I can relate. I get a whole bunch of newsletters. A number of them disappear into my spam folder; I have labels for others–and I never jump into the trenches to actually read them. I generally don’t unsubscribe because a) I’m too lazy, b) I think the newsletters might be useful some day (hoarder mentality), or c) the marketing software behind the newsletter makes it impossible to opt out (the diabolical strategy).

I do read a couple of newsletters. One of them only comes quarterly, but is so rich in useful information that I feel like I’ll be missing something if I don’t read it. Another has essential resources for my field, and comes every two weeks. Another one I open sometimes, because I know exactly what to expect from it, and I read its information if I feel the subject is something that could be useful.

In online marketing, newsletters are seen as valuable tools, yet in my experience the minority of people use them right. Why are companies so excited about their newsletters? We already know what they do wrong, but what works?

Why Companies Want Newsletters

“Newsletter guru” Jim Palmer writes that:

1. Newsletters increase brand awareness.
2. Newsletters help build relationships with customers and potential customers.
3. Newsletters are an awesome way to introduce new products or services.
4. Newsletters can enhance your reputation as an expert in your industry.
5. Newsletters have a longer shelf life than other types of marketing have.
6. Newsletters are often read by multiple readers.
7. Newsletters are a great way to differentiate yourself from larger businesses, which typically don’t do a customer newsletter.

Sounds decent enough. But what makes consumers actually open newsletters? How do you harness them?

Online marketing expert Bryan Eisenberg, who has excellent input on the topic, says that “the real value of a good list is the participation it stimulates between the subscriber and your business…Worthwhile interaction truly engages your audience.”

He also writes:

* When people opt in, treat it like a sacred trust. Their time (and yours) is extremely valuable.

* Ask yourself: would you want this e-mail in your inbox? Be brutally honest.

He also says to set up expectations right away. Send a welcome email to every subscriber making it very clear how often you send the newsletter, and what you write about. He says to kick unengaged subscribers off your list periodically (send them an email to re-opt in if they haven’t been active in 3 months or so). That way, you cultivate a newsletter that’s useful to your most engaged readers, who are the ones you really care about anyway.

Does the Business Pundit newsletter measure up?

We do a summary newsletter, which Blue Sky Factory says provides “attention generation hub if your source content is valuable.” It’s basically a sum-up of what happened in business this past week, plus our best tips, humor posts, interviews, and book reviews from that week.

Would I want to read it? Yes, I love good news summaries, because I don’t have time to catch every major detail during the week (not for business, but in terms of international politics, science, and other topics that we don’t focus on here).

Is there fluff? Nope, unless you consider the stuff that’s on the blog fluffy. The missing link here seems to be letting go of unengaged subscribers, and giving existing subscribers more options on how they receive their emails.

We’d also like more feedback on the kind of newsletter that works best for our business-minded audience. I provide you with what I would want, but I’m not 100% certain that’s what you’d want, too. Please leave feedback in comments below so that I can get a better idea of how to create a newsletter that you’ll love.

False accusations can do irreparable damage to the reputations of major corporations. These companies often have to pay fines to restore their good names, to say nothing of the costs incurred due to advertising campaigns to regain the public’s faith.

From Taco Bell to Toyota, many corporations have been forced to shell out big bucks due to false accusations made about their products. Here are five of the most memorable incidents.

1. Toyota

LOSSES: Up to $5,548,800,00.00 ($5.55 Billion)

After the storm, the amount of damage to the brand is often unknown.

False Accusation: Faulty electronics caused certain Toyota cars to accelerate out of control, contributing to at least 50 deaths.

The Truth: NASA released a statement reporting that allegedly ‘sticky’ accelerator pedals, which led to a recall of nearly eight million cars last year, were not in fact the result of faulty electronics.

“We enlisted the best and brightest engineers to study Toyota’s electronics systems, and the verdict is in. There is no electronic-based cause for unintended high-speed acceleration in Toyotas,” said US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

I’m guessing these guys know a thing or two about engineering.

Cost to Company: According to Huffington Post, the recall cost the company between $2 and $5.5 billion, due to a combination of lost sales and repairs. On top of that, the company was also fined $48.8 million by the U.S. government.

2. Taco Bell

LOSSES: More Than $8,900,000.00 ($8.9 Million)

False Accusation: “Your ‘beef’ is only 36% beef!”

