This year is just flying by and April is already here!  I hope you are enjoying our new Friday 5 blog series for 2010.

1. Google’s emailing service, Gmail, turned six years old this week and the company marked it by changing their name to Topeka for April Fools Day and in honor of Topeka, Kansas who changed their name to Google.  Pete Cashmore focused his weekly social media column on CNN.com on six ways Gmail has revolutionized e-mail.
2. St. Louis business news was filled with optimistic and promising news on the economy.  Early in the week St. Louis was among one of the most affordable cities to do business in the nation. Today Missouri and Illinois were allotted $237 million for employment and training services while the March Business Conditions Index reported improvements in Midwest business conditions.
3. Looking through communication news this week, it is hard to escape coverage of the iPad (including an entire episode of Modern Family devoted to it), which goes on sale tomorrow.
4. Email and online video topped the preferred marketing methods according to companies recently surveyed.  Fortune 500s, publishing companies, media agencies and ad agencies identified e-mail as the strongest performing marketing effort in 2009, followed by search.  For 2010, 67% of respondents said they’ll be “leveraging online video.”
5. Many in the PR industry have heard of HARO (Help a Reporter Out) where reporters can post topics they are working on and PR pros can log in and share relevant information.  Well now there is HAPPO (Help a PR Pro Out). Formed in early 2010 by two PR professionals who connected via Twitter, HAPPO is holding their next event on April 30^th and you can visit their site to get career advice from fellow PR pros.

Enjoy your weekend everyone!