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comScore today announced the availability of comScore Video Metrix in four new markets: Canada, France, Germany and the UK. comScore Video Metrix, which was first launched in the US more than two years ago, now provides online video measurement across all five of these countries.

This enables search engine marketers “to better plan advertising to a highly-engaged, but often elusive audience, that typically spends less time with traditional media,” Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore, said in a press release.

Of interest to search engine marketers planning to attend SES Toronto, comScore found that Canada has the heaviest online video viewing activity.

Of the five countries currently reported by comScore Video Metrix, online video had the highest reach in Canada, where 19 million viewers viewed a video online in December, representing 89 percent of the total online population age 15 and older. The UK was next with an 87 percent reach, followed by France with an 84 percent reach and Germany with an 81 percent reach. Penetration was slightly lower in the US, where online video reached 78 percent of the total online population.

Canada’s online video audience also viewed more videos than any of the other reported countries, averaging 112 videos per viewer for the month of December, followed by the UK with 108 videos per viewer, Germany with 92 videos per viewer, and France with 89 videos per viewer. Again, US activity was slightly lower, averaging 77 videos per viewer in December.

Driven largely by video viewership at YouTube, Google Sites led as the most popular online video destination in all reported countries. However, beyond this there were strong performances from key local players, with BBC Sites ranked second in the UK, DailyMotion.com ranked second in France, and Vivendi ranked second in Germany. Microsoft Sites was amongst the top 5 ranked video sites in the US, UK and Canada, but not in France and Germany.

Many search engine marketers have started creating online video on a much larger scale this year.

For example, the Search Engine Strategies Conference and Expo channel on YouTube now has more than 80 video interviews with speakers and exhibitors posted from SES London and SES New York 2008. Combined, they’ve received 10,932 views across all the videos as of this morning.

The most popular video in the SES channel is my interview with Nick Carr, the author of “The Big Switch,” conducted before his keynote presentation at SES London.

The Big Switch by Nick Carr — SES London 2008

And more video interviews are planned for SES Toronto 2008. So, stay tuned. Don’t touch that dial. Film at 11.

Yahoo announced an agreement today with Computational Research Laboratories (CRL) to support cloud computing research. At Search Engine Strategies (SES) New York last week, Yahoo Chief Scientist Andrew Tomkins previewed the future of search in his keynote address. (For a video of his keynote click here soon.) No doubt cloud computing will one day make search engine innovations possible that we can only dream of today.

CRL, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Sons Ltd., a Mumbai, India-based industrial conglomerate, will lend one of the world’s top five supercomputers to Yahoo for joint research. The CRL supercomptuter has “substantially more processors than any supercomputer currently available,” according to Yahoo.

The first Data-Intensive Computing Symposium held at Yahoo’s campus this week will bring together leading industry and academic experts from all aspects of data-intensive distributed computing.

The symposium is part of a larger effort to explore opportunities for research and application of large-scale computing to benefit applications ranging from machine translation to genomic medicine.

So who in the world are CRL and Tata?

Tata Sons Limited–founded in 1868–could be the poster boy for The Big Switch, a brilliant book by SES keynote speaker, thought leader, and Mike Arrington BFF Nick Carr on the transformation of corporations and computing leading up to the Age of the Internet and beyond Google.

Click to read the rest of this post…

SES New York is in full swing. The energy level of the show is very good - with a buzz reminiscent of a few years ago. I really like the way the new format is shaping up. The sponsored session about Google Analytics and Website Optimizer were packed, with people covering every inch of floor space. There seems to be a lot of interest in unfiltered information from the leading companies in the space. The solo session (versus panel) format is also holding its own, with high attendance and positive response from the audience.

Nick Carr’s keynote kicked off the day with a discussion based on his new book “The Big Switch”. He draws strong parallels between the electrification of industrial countries in the 1800’s and the creation of the “worldwide computer” being ushered in by the Internet. Power generation used to be a necessity for every business, and needed to be developed locally within it. As soon as large-scale generating plants and distribution via wires made it possible to get power to the end-customers, local power generation plunged (to its current 5% levels). The “grid” had won via its scale and efficiencies and allowed all kinds of “innovations at the socket”. New appliances and devices like the refrigerator, and television transformed our daily lives.

Computers are next. A similar transformation is happening with the Internet. Like the electrical grid, computer networks are both “general purpose technologies”, and in fact are the only two that can be supplied over a grid or network.

