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If you register today to attend Search Engine Strategies Chicago, which will be held Dec. 8-12, 2008, you can save up to $200 with the Early Bird Rate.

So, why would you want to attend the only major Search Marketing Conference and Expo in the Midwest?

Let me give you 4 reasons to go to SES Chicago.

1. You’ll want to attend as many of the 74 keynote speeches, strategic development workshops, Orion panels, conference sessions, and SEM training workshops as you can. If you look over the agenda, you’ll see lots of topics that weren’t discussed at Search Engine Strategies Chicago a year ago. In fact, you’ll see new content that wasn’t covered at SES San Jose back in August. Heading into 2009 using old strategies and tactics makes about as much sense as optimizing your website for AltaVista. Things change in the search industry and savvy SEOs and SEMs understand the competitive advantage of staying up-to-date.

2. If you look over the list of sponsors and exhibitors for SES Chicago, you’ll see familiar names like Acronym Media, DoubleClick, iProspect, PrintPlace.com and TMP Directional Marketing as well as new names like AdBuyer.com, ideaLaunch, Rosetta, The Search Agency and SEO Samba. So, whether this is your first Search Engine Strategies Chicago or you’ve attended every one held since 2003, there will be plenty of products and services to check out on the show floor.

3. Next, you’ll want to take advantage of the special events and networking opportunities. On Tuesday, Dec. 9, DoubleClick will be holding a networking lunch from noon to 12:45 p.m. It will be presenting a case study on multi-channel tracking that will address how to de-duplicate search conversions when using numerous online channels. Later that afternoon, Google will hold a sponsored session entitled, “Google Site Search: Fast, Relevant, Customized Search Results for Your Website.” Google’s Nitin Mangtani will be discussing how customers are using Google Site Search to grow their businesses and how you can do the same for yours. And here’s a hot tip for first time attendees of SES Chicago: If you hang out at Kitty O’Sheas, the authentic Irish pub on the ground floor of the Hilton Chicago, you can network with fellow marketers and search engine industry professionals after hours. Plus, I recommend the shepard’s pie and Bailey’s cheese cake.

4. Now, this fourth reason will only make sense if Big 10 football is more important to you than search engine reputation management. As those of us who grew up in the Midwest already know, there’s a big football game tomorrow: Ohio State vs Michigan. Now, I’m a Wolverine. But I’ve made some friendly bets with others in the search industry who are Buckeyes. And as you can see from the photo in this post, if we lose the big game, I have to wear a Buckeye shirt to the next Search Engine Strategies conference — again. And, we’ve lost a lot over the past few years. So, depending on whether you are a graduate of the University of Michigan or The Ohio State University, I encourage you to come to Chicago in December to see who is wearing which sweatshirt this year.

In summary, there are three good reasons to go to SES Chicago no matter what happens tomorrow. And there’s a 4th good reason if Michigan upsets Ohio State, like we did in 1993.

Go Blue!

E-commerce applications for Web sites can take thousands of hours to build, and require patience and determination on the part of the organization. As with large-scale Web site designs and redesigns, putting search engine optimization off until after the fact can be a costly mistake. In today’s Search Marketing Crossfire column, “SEO During E-Commerce Application Development,” Chris Boggs and Frank Watson look at what it takes to make an application SEO-friendly vs. optimized.

» Full story

Moms are now packing more activity into their day, according to a new data released by AOL’s Platform-A. A survey of 7,000 women found that the average internet-using mom reports conducting 27 hours of activities during the day.

On average they spend:

• 2.6 hours on the internet
• 2.1 hours of television
• 1.2 hours a day listening to the radio
• 30 minutes with newspapers, magazines and games

Parenting was the #1 online activity conducted by moms. They use the internet for advice on parenting and as a resource to help their children learn.

Another popular online activity is shopping

• 79% of those surveyed use the internet for shopping.
• 52% use the internet to find coupons or sales.

