60 Minutes:
Google on 60 Minutes

Search Google Ads:
Widget Ads - you can search Google for ads only.

What is Google Smoking?
Bongs in the search results - I randomly searched for Chong at Google. On my good old handy dandy FireFox some Google searches are showing images.

Why would a company so textually driven want to place those images prominently above search results? They are probably going to be easy to spam, increase page load time, and IMHO detract from Google a huge amount. I suppose they know a bit more than me about that sort of stuff, but so far I do not like it.

Search Marketing Association:
North American brother of the EU and UK to launch

Renting Links:
I met Patrick Gavin of Text Link Ads in Las Vegas and have been working a bit with him. I recently interviewed Patrick about link buying, how he got into the web, and where he would start if he started on the web today.

Blog Happenings:
Six Apart is the company that created the blogging software that runs this site. They are going to purchase LiveJournal, which will drastically expand their userbase, though most LiveJournal customers are not paying customers. A ton of consolidation in this space will likely occur throughout the year between some of the platforms, tracking, and search sites. (found on ThreadWatch)

The Future of Journalism:
Dan Gillmore starts his blog.

Free Answer Engine:
GuruNet becomes Answers.com and drops subscription fee.

PPC Keyword Research Software:
TheDowser is a new (to me at least) keyword research tool which combines some of the features from the Overture search term suggestion tool and the Google Keyword Sandbox tool (as well as having some other features). I did not use it a ton, but downloaded the trial and played with it a bit. If you run a bunch of PPC campaigns it only needs to help you save a little time or find a few new keywords to pay for itself.

Interesting:

• UseIt: Fat Links

• Change This - seems like there is something good here every few days.
• Does the open source model apply beyond software?
• Speaking using a unique and honest voice. (link may be offensive to those who are easily offended)
  
• Economics & Sociology White Papers (found on Ross Mayfield's blog)

• US tax dollar breakdown
  
• what is social security "reform"?...more info...ever wonder why so many politicians and news outlets portray everything as a crisis? The answer is simple...it is. If they don't do something to distract you and keep your attention then you might actually have time to learn how to change their world.

AdSense Changes:
URL Channels
New Languages
No AdSense ads on sites promoting or selling tobacco or prescription drugs

Affiliate Marketer Doom:
Google to allow only 1 affiliate / advertiser per landing page.

The Wrong Metrics:
Some webmasters are buying SEO services based on top ten rankings or number of pages indexed. While they may be interesting figures what really matters is targeted traffic and more importantly: sales. (found on ThreadWatch)

Picture Perfect:
or maybe not... Google's Picasas hacked. if you have PHPBB installed make sure you upgrade to a new version and have the server admin check for shady stuff. If you have been hacked you will want to change your MySQL passwords and whatnot.

Advertising is Evil:
Jakob Nielson looks at some of the worst ways to advertise on the web.

More Yahoo!:
Tim Converse (part 2)

That Little Blue Pill:
I wrote an article which attempts to answer the question Should I sell Off Topic Links?
While you are debating the topic find Viagra on sale here.

The primary driver in the value of PageRank is often driven by the fact that many people think they NEED high PageRank, but most industries are not dominated by PageRank. It is usually more effective to build a broad and cheap linking campaign vice buying exceptionally expensive high PageRank links.

There are a ton of locations where you can find cheap or free links and PageRank. One of my buddies has a PR6 site based on forum sig links. Just playing on the web for a while gives you PageRank you can use to manipulate any other industry. Since PageRank is so easy to manipulate Google can't make it a huge part of their relevancy algorithm, thus PageRank a True Commodity.

Recently on his blog Seth Godin had a post titled The problem with search engine optimization.

In this post he stated why he thought SEO was not a good idea and why he strugled with the concept of SEO. He stated that he thought PPC was a way better idea than organic SEO. He also stated that top organic results were nothing more than luck.

If you glance at Seth's success you will see that it comes from links (and other word of mouth type marketing) and not PPC ads, which makes it even more confusing to think that he would think ads are way better than SEO (which often consists of finding and creating natural citations).

I think he is completely wrong, and thus I wrote SEO vs PPC: Seth is Completely Wrong!

They also have a good post going on over at Cre8asite on the topic.
hat tip Kim

Bruce Stone recently created the Wow Directory, which is one of those rare webmaster resources where it seems like they guy is doing what he is doing because he really has a passion for it and likes helping people out.

Bruce recently let me ask him a few questions.