Happy Holidays Vanno-ers!  Christmas bells are ringing, Hannukah candles are burning (latkes are sizzling) and everywhere people are a little bit nicer.  As we gear up for the new year, we here at Vanno would like to wish Holiday Greetings and cheer to all of you.  We’ve got a lot to be thankful for this season- a great launch, a base of incredible users and (of course) the only place on the web where opinions about company reputations are captured as meaningful information.  Something great is happening here folks and we want to say thank you for being a part of it (>_<)

This week, our very own kjripp stumbled upon a great post by Dan Schwabel of Mashable, Top 10 Free Tools for Monitering Your Brand’s Reputation.  She mentioned the great work that you all have been doing here at Vanno, so kudos to Kerri for spreading the word.  It’s users like you find great material and share unique opinions that make Vanno such an interesting forum.  For those of you who haven’t checked out The Caffeinated Blog, here’s what you’re missing.

Lots of heat on the bailouts this week.  The Detroit three have our users gabbing and fuming, and this week’s report that “Bailed-Out Banks Can’t Track Where They’re Spending the Money” got a well deserved f-bomb from mavennyc821.  Though we try to remain as neutral as possible [for these posts at least (-_-)], it’s moments like these that have inspired us to construct a mechanism to collect these opinions.  Our goal is to capture and give permanance to people’s opinions…after all, what is society if not a group of individual opinions.

So that’s it for this week’s user spotlight.  Join us next week as we anxiously await our next Elite Influencer(s) to join our Fleet.  Until then, Happy New Year and best to you and your loved ones this Holiday Season.

The holidays are upon us- people running over each other for last minute gifts and working overtime to get those last few things done before the end of the year.  Since we’re concerned with company reputations here at Vanno, it’s worth noting this week’s holiday post about Fannie Mae (Sarah Palin’s favorite).

Fannie Mae improved its reputation for Social Responsibility, Management, and Quality by letting renters whose homes had foreclosed stay in them until after Christmas.  It’s certainly a nice gesture, one that old Ebeneezer wouldn’t have made for sure, but I’m not convinced it’s wise corporate governance.  Let me know what you think.  Thanks to nicemarmot for this one!

One that left me speechless (which you can tell by my comment threads is difficult to do) was the post about National Lampoons CEO posted by johnm.  I found myself a little dissapointed in him and then shaking my head at my own naivete.  Why should I expect more from the guys who brought us the shenanegans of the Griswolds absurd vacations?  I mean, Bluto chugging JD is on the wall of every college dorm in America, so why should we expect the CEO to be a model citizen?

Another interesting find was about Australian courts that use Facebook to collect debts.  It’s like RepoMan 2.0.  There’s been a lot of controversy over the Auto Bailout, which has gained heat and tension as Toyota has become involved and Northern auto workers are starting to point fingers at conservative politicians.  To read more about that, see nickd’s post below.

We’re seeing a lot of activity from our Novice users and great comment threads spring up around some of these hot topics.  One suggestion to our newbees- get your avatars up and personalize your profile.  I love seeing new faces on the popular page, so get yours up there and show your style.  We didn’t have any new additions to the Elite Fleet this week, so it’s something to work toward when you’re home chomping on turkey and swimming in gravy.

Happy Holidays to you and your loved ones.

-Kikyo and the Vanno Team