If only all brands made such contemporary and edgy digital content. Unfortunately, they don’t.

No doubt, digital drek is common, but fear not! If brands avoid these seven deadly sins of digital — which are as annoying as 10 straight head-on ads and as passé as an Avril Lavigne concert — they’ll be well on their way to success.

Corporate tone on social media

Kudos to companies like Kraft and Lowe’s that engage consumers with two-way conversations and social media teams. Both understand social media is not about posting $2 off coupons for cheese or lawn chairs that you have to buy right this minute. They post items that engage consumers and humanize their brand by acting like normal people and less like a car sale at the end of the month. It’s less about “sell, sell, sell” and more about “hello, hello, hello.”

MORE: The 7 deadly sins of digital marketing – iMediaConnection.com.

Here are 30 blogs I read consistently.  They’re well written, informative and actionable. Read these blogs and you’ll have strategies you can use today. Each recommendation includes a description of the value proposition and a link to a good article to start with.  I’ve sorted the blogs into general categories.

• Tech & Startup News
• Experienced Entrepreneurs
• Comprehensive Resources
• Blogging & Copywriting
• Marketing & Analytics
• Social Media
• Community & Customer Support
• Design & Conversion
• SEO

READ MORE:  30 Must Read Blogs For Entrepreneurs Running a Startup – LaunchRock.

Predicting the future is tough, but with the fast-moving nature of the web, it’s good to know what lies ahead. Craig Grannell talks to top industry figures about the web design and development trends you should be mindful of over the coming 12 months

In our 15 top web design and development trends for 2012 we suggested 2012 would be a year of ongoing economic hardship and attempted internet censorship, and guessed web design and development would also be turbulent. Such predictions proved accurate, with the web industry battling censorship, native apps, and fragmented, rapidly evolving technology.

2013 won’t be any quieter. Our industry figures predict a year of design shifts, evolving device usage, and web consumption adjustments, all of which will impact on designers and developers. However, there’s also potential for an exciting year as RWD utterly takes hold, standards evolution brings more scope for layout and type, and tools wrench themselves free of print.

All these things and more are explored in our 20 must-know web design and development trends for 2013…

MORE:  20 top web design and development trends for 2013 

The Chinese calendar might have it pegged as the year of the black snake, but investors are already calling 2013 the year of the enterprise IPO. Not nearly as catchy as something reptilian, but hopefully a lot more profitable than the newly public consumer companies, Facebook chief among them, that took a beating in the public markets in 2012.

Consistent with the enterprise theme, we already know that data-center networking company Gigamon and solid-state storage business Violin Memory have filed their S-1 forms. Other enterprise plays will follow. And just because the smart money is betting on companies that get paid selling to other companies, doesn’t mean some well-known consumer outfits, including Twitter, Square, and Evernote couldn’t try their luck with an IPO in 2013.

We picked nine private companies with public market potential to watch in 2013. For each we weigh the odds of whether, market conditions permitting, of course, they have a shot or not.

MORE:  IPO Lottery 2013: 10 Companies to Watch | Wired Business | Wired.com.