Commentary

Amelia-rating The Search Insider Buzz

This week is the 15th running of the search geeks, also known as the Search Insider Summit, and the 14th time I’ve kept the official Buzz-o-Meter for the event. (Alas, what happened at the first one in Keystone, stayed at the first one in Keystone.)

Before I share the top 20 buzzwords that have been dropping harder than the Amelia Island rain this week, you may want to revisit the top of the pops from the past 13 shows.

1. Big Data - Rob Griffin is not a child molester. But you would have never thought that, right? Until, of course, I said that he’s not. Then you have to wonder why I would bring it up at all. The same thing happened when Rob opened up the summit by saying that “Big Data” would not be a trending topic at this event. In fact, I believe his exact words were that he was going to “kick Big Data in the nuts.” Again, Rob Griffin is not a child molester. But Big Data has become the hottest buzzword at SIS. Way to go, Poopyhead.

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2. Search – For the first time since May 2011, conversation about search dominated the Search Insider Summit. Despite, as opening keynoter Chris Copeland pointed out, the fact that the show was programmed chock full of sessions talking about the future, there seems to be a real focus on strategies and tactics that can be applied to SEM today. Of course, the definition of search and SEM is something that’s been hotly debated -- but the discussion around search hasn’t strayed too far from the, er, box.

3. Mobile – When it comes to mobile, Copeland pulled no punches saying, “Nothing is more important to get right, right now.” At least that’s what I think he said. I was busy playing with the new Yahoo weather app on my mobile. More on that later.

4. Social – a few sessions touched on the influence of social signals on search but, as Bryson Meunier reminded us, links are the original social signal demonstrating one person valuing another’s content -- so don’t forget to keep building those.

5. Google – Fhe Big G was once again omnipresent at SIS. We heard from Google “Search Advocate” (as if everyone else in the room was not) Joan Arensman about how the company is getting better at answering implicit queries using social, local, and mobile context.

6. Enhanced campaigns – When George Michie literally stood up on stage to say how excited he was about enhanced campaigns, the tweet-arazzi proclaimed he had committed career suicide.  But you can be sure he’ll be getting a little extra Google love this week (or at least a few more Google towels and solar chargers), so you be the judge.

7. Product listing ads – Another Google format that’s had people buzzing at SIS is PLAs. Adchemy CEO Murthy Nukala shouldered the responsibility of encouraging retailers to simplify the PLA management process by leveraging structured data sets to create product targets.

8. Yahoo – it’s been a while since Yahoo was able to let its products do the talking at SIS  -- but when Leo Polanowski, VP account management, followed up a subtle plug for the Yahoo weather app by showing off a new native ad unit at dinner Monday night, he did not need to scream, just stream.

9. Tracking – When it comes to measurement, everyone at SIS was buzzing about the solution for cross-device tracking. Spoiler alert: We haven’t found it yet. Maybe it’s buried under the surf in Fernandina Beach.

10. Attribution – If this were “Diff’rent Strokes,” Big Data would be Willis and Attribution would be Arnold. The Big Data Big Brother presents a lot of opportunity but it’s Attribution Arnold who acts on it. What’chu talkin’ bout, Willis?

Like nearly almost every session at SIS, this column has gone over its allotted space. So I’ll cap it here and just share numbers 11-20 with an embedded tweet that should tell you everything you need to know. That’s a “rap” till December, folks!

11. Scale

12. Apps

13. Content

14. Amazon

15. Facebook

16. Branding

17. Local

18. Twitter   

19. Privacy   

20. Ad-E

 

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