Currently most companies maintain local data-centers to support their operations at an ever increasing cost (with I.T. labor growing from 5% to 45% of total capital equipment budgets between 1968 and 2000). Each business is in effect producing local power - much in the way industrial companies did 150 years ago. This enormous drag on productivity can be freed up as soon as computing power, storage, and bandwidth become commodities that can be supplied by the worldwide “cloud”. The cloud taps into the efficiencies of the large centralized data centers being built by the likes of Google. With increases in bandwidth, and the “virtualization” of hardware (emulating hardware in software to deploy server configurations of arbitrary scale efficiently), it finally becomes possible to efficiently draw computing power and data storage from the cloud.

Several trends were predicted by Mr. Carr as a result of this transition:
- Software as media - The line between the two will blur as entertainment and technology companies battle for turf
- Continued consolidation - The percentage of total pageviews for the top-10 Internet properties has actually risen from 31% in 2001 to 40% in 2006 (while overall volume grew 75%)
- The worker-less company - Large worldwide enterprises built on cheap infrastructure can spring up overnight based on increasing retunrs-to-scale, global reach, and free user-generated content (Skype, YouTube, CraigsList, and PlentyOfFish)

But everything is not perfect and rosy. One of the implications of these trends is the continued concentration of power and wealth in the hands of the “digital elites”, and the corresponding stagnation or actual decline of middle class quality of life. There are also significant privacy implications as our personal data is stored centrally and aggregated. Increasing polarization and balkanization of viewpoints is a growing problem as people get only the information that supports and reinforces their pre-existing point of view. The emerging “world wide computer” both liberates us (giving us choice) and controls us in gross and subtle ways (often without our knowledge). This tug-of-war is inherent, and should be consciously fought and debated by everyone.

It’s Day 2 at SES New York 2008 and the folks from Pan Communications have found nearly 70 stories that have been written about the Search Engine Strategies conference. If you want a comprehensive list, Matt McGowan, the Global Vice President of Marketing for Incisive Media, will be posting one later this evening on the Search Engine Strategies Blog.

In the meantime, I’ve looked through the news articles and blog posts from Tuesday, March 18, 2008, to try to identify the top ten stories on Day 2 of the event. With five concurrent sessions, no one individual can see everything. So, even those of us who are at SES New York this week are relying on the news and blog coverage (as well as word-of-mouth) to keep up with all the latest developments from the event. (Trade shows and conferences are an off-line form of social media.)

1. Carr: Google Offers ‘Animal Sacrifices’ in Datacenters
Clint Boulton of eWeek’s Google Watch says, “Nicholas Carr discussed the past, present and future of computing during a keynote at the Search Engine Strategies 2008 show in New York this morning.” He adds, “Carr covered so much ground in the 60 minutes, touching on everything from the first water wheel used to generate electricity, to mainframes, to cloud computing and Google’s datacenters and the future of distributed applications and search engines strategies.”

2. Nick Carr Keynote
You can listen to Nick Carr’s opening keynote at SES New York on WebmasterRadio.FM. Nick discusses how computer systems and software algorithms are at the center of business today, and the implications for privacy.

3. Nick Carr at SES NY 2008 on The Big Switch

Anne Kennedy, Managing Partner of Beyond Ink, interviews Nick Carr, the opening keynote speaker at the Search Engine Strategies conference in New York City and the author of The Big Switch: Rewiring the Word, from Edison to Google. Nick gives a recap on his New York keynote speech about Microsoft’s unsolicited bid for Yahoo, net neutrality, and the implications on human thinking.

4. YouTube: Damon Wayans Pay-to-Play, Paid Inclusion or Pay-for-Placement?
Kevin Heisler of Search Engine Watch says, “At SES NY, John Battelle outted Damon Wayans, Google and YouTube. Battelle said Wayans spilled the beans on his YouTube deal as a “platinum partner” for WayOutTV.com. Wayans shared he was guaranteed 6 million impressions by YouTube. Those 6 million impressions — guaranteed — sounds very much like the structure of a MySpace-style minimum revenue deal. Plus, Wayans shared his YouTube rev share number. Wow.”

5. hakia licenses OntoSem technology to third parties
Paul Miller of ZDNet’s The Semantic Web says, “New York-based semantic search company hakia will today use the Search Engine Strategies Conference to announce that their Ontological Semantic technology, OntoSem, is available for licensing. Illinois-based RiverGlass, Inc. is the first licensee, and will work to enhance their existing real-time analytics solutions with OntoSem.”

