Driven by the recession, retailer opportunism and an increasing sophistication among consumers about the potential the Internet has to make purchasing easier and less costly, online shopping has become a hot bed in recent months with new and updated coupon, review and specialty product services launching across the web, yet one that actually went live today wants to do it all for consumers. TheFind.com relaunched as what its developers call a "buying engine.” The site was designed to provide shoppers a range of tools to make more satisfying purchasing decisions. It aggregates product search, coupon search, review search, local shopping search and green shopping search into a single “universal” search engine where consumers can check out 350 million products from...

If you search the internet for local businesses and services, you may have noticed a trend over the past few years. Often, the top hit on Google, Yahoo, or other search engines is not the businesses’ website, but the business’s listing on Yelp.com. Yelp is a site that allows customers and clients to review the [...]

Is the destruction of the U.S. auto industry the last nail in the coffin for labor unions? Are they vestigial organizations that have served their purpose and are now obsolete? Are they saddling companies and entire industries with debt and expenses they can't afford in an increasingly global marketplace?

Ford just released its hybrid car sales figures for September, and they were up 78 percent from the same month last year. This is hardly surprising, because Ford introduced the Fusion and Mercury Milan Hybrids (as 2010 models) this fall, and they’ve found their way into a plethora of taxi and government fleets. Being made in U.S.A. hasn’t hurt. The entire industry suffered a 14 percent decline in hybrid sales in September. Ford sold 26,016 hybrids in September, according to Autodata. In the same period, its overal sales were down six percent--following a two percent increase in July and an impressive 17 percent gain in August. The Fusion/Milan delivers 41 mpg in the city, and 36 on the highway. The hybrid...

When you read about companies that have great service, such as Zappos, you read about passion, and a desire to put the customer first. I've heard Tony Hsieh says Zappos is a customer service company that happens to sell shoes. If you want to grow like crazy and have your customers love you, you have to do the right thing - set up your company and corporate culture to focus on service from day one. It's not easy. You're out making your products, raising capital, or finding the right supplier or accountant, and sometimes the customer problems seem like, well, problems. That is exactly where a leader steps in and declares problems to be opportunities. For example, our lawn service recently burned our lawn and our neighbor's lawn with chemicals. We had to argue that they had done it, and that they should make it right. The clue was the fact that the brown streaks stopped at the property line with a neighbor who doesn't use that service. There was an opportunity for the owner to apologize and immediately make things right. He eventually did, but you can be sure my neighbor is already talking with other lawn companies, offering them not one but two new customers for next year if they can give us a good deal. And we'll be looking for customers who've used them and getting recommendations. Today I'm off to cover the Blog World Expo in Vegas. I needed reprints of my business cards. I contacted the firm I used the last time, which I won't name, but which promises a quick turn around. They delivered on time, but the cards were all cut wrong, with a 1/16 or 1/8 inch white line in the colored bar at the bottom of my cards (see photo). I've spent several hours via email arguing that they should reprint and overnight them. They want to charge me for the overnight shipping. I say, correct your mistake and make me the customer advocate. If they did that, their name would be here in the column and they would look like heroes. I was recently at a client's site, and their customer service manager told me "We think of every problem reported as a gift. It is an opportunity to make our products better, and to keep a customer." Wow. I want to work there, don't you? It is one of the best things I've heard in a long time. Of course, I don't know how it plays out in real life, but noting that this company is in a highly regulated industry where their problems are tracked by government agencies, I suspect it is more than lip service. Who gives you great service? What do you do to make sure your customers are happy? Share your ideas below, please.

It would be a stretch to call it an endorsement. It's more like a hint at support -- the tiniest of wavers in what has been a rigid stance by Republican senators on climate change legislation. Funny, this hint of support isn't for the actual climate change bill introduced by senators John Kerry,D- Mass., and Barbara Boxer, D- Calif. But for the bipartisan "Yes We Can (Pass Climate change Legislation)" op-ed piece written by Kerry and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R- S.C., that appeared Sunday in the New York Times. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, saluted today -- not the Boxer-Kerry bill -- but the framework for climate policy outlined in the op-ed by Kerry and Graham. She went as far as to "hope that it would mark a turning...

The 1990s were all about the white paper.  New technologies, problems and solutions--all summarized in a neat downloadable document on a company's website. Whenever I consult with an organization during the initial stages of their website redevelopment, there's almost always a conversation about where all the old white papers will live on the new website.  To me, white papers seem a little dated so I typically advise against placing them front and center on a new site.  There are often handier mediums now, such as online video, to quickly illustrate the value of a product or service and entice the potential customer to want to learn more.  If your goal is to get site visitors to sign up for more...

In a great example of innovation, The Atlantic is using Hewlett-Packard's custom-publishing product, MagCloud, to monetize its archived content.

[podcast] Shareholders in struggling Queensland fruit business Golden Circle declined a $1 per share takeover bid from Coca-Cola Amatil, instead selling 35% of the business to turnaround specialists Anchorage Capital Partners. After fixing up the company, they sold it to Heinz for $1.65 per share.

A federal judge has ruled against Pfizer's request for sanctions against a witness in the Neurontin litigation whom it alleged had attempted to wrongly influence another witness in the case. The judge dismissed Pfizer's allegations with just four words: This Motion is DENIED.