The Truth: Last month, Alabama law firm Beasley Allen filed a class action lawsuit against the fast food chain, alleging that their beef taco filling was only about 1/3 beef, with the rest of the mixture containing fillers like “isolated oat product” and “autolyzed yeast extract.”

Taco Bell immediately launched a counter-suit, taking out a full page in several major newspapers that read, “Thank you for suing us.” The company has stated that their seasoned beef filling contains “88% Beef, and 12% Secret Recipe.”

Perhaps paying for celebrity visits will bring back the customers.

Cost to Company: The company just launched a promotion to give away ten million free tacos, prompted by the recent “Where’s the beef?” allegations.

A crunchy beef taco usually costs 89 cents, meaning the company is giving away the equivalent of $8.9 million. And don’t forget the cost of taking out ad space in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and USA Today.

3. Wendy’s

LOSSES: Up to $21,000,000.00 ($21 Million)

Once you wonder what’s in the chili, the company has already lost.

False Accusation: In 2005, a woman in Northern California told authorities that she found a severed finger in a bowl of chili at Wendy’s.

The Truth: The woman, Anna Ayala, made it all up in an attempt to extort money from the fast food chain. She bought the finger from a man who had lost it in an accident, and then staged the event. Police sorted out the truth, and Ayala spent four years in jail.

Clearly the scheme went the way she had planned.

Cost to Company: Wendy’s International Inc.’s earnings dropped one percent in the second quarter of 2005. That may not seem like a lot, but when you are the third-largest burger chain in the US, one percent of your revenue is a significant chunk of change.

For the first six months of 2005, profits fell to $122 million, compared to $124 million in 2004. And other estimates say that Wendy’s may have lost as much as $21 million in revenue due to the incident.

4. Pringles/Proctor & Gamble

LOSSES: Unknown

Support of Satan, or the creation of bored viewers?

False Accusation: P&G subsidized Satanic cults.

The Truth: The rumor about Satanic subsidies was started by four rival distributors. The matter lingered in a court case that took 12 years to resolve, but eventually the false rumor was dispelled and P&G was awarded $19 million.

As if the first “example” wasn’t a big enough stretch, here’s a second.

Cost to Company: There’s no word on how much revenue was lost due to consumers who believed the story about Satanic cults, or how much P&G paid its legal team for 12 years of courtroom battles.

Based on some of the other costs above, however, it seems reasonable to guess the company lost at least a few million dollars over that 12-year period.

5. McDonald’s

LOSSES: Unknown

Consider how long this image will stay with you, for example.

False Accusation: During the infamous “McLibel” case, which ran for over a decade in Europe, McDonald’s was accused of a number of outrageous activities. Members of London Greenpeace claimed the following statements about McDonald’s business practices were true:

• buys from greedy rulers and elites, practicing economic imperialism;
• destroys rainforests with poisons and colonial invasions;
• alters its food with artificial chemistry;
• exploits children with its advertising;
• poisons customers with contaminated meat.

The Truth: In 1997, the courts ruled in favor of McDonalds, awarding the company £40,000 (about $64,000 in U.S. currency). The company never claimed the money. Later, members of London Greenpeace continued the court battles.

In 2005, the matter finally came to a close. The controversy spanned a total of twenty years, between a decade of courtroom battles and the additional years spent in appeals and higher courts.

Cost to Company: McDonald’s reportedly spent “millions of pounds” to defend themselves against the McLibel accusations. No firm figures exist for how much the company may have lost in potential sales due to the bad press surrounding the court cases, but over a twenty-year period, those figures could have been in the tens or hundreds of millions.

Conclusion

The next time you hear a story about a major corporation’s flaws, take a moment to think about all of the false accusations above. No corporation is perfect, but it’s important to take every negative news story with a grain of salt.

I brought up the issue with an Italian small business owner who I happened to run into after reading all your comments. Here’s how it went:

“What do you think about Sarah Palin’s role in the Tucson shooting?” I asked. “I think that everyone should have a right to free speech, so what she said was okay. How about you?”

“At that level,” he told me, “you should know better than to say things like that.” Essentially, when you’re a leader and you know that people are hanging onto your every word, you have a moral and ethical responsibility to refrain from certain language.

“Not long ago in Italy,” he added, “we had someone on the media say that a certain journalist should have a stick taken to him. And what happened? A group of youths ganged up on the journalist with a baseball bat and other weapons and beat him up.” (This isn’t quoted verbatim, but you get the gist.)