6. SES New York: Converting Visitors into Buyers
Jolina Pettice of the Online Marketing Blog says, The conversions track at SES New York continues to be packed with those wanting to increase the performance of their search marketing campaigns.”

7. The Long Tail Not Always Good, If Quality Score is Your Thing
Andrew Goodman of Traffick says, “I had the pleasure of moderating the panel on Ads in a Quality Score World at SES New York today. Along with two advertiser-side speakers (Joel Lapp and Jon Kelly), Frederick Vallaeys of Google and David Miller of Yahoo weighed in.”

8. Earning Money from Contextual Ads
Tamar Weinberg of Search Engine Roundtable says, “This session looks at the way publishers can generate revenue by carrying contextual ads offered by major networks. Learn about some programs out there and tips on getting more from the ads you carry.”

9. SES New York: Live Search “Tips And Tricks”
By Doug Caverly of WebProNews says, “Although people sometimes forget this fact, there are search engines outside of Google. At SES New York, two Microsoft managers walked an audience through ways to do well with Live Search.”

10. SES New York Day 2 … Start Your Engines!
Jeff Quipp of the aimClear Blog says, “Day 1 of Search Engine Strategies New York certainly lived up to expectations. The sessions were excellent, the city is spectacular, and I was fortunate enough to meet up with a large number of new and old friends. The day ended for most with a St. Paddy’s day pub crawl, primarily through Irish bars :).” He adds, “Day 2 is shaping up to be equally exciting. I’m personally live blogging some of the Local search sessions, which I’m really looking forward to.”

Jason Calacanis has owned the front page of Techmeme–the world’s most influential technology and Web 2.0 news aggregator–for the past 18 hours and counting.

Another Civil War in Silicon Valley? Well, it’s war anyway–even if not civil.

Aussie Duncan Riley of TechCrunch fame bodyslammed Jason after his Calacanis.com post on how to run a startup. Duncan said “Calacanis Fires People Who Have A Life.” So far, 164 comments on TechCrunch about firing anyone who’s not a workaholic …

Jason got up off the canvas, charged his opponent Valleywagged, and parried Duncan’s jabs by updating his post, How to save money running a startup by revising his VC deathmatch coda. http://www.calacanis.com/2008/03/07/how-to-save-money-running-a-startup-17-really-good-tips/

By then Duncan had tagged out: Allen Stern delivered a sidekick to Jason’s solar plexus that sent him all the way to Starbucks country: Working at Mahalo is Like Prison Except We Gots Better Coffee.

Jason Calacanis “Electrified Cage Deathmatch Bar Room Brawl” at SES New York in the SOLD OUT (Not Paris) Hilton in New York the day after St. Patrick’s Day.

Note: See it live! SES On Demand Video will be available to Search Engine Watch members only after the SES New York Deathmatch.

Celebrities on the front row: Kevin Ryan, John Battelle, Andrew Tomkins, Nick Carr, Gordon McLeod and many, many more.

Tickets on sale now!

Dr. Hal Varian, Google’s chief economist and occasional Freakonomics Blog guest blogger, posted “Why data matters” on the official Google blog, cross-posted on the Google Public Policy Blog.

Varian explains that Web search algorithms are improved by the “wisdom of the crowds” drawn from the “logs of billions of previous search queries.” That makes the general public - and government officials - nervous about privacy.

Varian tutors us in PageRank simplified and discusses link building in an ideal world - one where The New York Times and The Wall St. Journal, for example, would link to other sites generously:

“If I have six links pointing to me from sites such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and the House of Representatives, that carries more weight than 20 links from my old college buddies who happen to have web pages.”

The House of Representatives? Sounds more like Charlie Wilson’s War.

SEOs, contact your local Congressional Representative for paid links - paid for with your hard-earned tax dollars.

The reality: when Dr. Varian was interviewed, The New York Times Freakonomics Blog linked to Google.org, Google green energy, Dr. Varian’s position auction paper (pdf); BBC News on Moore’s Law; Paul Seabright (Professor of Economics, University of Toulouse, France); Dr. Varian’s NY Times energy article; another Freakonomics blog post; WebMD, Revolution Health, and Paul Anderson, Professor of Security Engineering, University of Cambridge.