So how do moms feel about search? They associated the words “task-oriented,” “focused,” and “interested” with search. 71% use the internet to find information.

Websites were described as “entertainment.”

Hopefully, your website is entertaining to moms and offers them coupons or sales. Because 86% report being the primary decision maker in their household.

52% will recommend a good brand to others (another reason why social media is so hot!).

And moms like to share media with their children. 95% of moms share at least one form of media with their children at least once a week. Here’s what they share.

• 79% share television
• 62% share internet
• 58% share mobile phone
• 48% share digital camera
• 38% share email
• 33% share games

Do moms fit into your target audience? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Related Reading:
Playing the Game With Mom
E-Mail Marketers Haven’t Forgotten Mom
Sitting Pretty: Finding Moms Online

Back on July 20, 2008, I asked: “Is YouTube about to pass Yahoo in expanded searches?” Well, I’ve just had a chance to digest the latest data from comScore for August 2008 and its appears that YouTube has passed Yahoo — if you look at “expanded” search queries instead of “core” search queries.

First, what’s the difference between an expanded and a core search query? According to comScore, a “core” search query is one that occurs on “the five major search engines including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers.”

If you expand the definition of a search query to include searches on YouTube, MapQuest, MySpace eBay, Craigslist.org, Facebook.com, or Amazon, then you get a different picture.

Google had 7.4 billion core search queries and 7.6 billion expanded search queries in August to lead no matter how you define a “search query.” Yahoo! had 2.3 billion core search queries and 2.4 billion expanded search queries that month. But “YouTube/All other” Google sites had 2.6 billion expanded search queries that month. Microsoft sites had 977 million core search queries and MSN-Windows Live had 988 million expanded search queries.

So, depending on your definition, the top three search engines are either (1) Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft, or (2) Google, YouTube, and Yahoo! That is a distinction with a big difference.

By the way, comScore Video Metrix reports that YouTube accounts for more than 98 percent of all videos viewed at Google sites. (This means Google Video accounts for less than 2 percent of all vides viewed at Google sites.)

So, if you’ve optimized the pages on your website that contain videos, you’ve optimized them for Google Video and other video search engines. They won’t help them get discovered, watched or shared on YouTube.

YouTube doesn’t crawl the web trying to index videos posted on millions of websites. Instead, users are now uploading 13 hours of new video to YouTube every minute. So, getting your video found in about 2.6 billion expanded searches a month means uploading and optimizing video for YouTube, not Google Video.

According to new data from comScore Video Metrix, more than 27.4 million U.K. Internet users (78 percent of the total U.K. Internet audience) viewed 3.2 billion videos online in June 2008. Google Sites, driven by the popularity of YouTube.com, attracted nearly half of all videos viewed online in the U.K, followed by BBC Sites (1.4 percent share), Microsoft Sites (0.8 percent share), Fox Interactive Media (0.7 percent share) and ITV Sites (0.6 percent share).

U.K. Internet users watched an average of 117.7 videos per viewer in June – the highest videos per viewer average of any of the five countries reportable in comScore Video Metrix, which also includes U.S., Canada, France and Germany.

Google Sites also attracted the most viewers (20.5 million), who watched an average of 77.8 videos per person. BBC Sites drew the second most viewers (5.9 million), followed by Microsoft Sites (5.8 million), and Fox Interactive Media (3.9 million).

Other notable findings include:

– 19.7 million viewers watched 1.4 billion videos on YouTube.com (72.4 videos per viewer).
– The average online video duration was 3.0 minutes.
– The combined U.K. online video viewing audience watched a total 161 million hours of video content.
– 4.2 million mobile phone subscribers used their phone to watch any kind of TV or video in the U.K., of which 37.6 percent were younger than 25 years old.

Video Search Engine Optimization Panel Recap, Greg Markel

At SES San Jose 2008, Greg Markel of Infuse Creative talked with Byron Gordon of SEO-PR about the Video Search Engine Optimization (VSEO) session. Markel emphasized the crucial nature of an online video (and online video optimization) strategy especially with relation to YouTube and Google’s universal search.

