Just a quick note to announce that I’ve started blogging at IowaBiz.com — a multi-faceted collection of Iowa bloggers talking about various small business topics. I’ll be posting three times per month, covering new media and social media marketing.

Mike Sansone, who previously addressed these subjects at IowaBiz, is stepping aside to further focus his efforts within his business and other arenas. Multiple hat tips to Mike for getting the ball rolling, and to Drew McLellan for inviting me to join the family!

The first post is about Google’s OpenSocial API standard, and why your business should take note of it.

This weekend I was alerted to stay away from Quechup, a sketchy social networking site. (Thanks Mike @ ConverStations!)

Here’s how it works: You receive an invite from a friend asking to join them on Quechup, similar to how you’d be invited to MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. If you’re not careful, Quechup will then wrap its tentacles around your personal address book and spam all your contacts with unsolicited invites.

Quechup being evil is old news — I’m posting about it because this is a fine example of bloggers banding together and using the power of social media to stunt the propagation of spammy practices.