That’s the way major media outlets and journalists typically link: to each other; to corporate sites; to universities. It’s an elite, exclusive club. Nick Carr’s “digital elite.”

That isn’t to say Dr. Varian can’t tell a good story. He reveals how Larry and Sergey trying to license their PageRank algorithm to “some of the newly formed web search engines.”

No names named. None of the nascent search engines were interested. Since they couldn’t sell their algorithm, Brin and Page decided to start a search engine themselves. (Note to VCs: Don’t try this business model at home.)

Google has since added more than 200 additional “signals” to the algorithms that determine the relevance of websites to a user’s query. We are the signals.

All the background info leads to one conclusion: Google needs your data. Google wants you to take a leap of faith. Google must store and analyze search logs. They want us to believe, “Nobody does it better.”

Reminds me of Radiohead via Carly Simon:

“But like heaven above me, the spy who loved me/Is keeping all my secrets safe tonight. And nobody does it better/Sometimes I wish someone would/Nobody does it quite the way you do/Why’d you have to be so good.”

Dr. Varian suggests readers “Watch our videos to see exactly what data we store in our logs.”

Not everyone has time - or the inclination - to watch Google videos on YouTube.

What worries me: Google doesn’t understand us any better than we understand the mathematical formulas of search engine algorithms.

Search Engine WarGames won’t be fought between humans and machines.

Nick Carr put it best: “The erosion of the middle class may well accelerate, as the divide widens between a relatively small group of extraordinarily wealthy people - the digital elite - and a very large set of people who face eroding fortunes and a persistent struggle to make ends meet. In the YouTube economy, everyone is free to play, but only a few reap the rewards.”

Whether you work at one of the top 10 ad agencies on Madison Avenue, or you head up an Internet advertising agency in Silicon Alley, you folks could use “a little churching up.” Slide on down to SES New York, and catch Carol Kruse.

That’s right. Carol Kruse, Vice President of Global Interactive Marketing, The Coca Cola Company, is speaking at the Search Engine Strategies conference, which will be held the week of March 17-20, 2008, at the Hilton New York. She will address what it takes for big brand companies to shift their marketing mix to align with new customer behaviors, putting more ad budget to Search and digital advertising.

Other speakers at SES New York 2008 include:
• Jonathan Ashton, VP of SEO & Web Analytics, Agency.com;
• Paul Beck, Senior Partner, Worldwide, Executive Director, Interactive Marketing & Advertising, Ogilvy;
• Jeff Ferguson, Director of Online Marketing, Napster;
• William Flaiz, Vice President, Search Engine Optimization & Web Analytics, Avenue A | Razorfish;
• Kurt Garbe, Entrepreneur in Residence, Advertising, Adobe Systems;
• Bill Hunt, CEO, Global Strategies International;
• Steven Kaufman, SVP Media Director, Digitas
• Olivier Lemaignen, Group Manager, Global Search Marketing, Intuit;
• Bill Macaitis, VP of Online Marketing & SEO/SEM, Fox Interactive Media;
• Gordon McLeod, President, The Wall Street Journal Digital Network
• Ulli Muenker, Search Marketing Manager, BusinessWeek;
• Pauline Ores, Senior Marketing Manager, Community and Collaboration Strategy, Global Small & Midmarket Business, IBM Corporation;
• Susan Prater, Global Interactive Marketing Manager, Owens Corning;
• Nigel Ravenhill, Program Manager, McAfee;
• Irene Rigos, Senior Ecommerce Manager, Wyndham Hotel Group;
• Michael Sack, Director, SEM technology & Development, Idearc Media Corp.;
• Erica Schmidt, Global Director of Search, Isobar;
• Marshall D. Simmonds, Chief Search Strategist, New York Times / About.com;
• Don Steele, Director of Digital Marketing, Comedy Central;

And, if you look closely at the conference agenda for Search Engine Strategies New York 2008, you’ll see 10 Google speakers and eight from Yahoo! And that’s not counting Michael Rubenstein, Vice President & General Manager, DoubleClick, because it’s acquisition by Google is still pending.

Listen to what they’ve got to say.

Now, if you’re too busy to attend SES NYC 2008, don’t feel guilty. I’m confident that another one of the many fine advertising agencies in New York City will be more than happy to pitch in and help the corporate executives from the name brands above understand where the advertising industry is heading.