Well, hell. The man had a point. In my previous post, I implicitly assumed that if we’re all just smart enough to not take Sarah Palin seriously, and not give her any credit, this thing will blow over.

“We’re all just smart enough” is a bad assumption to make. So let me revise my idea some and share where I stand now, thanks in no small part to your comments and feedback.

The Hitler Lesson

Someone once told me that when Hitler came to power in Germany, his lackeys made sure that every German family received a copy of his autobiography Mein Kampf. They delivered the copies personally, door to door. Most Germans stuck the book on a shelf and forgot about it. Why? Because things were going okay for them. The book was just an accessory. There was no point in reading or thinking too hard about it.

We all know what happened next.

The point is that when something extreme pokes its head over the horizon, you ignore it at your own peril.

The Facts

I believe that my previous take on Sarah Palin was a little too close to shelving Mein Kampf and assuming everything would continue to be hunky dory on Planet America. So here’s my revision.

Fact: Sarah Palin is a person of power with fans who hang on to her every word.

Fact: Sarah Palin invokes language that could be construed as being violent. “They all say things that are vague enough that they can later deny them,” my Italian friend told me. “Reloading” and “targeting” apply. And, as Thomas Hobbes indicated, language precedes action in politics.

Fact: People in positions of authority have a moral responsibility to say things that are in the best interest of the greater good.

Fact: This rarely happens, because people in positions of authority love power.

Given this, how does a democratic society mitigate wingnuts when they start gaining enough traction to inspire violence? What is our check and balance on political ethics?

We used to have a law against extremist rhetoric in the media, but it was shot down years ago, giving rise to the likes of Glenn Beck. Reinstituting that law and putting legal limits on the kind of language people in a position of authority, as per a preset legal definition, can use, is one option. Instituting something like a Jedi Council on ethics is another, if more idealistic, option.

The Gut Level Security Blanket

I want to think that no matter who you are, you can say what you want. Because we live in a free country with free speech.

While that kind of blanket statement feels good and justified from a personal rights level, it doesn’t acknowledge the increased responsibility that has to come with leadership in a stable and functional society.

When I think about the kind of society where leaders are absolved of responsibility in the name of overarching concepts–of freedom, of gut-level rights–a complex and functional democracy, which by its very nature requires mature discussion, does not come to mind. The leader’s audience may feel morally justified, but because of the leader isn’t getting any kind of proper performance review, s/he can get away with all kinds of mischief.

My Revised Conclusions

a) Jared Loughner remains a rarity in that he took violent action against a particular group of people

b) There is, at time of writing, no direct link between Sarah Palin and his course of action

c) I maintain that smart people should not give finger-pointing myths more power than they deserve, but, since I have to admit that not everyone is smart:

d) Sarah Palin, and any politician or media authority, are leaders. As such, they need to be held accountable for the consequences of their rhetoric, no matter how vague the insinuations may sound to smart people. Because, dammit, we’re not all smart.

e) I currently am not aware of what the accountability structure is for such leaders, and how it is employed. Bottom line: If we want to be a functional democracy, we need to activate it.

I’ve received 5 giveaway copies of John C. Maxwell’s Everyone Communicates, Few Connect: What the Most Effective People Do Differently. This engaging book teaches you how to connect with people in a way that increases your influence, improves your relationships, and contributes to your success. Maxwell shows you how to go beyond your usual social habits to create a lasting impression with anyone you interact with.

As an introvert, I found the book, which lays out what you need to do to become better at connecting with people, helpful in facilitating my own understanding of social behavior. Besides that, it’s uplifting and, frankly, pretty fun to read.

I’ll send free copies to the first 5 people that subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Just plug your email into the form on the right. (If you’re one of the first five, I’ll email you asking for your snail mail address.)

About the Challenge
We’ll select 10 small business finalists and follow them not only as they travel around the country, but also as they strive to meet their business goals. Finalists will publicly share their journey by blogging, tweeting and posting photos. Finalists will be notified by September 9, 2010 and the program kicks off on September 13, 2010.

About the Grand Prize
After three months of traveling the country and working through set business challenges, our judging panel, comprised of small business experts and Marriott International executives, will award one of the 10 finalists the grand prize of $20,000.

About the Judges
John Jantsch, celebrated author and entrepreneur, has been called the World’s Most Practical Small Business Expert
Shruti Gandhi Buckley, Vice President, Global Brand Management, Fairfield Inn & Suites.
Drea Knufken, Senior Writer, Business Pundit
Maisha Walker, President, message medium, and columnist for INC Magazine
Nicole Marie Richardson, Senior Editor of Special Projects, INC.com

If you want to be considered, fill out the contest application here.

