Pardon Our Dust

I’m installing a new theme in order to comply with Google’s mobile usability demands. This blog was first launched on WordPress about six and a half years ago, so it was held together with duct tape, ancient plugins and prayer.

As a result, converting it to a modern structure is taking a bit of effort. There are going to be things that are broken. Some of them I’ll catch. Some of them I might not catch.

If anything in particular …

American Idol and Google Searches

One of the many interesting tools offered by the search giant is Google Trends. It allows one to compare the number of searches on various queries. I thought it might be a useful tool for predicting the winner of American Idol tonight. The theory is that web searches reflect interest, which should translate into votes.

Unfortunately, it only has data through May 24th (Monday) at this point, so it doesn’t tell us what the interest was last night, when …

A New Blog for Brian

Most of you know that I’ve started a new internet marketing firm called ionadas local. It provides search and social media services to local businesses. These will tend to be smaller businesses than the national brands I’ve worked with in the past.

As part of the ionadas local website, I have created the ionadas local Marketing Blog. It will address marketing news, trends and techniques for the geographically focused company.

If you have any feedback about the company, …

A New Direction in my Professional Life

Some of you have already heard, but effective immediately, I am taking a sabbatical from Apogee Search. The economic seas for the last year or so have been quite rough, and the Apogee Search ship was buffeted just like everyone else. Going into this recession, the search marketing industry was rather arrogant. "We're the trackable part of marketing," we all said. "No one is going to cut back on us."

Where Were the PubCon Exhibitors?

PubCon last week was a fantastic show. It had the strongest, most useful content of any search show I’ve been to in the last few years. The attendees were numerous and enthusiastic.

One area was curiously weak, however: the exhibitor floor.

There were less than fifty exhibitors for the entire show. Most of these were search engines, publishers, and advertising networks.

Where were the search agencies? Kudos to Bruce Clay Inc. for stepping up in a big way, but where …

PubCon Search Engine Smackdown

The final session of PubCon last week was the Search Engine Smackdown, with representatives of each engine giving a “State of the Engine” address, and then answering questions as a group. On the panel were Matt Cutts of Google, Sean Suchter of Yahoo, and Nathan Buggia of Microsoft Live Search. It was moderated by Brett Tabke.

Rather than a smackdown, it came across more like a pillow fight. Matt’s 2009 trends were interesting, however:

  • Blackhat moves toward the outright illegal:

PubCon Interactive Site Reviews Final

The final round of Interactive Site Reviews at PubCon included a panel from the search engines themselves. It was moderated by Greg Boser and included Matt Cutts of Google, Nathan Buggia of Microsoft Live Search, and Tony Adam of Yahoo Media.

Instead of taking notes, I decided to shoot pictures instead.

If you know of good coverage of this event, drop me an email or add it to the comments of this post.…