I've been observing an interesting trend in our industry over the past two years: paid search marketers, abandoning their posts to conquer the Web's next advertising frontier -- Facebook Ads. Just this past summer at SMX Advanced in Seattle, I was reminded of this changing climate among PPC marketers.

Once, just once, I'd love to hear an announcement come over the PA system in some public venue: "Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. Is there a search marketer in the house?"

I was reading a post by my good friend Mark Jackson today about the balance of search marketing as being a combination of both art and science. I couldn't agree more, and have had this discussion many times over the years in both this column and with many in the industry. One of the comments in the article also reminded me of a topic I have spoken a lot about over the last 10 years, and that is about including the "search experience" as part of the "user experience."

You probably already know this: YouTube is now the second largest search engine, having displaced Yahoo Search earlier this year. So, that's big. And now that YouTube has a spiffy new interface, it's a good time to think about (or rethink) your video content and promotion strategies.

Internet searches have clearly broken free of the tethers to desktop or laptop, home or office. Smartphone ubiquity and the increasing popularity of tablets for casual computing have caused all of us to have multiple primary devices to access information on the Web. The implications for marketers -- and search marketers specifically -- are huge. It is not just where users are doing the search that has changed, but how users do that searching. Marketers need to be prepared for the rise in mobile adoption and the shift in behaviors that come with it. And if they act quickly, search …

Every quarter, I fill out an online survey about digital marketing trends. One question always shows up: "Are you looking at social as a replacement for search in your online marketing strategy?" I always answer no, and to myself, comment that it's a stupid question asked by someone who obviously doesn't know much about online marketing. But now I wonder -- is it really such a stupid question? Aren't many experienced marketers asking themselves exactly the same question?

I just finished Walter Isaacson's epic Steve Jobs biography. Beyond being a captivating (and surprisingly quick, considering its 571 pages) read about the life and times of one of the most influential and controversial people in technology, the book imparts some important lessons for search marketers.

Not long after Google enabled Google+ Pages for Business earlier this month, it also enabled a new Google AdWords ad extension type: social extensions. Like other types of ad extensions, social extensions provide a way for marketers to add additional information to their ads, making them larger and more visible, helping an individual one to stand out in a sea of ads on the page. Social extensions are free and fairly simple to add to your advertisements.

Just in time for the holiday shopping season, Google has been quietly adding new ad placements in some of its most popular search destinations throughout the fall: maps. Spend time walking around New York's Fifth Avenue, Chicago's Magnificent Mile or San Francisco's Union Square and it's easy to see the growing dependence on Google maps, especially as people stop abruptly in front of you to consider the search results on their smartphones.

I've been thinking a lot about platforms lately -- and it seems as though the Web's largest technology firms have been thinking a lot about them too.Platforms are brand ecosystems: hardware that works best with complementary pieces from the same manufacturer; distributed software that inter-operate with one another, but not across competing platforms. Platforms represent a very popular, emerging positioning strategy that sits neatly at the intersection of branding and demand generation. Successful platforms are able to drive more revenue and instill greater brand affinity. And when a consumer first embraces a platform, it becomes much easier for that person …