Today, marks the launch of the redesigned AppExchange, a online application store for business users where they can extend the functionality of Salesforce.

As many of your know, I'm a strong advocate of Salesforce for both small and big business. In fact, we started with the Professional Edition focused on the Customer Relationship Management elements and have since upgraded to the Enterprise version and have taken advantage of the full suite of tools.

Many of those tools have been found in the AppExchange, including Salesforce for Google Apps, Salesforce for Google Adwords and Salesforce Mobile.

The principal reason why the synthesized voice poses little threat to voice over recordings, particularly long form narration such as audiobooks, is simply because the vocal characteristics and inflections of synthesized voices are predetermined, leaving no room for uniquely creative or intelligently "human" qualities such as making bold choices with regard to context and interpretation with the purpose of enlivening the text.

Let's face it. People are busy.

Many customers nowadays prefer to hunt down the best solution for themselves. Some don't actually want to speak to a customer service agent on the phone. Nor do they want to wait days on end for an email response.

The logic here is simple. Your customers are thinking that by the time they locate your phone number, place a call, navigate through your interactive voice response system and wait on hold to finally reach an agent for customer service they can just as quickly "Google" the right answer. In fact, they may be right.

What's the challenge? How do business managers make sure that the right tools are available and confidently provide valuable solutions that will meet the needs of our customers on their terms?

Let's explore three web-based tools that will position your company to do just that.

On January 20, the United States of America will inaugurate its 44th President, Barack Obama. President Obama will be the first African American to hold the office, and will step into the White House in the midst of a trying economic situation and panoply of unresolved international issues.

Last week I had published the annual Report on the Voice Over Industry that was well received. Thanks to all the people who blogged about it.

At voxmarketising, Peter O'Connell has some praise as well as shared some dislikes that I'd like to discuss here.

Let's run though some of the comments shall we?

Think about this way: Your car needs a tune-up every 15,000 miles or so to keep it running at its best. Your teeth need a checkup at least once or twice a year. Well, a regular checkup will also keep your web site running in peak condition.

First of all, Happy New Year!

And, with the new year comes some annual maintenance that every webmaster should be conscious of. Here's a quick tip from my list of annual website maintenance.

A new app, most appropriately called Five Second Test allows website designers to upload a screen shot of a page, invite participants to view the page for exactly 5 seconds, then type in what they remember from the page.

Take the 5 Second Usability Test now.

As many of you know, I'm an honors graduate of OIART, the Ontario Institute of Audio Recording Technology - one of the top audio production schools in the industry.

One of the many reasons I chose to attend OIART was the high job placement rate of their graduates which results in excellent connections within the industry. Graduates are invited back to OIART as guest lecturers, and this year I was happy to speak and share my experiences as an entrepreneur.

There has most definitely been a shift in the media landscape, from traditional media including newspaper, radio and television to online media. The most prevalent of the online media sources are blogs.

What Is a Blog?

Weblogs, web logs or simply blogs, as they are known, are easy-to-use websites (no HTML knowledge required), where you can quickly post thoughts, publish articles and interact with people. Blogs are typically accessible to any Internet user.

Blogs are Exploding

Technorati is now tracking over 50 million weblogs and about 120,000 new weblogs are being created worldwide each day. That's about 1.4 blogs created every second.

Businesses can take advantage of this powerful communications medium, starting with a few simple steps to get involved today.

Why is that?

Here are four reasons why people who are poised for success may not reach their potential, and how you can apply some simple truths to experience your own break through.

The founder, John C. Maxwell is an internationally recognized leadership expert, speaker and author who has sold over 13 million books. His organizations have trained more than 2 milion leaders worldwide. Every year, he speaks with Fortune 500 Companies, international government leaders and organizations as diverse as the United States Military Academy at West Point and the National Football League.

In his session, "Leadership Gold", Dr. Maxwell explained a simple truth: The best leaders are listeners.

This morning, the Official Salesforce Blog announced that they have expanded their partnership with Google and together have delivered an industry-changing new product called Salesforce for Google Apps.

Techmeme and the New York Times has some great coverage on this developing story.

As heavy Salesforce and Google Apps users, we're pleased with this development and can see how we'll be using this dynamic duo for greater productivity and ultimately our ability to deliver a better service.

This afternoon, I had the opportunity to share with a group of about 80 regional technology companies on how to better position their websites in Google.

The business seminar was hosted by the TechAlliance, a membership-based organization that exists to represent, support, and accelerate the growth of technology companies to the benefit of the entire regional economy.