59% of small businesses with a web site don't do paid search, according to a survey conducted by Microsoft adCenter. 90% of that number haven't even tried. To which I say, "What is up with that people?" That is just leaving money - potentially gobs of it - on the table. I can't say I'm surprised. Recently, on a trip to the beautiful North Carolina mountains, I was appalled at the lack of paid search listings for small businesses.

Yahoo! has gone through layoffs twice this year and at least one formerly purple person has turned his lemons into lemonade )though his tweets suggest he's a big fan of lattes(. Ryan Kuder has launched a site called the Purple People Collective )ironic that the initials are PPC(. It has listings for work for laid off Yahoos. Others who have been laid off are welcome, as well. Most of the listings as of this post appear to be for tech-related jobs.

Google Friend Connect was made available )in beta( to all webmasters last week. But most of these types of social efforts that enable portability among sites/networks have been missing one very important network. Until now. Twitter has joined Google Friend Connect. Now if you're using the technology to add social components to your website, Twitter users can sign in with their ID and check to see if any of their followers are also using your site.

The Wall Street Journal has caused quite a stir by publishing a story saying that leading proponents of net neutrality have been softening on their positions. Few blogs fell for the embellishment and Google and Lawrence Lessig have defended their not-so-shifty positions. Google's Richard Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel, took to the company's public policy blog to clarify: Despite the hyperbolic tone and confused claims in Monday's Journal story,

AOL has some good news regarding their homepage since they relaunched in late October . The click-through rate for the primary 300x250 ad banner increased 30% in November. Unique visitors and daily visitors grew by 13% and the minutes spent on the page increased by 29%. "This week, the new homepage was rolled out to all AOL.com users, so we anticipate that our consumer usage numbers will continue to grow in the coming year," said Lynda Clarizio, President of Platform-A.

comScore has been providing weekly updates on holiday e-commerce spending and the reports have been like a roller coaster. First, we started down, with November spending down 4% over last year. Then we took a gentle climb on Black Friday )1% increase( followed by a steeper incline on Cyber Monday, which saw sales rise 15% over last year. The week that started with Cyber Monday had an overall lift of 7% . But what goes up must come down,

Social network Bebo is getting in the aggregation game. Their new Social Inbox is an attempt at a FriendFeed-like feature that culls feeds from your Twitter, Flickr, Del.icio.us, YouTube, and AIM accounts, among others, so you can manage your online social life all in one place. You can also check email accounts from Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, AOL Mail and others. "People want the ability to stay in-touch with their contacts in real-time wherever their friends may be across the Web.

Local search site Citysearch has launched an application for the iPhone and iPod touch. Citysearch is touting the following features for the app: Search nearby destinations: food, bars, spas, shops and hotels Search listings by keyword, category and location and map the results Review listing details: address, phone, maps & directions, photos, hours of operation and more Submit user reviews instantly,

E-consultancy has just issued an Online PR Industry Benchmarking Report , based on a survey of 300 UK marketers and PR professionals who work for both in-house company teams and for agencies. Among the key findings: A surprisingly large percentage of retained PR budgets are being spent on Online PR. Company respondents report that 39% of their PR activity is online whilst agencies report that 47% of their clients' retained fees come from online PR.

In early September, Google launched a new product: a web browser named Chrome . Like most of Google's products, it was released into beta , which basically means the product could be )and was( imperfect but they kinda sorta don't have to take credit for it. But 14 updates and 10 million users later, Google Chrome gets to shine in all of its glory, without that pesky little beta tag holding it back. With its new beta-less state comes the 15th update and here's what to expect,

All week long, I've been reporting on the top 10 stories from each day of Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2008 . Generally, they were generated by news coverage of the three keynotes and two Orion Panels, or interviews with speakers at the 63 conference sessions. Hey, that's just fishing where the fish are. But there were a couple of other places where I found underreported stories from SES Chicago 2008: SES Magazine, the Expo Hall, the free mini clinics,

You don't need to read most of the 10 top stories from Day 4 of SES Chicago 2008. You can watch them. In fact, one of the photos that I hope someone took the week was the battery of online video crews interviewing speakers between sessions. The rest of the coverage from the only major Search Marketing Conference and Expo in the Midwest was provided by online journalists and bloggers. In fact, the "dog that didn't bark" at Search Engine Strategies was the print media.

Those expecting a knock-down, drag-out brawl at the "Black Hat/White Hat" session at SES Chicago may have left a bit disappointed. It looked like the sparks could fly, with Dave Naylor, director of search marketing at Bronco , and Todd Friesen, VP of search at Position Technologies there representing the black hat side, and Eric Enge, president of Stone Temple Consulting and Doug Heil, owner of ihelpyou there defending the white hat side. But, as Friesen so eloquently said,

Google Webmaster Tools has launched a new Message Center API that is part of the Webmaster Tools GData API. Google uses the Message Center to relay important messages about a site to its webmaster. Here's what Google says you can expect from the Message Center API: Retrieve messages: The messages feed contains all the messages sent to your account. These messages have important information about your verified sites.

Ivory Investment Management LP is calling for Yahoo to sell its search to Microsoft. Ivory owns 1.5% of Yahoo shares. Ivory is smart to call for only selling search to Microsoft, as Steve Ballmer has repeatedly made clear that he's no longer interested in buying the whole enchilada . However, Microsoft has already snagged two Yahoo acquisitions in the form of executives who know a thing or two about search .

Dipchand "Deep" Nishar is leaving Google to join social network LinkedIn. He will become Vice President of Products for the career and professional oriented social network. While at Google, Nishar contributed to mobile efforts and most recently oversaw product development for Asia-Pacific. Nishar is the latest of a string of Googlers leaving to join startups or build their own companies . While the current economy makes this a risky move,

Times are tough, but you can weather this economic downturn by taking advantage of some remarkable opportunities for those willing to think outside the box. In today's online promotion & linkbuilding column, " Look for SEO Opportunities in these Dire Economic Times ," Justilien Gaspard shows you some ways to be poised to outrank your competition when the economy turns around.

Today's list of top ten stories from SES Chicago 2008 is just a small sample of all the news and commentary that's coming out of Day 3 of the conference and expo. I'm sure that you will see more coverage rolling out over the next week. But for those of you who couldn't attend because your travel budget was cut because of the recession,

The outgoing CEO and co-founder of Yahoo Jerry Yang seems to be taking the new round of layoffs rather casually, if his letter to them at Yahoo Anecdotal is any indication. The entry titled "Tough times" was written in all lower case - written in a casual tone despite the seriousness of the occasion to those leaving. Obviously "saying goodbye to colleagues and friends is never easy" but perhaps it deserves more than what looks like a casual note jotted off in a hurry.

If you're looking for an iGoogle theme with a little more meaning , then look no further than iGoogle Themes for Causes. These new themes feature charitable partners representing a variety of causes to be passionate about. One of the participating charities )and a favorite of yours truly( is Doctors Without Borders, one of the only charities assisting in the current crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo and helping Somalian refugees who arrived in Yemen this week .