up in some way? The reason I ask is that these "false positives" contribute to the said blog owner's "authority" rating on Technorati, thus making them more "popular" in terms of reference rating. Now I doubt that either one of these guys gives a damn, as both of their blogs are rated so, so much higher than mine but I'm asking myself, "So what do I get out of this deal?" And the answer is "O", zip, nada, sQuat with a capital Q!

And here's the kicker! By writing this post, I AM actually giving both these guys a reference! Damn. I think they should both give me a big fat Nuclear kiss!

For more on blogs, blogging and bloggers, check here:

Advertising People & Blogs - The Travis Diaries VI
How to Write the Best Damn Blog in the World
Throw That Blog a Bone!
If Blogs Are Free Are They Worthless?
What If Gutenberg Had a Blog?
If You Like the Blog, Read the Book>/a>
2008 Annual Report - The Wild Wild East Dailies
Blog Redesign WWED
BarCamp Saigon 2008
Attraction vs. Conversion - How to Power Your Blog
Are the Bloggerati Missing the Market?