How many websites are there? How many people actually use the internet?

Sometimes, tapping away at my laptop I feel that, although I know the internet is incredibly powerful and has loads of information available at my fingertips, I am part of a sub-set that really uses it as part of our every-day lives.

The new year has got me thinking about all the things I learned in 2009, especially the marketing lessons that I had to learn the hard way (i.e., through experience!)

I've decided my four biggest marketing lessons of 2009 are as follows:

1. Honesty is the best policy, even if it means being negative or controversial.

2. Perfection can be a real time waster.

3. Analytics don’t matter if you don’t learn from them.

4. Keywords matter, but you gotta get ’em right.

 One of the tricks in marketing is to always learn from what is going on around you. This year's unusual festive season (marked by interesting times) presents some learnings for a startup or small business to take into next year, and if any of these particularly speak to you, then perhaps our on-demand marketer service would be ideal for you to action them in 2010.

One of MediaMinister’s Communiqué for Success newsletter's most popular feature articles of 2009 happens to be one that is topical right now.

It offers plenty of ways to kick off a profitable (even record-breaking) new year — whether you’re just starting out (and want to avoid costly mistakes) or are already doing well (and need to accomplish more by doing less).

Here's one of the 10:

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This year I've noticed a lot of "gurus" I follow celebrating reaching the $1 m*illion dollar annual turnover mark. This is absolutely fantastic and I congratulate them all on a brilliant achievement. However - there's something really important missing from the fabulous picture most of them are painting for us.