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Search Insider Summit – Jordan Rohan
Jordan Rohan, the perennial keynote at MediaPost’s Search Insider Summit in Park City, Utah, is back with a slew of insights, this time with a year-end review, an outlook for 2008, and some awards.

Note: These comments are Rohan’s, not my analysis. Reporting now, insights later.

Key developments for 2007:

Look at Things From a Customer’s Perspective

As an internet retailer, I have had to learn the hard way that our customers do not necessarily see our sites the way we see them. In fact, when we conduct usability studies, I am often shocked to find that what is very obvious to me escapes them completely.

Does that make them stupid? Of course not. Their perspective is just different. In their eyes, the retailer is the one that is stupid.

Social Network Ad Spending To Hit $2 Billion
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In 2007, 37 percent of the U.S. adult Internet population used online social networking at least once a month. That number will increase to 49 percent in 2011.

Female Shoppers Look For Electronics Online

If you can do so without freaking her out, look at the nearest female.  Is she dripping with electronics gear?  New rumors indicate that women are buying more of the stuff, and may actually be buying more than men.

Facebook Opens Developer Platform
Online social network site Facebook has now opened up its developer platform to other social networking sites.

Webkinz Ad Addition Angers Parents
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Advertising on kid-friendly website Webkinz has one advocacy group up in arms and demanding the toymaker take down the ads.

Social Networks & Portability

Earlier this week, during Marc Canter’s panel at LeWeb, I asked whether we could get a first step on all the social networks toward true social graph portability (which probably won’t happen because it’s too complex to do, because there are too many privacy rules, and because companies aren’t likely to give up their lockin anytime soon — imagine being able to drag all your information along with all of that of your friends from Faceb

Yahoo Talks WordPress Shortcuts
Yahoo! Search Blog discusses the new technology they’ve come up with. They say that making a blog involves collating pictures, links, maps, etc and that sometimes there’s "the hassle of digging up that supporting content… the most painful part.

CBS Radio Wants To Expand On Web

The old media vs. new media arguments are usually based on the idea of print vs. the Internet.  CBS Radio is also looking to update itself, however, by embracing and expanding its online branches.

Hammer Films Makes a Comeback (Via MySpace)
After a 30-year absence, Gothic horror film maker Hammer Films is about to make a comeback, not in cinemas but on the web.

Texting Used To End Relationships

Fifteen percent of people have had their relationship end via a text message or an email, according to a survey by moneysupermarket.com.

Amazon Buys Extremely Rare J.K. Rowling Book

J.K. Rowling created seven handwritten, leather-bound copies of a book called The Tales of Beedle the Bard.  Six were given to close friends, and the last was sold to Amazon.com for about $4 million.

Google Analytics Adds Graphing, E-Commerce

Another round of holiday goodies arrived from Google for webamsters, this time in the form of updates to the Google Analytics service.

On the Fence About Twitter

Maybe it’s all in the tone of voice. When I see the question "What are you doing?" my first impulse is to say, "Oh, I am sorry." It makes me question myself. "Why the hell are you doing that now?"

Cutts Clears up TrustRank Misconceptions

I know many of you have heard of TrustRank before. Some say Yahoo came up with it first or Google has it trademarked. Well this video of MC explaining what TrustRank is should help clear up a lot of misconceptions:

Credibility and Affiliate Sites

Many Thin Affiliate Sites Look Real

Some of my friends publish fake review sites which organize product recommendations by using the following quality measurement and rating system (affiliate payout per conversion * conversion rate). If people buy it, it must be good. ;)

I have other friends who do real in-depth reviews, but they use such poor formatting that their content looks less trustworthy and more advertisement-like than fake review websites.

Web Analytics Predictions for the New Year
If you’re looking for Web Analytics predictions for 2008 then I recommend checking out Rich Page’s blog where he posts about his thoughts for what’s to come in 2008.

Price Drives Online Holiday Shoppers

Price and free shipping are on the minds of online holiday shoppers this season. Forty-three percent said price was the most important factor and 18 percent cited free shipping, according to a recent survey by Synovate of Chicago for Guidance.

Two More Executive Types To Leave Yahoo

We haven’t seen a single story this quarter about former employees trying to upstage the big search engines.  Nonetheless, we’ll bet Yahoo is thankful for whatever non-compete clauses are in place, as Bharath Kadaba, a VP of media engineering, and Rachel Glaser, a senior VP of operations finance, should soon depart.

Google Develops Ad Review Center
The Google AdSense Blog reports:  “In an effort to provide you with more transparency and control over the ads appearing on your pages, we’ve developed the Ad Review Center.

Videos, Books & Photos on Google Maps
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The search page of Google Maps now shows location markers. The markers can be in the form of videos from YouTube, books from Google Book search or geo-tagged photos from Panoramio.

Google Analyzes New Webmaster Tools

Content analysis and Sitemap detail debuted as new features available on Google’s Webmaster Central.