And, if market demand for magazine ads and television spots prevents you from getting over to Search Engine Strategies NY, don’t worry. I’m fairly certain that you’ll be able to catch up with what you missed in AdWeek or Advertising Age by reading about some other ad agency in New York has just landed a new client for its managed search engine marketing services.

“You get wise. You get to church.”

If you don’t need some “jive-ass preacher” talking to you about Search Advertising 101, then you’ll still find lots of other “must attend” sessions at Search Engine Strategies 2008 in the Big Apple. This includes:

Day 1 - Monday, March 17, 2008
• Creating Compelling Ads
• Analytics: Data Into Action
• Auditing Paid Listings and Click Fraud Issues
• Orion Panel: Getting Vertical Search Right

Nick Carr, SES New York 2008, The Big Switch

Day 2 - Tuesday, March 18, 2008
• Nick Carr, author of The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google
• Ads in a Quality Score World
• Orion Panel: Universal Search
• Optimizing Search Marketing Campaigns
• Ad Copy & Landing Page Clinic

Day 3 - Wednesday, March 19, 2008
• Gordon McLeod: Search Has Changed Everything… And So Can You
• Ad Testing: Research & Findings
• Big Brand Search Strategies: Build Connections and Fuel Online Promotions
• Jason Calacanis, Founder & CEO of Mahalo.com, Inc.
• Managing PPC for Multiple Clients
• Ad Exchanges Are Changing Everything

Day 4 - Thursday, March 20, 2008
• Andrew Tomkins, Chief Scientist at Yahoo! Research
• Staffing Up for Search
• SEM Agencies: Working With Ad Agencies
• My Search is Better Than Your Search

Now, I should disclose that SES New York is a client. “A gig like that, you gotta prepare the proper exploitation.”

Besides, “your lazy butts are in this, too.” According to The New York Post, “The ad biz may lose its fizz.”

So, slide on down to the Search Engine Strategies conference, and get your four box lunches and a Coke.

Do you see the light?!

The biggest Search Engine Strategies conference of the year will be held the week of March 17 in New York City. Whether this will be your first SES New York, or the fifth one in a row that you’ve attended since 2004, you might appreciate some free advice on schedule optimization.

One look at the conference at a glance will tell you why. There are more than 70 workshops, keynotes, panels and sessions over the four-day Search Engine Strategies conference. And, on the fifth day, there are an additional six SEM training classes following SES New York.

Since there are five concurrent tracks during the four-day Search Engine Strategies conference and three concurrent workshops during the fifth day of SEM training, no one can attend everything. This is not daunting to the first-time attendee. It is also a challenge to someone like me, who attended SES New York in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. I’m looking at last year’s conference handbook and this year’s conference at a glance and more than 70% of the sessions are new!

Now, Danny Sullivan programmed last year’s show and Kevin Ryan organized this year’s agenda. But, that’s only one of the factors driving the dramatic changes in the content at the event.

On the last day of last year’s Search Engine Strategies conference in New York City, Google announced its $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick, which is still pending. A couple of weeks later, Yahoo! acquired the remaining 80% of Right Media for $680 million. Then, last May, Microsoft acquired aQuantive for $6 billion. Last July, Microsoft acquired AdECN for an undisclosed amount of money and in September, Yahoo! acquired BlueLithium for $300 million in cash. Then, on Feb. 1 of this year, Microsoft proposed to acquire Yahoo! for $44.6 billion.

That’s a lot of M&A news for the industry to digest – and our search engine marketing definition needs to be rewritten this year.

And our search engine optimization definition needs to be totally rewritten, too.

About a month after last year’s SES New York, Google announced its critical first steps toward a universal search model that offers users a more integrated and comprehensive way to search for and view information online. It was the biggest thing to hit the search engine marketing industry since Google’s Florida Update in November 2003.

In June 2007, Ask3D was launched. In September 2007, Microsoft launched its biggest update to Live Search since its debut in January 2005. And in October 2007, “an all new Yahoo! Search experience” was launched.

Meanwhile, comScore reports that YouTube, Google Image Search, Google Maps and Google News are approaching 1.6 billion searches a month, which is more than Live Search. In other words, Google (6.2 billion searches a month) is the #1 search engine, Yahoo! (2.4 billion) is #2, YouTube and all other Google “expanded” search sites (1.6 billion) would be #3, and Microsoft’s Live Search (1 billion) is #4.

