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Microsoft’s adCenter is launching a new offer for Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) members: $1000 in free clicks. Campaigns created through the promotion will be placed on Live Search and the MSN portal. Those who wish to become SEMPO members to take advantage of the offer must join the organization by December 31, 2008.

“SEMPO members, both agency and corporate search marketers, represent some of the most knowledgeable and innovative search marketing leaders in the industry,” said Valerie Bolduc, senior global product marketing manager, Advertiser and Publisher Solutions, Microsoft. “Working with SEMPO provides Microsoft with the opportunity to engage and learn from the search marketing community, which enables us to enhance our products and offerings to better serve our mutual customers.”

SEMPO President Jeffrey Pruitt noted, “SEMPO’s continued growth is tied to the strong support of its sponsors. Microsoft has long been our lead sponsor and advocate on several fronts including the SEMPO Training Institute, as well as for special programs like the adCenter search advertising promotion. Our industry association greatly appreciates Microsoft’s strong commitment and ongoing participation.”

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The keynote speakers for Search Engine Strategies Chicago have just been posted to the website for the SEM conference. And check out the heavy hitters:
• Lawrence Lessig, the Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, is giving the opening keynote on Monday, Dec. 8;
• Bill Tancer, the General Manager of Global Research at Hitwise, is giving the morning keynote on Tuesday, Dec. 9; and
• Josh James, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Omniture, is giving the morning keynote on Wednesday, Dec. 10.

That’s quite a line up. Or, as my good friend Anne Kennedy, the Managing Partner of Beyond Ink and a member of the SES Advisory Board, says, whether you’re a “seasoned search maven or hopeful newbie, you’ll find speakers who share expertise, new research, horizon’s edge views and knuckles-in-the code tactics” at SES Chicago.

Take Professor Lessig, for example. For much of his career, he has focused on law and technology, especially as it affects copyright. He is the author of Code v2 (2007), Free Culture (2004), The Future of Ideas (2001) and Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (1999). He was also a columnist for Wired, Red Herring, and the Industry Standard.

According to a recent article by Kim Heart in The Washington Post, Professor Lessig is among the signers of a letter that went to the Barack Obama and John McCain campaigns. The letter was also signed by Craigslist founder Craig Newmark and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.

The letter asked the candidates to insist on using a new method to choose debate questions. While that job is usually left to the media host, the members of the “Open Debate Coalition” say they aren’t “hard-hitting enough.”

Instead, they want to let people submit questions, then vote on their favorites, over the Internet. The top 25 questions would have the potential of getting asked during the debates.

“This cycle’s YouTube debates were a milestone for Internet participation in presidential debates,” the letter said. “But they put too much discretion in the hands of gatekeepers. Many of the questions chosen by TV producers were considered gimmicky… and never would have bubbled up on their own.”

So, do you think what Professor Lessig says at SES Chicago will be on the mid-term? All I know is that I can’t wait for the Q&A following his keynote.

The following day, Bill Tancer takes the stage. He’s the author of “Click: What Millions of People Are Doing Online and Why It Matters.”

Bill, who I’ve known for years, is the author of a weekly online column for TIME, “The Science of Search.” He is a frequent guest on CNBC, and has been quoted extensively in the press, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today and Business Week.

Bill recently had a “naked lunch” with Andy Greenberg of Forbes.com. Hey, I didn’t make this up. Click on “We Are What We Google” and read the article for yourself.

In the article, Bill is quoted as saying, “What I find really fascinating is how much we tell search engines – more than we tell surveys, more than our family members, more even than our priests or rabbis.”

Are you skeptical of this claim? Bill backs it up with his analysis of searches beginning with “fear of.” It reveals search engine users are afraid of flying, heights, clowns, intimacy and death, in that order.

Looking at searches beginning with “how to,” he observes that the phrase “how to tie a tie” edges out “how to have sex” and “how to kiss” for the top spot.

And Bill’s analysis of searches beginning with “why” shows that most queries are related to school projects. But these fall sharply during the summer and Christmas holidays. During those periods, more existential questions like “Why did she leave me?” and “Why did God do this to me?” pop to the surface.

But wait! There’s more! The following day, Josh James is the keynoter.

James co-founded Omniture in 1996 and, under his leadership, it has evolved into one of the fastest-growing publicly traded software companies with more than 4,700 customers across 75 countries and over 1,100 employees. His market vision, leadership and entrepreneurial philosophy have enabled Omniture to achieve greater than 75% growth for more than five consecutive years, as well as to maintain customer retention rates of greater than 95%.

James is also the founder of Silicon Slopes – a private sector initiative whose mission is to promote the interests of high-tech in Utah. A recent article by Tom Harvey in The Salt Lake Tribune said that the Omniture CEO was motivated to found Silicon Slopes in 2007 to change the misperception that Utah is “A quirky state at the edge of the desert dominated by a single religion and defined by its far-right politics and weird liquor laws.”

For example, Siliconslopes.com is sending out thousands of promotional posters this year that depict the Silicon Slopes running along the Wasatch Mountains from Logan to Provo, listing an array of high-tech companies with operations here, as well as ski resorts and signs pointing to Moab and other attractions.

While I haven’t met Josh James yet, I did interview Huw Roberts of Omniture earlier this year at SES London. Roberts talked about the importance of web analytics to effective search engine marketing for businesses of any size.

Huw Roberts, Omniture, at SES London 2008

There you have it: The keynote speakers for Search Engine Strategies Chicago.

And I’ve got to agree with Anne. Whether you’re a “seasoned search maven or hopeful newbie, you’ll find speakers who share expertise, new research, horizon’s edge views and knuckles-in-the code tactics” at SES Chicago.

