Some people are building scalable predictive bid management software which is based on complex mathematical algorithms.

Former Yahoo executive Ellen Siminoff has re-emerged as CEO of Efficient Frontier, which produces a paid-search management service that was launched Friday. The service lets paid search advertisers predict the performance of their keyword purchases on paid search networks such as Google's AdWords and Yahoo's Overture Services subsidiary. source

The Efficient Frontier site states that they are the only scalable bid management solution, although I bet Kevin Lee would beg to differ.

Other individuals are also quietly developing their own proprietary bid management solutions.

Automated real time feedback and adjustment is what makes bid management software extremely valuable. This is one market where software price will not be the determining factor in who is ultimately crowned king... quality and breadth of the features will.

Some of the best tools are both simple and free. We recently released a free A/B split testing calculator.

This tool gives you the mathematical probablility to determine whether or not you have collected enough data to be sure the data is conclusive as to which of two ads is better.

Search Engine Watch has opened their new SEO Forums. Only a few hundred posts so far.

With how intertwined that site is within the Internet.com network and how popular and powerful of a site SearchEngineWatch already is, it will be interesting to see how open they are able to keep it and how well they will be able to fight off spam.

Upon further glance they seem to have a triangle which allows you to flag moderators when a bad post occurs.

<2nd update>What effect will this new forum have on other SEO forums?

Update: I updated the review to reflect more modern search algorithms.

Want to try AdWords?
Know nothing about AdWords?
Know nothing about marketing?
Don't want to pay an SEO to set up your AdWords account?

Thats ok. Google still wants you to advertise. They will even set your account up for you. Potential Google clients welcome to Google JumpStart. Google JumpStart charges a one time $299 fee which is credited toward your account.

Will they usually error on the side of profit or will they be conservative with your bid price and keyword selection? I bet their editors will be using the automated spidering sofware which creates relevant keywords based on your page copy. This could be a real time saver for small businesses. I think life probably got a good bit harder for the average unbranded pay per click SEO. I shall not perish for I can still manipulate organic rankings and sign up for many EVIL porn, casino, and drug affiliate programs. :)

It is always cool when you get checks in the mail from other countries for $500 to over $1,000 and you do not even know who they are from or why you got the check. The end goal of any internet entrepreneur should be able to answer this question:
"So what exactly do you do?"
with a solid "I'm not really sure."

I'm not at that level yet, but I am still "working" on it.