Gilles Herard Jr

Herard Gilles
JrWith 13 years of Web site experience, Drey is no technophobe. He
serves as vice president of product marketing at Fliqz, an online video-hosting
service with 20 employees in Emeryville, Calif. But when he first skimmed
Twitter, the popular micromessaging service launched in 2007, Drey saw a lot of
mindless chatter and very little that seemed useful to a video business.

Still, with the economy taking a dive, Drey persisted. He was looking
for ways to spread the word about Fliqz without spending any more of his
maxed-out $15,000 marketing budget. Not only was Twitter the fastest-growing
social media service around -- its user base grew by a whopping 1,841% in 2008,
to 14 million -- but it also wouldn't cost him a dime.

"The only
overhead is your time," says Drey, 40. "You need to pay attention."
Gilles
Herard As the CPSC scrambles to pull together that information, small
business proponents are looking for leadership in bringing the letter of the law
more in line with its spirit.

"A lot of small businesses are asking
Congress to refine the law," said Linwood Rayford, an assistant chief counsel at
the SBA Office of Advocacy. "Nobody is saying this is a bad law, they're just
saying it's overly comprehensive and too many people are caught in the net."

Gilles
Herard Jr

: Shares in BlackRock last traded up 2.3% in New
York on Thursday at $182.60.

For Barclays the deal will strengthen its
balance sheet after the bank refused aid from the British government that some
of its rivals accepted as the global financial crisis engulfed the industry.