So, is it any wonder that even SES alumni are heading back to New York?

So, to help industry veterans as well as search newbies, I’ve put together the optimized schedule below for the Search Engine Strategies conference that starts on Saint Patrick’s Day in the Big Apple.

Now, when you get to SES New York, you’ll make adjustments on the fly. As Bob Shirilla of Keepsakes Etc. told me at SES Chicago back in December, “I had a detailed game plan when I came to SES, but I’m calling a lot of audibles.”

Nevertheless, schedule optimization will help you get the return on marketing investment that you’re looking for. Here are the workshops, keynotes, panels and sessions that I’d recommend:

Day 1 - Monday, March 17, 2008

9:30-10:45am
Creating Compelling Ads
Organic Listings Forum

11:15am-12:30pm
Analytics: Data Into Action
Igniting Viral Campaigns

2:00-3:15pm
Web Analytics: Measuring Success
Auditing Paid Listings and Click Fraud Issues

3:45-5:00pm
Orion Panel: Getting Vertical Search Right

Day 2 - Tuesday, March 18, 2008

9:00-10:00am
Conference Welcome and Opening Keynote
Nick Carr, author of The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google

Nick Carr, SES New York 2008, The Big Switch

11:00am-12:15pm
Introduction to Search Engine Marketing
Ads in a Quality Score World

1:30-2:45pm
Orion Panel: Universal Search

3:15-4:30pm (Sponsored Sessions)
Hitwise: Know about Your Competitors’ Paid and Organic Traffic
Google: What’s new with Google Analytics and Website Optimizer?

4:45-6:00pm
Search Engine Friendly Design
Ad Copy & Landing Page Clinic

Day 3 - Wednesday, March 19, 2008

9:00-9:45am
Morning Keynote
Gordon McLeod: Search Has Changed Everything… And So Can You

10:15-11:30am
Link Building Basics
Ad Testing: Research & Findings

1:00-2:15pm
Search Advertising 101
Top Search Trends

2:30-3:30pm
Afternoon Keynote
Jason Calacanis, Founder & CEO of Mahalo.com, Inc.

4:00-5:15pm
The New Face of In-House Search
Social Media Research: Informing Search Strategies

5:30-6:45pm
The Business Case for SEO Content Development: Turning Words Into Action!
Ad Exchanges Are Changing Everything

Day 4 - Thursday, March 20, 2008

9:00-9:45am
Morning Keynote
Andrew Tomkins, Chief Scientist at Yahoo! Research

10:00-11:00am
Usability & SEO: 2 Wins For The Price of 1
Podcast & Audio Search Optimization

11:15am-12:15pm
Beyond Linkbait: Getting Authoritative Online Mentions
Images & Search Engines

12:45-1:45pm
Meet the Crawlers
Video Search Optimization

But wait! There’s more!

On Friday, March 21, there are six half-day SEM training classes, which can be taken in addition to the SES New York conference or independently – at an additional cost.

Again, look over the descriptions of each workshop to see which ones are for you. But, here are the SEM training classes that I’d recommend:

8:00am-12:00pm
Link and Reputation Workshop
Optimizing for Universal Search

1:00-5:00pm
Search & Analytics Workshop: Using Analytics to Increase Search Effectiveness
The 7 Step RSS/Content Syndication/SEO Strategy

If you register for the Search Engine Strategies conference by tomorrow, Friday, Feb. 29, you can save $150. Conference attendees get free access to Market Motive training and Bruce Clay tools. And, if you attend SES New York, you could win a Scion xB! A free drawing will take place on Wednesday, March 19, in the Expo Hall.

I should disclose that Search Engine Strategies is now a client, but I’ve been writing about SES since 2002, when the March event was still held in Boston.

The search engine marketing industry has been totally transformed since then. For example, the keynote speaker at my first Search Engine Strategies conference was from Terra Lycos.

Remember them?

That’s why both industry veterans as well as search newbies will be heading to SES New York in a couple of weeks. The newbies will want to learn everything they can. And the veterans need to relearn most of what was being taught just a few years ago.