Each calendar date gives you hourly spaces to write in meetings or appointments from 8am-6pm. There’s also space for notes and weekend planning. Every other page includes a miniature calendar for the current month, the month after that, and the month before the current month (eg. June also features May and July). They’re really handy for people who have lots of appointments and work relatively normal (8am-6pm) hours.

The desk diaries also include beautiful New Yorker cover art, comics, and graphics. The front of the desk diary includes a page of common toll-free numbers that business travelers can use (major airlines, hotels, car rental agencies, etc.). That’s followed by a New York City section, featuring restaurants, museums, and other entertainment. There are subway, bus, and detail maps of Manhattan and the greater New York area. There’s also a time zone map of the US, international dialing codes, currency names, an address section, and more.

To put it simply, the desk diaries are slick. I’ll send the first 5 people to comment on this post a free desk diary. Please include your email so that I can get in touch with you for your mailing address.

To celebrate zero-nine’s passing, I’ve put together a Best of Business Pundit 2009 list. These posts represent some of the most popular and interesting posts we’ve put up this year. You may find some old favorites in here, as well as posts you haven’t yet seen.

Wishing everyone a happy, productive, and wise 2010!

Products: New, Old, and Origins

The Unique Origins of 25 Popular Products
You’ll never guess where saccharin, Teflon, and the bra came from.

25 Most Promising Products for 2010
I want a flying car! And a jetski-ATV combo! Not so sure about the cardboard computer, though.

20 Brands and Products That Died in 2009
2009 will go down in history as a brand-killer.

Company Capers

20 Most Hilarious (Yet Unfortunate) Company Names on Earth
Menlove Dental Practice and Boring Business Systems are just the beginning.

The 25 Worst Business Failures in History
Heard of the Edsel or Flooz.com? No? There’s a reason for that.

The Ever-Exciting Economy

12 Economic Bubbles That May Burst
Even gold, food, and guns aren’t bubbleproof.

People & Money: They Don’t Always Mix

10 Biggest White-Collar Crimes in History (and How They Were Unravelled)
When businesspeople go bad.

25 Rich Athletes Who Went Broke
Once you’re on top, watch out for vultures.

Controversies

Reebok Easytone shoes promise to tone your butt. Fad alert!
Are these $100 shoes fad-tastic? Or are they a godsend for those too busy to exercise much?

The Baby Einstein recall
Was the recall hysteria-based, or does Baby Einstein really harm your kids?

Google Cell Phone Tracker
Something for parents to love? Or privacy-minded people to fear?

The Visa Black Card: Smooth or silly?
Is making people feel elite through a special credit card a good idea or a cheap trick?

Humor

Mouse logo FAIL
That mouse looks like a _ _ _ _ _.

Milk carton just got safer
Did that cow really need a bike helmet?

Always check your child’s homework before it gets turned in
Especially if your mom works in the adult industry.

10 craziest ways people are making money in this economy
Yep, people really do buy dog strollers and pay money to smash plates against a wall.

What defined business in 2009? Bankers and bailouts, for one. The proliferation of social media. A radical shift in the ways we find and accept jobs. A redefinition of the real estate, credit, and media markets.

In a word, 2009 was full of fluctuations. And nobody covered, commented on, and analyzed them better than the 75 blogs on our list.

This year’s 75 Best Business Blogs cover a variety of categories, from accounting to SEO. Those we selected have useful and timely content. They’re updated regularly. Their commentary, analysis, and tips are consistently relevant to their target audience.

Most importantly, they’re some of the highest-quality blogs in their respective fields. Every single one of these blogs is worth reading. We categorized them by topic to help you find those most relevant to your field. If you find something missing, or want to show off your own blog, we encourage you to comment.

Bloggers, keep up the good work!

ACCOUNTING

1. re: The Auditors
Covers the business of the Big 4 accounting firms. Essential updates on accounting industry regulation, auditing, strategy, and more. High-quality independent journalism and a wide scope of corporate accounting issues make re: The Auditors an outstanding resource.

2. CPA Success
Written by the Maryland Association of CPAs, the blog helps accountants succeed in their careers. Chock full of useful tips, news, analysis, and even accountant humor.

ADVERTISING

3. AdvertisingAge
Advertising Age’s prolific blog covers ad industry news, campaigns, and commentary. Digest it daily to stay up on the ad world.