The Video Search Engine Optimization session will also be held at SES Chicago on Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2008. As I’ve mentioned before, if you register before Sept. 26 you can take advantage of the “recession special” to save up to $600.

Yahoo recently launched BOSS, aka Build your Own Search Service. Third party developers wasted no time making use of the API to build their version of what search should look like. Yahoo featured four BOSS applications on their Yahoo Search blog.

The first one was 4 Hour Search. Named for how long it took developer Sam Pullara to build the BOSS API/YUI design mashup. It looks a lot like newly launched search engine Cuil.

And just like Cuil, 4 Hour Search is experiencing errors this morning. The above screenshot is Yahoo-supplied. And that’s not the only BOSS app that was struggling.

Newsline didn’t work for me at first. I conducted a search comparing the coverage of the situations in South Ossetia, Georgia and the coup in Mauritania. At first, I got error pages. Then, I was able to get results, but not that many from today or the past week. And that’s after I found the current news. The page brings up a dynamic timeline (which is cool), but it loaded news from 2 years ago front and center.

3D visualization search app Tianamo crashed my Firefox browser, then loaded just a dark blue screen in IE. But here’s the screenshot Yahoo posted:

There was one app that did just fine - PlayerSearch. This BOSS app is great for sports fans - especially Fantasy Sports fanatics. This site worked just fine. Have at it, sports junkies.

It’s likely that the developers weren’t prepared for so much traffic to come their way, but Yahoo should have known better before it told the world about the new apps.

Online video search engine blinkx has sent a letter to digital advertising company MIVA, seeking to acquire it for $1.20 per share. Yesterday’s closing price for MIVA stock, which trades on the NASDAQ, was $0.78.

MIVA has certainly had its share of trouble of recent years. The company has gone through reorganizations and a management shakeup in the hopes of stabilizing the business, which includes a pay-per-click offering.

Here’s the full text of the letter for your consumption.

August 8, 2008

MIVA, Inc.
5220 Summerlin Commons Boulevard
Suite 500
Fort Myers, FL 33907
Attention: Peter Corrao, CEO
Larry Weber, Chairman
Members of the Board of Directors

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
Re: blinkx and MIVA Combination

I am writing on behalf of the board of directors of blinkx Plc to make a proposal for the business combination of blinkx and MIVA. Under our proposal, blinkx would acquire all of the outstanding shares of MIVA common stock for $1.20 in cash per share. Our proposal is not subject to any financing condition. The transaction would be funded from existing cash resources of the two companies.

Proposal. Our proposal represents a 54.0% premium above the closing price of MIVA common stock of $0.78 on August 7, 2008, and a 36% premium over the average closing price for the one month prior to August 7, 2008.

By whatever financial measure one might use, we believe this proposal represents a compelling value realization opportunity for your shareholders and the quickest and most secure way to see such value, particularly given the several challenges MIVA faces in the near term, including: risk and cost associated with the new technology platform, a deteriorating cash position, continued deterioration of the Media EU business and continued decline in revenue and profitability.

We believe that MIVA’s shareholders would not be well-served by any delay in negotiating or completing the merger process, and that time and/or another round of restructuring plans will not significantly increase MIVA’s valuation.

Background. Having worked together for a number of years you will be aware that blinkx is the world’s largest and most advanced video search engine. Founded in 2004 by Suranga Chandratillake, the company completed a successful IPO on the London Stock Exchange (AIM) in May 2007 and currently has a market capitalization of approximately $160 million, with headquarters in San Francisco, CA and the UK. With an index of over 26 million hours of searchable video and more than 350 media partnerships, including national broadcasters, commercial media giants, and private video libraries, blinkx has cemented its position as the premier destination for online TV. blinkx pioneered video search on the Internet, enhanced by $150 million in R&D over 12 years, and is now protected by 111 patents.