Greg Jarboe of SEO-PR and Amanda Watlington of Searching for Profit at SES London 2008

Search Engine Strategies London has wrapped up Day Two and the 2,000 attendees have adjourned until this morning. Meanwhile, the bloggers, videographers and photographers covering SES London have posted another batch of blog posts, YouTube videos and Flickr photos. Here are the ones that I found this morning/evening (depending on the time zone you’re in):

SES London 2008: Day 2 Roundup Feb. 20, 2008. This YouTube video includes just some of my interviews with speakers at Search Engine Strategies London yesterday. (More to come over the next few days and weeks.) Andy Beal, Consultant, Blogger & Author, Marketing Pilgrim LLC, gives positive reviews (however ambivalent his accent) of his own sessions and those he sat in on for their direct applicability to increasing revenue and extensive use of case studies. Piers Stobbs, VP of Comscore Networks, previews his big-picture presentations on user trends in search with implications for search marketing, such as increases in frequency and familiarity/capability of individual searchers. Jim Sterne, Chairman of the Web Analytics Association, evangelizes on behalf of website testing, and breaks down in brief the web analytics players between free and paid packages and their various advantages in increasing ROI. And Jon Myers, Head of Search at MediaVest, provides some down-to-earth comments on dealing with click fraud.

Video: Interview with Adam Lasnik of Google by Lee Odden, who was able to catch up with the Google Search Evangelist to do a short (10 min) video on several topics important to web masters looking for better results on Google.

SES London 2008. More than 60 photos on Flickr provide an overview of the speakers, attendees and exhibitors at the Business Design Centre in Islington.

SES London Day Two Photos by Lee Odden. Additional pictures from Search Engine Strategies London capture the highlights of the event.

SES London 2008 - A Few Pictures by Mel Carson. Even more photos from the event.

SES London 08: The Changing World of Search, Keynote Roundtable by Li Evans, who covers the video from Nick Carr and panel discussion of Microsoft’s unsolicited bid for Yahoo.

SES London 08: News Search Optimisation by Li Evans, who covers the News Search SEO session.

SES London 08: Video & Podcast SEO by Li Evans, who covers the Video & Podcast SEO session.

SES London 2008 - Competitive Research by Simon Heseltine, who covers the Competitive Research session.

Ralph Wilson’s Introduction to Search Marketing at SES London by Amanda Watlington, who covers the Introduction to Search Marketing session.

Search Engine Strategies - London - Video & Podcast SEO by Mal Watlington, who also covers the Video & Podcast SEO session.

Nofollow, What a Load of Crap! by David Fairhurst, who covers the Organic Listings Forum.

SES Update #1 by Rick Bosch, who provides half a dozen observations from the event.

SES Update #2 by Rick Bosch, who covers the Search Engine Friendly Design session.

Collapsed Lungs & Micro-hoo: SES London Day 2, Part 1 by ciaran, who covers the keynote, News Search SEO session, and Search Term Research and Targeting session.

SES Audience: Pro-Merger by Andrew Goodman, who polled the audience: “From your standpoint as a marketer using these ad platforms: would you prefer that Yahoo remain an independent company, or that Microsoft and Yahoo merge to form a single #2 vendor in the space?”

Pilgrim’s Picks for February 20 - London Edition by Andy Beal, who links to the coverage of Search Engine Strategies London by Li Evans.

Off to London to Tempt Scottie and Simon by Jennifer Laycock, who is hopping a flight to London.

SES London Day Two Recap by Barry Schwartz, who provides a roundup of coverage.

What a Blackhat SEO Looks Like by Barry Schwartz, who comments on one of the photos from the show by Lee Odden.

SES London and SES New York by Jason, who will be going to the post-con party organized by LondonSEO.

Search Engine Strategy à Londres by Estelle Schomann, who provides a roundup of the coverage in French.

På vej til SES og SMX by Mikkel deMib Svendsen, who writes something in Danish that I’m sure is insightful, if I could read Danish.

SEO Headlines by Lisa Barone, who says she is being “ranty” today because she can’t be in London for SES.

Let’s say you’re a savvy, seasoned search engine marketer. You can easily send some of your junior staff members to Search Engine Strategies London, which is being held next week at the Business Design Centre. So, why would you want to slip over to Islington for a few days to attend SES London yourself?