4. AdFreak
Another magazine-sponsored blog, this time from AdWeek. The bloggers present ad images and clips on each post, followed by a background and commentary. They have a penchant for finding really interesting content, about ads, companies, and people in the industry.

BUSINESS: GENERAL

5. The Atlantic Business Channel
News and current events coverage related to business, the economy, and government. The bloggers offer good, comprehensible analysis and commentary on daily events.

6. Stanley Bing’s Blog
Stanley Bing is a business writing legend. He says it like it is—and sometimes it’s damn funny. Don’t miss his blog.

BUSINESS LAW

7. The Conglomerate
Five law professors weigh in on law, business, education, and a variety of other topics. Their expert analysis on business law is not only helpful for understanding events from a legal perspective, but also very readable.

8. Corporate Governance
In the Harvard Law School’s corporate governance and financial regulation blog, more than 100 experts talk about regulation, strategy, M&A, governance, and more. Get the latest on such legal topics from the leading minds in the industry.

BUSINESS MEDIA POLICE

9. Beat the Press
Economist Dean Baker debunks economics media claims on a daily basis. His posts are short and easy for non-economists to understand. The fact that he has so much to debunk makes this an essential media supplement.

10. Brad DeLong
This Berkeley economics professor provides deep-level understanding on what’s behind modern debates, media claims, and claims politicians make. It’s a good place to find insight and understanding on today’s debates.

CAREER

11. The Career Doctor Blog
A useful Q&A/advice column covering a variety of career-related topics. Chances are, a few of them affect you. The Career Doctor offers cogent, useful advice for people facing the gamut of career concerns.

12. Brazen Careerist
Penelope Trunk’s unique, brilliant, and direct commentary on both her career and personal life make this blog a classic. You’ll react to something in her blog, guaranteed.

CONSUMER ISSUES

13. Consumerist
The definitive source on customer service, how-tos, shopping, investigations, any other consumer-rights issues.

ECONOMICS

14. Econlog
Economists Arnold Kling, Bryan Caplan, and David Henderson comment on a wide range of subjects, from finance to history. They get readers to think about how economics affects each topic.

15. Marginal Revolution
Economists Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen talk economics, markets, trends, and about other economists. A good place to read about current news from an economics perspective.

16. The Becker-Posner Blog
Nobel laureate and University of Chicago economist Gary Becker and US Court of Appeals judge Richard Posner analyze the current economic situations and national policies. These two heavyweights offer an unparalleled perspective on current policies and economic events.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

17. Toilet Paper Entrepreneur
Full of tips, discussion, videos, and other resources for new entrepreneurs. TPE sets the standard for informing and supporting its venture-hungry readers.

18. The Entrepreneurial Mind
Professor, entrepreneur, and consultant Jeff Cornwall has a birds-eye approach to entrepreneurship. Catch up on issues, statistics, findings, and policy relevant to entrepreneurs here.

GREEN BUSINESS

19. Triple Pundit
Triple Pundit covers news, commentary, and analysis about the triple bottom line, which has to do with sustainable business and the environment. Covers a range of relevant issues, from what companies are greenest to new products to foreign affairs. Consistently insightful and interesting.

20. EcoGeek
EcoGeek covers the space where technology meets nature. And tech innovations help make a more environmentally-friendly economy. This blog is a useful resource for keeping abreast with green developments that might affect your industry and business.

FINANCE: GENERAL

21. The Big Picture
Author, financial commentator, speaker, and businessman Barry Ritholz and others share brief, informative daily commentary on finance and the economy. Written clearly enough for anyone to understand, but with unique, informed insights.

22. Naked Capitalism
A variety of contributors, some from other prominent finance blogs, make Naked Capitalism a one-stop shop for current events and in-depth analysis relating to events in the financial world, most of them having to do with the government and policy.

23. Zero Hedge
One of the ultimate insider finance blogs. Zero Hedge regularly shares the financial news that the mainstream media is too slow (or involved with outside corporate forces) to catch. Written anonymously and in the spirit of informational freedom, Zero Hedge is a must-read for anyone interested in raw truth. Note that some information isn’t for financial novices.

24. Calculated Risk
An excellent place to get your daily smart finance news commentary fix. Concise posts, good links, smart commentary make this a finance blog classic.

FINANCE: LINK BLOGS

25. Real Clear Markets
Nicely laid out information on finance, economics, and business, largely covering good content from the mainstream media. Easy to get good articles, fast.

