Oh, I pine for the 2-hour limit spots that used to dot our streets. I even find myself choosing where I'll go based on where I can park.

All this hassling of customers is bad for small businesses, because why would I pay for parking (and the time) in addition to that coffee? I'm simply going to stop somewhere with a parking lot. It's especially bad for the the neighborhoods surrounding downtown, like Fremont and South Lake Union, where the businesses are typically smaller and can rarely afford to offer free parking. I called the city about it, but they didn't agree (of course). And fancy, new meters keep going up all the time.

Seattle isn't the only one with the problem. In an article from MSNBC, Bob Sullivan in his Red Tape Chronicles column talks about the ticket abuses happening in other major cities.

I gave it a try comparing skiing to swimming. The results were unexpected. Then I thought it might be fun to compare ice cream and chocolate -- a little more predictable. Now granted, this data is based on what people are searching for; there may be no direct correlation between those searches and actual purchases. But the resulting data, graphs and maps are pretty interesting. It just depends on how you use it.

Often, when looking for a job, it’s who you know. What better way to get to know more people than by connecting with them online? It will help you stand out from the crowd of resumes, and that's always a good thing.

1. Social media is still new; not everyone is using them to find a job -- that alone will give you a leg up.
2. Find more targeted jobs to match your skills and experience than what you would find on mainstream job boards.
3. You could miss an opportunities by only going to the mainstream job boards. Some jobs are only posted on social media sites, because it's often free for the employer.
4. Join local discussion boards and sites that target your industry. In Seattle, you might try Digital Eve and Seattle Tech Startups. They often include job postings.
5. LinkedIn is a must if you're looking for professional jobs.
6. Social media provides a simple way to find information about companies and people you could work for. Look for things in common – a reason to connect, i.e., people you both know, schools you went to, personal interests. Make friends first, then let them know what you’re looking for. When an opportunity comes up, you’ll already have the contact.
7. Keep track of and maintain connections with co-workers -- everyone's moving around these days. If they land a job somewhere, there may just be an opening for you.
8. Make sure your direct connections know what you’re specifically looking for and what your key skills are.
9. Ask people you know to give you recommendations and post them on these sites.
10. Write a great resume; stand out; put yourself in the best light. Post it in all the right places, get a link to it, and include the keywords (or tags) that your potential employers are searching for.
11. Don't put anything in writing or post pictures on the web that you don't want your mother (or your future employer) to see. Everyone's heard the horror stories about people not getting the job because of some bad college party pictures.
12. Once you land an interview, research the company and people you may be interviewing with. You’re more likely to ace the interview if you show you did your homework.

It's just another way you can get inside your customers' heads to market more effectively, whether you're developing products and services, creating a marketing campaign or choosing media.

In this economy though, if you're trying to get funding based on an advertising revenue model, you may have to rethink your strategy to find new revenue streams. VC's just aren't supporting businesses whose sole income is expected to be generated from ads, as this 12/8/08 NY Times article points out.

• The social media landscape continues to grow and evolve -- that includes the 1.5 billion people in the world who have Internet access, more than 300 million with broadband access to the home, and the 3 billion with cell phones.
• Capitalizing on social media is still all about advertising, but how advertisers benefit from it is still being worked out.
• Managing the colossal growth of information created on the Web will drive investment in that area.
• Companies are still trying to figure out how to combine what they know about customers from the physcial world with what they learn about them online.
• Innovation in the form of scalable Web applications may come from any quarter, from the garage to the corporation, with as little investment as $10,000-$50,000.

The key to all this technological innovation, however, is creating simple applications that are relevant to the people using them. "...people want to organize their experience according to their own interests." One possible solution is to "...create a dashboard of simplicity that is very open to the whole Internet, not just to the company it may be associated with, and will elevate social connections in a way that drives dollars," said Sue Decker of Yahoo! read the whole article