Tony Wright at SearchEngineWatch had an interesting post regarding Google’s Local Search Land Grab.

As anyone who has ever done directory work before (Hey Tom!) knows, the infrastructure costs are prohibitive in as much as the legwork and the adminstrative work involved more often than not prove prohibitive barriers to entry.

Interesting that Google has solved both, turning once again to its infrastructure base at the academic and collegiate level to accomplish both, the required feet on the ground, and the data entry.

Google never fails to recognize the value of every dollar and it perhaps for that reason they see so much of a return on every dollar.

I have passion for Soccer, or Football as the world calls it. I’m a massive fan of Panathinaikos Athens, Toronto FC and Manchester United, so the story of a gifted nine-year-old being signed by the Reds caught my eye.

It wasn’t the fact that Rhein Davis was 9 years old, but that the worlds richest football club were interested after hearing about him from YouTube. The video showing him doing stepovers like Ronaldo, is a big hit, having been viewed by over three million people and counting!

Despite the fact del.icio.us has been around for quite a while I really didn’t fully understand its popularity. I saw del.icio.us as a facebook/myspace for bookmarks. This all changed when I started blogging.

I’ve always been a news hound and pour through tons of articles from a variety of sources covering dozens of subjects. After taking a closer look, I quickly found out that del.icio.us makes it easy to store them all in one place and, if tagged properly, access them from any computer in an organized and timely fashion as I needed them.

This week’s cartoon is dedicated to a well liked character in our industry … Todd Malicoat (aka StuntDubl) who I consider a friend. I met Todd many years ago for the first time at a PubCon Conference in Orlanda way back in 2003. He’s come along way in the industry since then, and is very definitely an authority on everything social and search.

This week’s cartoon is dedicated to Mona Elesseily (of PageZero Media), who has been pushed dangerously close to the edge trying to put the finishing touches on a 100-page report titled

Mastering Panama

I miss my blog and I can’t believe it’s been two weeks since I lasted posted.

The times, they are achanging, and not necessarily in a bad way. Anyhoo…

So, the icrossing funding, purchasing Proxicom thingy. Interesting.

Even more interesting, the perspective offered by Janet Driscoll Miller of Marketing Pilgrim: What the iCrossing Acquisition of Proxicom Says About the State of the SEM Industry.

In short:

What a week it’s been for the business of Social Media. Telecom giant Nokia acquired social media sharing service Twango, the YouTube CNN debates delivered solid ratings and Sun Microsystems said its latest earnings report today will be released on its website 10 minutes before it is distributed to news services.

“Nokia’s unique vision for social media aligns perfectly with Twango,” enthused Jim Laurel, co-founder of Twango.com. “It’s really exciting to imagine what we can achieve by combining our social media experience with the resources of a company that has played such a major role in shaping the mobile landscape.” What makes this noteworthy is that social networking has yet to make the leap to the mobile phone arena. If you recall, late last year Nokia launched musicrecommenders.com, a site that recommends new music based on user’s preferences. With this purchase, Nokia is trying to bridge that divide.

The most popular question I’ve been asked by co-workers, associates and friends upon my arrival has been “why did you leave the Yellow Pages?”. The question doesn’t appear ominous until you consider the smug look on their faces. Immediately, I know what they’re thinking. They’ve read Bill Gates’ now infamous quote “Yellow Pages usage among people below 50 will drop to near zero in the next five years.” Their perception is that I jumped from a sinking ship. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

It reminds me of a scene in Monty Python’s “Holy Grail”….…

Here is this weeks cartoon funny. For those not in the industry, Jim Boykin is a popular figure in the industry, and is credited with coining the term “link ninja”.

Enjoy!

See more Search Engine Funnies!

Andrew Goodman, coopetition in these parts, had a great and insightful post on SearchEngineLand.com today: Load Me Up: Should You Expand Your Retail Niche?

The long and short of it was this: It’s all marketing. Doesn’t matter whether it’s offline or online, it’s all marketing and it needs to live or die by that standards and measurements of marketing. While SEM is more accountable based on conversions, analytics or the like, the reality is each and every campaign, whether online or offline has a minimum performance standard with key performance indicators.