SES Toronto was held for the first time in May 2004. I was a speaker at the session on “Balancing Paid & Organic Listings.” Flash forward 8 years and SES Toronto 2011 will feature dramatically different content. As Melanie Shatner once said, “I guess some things were just meant for the next generation.”
In fact, if you go to the conference overview, you’ll see that 9 out of the 21 sessions are “new to the Toronto agenda.” And this is a conservative estimate, because there’s one more session being “Reserved for Late-Breaking Topic.”
Search engine upstart, Blekko, continuing it’s quest to form an alliance against spam has partnered with Stack Overflow, “a programming Q&A site built by programmers for programmers”. This follows a blog post at the start of 2011 from StackOverflow’s CTO, Jeff Attwood which cited Trouble in the House of Google and, along with a rising tide of criticism, ultimately caused Matt Cutts to launch a new algorithm that attacks ‘junk’ sites, such as those Made For Adsense (MFA) and content farms. We’re seeing better Google results already, but Blekko is still putting pressure by endeavouring to take an even stronger stance against spam.
On Thursday, I asked, “Are the Brains of Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization Sartorially Challenged?” And I put together a list of the Top 10 SEMs who were working hard to change the industry’s collective image — “sometimes in unpredictable ways.”
This prompted Brent to post the following comment: “Interesting list, but I believe there are several behind the scenes, in the trenches, marketers that are really doing a lot of the work.”
Brent, you’re right. So, today I want to share the list of the Top 10 Unsung Heroes of Search and Social Media Marketing who are also working hard to change the industry’s collective image — “sometimes in unpredictable ways.”
The Boston Globe has just published it’s list of “The 25 most stylish Bostonians” and I’m not on it. And I’m starting to think that I may owe SEM industry observer, Meredith A.C. Roth, an apology.
Back on July 28, 2004, Roth issued a press release announcing her list of the “Best of the Best (and Worst Dressed)” at SES. More than six years ago, she said, “Wanna hook up with the smartest people in the Search Engine Marketing biz? Look for the worst dressed. It’s SEO Tip number one: The brains of Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization are sartorially challenged.”
David Ortiz recorded his 100th RBI last night in the 6-1 victory of the Boston Red Sox over the Chicago White Sox. How much did it mean to Ortiz? “As much as it did last year, when I got 99,” he told Gordon Edes of the Red Sox Blog.
Now watch this smooth segue to another topic that involves the Windy City.
SES Chicago 2010 is coming up fast, and early bird pricing closes out this Friday!
The major league baseball season gets underway Sunday night. Instead of looking at the New York Yankees vs. Boston Red Sox starting lineups, I thought I’d take a look at the YouTube videos that have been recently uploaded about one of the oldest, most famous and fiercest rivalries in American professional sports.
Image by Getty Images via Daylife
Let’s begin with “Joe’s Job – The Ballad Of Terry Francona“. Uploaded on January 29, 2010, by nyyankeefanforeve, this is the sad musical tale of Terry Francona, a manager stuck in Boston and tormented by his envy of a colleague, Joe Girardi, who manages a team far, far and away better than his.
Every January, journalists, bloggers and other industry folk take to their respective blogs and publications to predict what may happen in the New Year. Search is no exception to such speculation.
We compiled a list of five predictions for search in 2010 and asked experts to weigh in on whether they think those predictions will play out.
1. John Battelle – Google will make a corporate decision to become seen as a software brand rather than as “just a search engine.”
Pat Duncan, Associate Partner in Rosetta’s Consumer Products & Retail vertical
The other day we learned about how Conductor donated backpacks to underprivileged schoolchildren in New York City. I asked for more stories of how the search community is giving back.
Well, I’m happy to report that I was promptly emailed by Bazaarvoice chiming in on how, they too, donated backpacks to kids!
Bazaarvoice donated 200 backpacks to Communities in Schools, a dropout prevention organization in Central Texas. The drive was organized by the Entrepreneur’s Foundation of Central Texas. There’s a picture of the Bazaarvoice team on the EFCT’s Facebook page. Employees were allowed to take time off of work to give back to the community.
SEO measurement and tech firm Conductor has donated 23 backpacks to Volunteers of America’s Operation Backpack. VOA in turn donated all collected backpacks to homeless shelters.
Last year, 7,000 New York school kids were the recipients of backpacks from the Greater New York affiliate. This year’s goal is 11,000.
Who knows, maybe some of these kids will grow up to be SEO’s?
We love to hear about the search industry doing great things in the community. So if you’re doing something inspiring, contact me – I wanna hear about it!
The Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA) Save the Dream tour will arrive in St. Louis on Thursday, July 30. Their buses will pull in front of St. Louis University’s Chaifetz Arena at 2 PM filled with hundreds of staff and volunteers. St. Louis is the third stop on NACA’s 10-city tour to help homeowners take advantage of an historic opportunity to make their mortgage affordable.
About 35,000 people attended the first Save the Dream event in Cleveland. About 50,000 people attended the second Save the Dream event in Chicago. This is a dramatic increase over the 25,000 people who attended NACA’s first two Save the Dream events last year in Columbia, SC, and Washington, DC.