The real Emmy story last night came near the end, when Tina Fey arrived on the stage for last time and received the 30 Rock team award. She reeled off all the places where the critical hit could be seen online, including Hulu and NBC, and then said something like “and occasionally on TV” as well.

Perhaps Fey sounded a bit promotional but it seemed, well, normal. We definitely live in a video-on-demand world and TV shows are viewed when they are convenient for viewers. In her acceptance speech, Tina was shining the light on all the online access points.

However, we’re not searching with a video mindset yet. When googling “30 Rock,” you first see an NBC paid ad that directs searchers to their network portal. In the organic results, the program’s homepage comes up first. There’s no Hulu or other video access points in the results, only information about the award-winning program.

We’re still in that 500-channel universe, without an easy or standard searching mechanism. In this 30 Rock example, visitors are directed to channels containing their programs or else to the program homepage, rather than to specific episodes they might really want to see.

The TV shows aren’t directly accessible unless you are consciously refining results for videos or deciding to use a video search engine. When all the results are videos, at least you can save a few clicks. Still there tends to be duplication based on the different outlets and, even then, you may not land on the exact episode that interests you most.

On the video destinations, the searching mechanisms are somewhat lacking as well. For videos, the assumption is that you will know which episodes you have missed and browse what’s available until you find the right date and description.

At this point, people are trained to navigate through menus and directories, and don’t really know what they are missing. With search, they would be able to find what’s interesting within an episode or discover moments they want to see again. If there’s social inputs, then visitors would also benefit from what others have found interesting too.

In the search world, we know there are some real opportunities ahead. Now that viewers know their programs are available online, consumption can be increased with better searching and discovery mechanisms.

We here at Incisive Media, home of Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Strategies (SES), are pleased to announce a few promotions within our event programming team.

First off, Stewart Quealy has been promoted to VP of content development. Stew has been programming the Search Engine Strategies events since 2001, most recently as senior conference program director. He will become the senior person responsible for creating conference program content for all events in the group and will be involved in the overall strategic development of our conference business. That includes the SES conferences, webcasts, and training courses.

Marilyn Crafts has been promoted to senior program director. She’s been programming our SES events for the past 8 years. She will continue to work closely with Stewart, Jackie Ortez, and the rest of their team in program development, speaker selection and event strategy.

“Anyone who’s spoken at or attended an SES event has seen the hard work and professionalism of Stewart, Marilyn, and the rest of their team,” said Gary Lynch, managing director of the Interactive Marketing Group in North America for Incisive Media. “We’re happy to be able to recognize and reward that hard work, and continue to produce top-quality events.”

Kevin M. Ryan, who has been serving as VP and global content director for SES, will transition to the role of chairman of the SES Advisory Board. He will continue to have an active and visible presence at our events, and to advise Stewart and his team in their programming efforts.

“A little over a year ago, Kevin took on the assignment to stabilize and build the SES brand during a critical transition phase for the business. A year later our events, including the global SES conference and expo series, are still the dominant brand in the industry with a strong global presence,” Lynch said.

Kevin plans to return to his roots on the agency side of search as CEO and founder of Motivity Marketing, a strategic consulting firm focusing on search and interactive marketing. He will also continue to write his weekly column here at SEW, “Searching For Meaning.”

Online marketing company AdEx has announced the acquisition of Bay Harbor, an online lead generation firm. Bay Harbor uses a proprietary software platform to perform behavioral targeting which identifies marketers’ best prospects in several financial services and other consumer interest segments.

“Bay Harbor’s lead generation platform allows us to capitalize on the ever-growing online financial services sector,” said Scott Rewick, Chief Executive Officer of AdEx Media. “This acquisition is synergistic with our existing business and will further enable us to meet the needs of our large customer base of advertisers, publishers, distributors, online retailers and consumers.”

Related Reading:
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Microsoft launched a limited time promotion today called Back-to-School Deal Days for Live Search cashback. The promotion lets customers save big (and in some cases double the rewards) from hundreds of participating online retailers.

The back-to-school season is the second largest retail season of the year. That bodes well for Microsoft’s share of searches as they continue to compete with Yahoo for (a distant) second place.

Live Search cashback offers ad-funded cash rebates to customers using the service. Live Search also offers price comparisons, making side-by-side price shopping quicker and easier.

A recent survey from Deloitte found that during this back-to-school shopping season, 71 percent of households plan on spending less on back-to-school items than they have in previous years. With consumers feeling financial strain from higher gas and food prices, Live Search cashback is offering back-to-school shoppers extra savings to stretch their dollars further.

Back-to-school savings start today and will run for a limited time during the month of August.

How It Works: Online shoppers can search, shop and get cashback rebates from hundreds of participating online stores through the Microsoft Live Search cashback program, which launched in May. Current retailers include Barnes & Noble.com, Overstock.com, Sears, Foot Locker and Zappos.com, among many others. This month, the cashback return is even higher with Deal Days.

Here are a few examples of the bargains:

Rebate of 36 percent on Jordan Men’s AJF 12 basketball shoes from Foot Locker
Rebate of 18 percent on Lenovo ThinkPad X61 Tablet PCs from Zappos.com
Rebate of 30 percent on The North Face Doubletrack backpacks from eBags

Consumers can save money each time they use Live Search cashback. For every qualifying purchase, the shopper will be sent an e-mail message confirming the Live Search cashback savings. Consumers’ cash can be claimed when their Live Search cashback balance hits at least $5, 60 days after the purchase. Microsoft will provide the rebate one of three ways: via PayPal, check or direct deposit into a bank account.