Friday Links: On the color of 2009, ballancing billable hours & creativity, and my cruel cubemate

Before we get to the this week’s link roundup. I thought I’d post this bit that I saw on a few blogs of Louis CK on Conan O’Brien about how everything’s amazing and nobody’s happy.

30 most inspirational business Web sites [via].
Ad Age has an interesting column this week on Marketing to Women during Economic Upheaval. The most interesting advice Marti Barletta offers up is how sustainable products will now trump disposable products and that makers of “green” products should start adding a thrift message to their marketing.
The Big Picture put together a stunning gallery of pictures of Venice Under Water. I love how nonchalant and unconcerned most of the people in the pictures are.
Inc.com has a great round-up on the different ways a company can monitor its brand and gather customer feedback online.
As someone who is still a little shaky from trying The Nerdery’s coffee labeled High Octane, I found Christoph Niemann’s piece on his love of coffee extra charming. Take a look, it even features drawings on napkins that look they were done with coffee. [via]
Pantone’s trying to get us to look on the bright side of things by naming Mimosa as the color for 2009. Yum.
Last week I mentioned how Life Hacker was soliciting its readers to name the free software they were most thankful for. Now, they’ve kindly rounded up the top vote-getters. Sweet!
5 breakthrough social network conversations
I really loved Phil Johnston’s post Balancing the Billable Day vs. the Creative Way about how you need to have both the time-sheet tyrants and the daydreamy creative-types to run a successful agency (which I think you can extend to most any kind of business where things are created).
Here’s one from the lucky I am still speaking to him file. My cubemate (who I call Trip Shakespeare) sent me this: 40 Ways to Deliver Killer Blog Content (hrmph!).