FINANCIAL CRISIS

26. Credit Writedowns
This excellent blog evolved into something even better in 2009. Edward Harrison and other bloggers cover finance and economics in informative daily posts. Refreshingly, they don’t neglect the foreign sector. Their credit crisis timeline is a unique and useful resource. This year, their compilation of healthcare links is another excellent place to figure out what’s going on.

27. Baseline Scenario
Written by economists, entrepreneurs, consultants, and financial experts—all in three talented people—The Baseline Scenario comments on today’s financial crisis issues, from the national debt to healthcare. They use evidence and sound reasoning to comment on topics of the day.

28. Financial Armageddon
As the blog’s name suggests, this isn’t an optimist’s view on the financial crisis, or how it is being handled. But author and blogger Michael Panzner cuts through spin to cover the American situation in all its hardship, social, economic, and financial.

FRANCHISING

29. The Franchise King
This blog shares news, contests, commentary, and tips for franchisers. His posts are consistently short, interesting, and relevant.

FREELANCING

30. Freelance Switch
Chock full of useful tips for freelancers, this blog speaks to workers who do it themselves. Bonus: Comics, contests, and anecdotes.

GENERATIONAL

31. GEN Y

Young Successful Entrepreneur
This entrepreneurially-focused blog, written by Gen-Yer Jun Loayza, describes one young entrepreneur’s journey from startup to success. Loayza, a talented writer, offers tips, stories, and useful details from his own experiences.

32. GEN X

Generation X Finance
This useful blog covers financial issues that apply to Gen Xers. Focused on topics like establishing a career, building wealth, and getting out of debt. Generation X Finance is full of useful tips, analysis, and commentary.

33. BABY BOOMER

The Boomer Blog
Though it’s focused on a wider variety of topics than just business, the Boomer Blog covers marketing, retirement, finances, small business, and economy-related issues relevant to the age group. Its Daily Digest, which covers news that affects boomers, is also a very useful resource.

HUMAN RESOURCES

34. Gautam Ghosh
HR consultant and social media strategist Gautam Ghosh offers interesting comments on people, organizations, and using social media in an HR content in this diverse, fascinating blog.

35. Evil HR Lady
Quite simply the best, most blunt HR Q&A out there.

INTERNATIONAL

36. International Business—General

Global Edge
Two dozen contributors cover both international and country-specific business/economic issues. Their unique reports cover everything from Tehran’s first hypermarket to the fine art industry as a global economic indicator. An excellent place to catch up on general business happenings across the globe.

37. Africa

Timbuktu Chronicles

Emeka Okafor’s incredible range of business experiences include starting companies, co-running a food/beverage company, managing a PE fund, and directing the 2007 TED global conference in Tanzania. In Timbuktu Chronicles, he covers entrepreneurship, innovation, sustainability, technology, and more. His inclusion of individual people’s stories and entrepreneurial ventures lets you know the African business world through individual stories. A valuable blog.

38. EU

A Fistful of Euros
Commentary on economic, business, and current news in the EU. 15 authors cover both individual countries and EU-wide news, as well as commentary on more remote countries, like the US.

39. Middle East (specifically the UAE)

Emirates Economist
News, links, and analysis about the UAE economy. The perfect English-language destination to get your Gulf news fix.

40. China

China Briefing
This blog offers China-related business news with professional, magazine-quality reportage. Its sister publications, Vietnam briefing and India briefing, are also worth reading.

41. Latin America
For Latin America, we came up with a tie. The first blog, Latin Americanist, isn’t quite as business/economy-focused as we’d like for the purposes of this list. The second, Double Handshake, focuses only on Latin America-China relations. Both, however, are excellent.

Latin Americanist

Nine contributors cover business, politics, and culture in Latin America. Coverage is consistently good, as are the links to current news. An ideal place to load up on Latin America, in English.

Double Handshake
Covers news and business related to the China-Latin America relationship in a succinct, relevant, and entertaining way.

42. India

WATBlog
Web, advertising, mobile, technology, funding, startups…WATblog covers a substantial portion of India’s business world. How does it do so? With news, reviews, interviews, tools, and features. It’s a satisfying and readable mix.

43. Australia/NZ

The Australian Small Business Blog
Author and small business expert Dr. Greg Chapman’s useful, concise posts help small business owners market, strategize, grow, and manage their small business. An excellent digest to consume a few times a week.