Let me give you seven serious reasons:

1. Keynote Roundtable: The Changing Search World. This session on Wednesday, Feb. 20, at 9:00 a.m., will discuss the global impact of Microsoft’s recent bid for Yahoo! Following an introduction from Nick Carr, author of The Big Switch, Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google, Kevin Ryan, Vice President, Global Content Director, Search Engine Strategies and Search Engine Watch, will host a panel of leading industry analysts and search experts that includes: Mike Grehan, SES London Co-Chair and Founder and CEO, Searchvisible Ltd.; Steven Kaufman, SVP Media Director, Digitas; Bryan Eisenberg, Co-Founder, Future Now Inc.; and Erica Schmidt, Global Director of Search, Isobar. Watch the Associated Press video interview of Kevin Ryan on Microsoft’s Yahoo bid.

2. Opening Keynote: Fredrick Marckini, Chief Global Search Officer, Isobar. Fredrick founded iProspect and is recognized as a leading expert in the field of search engine marketing. He is speaking on Tuesday, Feb. 19, at 3:30 p.m. Fredrick has authored three of the SEM industry’s earliest books, including Secrets to Achieving Top-10 Positions (1997), Achieving Top-10 Rankings in Internet Search Engines (1998), and Search Engine Positioning (2001). If you want an idea of what he’ll be talking about, read “Fredrick Marckini iProspect Exclusive SEO Interview with Dan Horton.”

3. Orion Panel: Universal, Blended and Vertical Search. This panel of industry gurus is being held on Tuesday, Feb. 19, at 4:45 p.m. Moderated by Kevin Ryan, the speakers on this panel include: Andrew Goodman, Principal, Page Zero Media; Adam Lasnik, Search Evangelist, Search Quality Team, Google; Mike Grehan; and Jeff Revoy, VP Yahoo! Search and Social Media, Yahoo! Europe.

4. Orion Panel: All Star Analytics Team. This panel of thought leaders is being held on Tuesday, Feb. 19, at 1:30 p.m. Moderated by Kevin Ryan, the speakers include: Brian Clifton, Head of Web Analytics, EMEA, Google; Bryan Eisenberg, Co-Founder, Future Now Inc.; Steve Jackson, Senior Consultant, Web Analytics & Search Marketing, SATAMA, & International Co-Chair, Web Analytics Association; Jim Sterne, Target Marketing & Chairman, Web Analytics Association; and Ian Thomas, Director, Customer Intelligence, Microsoft Advertiser & Publisher Solutions. To get a flavor of the session, read Christine Churchill’s blog post, “A Chat with Analytics Guru Jim Sterne.”

5. Searcher Behavior Research Update. This session is being held on Wednesday, Feb. 20, at 4:00 p.m. Moderated by Jon Myers, Head of Search, MediaVest, speakers include: Piers Stobbs, Vice President, ComScore Europe; Erica Schmidt, Global Director of Search, Isobar; Dr. Jon Dodd, Co-founder and Managing Director, Bunnyfoot; and John Marshall, CTO, Market Motive. For a preview of what one of the speakers plans to say, read Simon Heseltine’s blog post, “SES London 2008 Interview - Piers Stobbs.” Or read Massimo Burgio’s blog post, “Pre-SES London interviews: Piers Stobbs, comScore.”

6. My SEM Toolbox. This session is being held on Thursday, Feb. 21, at 2:15 p.m. Several search marketers share a variety of tools and services they find useful in performing SEO and SEM. Moderated by Mike Grehan, speakers include: Thomas Bindl, Founder and CEO, Refined Labs GmbH; Maxime Grandchamp, President, Trellian Europe; and Bruce Clay, President, Bruce Clay, Inc.

7. News Search SEO. This session is being held on Wednesday, Feb. 20, at 10:30 a.m. Moderated by Anne Kennedy, Manager, Managing Partner, Beyond Ink, speakers include: Lee Odden, CEO, TopRank Online Marketing; Tim Gibbon, Director, Elemental Communications; and me. For a preview of what one of the speakers plans to say, read Lee’s article, “SES London: News & Blog SEO, Reputation Management.”

As the title of Lee’s article indicates, there are a lot more than seven reasons to attend SES London. I should disclose that Search Engine Strategies London is a client. So, don’t take my word for it.

Read Lisa Barone’s blog post over at BurceClay.com, “Gearing up for SES London!” She lists 16 sessions that “we think will give you the most bang for your SEO buck,” including all seven of the sessions listed above.

Or watch Mike Grehan’s video clip on YouTube, which covers his take on the highlights of the upcoming Search Engine Strategies London conference.

So, you should give serious consideration to slipping over to Islington for a few days.