Rationale. blinkx believes that a combination of the two companies would be mutually beneficial to both companies’ shareholders, employees, and customers. blinkx and MIVA have complementary businesses that could benefit greatly from blinkx’s technology and MIVA’s distribution network.

blinkx has worked with MIVA as a customer and partner for a number of years and has a great deal of respect for MIVA’s success in building a global keyword advertising network and growing the MIVA Direct consumer offering. We believe, however, that with the Internet’s continued progression towards rich media and newer forms of advertising, more advanced technology will play a fundamental role in achieving success.

blinkx already has in place a proven and growing video-driven revenue engine, and enjoys an unrivalled technology portfolio which is applicable across many aspects of the online market. A combination of the two companies - fusing MIVA’s advertising network with blinkx’s ability to leverage its technology portfolio into the online market - presents an exciting and compelling opportunity.

Specifically, blinkx’s advanced and scalable matching technology will enable immediate platform improvements for MIVA. As a result large portions of relevant search traffic from MIVA’s search ad network will be monetizeable at higher rates through blinkx’s technology. Furthermore blinkx’s technology holds the potential to build on MIVA’s existing toolbar network, adding the latest functionality and an entirely new revenue stream. Finally, MIVA’s consumer sites and portals, that already attract large audiences, will immediately benefit from blinkx’s advanced video technology and AdHoc advertising platform.

Process and Employees. We would value the opportunity to further discuss with you how to optimize the integration of our respective businesses to create a leading global technology company. We believe that the management and employees of MIVA are critical to realizing a successful transition and foresee an important and central role for MIVA employees in the combined company.

Any acquisition of MIVA would be subject to the opportunity to conduct a limited confirmatory due diligence investigation, the negotiation of a definitive merger agreement containing customary terms and conditions, including customary conditions to closing; no material adverse change to MIVA’s business; appropriate shareholder approvals; and any regulatory requirements. Given our participation in the industry and MIVA’s public status, we envisage an efficient due diligence process appropriate to a public company. We are prepared to deliver a draft merger agreement to you and begin discussions immediately.

Due to the importance of these discussions and the value represented by our proposal, we expect the MIVA Board to engage in a full review of our proposal and discussion of its contents with MIVA’s shareholders. We are prepared to meet at a time and location of your convenience to complete due diligence and commence definite agreement negotiations.

We believe this proposal represents a unique opportunity for MIVA’s shareholders to realize value, and the combined company will be well positioned for future growth. We hope that you and your Board share our enthusiasm, and we look forward to a prompt and favourable reply.

Yours sincerely,

Suranga Chandratillake

CEO and Founder

In China, online vigilantes, or “netizens,” use the Internet as a “human flesh search engine” to find and punish people who publish material they consider inappropriate.

“Human Flesh Search Engine” is an imprecise translation of “ren’rou sou’suo,” which can be translated as “human-assisted search engine.” In China, though, the Internet is searched by people to hunt down other people and conduct muckraking campaigns.

A mob of Chinese ‘netizens’ tracked down and punished a 21-year old video blogger whose clip they deemed unpatriotic.

Gao Qianhi, a 21-year old Chinese woman, recently posted an online video of herself complaining about the huge amount of TV coverage of the southwest China earthquakes: “You guys, if you’re hit by the rubble, just go suffer by yourself quietly.”

Hours later, intimate details about Ms. Qianhi’s life were spread across the Internet.

With internet mobbing, the victim’s personal information is published to a broad audience, along with derogatory comments and death threats.

While Internet mobbing occurs in other countries, the movement appears to be particularly powerful in China because large-scale human flesh search engines are unique to are made easy by ubiquitous manpower and China’s ingrained tradition of ‘people’s war’ dating back to Mao, along with a justice system that’s less than perfect.

Hat tip to search engine Finding Dulcinea for uncovering this terrific story.

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