Last month the notable blog TechCrunch issued an apology to its readers:

On Monday evening I received a phone call from someone I trust who told me that one of our interns had asked for compensation in exchange for a blog post. Specifically, this intern had allegedly asked for a Macbook Air in exchange for a post about a startup.

After an investigation we determined that the allegation was true. In fact, on at least one other occasion this intern was almost certainly given a computer in exchange for a post….

We are all shaken here at TechCrunch – this is someone who was our friend and who we trusted to be honest with our readers. Our hope is that the intern learns something from this experience and grows into the kind of person that will be more welcome in this community.

I apologize to each one of you. I promise that we will always maintain complete transparency with you on how we operate, even when it isn’t such an easy thing to do.

TechCrunch discovers and reveals the latest technology news, products and services. I’m sure they’re offered goodies all the time, and their policy is to turn everything down (or at least I think it is — perhaps they accept products to try them out for review). But in general, there is much discussion about the ethics of accepting free products or services in exchange for a review.

In case you haven’t heard, I’m writing a book of reviews of my favorite free and low-cost online tools. Now I, too, have to deal with an onslaught of free offers. I have written to more than 100 companies to ask them for information about their products, and multitudes — scores, even! — have written back to offer me free upgrades to the full versions, etc. Oh, the temptations!

Ok, I’m lying. There have been only three. But I’ve accepted them all. (Ok, four if you count that a client of mine who has a tool offered me an upgraded account for life.) Should I turn them down? My reasoning is that I should be able to evaluate the full version and tell readers whether the upgrade is worth the money. The funny thing is that if I feel like an upgrade is worth the money (and the money is still what I would consider a bargain), I’ll upgrade myself if it’s a tool I’m likely to use a lot. I’m all for supporting cool tools and compensating those people who add such value to my life. But, of course, I can’t upgrade on everything, even if I love it. That would make it impossible for me to wear the “Cheapskate Freelancer” crown.

But between me and you, I bet everyone who offered me an upgrade will make it into the book. Although I hope this isn’t true, I may feel a certain level of obligation to them.

So, my questions are for you, dear readers… do you think less of a company that offers to upgrade or give something for free (none of them have asked me to do anything special)? Do you think I should turn them down? Would you consider my book biased if you knew I received upgrades? Should I simply disclose it in the intro (which no one ever reads, right?)? Or perhaps just mention in the write up that “the owner upgraded my account so I could take a look around the full version”?

Oh, and another issue… people are already asking me for free copies of my book. How should I handle this delicately? I get a certain number of free copies, but the rest I have to buy at a fairly modest discount. I’ll be doing giveaways with the book, but I can’t possibly gift it to all my colleagues. Yet I’ll feel a little silly asking people to pay for it. Dilemmas, dilemmas. Oh, the problems of famous authors, right?

Note to vendors who want to bribe me: For clarification, I will write anything you want if you buy me cupcakes.

Now that I’ve moved into a new office building, I want to rework my business cards and dump the logo design I created at 3 a.m. two days after I quit my day job.

Please help me find the look that best represents what Avenue Z has become…

Vote on the four logo finalists here!

It’s 7:30 a.m. on a Friday morning, and in a few hours I’ll be speaking to the Napa Valley Chamber of Commerce. They booked me to speak on Free and Low-Cost Tools Small Businesses Can’t Live Without, based on the cool free tools I collect for The Cheapskate Freelancer.

Man but I love this stuff. I love standing in front of a crowd of people and making them laugh. I love when people line up after a session to give me their cards. I love sharing ideas that help people do their jobs better. And I love the energy I receive from the efforts.

The pressure’s on, though. When I’m invited to speak, it’s usually because someone’s seen me somewhere else, and I made them laugh and enlightened them at the same time. Thus, each presentation is a performance, and each performance has to be as good or better than the last.

When I’m writing, it’s easier to have a mediocre day. If I’m writing something and just not feeling it, I can usually switch gears for a while until I’m sharp again. And if I’ve got a upset belly or a new pimple or really bad hair, who cares? I can still perform as a writer, alone in my little (new, WONDERFUL) office a block from the ocean. Or I can take a walk and get rejuvenated. The timing is mine and the output doesn’t have to be 110 percent.

But there’s a bigger obligation to a live audience. I need to be ON — Super ON — at 12:30 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom. I need to have perfect clothes, great shoes, passable hair, an energetic personality and the ability to think on my feet. Each time I commit to a speaking engagement, I worry that my timing will be off, that today won’t be a great day. But, so far, every day has rocked. I leave each presentation more pumped than when I started.

My next speaking gig after this is Orlando the first week in November. I was hired to do the same 45-minute presentation four days in a row for small business owners in the diving industry. And after that I’m going to the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco to speak to more small business owners. I plan to keep growing this side of my business, so I can continue to gather and exude the energy of the live events.

As I used to have posted on my wall: Today is a Great Day to be Amazing.

About 2 years ago, I attended a workshop on how to write electronic newsletters. I exchanged cards with a guy I’ll call Paul because I can’t really remember his name.

We actually corresponded a couple of times in the first month after we met, but I really don’t know Paul. I don’t need to buy anything from Paul. None of the people I know need to buy anything from Paul. But I’ve been getting Paul’s electronic newsletters about once a month for 2 years. And, in today’s world of furious networking, I feel obliged to keep getting Paul’s newsletter. I fear that if I sever the connection to Paul by unsubscribing from his newsletter, I’ll make Paul feel bad, or I’ll miss the opportunity of a lifetime because I no longer have his contact number to make an important connection for my business.

I’ve gotten to the point where his email (which just arrived) in my inbox makes me wince. I haven’t opened one of them in at least 20 editions. They just sit there and make me feel guilty for hating them. Perhaps you have to have grown up in a Catholic family to understand my guilt, but I hope you get the point.

The same goes for other vague connections I’ve made. I receive invitations to become a fan on Facebook for a company whose owner I met once. I get requests to contribute to fundraising for causes I don’t necessarily want to support, sent by people I’ve corresponded with a half dozen times. And I feel an obligation to keep all my connections, to support all efforts by independent people with gumption — because wouldn’t it be great if they supported me?

Is that what social networking today has led to? We’re all running around trying to scratch backs with hopes that we’ll have our backs scratched when we need it. Are we all afraid of losing the ability to be an important spoke in an important hub, so we stretch our network as far as the eye can see and never “defriend” anyone because we may need them later? Or is it just me?

I even feel uncomfortable writing this blog post. What if Paul reads it and recognizes himself? What if a casual connection feels slighted and doubts that I’m a real friend? And a bigger question…. how can I (we) expect to be real friends with everybody? I have 224 connections on LinkedIn, 1907 followers on Twitter and 179 Facebook friends, and I’d consider myself a moderately successful networker. Is this really all necessary to live, work, date and play in today’s society?

(Err… PS — feel free to reach out to me on any of the three networks — the more the merrier at this point, right?)