INVESTIGATIVE

44. Deep Capture
The people behind Deep Capture want to expose how regulators, politicians, the media, and intellectuals have been influenced by other powerful people and institutions. That translates to posts with topics like SEC complicity in naked short selling, what hedge funds are manipulating markets and how, and the false media story around the death of Bear Stearns. Get behind the lies—or just find a different version of the stories you read.

INVESTING

45. Seeking Alpha
Seeking Alpha isn’t so much a blog as a financial website containing a bunch of blogs, but it’s so good that we had to include it. It’s a one-stop shop for stock market analysis, opinion, and commentary. They publish around 250 fresh articles per day, so whether you’re interested in commodities or day trading, you’ll be sated.

46. Abnormal Returns
Excellent daily investing and finance links, many to quality blogs and new media sites. You’re bound to find something interesting and perhaps lesser-known through a daily peek at the links here. Also includes commentary on current investment trends and events.

MANAGEMENT & LEADERSHIP

47. Management Craft
Consultant and management expert Lisa Haneberg shares perspective and advice on issues that managers face. Her posts, which appear several times a month, should be read slowly and savored.

48. Leadership Now
Leadership Now uses book reviews, articles, links, research summaries, multimedia, and more to give you a complete leadership resource. Its material helps you establish and solidify the mentality that you need to lead effectively.

49. The Harvard Business Review Blogs
Maybe this one is so obvious that it doesn’t need to be on this list. Then again, it’s so good that it should be on any list. The folks at the Harvard Business Review provide timely, crucial information and analysis on issues facing all managers and leaders.

MARKETING

50. Duct Tape Marketing
Geared at the small business crowd, this essential marketing resource offers news, tools, tips, and commentary relevant to SMB. The site also has an excellent podcast, books, and other resources.

51. Seth’s Blog
Seth Godin is a guru of sorts. His frequent, to-the-point insights make you both ponder your own outlook, then improve. Utterly essential.

52. eConsultancy Blog
The eConsultancy blog offers useful tips, information on trends, and news related to the digital marketing space. Especially useful for digital marketing and ecommerce professionals.

53. Copyblogger
The go-to resource for copywriting, content marketing, and successfully building an online presence. Follow Copyblogger regularly to increase your skillset in these areas.

MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS

54. DealBook
The New York Times’ DealBook consistently has superior details, background, and reports on the M&A space. Not that this should be your only resource, but it’s definitely one of the best.

PERSONAL FINANCE

55. Get Rich Slowly
GRS helps you save money, time, and headaches by compiling tips, how-tos, lists, and anecdotes. The blog is not only a quality daily digest, but an excellent resource on topics ranging from savings accounts to insurance.

56. The Simple Dollar
As its name suggests, the Simple Dollar offers simple ways to manage your personal finances. Blogger Trent Hamm, after having his own financial meltdown, created this useful resource to explain and explore how to simplify your personal finances. Book reviews, an advice column, and link posts round out the content.

PHARMA/HEALTH

57. Pharmalot
Written by longtime pharma journalist Ed Silverman, Pharmalot covers pharma news, trends, and issues. It’s really well-written, and could be considered a niche newspaper. A quality resource.

58. Café Pharma
Daily links to news relevant to those in the pharmaceutical business, especially salespeople. You’ll find a large selection of news headlines, most from the mainstream media, that will keep you up to date with the pharma biz.

PUBLIC RELATIONS

59. PR 2.0
PR agency principal Brian Solis writes about PR and social media news, trends, and events. His posts are short, and he updates frequently, making this a good blog to read in tasty bites.

60. Naked PR
Blogger Jennifer Mattern calls Naked PR a “spin-free zone…dedicated to cutting through the crap in online public relations…issues.” That’s just what she does, and she does it well. Her bluntness refreshes and informs.

PRODUCT MANAGEMENT

61. The Cranky Product Manager
Entertaining and well-written, The Cranky Product Mananger documents the experiences of a fictional product management professional at a software company named DysfunctoSoft. For a fictional story, CPM’s posts sound mighty real, but put that aside for now. Her frank, honest, snarky posts make for a fun read, whether you’re a product manager or not.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

62. Fear No Project
Bruce McGraw combines observations, experiences, and analysis to address issues that project managers face. It’s the kind of blog with in-depth posts that appear several times a month. Savor and absorb his posts—they’re good.

