Here’s this week’s selection of the most interesting posts I’ve come across, selected for its interest to small business people.

Did you ever want to build your own software but not have the skills?  If so the answer to your dreams might be just around the corner with Google App Inventor

Aaron Wall, SEO Expert writes an interesting article on staying out of Google’s way as it begins to dominate on line content - “if you are a publisher they are gutting your business model through paying people to snag your content and wrap it in their ads, while they also redirect user attention to the companies and acts they have invested in.

Does video fit into your marketing and sales strategies?  If not you should read Chris Brogan in Video is So Powerful As A Motivator  This is relevant to everbody, even if Internet Marketing isn’t your thing.  As as sales support tool video is an opportunity too good to miss.

Mark McDonald, Gartner Group, tells us how “Competition is perhaps the most active form of fracking as marketing efforts seek to define every smaller niche markets and segmentations.” and how we need to incorporate that fracking in our plans for 2011

Also of Gartner Group, Jack Santos points to The Creepiness of Online Social Networking and in part justification for avoiding the social web.  Unfortunately he doesn’t address the “be there, or be square” issue.

In Open Forum, Julie Rains writes about market segmentation to grow customers, sales and profits and summarises with -The "sweet spot" for business and market segmentation, Lindsay tells me, is the "intersection of customer needs, technology capabilities, brand credibility, and business model."

Also in Open Forum, Cameron Herold suggests ways to Keep Email From Killing Your Company

And Adam Ostrow, in Is Social Media Failing To Produce Business Leads explains “While social media shouldn’t be thought of in the same fashion as more traditional forms of marketing where lead generation happens at the point of arrival, it would be a mistake to write it off as simply a communications tool with no direct correlation to new customer opportunities.”  This is a really big question we all need to find our own answer to.

Steve Kennedy asks “Is Twitter the Fastest Growing Search Engine”  Whether we love or loath Twitter and Facebook we need to have strategies for keeping a footprint on those sites.  Google searches Twitter now and would search Facebook if allowed.  Content is only King if it can be found where customers are looking.

Martin Bryant explains how the UK Government plans to use Facebook to Crowdsource Ideas on Spending Cuts

Mike Carlucci writes about the future of question and answer sites to reinforce how much Facebook is becoming an essential channel through which customers can be influenced.

And back to Mashable where Kraig Swensrud gives his take on How Social Media Has Prepared Us for Collaborative Business

Finally I wrote Calling All Business Owners Like Us with an invitation to help build a no bullshit business community.