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It’s not a good time to have a house on the market in the Tampa Bay area. I get itchy every single time I think about how long my house might sit unsold. If it were not for my recent divorce, I surely would not go anywhere near the housing market right now, not even to buy.

As of last month, the median home price in the area fell 14%. Homes sales fell 32%. Both of these are as compared to the same period last year.

Although other areas in the country are seeing a slow up rise in their housing markets, the situation in the Tamp Bay area is not projected to have a rebound until sometime in 2009. Yikes.

This is the worst things have been since 1982.

It’s a bad time to sell, for obvious reasons. And, although some people say now is the time to buy, things are only going to get more dire so the really great deals are actually further down the road.

I had a lot of fun before Christmas with Overstock.com’s All I Want for Christmas Giveaway. So, I am tickled pink to see that they are starting a Game O Love on their website, just in time for Valentine’s Day. The promotion is running from January 25th to February 11th and you can register to win gifts for all the loves in your life.

If you go on over to the site now, you can enter your e-mail address so Overstock can send you a reminder when the game goes live.

My personal gift list for Valentine’s Day is a little different than it has been in years past. I am a happily divorced Mommy and my heart and soul are both focused on the love of my life – my daughter. I’m a pushover for giving her things she wants and Valentine’s Day is yet another excuse for me to check another item off her long life of gimmes.

My mother recently decided to learn how to play the guitar and Gigi has seen her grandmother practicing, so she decided she would also like a guitar. She specified, however, that her guitar should be pink. Well, look at what I found on Overstock! A pink guitar with a heart-shaped sound hole. Perfect for Valentine’s Day, wouldn’t you agree? I’ve got it on my list now and it is to be my first Game O Love entry.

Young runaways are a subsection of our population that my hearts aches for on a regular basis. As a mother, it is always in the back of my mind that I could find myself facing a missing child one day. It’s a heart breaking prospect.

Eleven-year old Kacee Pape is missing from his Tampa, Florida home. It is feared that he may have run away. Despite that speculation, a child away from home is still at risk and his case should be taken as seriously as any other missing child case.

He was last seen at home 8 a.m. Monday. He is 5’1” and about 90 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing an orange sweatshirt and blue jeans.

Anyone with information about the boy’s whereabouts is asked to call the sheriff’s office at (813) 247-8200 or Crime Stoppers at 800-873-8744.

I’ve lived in or near large cities all my life, save for the few years I was in college in a small West Virginia town. I was born and raised in the Washington, DC area. I live near Tampa, Florida now. Traffic is just a part of daily life.

As much as I appreciate having traffic cops at the ready for things like accidents and tracking dangerous drivers, I am absolutely not charmed when I drive by and see a speed trap. Who is? I suppose I see more worth in that same officer being out and about patrolling potential aggressive drivers than just sitting on the side of the road radaring passing cars.

Have you heard of Trapster(TM) Speed Trap Sharing System for Mobile Phones? It’s an ingenious system for your mobile phone. If you see a speed trap, you can simply press a button on your phone to port the location. Then, as other drivers using the service get ready to pass the same trap, they will receive a beep on their phone to alert them. How cool is that?

Best of all, the whole thing is free. And, it works in real time.

You can download the free program to your cell phone for the best results, or you can just opt to participate by calling in reports to a toll free number and receiving alerts via SMS.

So, how is Trapster different from all of the other speed trap notification sites? Its location based and as I said before, it works in real time. And, it’s not just for speed traps. It is also for speed cameras and other road hazards. Again, in real time.

Our local news here in the Tampa Bay area is never boring, that’s for sure. We have our fair share of celebrity hijinks, interesting criminal cases, and tropical weather to keep us busy. Today’s biggest news here is the word that Mike Alstott has officially ended his NFL career. Alstott has been heralded as the most popular player ever to play for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers franchise.

Alstott was sidelined for a full year due to a neck injury. He’s been with the Bucs for 12 years and has seen them go from obscurity to Superbowl champs and has often commented that not being able to play lately has been hard on his spirits.

Word on the street is that Alstott may continue to work for the Bucs in the front office or in a coaching role.

The landing page is far from dead. In fact, marketing experts agree that a properly optimized landing page is akin to a 30-second commercial for your website. Your site’s landing page is one of the best ways to accurately track pay-per-click (PPC) advertising returns and the all important business leads.

Marketbright is conducting a Webinar that will showcase:

• Fundamentals of landing page creation and design
• Optimization of Google for landing pages
• Tips and strategies for optimizing landing pages for maximum click-through

Register for the webinar now.

::: ::: :::

 Press Release:

SAN BRUNO, CA–(Marketwire - January 22, 2008) - Marketbright, the only on-demand integrated online marketing and web content management platform, will host a Webinar on Thursday, January 31st, on Landing Pages 101. Landing Pages have quickly become the 30-second commercial spot of digital marketing, and their importance in tracking pay-per-click (PPC) return on investment and capturing critical lead information cannot be understated.

Members of the public are invited to attend the Webinar. Attendees will learn:

– Fundamentals of landing page creation and design

– Optimization of Google for landing pages

– Tips and strategies for optimizing landing pages for maximum click-through

WHO: Kevin Miller - Director, Client & Business Development

WHAT: Landing Pages 101 - Best Practices for Leveraging Landing Pages

WHEN: Thursday, January 31st, 2008, at 11:00am PT, 2:00pm ET

WHERE: To register to attend the Webinar, please visit:
http://www.marketbright.com/pages/partners/mktb/jan-31-2008-webinar/index.html?Campaign_Id=11781&Activity_Id=9701

A replay of the Webinar will also be available after January 31st at
http://www.marketbright.com/pages/partners/mktb/jan-31-2008-webinar/index.html?Campaign_Id=11781&Activity_Id=9701

About Marketbright
Marketbright provides an on demand marketing automation solution which allows companies to implement self-service campaign execution and demand generation, automate lead scoring and nurturing, and to gain visibility into closed-loop campaign-to-cash metrics via real-time dashboards. The integrated marketing platform results in a full 360-degree view of your customers’ interactions, and this information is used to route only valuable, qualified leads into your sales CRM. Marketbright’s customers include Business Objects, Varonis and EVault. Marketbright is headquartered in San Bruno, CA. For more information, visit the company’s Web site at www.marketbright.com.

Reality TV is still a trend on the upswing, and thus far shows about tattoo parlors have done quite well: L.A. Ink, Miami Ink and London Ink to name a few. So, how about Tampa Ink?

At first glance the new Tampa Ink might sound like the other tattoo themed reality shows out there, but producer Mike Cooper has a whole other direction in mind for his show. He wants the show to highlight a scholarly look at tattoos as art and history.

Cooper is a charter boat captain and has produced local fishing shows. Tampa Ink is his newest project. The show will show the bulk of its action in Addicted 2 Tattoos, Lenny Welch’s shop on North Florida Avenue in Tampa, Florida.

Welch has been designing and giving tattoos for 15 years. She is a graduate of the University of South Florida with a major in fine arts. She has a background in graphic design and dreams of one day opening a state certified school for tattoo artists.

Do you want to get some ink in front of the camera? You can go to the Addicted 2 Tattoos web site and fill out an application.

Cooper is still looking for a national cable channel to carry the show.