This is one of those posts where Rebecca and Rand share time, so...

-------Rebecca's Portion--------

We're really feeling the holiday joy in our tummies (though that could be all the beer we drank at lunch), so we thought we'd end the week with a Happy Holidays shout out to various colleagues:

  • Fangirl recently started her own Internet marketing company called Exponetial. Oh, that Fangirl...how does she find time to ogle at various SEO men and manage her own company?
  • Will Critchlow, a fine young chap and lover of scotch who reads the blog and bought me lots of delicious bitters when I was in London, retooled his company and has renamed it Distilled.
  • I want to once again thank everyone at Fresh Egg (Ammon, Lee, and Adam in particular) for the incredible internship opportunity. I hope you all have a great holiday!
  • On Monday we were shocked to receive a Christmas card from one of our readers named David Mihm. He warmed our hearts by thanking us for providing him with helpful SEO tips, lots of laughs, and inspiration to get into SEO. And, to top it all off, he included vouchers for free pints of beer at the local brewery (hence all of the beer in our tummies today). Thanks so much, David! You really made our week! By the way, take note, SEOmoz readers! You may think you're contributing to the blog by commenting every now and then, but are you sending us beer? Hmmm? Think about it...

Lastly, SEOmoz wants to wish each and every one of you a wonderful, safe, and stress-free holiday. Here's a photo of the team to tide you over through Christmas (minus Jane, who had to leave yesterday to visit family. But don't worry, we inserted our favorite Kiwi into the photo):

Thanks for a great 2006! From all of us at SEOmoz, cheers to a fantastic '07!

--------Rand's Portion--------

I had to add in all of my holiday shout-outs, too. Watch out, some of these are actually useful, on-topic links!

  • Wil Reynolds of SEER Interactive emailed me about his ROI tool - it's not perfect, but it could be a good one with a little tweaking. That said, Wil is a genius speaker. I love his style, his enthusiasm, his credibility and a lot of his advice (watch out, that video is an hour long - jump to around minute 9 to start getting into the hard material). BTW - Fangirl - how is it that Wil isn't on your list of boys? Even I can tell he's one of the most attractive men in search (and I prefer girls!)
  • Karen Sams of Misukanis & Odden has her own blog on media, PR and search. Karen is extremely talented (and charismatic) - Lee's very lucky to have her on the staff.
  • Shimon Sandler is wondering if there's a connection between inbound link numbers and visitors... I'm fairly sure the answer is no. BTW - Shimon; if you're going to interview Kevin Lee, go for the jugular and ask the tough questions.
  • Cygnus reviewed the affiliate summit, though he played it fairly close to the vest. Sounds like it was valuable to him, despite the fact that he's been around in the SEO world for quite a while.
  • Some of my favorite articles from the past few weeks - Top Mistakes Made by New Online Publishers, How Art Can Be Good, and Craigslist v. Capitalists.
  • Blueprint Ventures did a cartoon exposing VC stereotypes - I laughed hard at this one (maybe I know too many VCs).

OK, that about wraps it up. No more posting until next week (and then, only lightly). Feel free to make your own shout-outs in the comments to favorites that we should have caught.