Reporting from San Francisco —

On “The Tonight Show,” Conan O’Brien used to get big laughs for mocking Twitter as an egotistical stream of mundane updates from celebrities.

But when he got bounced from his late-night gig at NBC, O’Brien could no longer take to the airwaves to reach his fans, so Twitter became his open hailing frequency. He later thanked Twitter “for saving my ass.”

O’Brien isn’t the only one who is tapping Twitter’s mass-media potential. The social network, which will celebrate its five-year anniversary in March, last year signed up more than 100 million people who sent more than 25 billion updates called tweets.

Twitter Inc. gained another key following in December: investors who competed for the opportunity to pour $200 million into the company, nearly quadrupling its worth to $3.7 billion. The new funding comes even as the company experiments with how to wring sales from its surging popularity and find the kind of business formula that shot up the fortunes of Facebook Inc.

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Article by Carolyn Higgins
When I’m giving speeches to groups of small business owners or working with them to build their own marketing systems, I tell them everything we do in business is marketing; from how we answer our phones, to our billing, to how we treat future and existing customers. Marketing is about more than attracting new customers to do business with us – it s about keeping, nurturing, and “wowing” the ones we have so they buy from us again and again and rant and rave about our company to everyone they know.

I had some customer experiences lately that I thought I’d share and see what you all think….

I recently moved into a new apartment. It’s one of those large apartment communities with an onsite office and a team of people to assist tenants and run the property.

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The municipal bond exchange traded fund market experienced a fair amount of turbulence on the heels of the Fed’s quantitative easing. Still, ratings firms believe that most municipalities will pull through.

Municipal bond-related investments have experienced high volatility in the past couple of weeks as a result of the high debt burden of states and municipalities and the Fed’s fiscal policy decisions, reports Andrea Tse for TheStreet. Muni bond funds saw outflows of around $2.37 billion in the week ending Jan. 12.

Additionally, Meredith Whitney, the U.S. financial analyst who accurately predicted the global credit crisis, also stated a few weeks back that over 100 American cities could go bankrupt and their issued bonds would default in 2011 as total debt of municipalities hit $2 trillion.

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American Express has claimed an impressive five out of 11 prizes in this year’s uSwitch Credit Card Customer Satisfaction Awards.

The firm, which slipped from top spot last year, has reclaimed its crown with 92 per cent of its customers happy with its overall service.

Jose Vazquez-Mendez, VP Customer Service UK, American Express, remarked: “Customer satisfaction has always been a top priority for American Express and it’s good to see that our Cardmembers are happy with the service we deliver them.”

He added: “However, it’s important that we do not rest on our laurels and that we build on this success so that our customers continue to receive the level of customer service expected of us as one of the largest card providers in the world.”

Founded in 1850, American Express is a global financial services company headquartered in New York City.

It is best known for its credit card, charge card, and traveller’s cheque businesses . Full Article…