If you haven’t downloaded the Google SEO Starter Guide yet, let me save you some time:

1.  Apply Google SEO Starter Guide’s best practices
2.  ???
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GOOGLE will launch a new tool that will help federal officials “track sickness”.

“Flu Trends” uses search terms that people put into the web giant to figure out where influenza is heating up, and will notify the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in real time!

GOOGLE, continuing to work closely with government, claims it would keep individual user data confidential: “GOOGLE FLU TRENDS can never be used to identify individual users because we rely on anonymized, aggregated counts of how often certain search queries occur each week.”

Engineers will capture keywords and phrases related to the flu, including thermometer, flu symptoms, muscle aches, chest congestion and others.

Dr. Lyn Finelli, chief of influenza surveillance at CDC: “One thing we found last year when we validated this model is it tended to predict surveillance data. The data are really, really timely. They were able to tell us on a day-to-day basis the relative direction of flu activity for a given area. They were about a week ahead of us. They could be used… as early warning signal for flu activity.”

Eric Schmidt, GOOGLE’s chief executive vows: “From a technological perspective, it is the beginning.”

Thomas Malone, professor at M.I.T.: “I think we are just scratching the surface of what’s possible with collective intelligence.”

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On one hand, this is very, very cool and super-useful in solving a problem in a very innovative way.  Googlers are probably better with data than anyone.

On the other hand, this is some Big Brother shit.  We know they like to forecast with their data and we know they’ll rollover to .gov’s, so that leaves us with a pretty scare privacy rights bomb just waiting to go off.  What are they going to forecast next?  How deep will it intrude into my life? 

Actually, I really don’t care about that.  At least not for now.  The weirdos can worry about black helicopters.  Right now, my single biggest emotion is jealousy.  Do you realize what kind of financial positions you could take with this kind of geo-specific forecasting?  I bet there were lots and lots of foreclosure searches or “WTF is an ARM reset?” searches in Vegas, SoCal, and Florida way before the markets had priced in that volatility.  I bet you, that right now Google has a better idea than anyone what the top selling items being sold during the Holiday shopping season are.  What if I told you that right now Google knows where the sluttiest chicks are?  Is THAT something you’d be interested in?

Screw Adwords/Adsense.  Google should open up a trading division if they want to grow revenue.

First of all, if you get your pop culture on like Obama gets his fair taxation on, please see this video so you understand my post title:

Shane Pike surveyed a bunch of us about which conferences somebody should attend when they are starting out. You can read my answer over there, but I actually think this is a really good question.

Everything about this business is easier when you have more personal relationships with peers, competitors, connectors, and mavens. Conference sessions’ subject matter is, more often than not, absolutely terrible. In fact…and conservatively speaking…90% are probably detrimental to your business. If you sit through most of those sessions, my guess is that you’ll equally divide your time performing such timeless charades as “Guy Pulling Trigger In His Mouth“, “Guy Pulling Trigger At The Side Of His Head“, or maybe even “Guy Pulling Trigger At The Back Of The Head Of The Person In Front Of Him, Snuff-film Style“.

The other thing I don’t understand is the sub-class of Conference Lifers who attend conferences like they are hoping to hear when the Mother Ship will arrive. Don’t be that guy. That guy probably isn’t making much money. That guy just wants a hug and the feeling of belonging that only a badge around your neck can provide.

Lastly, if there are any other get togethers like ThinkTank in a warm climate with a nice hotel, a beach, and good food, feel free to let me know about those. Or if you have awesome speaker gifts. I can be bought.

If you enjoy finance, real estate, and economics, get in there and participate.

For more information about Tipd.com, read some of the early reviews:

VentureBeat
ZDnet
TheStandard
Mashable

Now, let me just say that I think McCain is pretty much a disaster.  As a lifelong Republican, I really wish the Bush Administration didn’t pull out their gas can and torch the Party which has historically been more kind to small businesses.  I really wish we had a more innovative G.O.P. candidate.  Like a guy that isn’t terrified by his computer.  But with marginal tax rate numbers potentially ballooning like this under Obama, the audacity of his hope is really going to take a big chunk out of many of our earnings. 

$250,000 isn’t wealthy.  Not here in Texas and definitely not in NYC, Boston, Chicago, L.A, S.F., or Seattle.  It’s definitely enough to be comfortable, but this is a country that was founded on the pursuit of happiness (err, property) and a free market economy that rewards risk.  When you factor in the hours many of us put in to these startups, the wage rate certainly isn’t what gets you out of bed in the morning. 

Do you have a really successful business or startup and plan to cash out in the next 4-8 years?  Do you rely on dividends from “the last one” to fund “this one”.  Please bend over and enjoy that cap gains hike.

Anyone that knows me knows that I work a lot.  I really love this sh*t.  Nothing good happens when you have your economy’s tip-of-the-spear new industry small businesses are put in a position where those entrepreneurs are better off not working after August.  That kind of economy is called “Europe”.

So, I guess the questions to those of you that this affects, as entrepreneurs do you vote for hope at this cost?  Or do you think that the cost of hope might have swung a little too far into your business’s and/or family’s finances?   We live in the most charitable, giving country in the world with a very inefficient goverment.  Wouldn’t you at least like the option of catalyzing hope at your own discretion?

Anyways, I guess I’m just curious as to how entrepreneurs (who are all seemingly fueled by caffeine and hope) plan on rationalizing this and how it would affect your respective businesses.