REAL ESTATE

63. Bigger Pockets
Covers real estate news, investment, marketing, sales, technology, and landlord issues. Useful articles both for seasoned pros and beginners. The blog also has a good networking component, via forums, groups, bulletins, and a resource directory.

64. Altos Research
Want to know the current state of the real estate market? Catch it at Altos Research’s blog, which relays real-time real estate data. Charts and reports give you hard data to back up your next move.

SALES

65. Score More Sales
Sales consultant, author, and coach Lori Richardson shares sales tips and tricks in a readable, engaging blog. She weaves stories into her tips, making them more accessible.

SEO

66. Search Engine Land
This journalist-led SEO news and info site offers professional, compelling industry coverage.

SMALL BUSINESS

67. Small Business Trends
This complete small business resource offers a host of excellent tips for the SMB crowd. In addition to tips, they write book and product reviews, research roundups, host a radio show, and host forums. It’s a one-stop shop for entrepreneurs.

68. Small Business Brief
Small Business Brief “fetches” small business news, which means it provides you with useful SMB links almost every day. Scroll down to find the quality article that suits your needs. They have lists for Sales/Marketing, Finance & Legal, Website development, entrepreneurship, and management. A great place for a regular news fix.

SOCIAL MEDIA

69. Mashable
Perhaps the ultimate social media resource, Mashable covers the gamut of social media news, tips, lists, and how-tos. It’s an extensive social media resource that you should bookmark and check at least weekly.

70. Chris Brogan
Tech and social media expert Chris Brogan blogs about social media, online marketing, new technology, digital trends, ideas, and more. It’s an interesting take on social media by a highly-regarded opinion leader. He hosts good videos, too.

SPORTS BUSINESS

71. Sports Biz
Writer Darren Rovell reports on sports news from a business perspective. He covers the gamut of sports business, from endorsements to promising young players. An excellent daily read.

TECHNOLOGY/IT

72. Ars Technica
Ars Technica is a vast resource for IT pros. Its posts, which appear multiple times per day, cover hardware products, software tools, infrastructure, industry trends, security and more. The business section is an especially good place for IT managers to catch up on the latest.

73. TechCrunch
News from the hardware/software/IT space, including new products, IPOs and funding, companies, campaigns, research, people, industry news, and more. Consistently good and on top of the tech game.

VENTURE CAPITAL

74. Ventureblog
August Capital partner David Hornik updates this blog several times a month with analysis, commentary, and insights for those in the VC world.

75. A VC
Longtime New York City VC Fred Wilson (Union Square Ventures) covers company moves, public policy, investor behavior, media, tech, and a whole lot more. His brings insight and a human touch to all of his topics.

Here’s a recap of the Madoff case, from the Wall Street Journal:

Bernard L. Madoff, a former chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market and a force in Wall Street trading for nearly 50 years, was arrested by federal agents Thursday, a day after his sons turned him in for running what they said their father called “a giant Ponzi scheme.”

In a separate criminal complaint, Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Theodore Cacioppi said Mr. Madoff’s investment advisory business had “deceived investors by operating a securities business in which he traded and lost investor money, and then paid certain investors purported returns on investment with the principal received from other, different investors, which resulted in losses of approximately billions of dollars.”

Clusterstock has a pretty comprehensive list of Madoff’s victims. The case is still unfolding, but it’s big. Huge. More massive than Enron.

Not again. Three prominent things came to mind for me:

1. Wikipedia:

He has been active in the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), a self-regulatory organization for the U.S. securities industry. His firm was one of the five most active firms in the development of the NASDAQ, and he served as its chairman of the board of directors, and on its board of governors.

No wonder regulators didn’t catch him earlier in his scheme. He was one of their own.

2. The criminal complaint alleges that investors lost $50 billion because of the scheme. He was charged with a single count of securities fraud. Madoff was released on the same day of his arrest after posting $10 million bail.

I feel sorry for the people whose $10 million he used to get himself out of jail.

3. He provided impossibly steady returns, but people kept investing with him anyway.

This gives insight into the nature of greed. Greed isn’t just limited to “I can get more? Great! Sign me up.” Greed is your friends calling you up and telling you that you have to put your money in a certain fund. Greed is knowing that it’s too good to be true, but thinking that fate will exempt you from consequences. Greed is thinking you have an inroad to privileged returns, without stopping to ponder where those returns are actually coming from. Greed goes hand-in-hand with ignorance and laziness. It’s culturally embedded.

No wonder so many people were misled.