Howdy everyone.  Sorry for the time it's taken me to update this blog.  A lot of things are moving fast with our business and in the markets where we compete, and I haven't had time to maintain the blog. It has fallen way down in priorities all of a sudden.  Here's a quick rundown of the things that are keeping me happily driving to work at 7am, engaged throughout the day, and starting another half workday or more around 8pm.

Company - Last week, we launched our first deployment of MinutesNotice at QuickDFW.  Quick is a Dallas Fort-Worth Metro Area nightlife portal that supplements a print publication that is given away for free in the metroplex.  We have enabled the QuickDFW ad sales team to offer our "offers platform" to local bars, restaurants, and nightlife destinations.  It's going great so far, and we're very optimistic about how this vertical site will perform.  Expect to see bigger, broader, and more vertical deployments from us in coming months.

Market - Local has certainly heated up significantly in the last 90 days.  Even as late as the end of October, a lot of people asked me "why are you guys going after the local business/local advertising market?"  Well, it's really the wild west out there right now, but there are billions of dollars at stake as local online advertising evolves.  A number of companies have announced big plans, funding, and other initiatives that will help advance the market.  As such, we're hearing from a wide range of folks who have taken a much bigger interest in local opportunities.  It's an exciting time.

Book - Some of you may know that I've been steadily plugging away on Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day — a book that will be published by Sybex.  Later, I will share with you the long & strange story of how an entrepreneur like me got caught up writing a book while starting a company — suffice it to say that it is tough but doable, but perhaps only when your business is still figuring out what it wants to be when it grows up.  Fortunately, book writing tasks just about concluded at the same time our business picked up significantly.  The book is now slated for release in April, and can be pre-ordered from Amazon.com right now.

We did make a change to the book mid-stream.  My original co-author had some time conflicts and could not finish the book.  So I'm really happy to share with you that Mari Smith (Twitter @marismith) is co-authoring the book.  Mari's late addition to the book has been a godsend.  She is a true professional in every sense of the word.  Even more importantly, she really knows social media at a deep, deep level.  Her involvement has turned a great book into a phenomenal book.  So in a sense, the book is a practitioner's guide to Facebook Marketing, but from the dual perspectives of an industry pundit (Mari) and a capital efficient entrepreneur (Me).  I can't wait for you all to read the book & share your thoughts about it.