Every morning I get asked by two associates what I’m going to blog about today. It’s fun and fulfilling even if it is only two people. And every morning I tell them I don’t know. Mostly because I don’t. I like to write either first thing in the morning or early afternoon. If the morning, I’ve had an opportunity to think about things. If in the afternoon it’s because something has happened in the process of the day that intrigues me.

It’s 2:36 PM now.

Today it’s .pdf files. To me, pdf files are the Internet equivalent of Michigan J Frog from the Bugs Bunny cartoon. You know the one.

After being snowed in (Or was it plowed under?) and enduring windchill that makes it feel like -30 out there, I’ve decided I could either whine or wish.

I wish it were warmer, I whined.

Ensuing conversation… blah, blah, blah, warmer. Blah, blah, blah, Florida. Blah, blah, blah, passport. Blah, blah, blah, lazy.

And then the voice of God my boss intoned: Well, if we’d annexed Turks & Caicos you wouldn’t have that problem. You could go somewhere warmer and still be in Canada.

Don’t toy with me, I said suggested with a look. It’s cold out and I haven’t finished my coffee yet.

Or, why can’t we all just get along?

Is it just me or is there a big disconnect in the advertising world of late? I’m speaking of both online and offline advertising.

Take, for instance, Google. Isn’t it a little odd that the world’s foremost brand, the company challenging not only advertising revenues but the very model of advertising has yet to drop a dime on advertising? And they’re hardly alone. Ebay, Napster, Yahoo in their early and supernova days spent nothing on advertising.

No wonder Madison Avenue has issues with Silicon Valley. That’s a lot to have to swallow.

As mentioned, most often, corporations do lend themselves to blogs. However, there are a number of considerations.

On the upside, blogs allow for corporations to present information that is current without having to have a full corporate strategy around it. It is, however, a commitment and if you’re going to create a corporate blog an editorial schedule should be the first step, detailing anywhere from 15-20 articles or topics before announcing your endeavor.

Our marketing strategist extraordinaire presented The (SEP) Guy with this topic suggestion: Do Corporations Lend Themselves To A Blog?

In short, yes.

~ The (SEP) Guy

PS - It’s late and my head hurts and so does our marketing strategist extraordinaire’s. Look for an expounded response or part deux tomorrow. Once our collective heads stop pounding.

This morning, I had an opportunity to sit through a Google Analytics demo. Analytics being what they are, it is what it is and it fullfils a role at the right price (FREE! - Bearing in mind that there is no such thing as a free Google lunch.) no better or worse than Omniture or Webside Story or Webtrends or the like. Each has their own upside and downside so a comparative analysis is not in the scope of this epistle. Or is today a diatribe day?

No, no, I’ll save the diatribe regarding Google Analytics for another day. (Frankly, it sent shivers up my spine and not in a good way.)

A quick lesson from grammar school. And elementary school. And high school… Spelling counts.

And as anyone who writes for the Internet knows, so too does nuance. Rankings can vary dramatically between singular and plural spellings. The difference between car and cars may not be quite as dramatic as Ford’s recent losses, but it is significant nevertheless.

And then there are the borders. Between what we like to consider Canadian and U.S. spellings although in truth the difference tends to be between Queen’s English and American English. (Ebonics being a whole other topic.) The difference between neighbour and neighbor, passport requirements and border patrols aside. In the end, and in my opinion, ours (Canadian English) is the more colourful of the two. Or is that colorful? You say potato, yada, yada, yada.

On January 26th, the fact that Google Video was going to start including YouTube results made a few blogs and news stories.

However that may not be the whole story.  In fact, YouTube results have started showing up in all Google results.  At first, I thought this was limited to entertainment.  A search for recent Academy Award nominee Jennifer Hudson yields this result.  A search for the more generic term porcelain yields this result.

In fact, and I’m sure much to the chagrin of DaimlerChrsyler and Smart car, YouTube results are showing up in Google for generic terms like car crash.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’m 43 years old. It’ll take all of the guesswork out of the rest of this post.

In coming up with a subject for today’s post the discussion with our talented Marketing Strategist turned to Web 2.0, its values, the misconceptions thereof and the future of it in general. Throughout the conversation that little voice in my head kept showing up. You know the one. At first, I thought little voice was just in an amazingly good mood which fully accounted for the singing. But then I listened to it a little closer, and there it was, Carly Simon’s Coming Around Again.

It behooves a search engine marketing agency to have a blog; a means to reach the outside world with a point of view that is, if not always unique, then at the very least, somewhat current.

At SearchEnginePeople.com, we are certainly a search engine marketing agency based out of that cold place way up north, or as we like to refer to it, Canada.  Toronto, Canada to be a little more specific.