I woke up this morning to a letter from Amazon.com telling me that mu amazon Associates account had been closed as of today. Colorado passed HOUSE BILL 10-1193 which requires online retailers to disclose how much sales tax Colorado residents owe.The email from Amazon states the following:

The regulations are burdensome and no other state has similar rules. The new regulations do not require online retailers to collect sales tax. Instead, they are clearly intended to increase the compliance burden to a point where online retailers will be induced to “voluntarily” collect Colorado sales tax — a course we won’t take.

This TechFlash article about the Colorado law is a little bit less vague:

One thing I really like about working at a small businesses is the ability to work with people directly. My very first paid Web host was a company called Funio (they’re not around anymore). I was brand new to hosting, and I was learning PHP and HTML at the same time out of a book. That Web host was small enough to give me the time and service I needed while I was trying to get over the curve. It’s important to be able not only personally accommodate, but over-accommodate when it’s necessary.

In a post at the end of September, I briefly complimented the Raven Tools help system on another blog of mine. Less than a week later I got an email from @RavenJon thanking me for the mention, and offering me use of Raven Tools for the following three months at no charge. It just so happened that that following Friday Everett sent me an email telling me my SEO internship had been extended for three additional months. I’m not mentioning the gesture for full disclosure, however I wanted to mention the awesomeness of it and the irony of when it came.

If you know me, or read my other blog, you know how much I love Social Media. I have been using Social Media for recreation and promotion since the days when all we had were mailing lists (message boards were too high-tech for me at that point). Once Social Media software began to become popular, it was a great way to meet new people and keep track of old friends. I did a lot of moving around between 1994 and 2004, and without Friendster and MySpace, I would have lost touch with many of the wonderful friends I met all over the country.

As Facebook gained popularity, and companies began to really see the value of social media, my perspective of it began to change. In addition to creating good sites that are well prepared for search engine visibility, it is also necessary to consider whether a social campaign is right for a business. There are a few things to help you decide if launching a social media campaign is right for your business, and rule #1 is why I have not created a Facebook fan page for Beginning SEO.

Do you have time, and commitment to give your social media strategy?

So I’m ready to dust this bad boy off again. When I last wrote I was in my 7th week of a 12 week SEO internship. At the last day of the internship, my SEO mentor tells me he has bad news… “You have to come back to work on Monday.”

My internship had been extended for an additional three months, and I was given two sites to work on. Each of the sites had an in-depth SEO audit from early 2008. I was let loose on the situation, and worked with the sites’ manager and developers to optimize them. I couldn’t have asked for a better circumstance to work under. I was able to work autonomously with tons of support from the people around the office, whether they were directly involved with the project or not.

My internship ends again at the end of the year, and I’m pretty sure they’re serious this time. I learned a lot in that beginning SEO incubator, and I’d like to share some of it now.