Yesterday at the Search Insider Summit in Park City, I was precariously perched out on a limb. I kicked off the summit by defending my position that big agencies won't "get" search. Given that the Summit attracts a fair number of attendees from the world of big agencies, I'm wondering if the organizers of the show (thanks, Nick... thanks, Ken) were setting me up for an unfortunate ski jump accident.

Search engine marketing is a process of continual refinement -- try, measure, revise, repeat. In North America, this process has been moving steadily from art to science. But how do we adapt this process when your company wants to open the door to international searches? At 100,000 feet, it looks similar -- but look closely and you'll see there are critical differences.

With another Search Engine Strategies in the books and the biannual Search Insider Summit going down in Park City this week, I've got my mind on search shows -- and search shows on my mind. More specifically, I've been thinking about just how much people actually learn at these conferences.

rom personalized search to the social graph, the relentless trend of search is toward understanding the people who are at its core. While focusing on people might seem an obvious direction, this is a massive shift in tactics from the early days of search. Remember? It was a major feat for a search engine to even index a site, let alone worry about matching it to the hopes and dreams of the person running the query.

The SEM industry is full of very bright people, but I really have to question the wisdom of whoever made the wacky decision to hold December's Search Engine Strategies conference in Chicago. Because I just arrived back in New York after a series of nightmarish delays and travel hassles, you'll forgive me for wondering whether the whole idea behind SES Chicago is to give the industry a hellish endurance test. After all, who but the few, the proud, and the totally search-obsessed would be willing to run the gamut of massively delayed flights, subzero Chicago winds, and crushing traffic jams …

Keyword matching is important for a site's SEO success. It is the crux and core of all other efforts to follow. Once you have established which key phrases are critical for your business, make sense for that page, and provide you the best opportunity for positioning (think search volume and competition here) then it's time to write.

It's time for the SEMPO state of the market survey. One of the interesting things about the survey is that it can act as an early warning system for emerging trends. Among the biggest variances last year was the clear signal that many marketers would ideally like to move their search marketing management in-house. Over the course of the year, we've certainly seen this start to happen, and my suspicion is that we'll continue to see this trend play out in 2008 and beyond.

Marissa Mayer's Google Zeitgeist 2007 / Trends announcement yesterday makes a strong case that kids have already inherited the Web. Five social media portals and networks made the list of the top ten fastest-rising search terms. But the fastest-rising social media network isn't Facebook, YouTube, or MySpace. It's a social networking site for beanie-baby-like plush toys, and their respective preschool-to-preteen owners, called Webkinz (it's at no. 2, just behind "iPhone").

One of the great product launches of the late 20th century and one of the greatest product failures of all time was New Coke. Launched as a counter to the rise in popularity of the Pepsi Challenge, the new formula of Coke was designed to be a sweeter version of the long-standing category leader. I was reminded of this event when I heard a presentation from each of the Big 3 engines...

Maybe it's just a form of seasonal madness, but this past week has been one of the craziest in the annals of Internet marketing. If you closed your eyes for more than 15 seconds, you likely missed out on a new trend or a new catastrophe. Let's go to the videotape....