A few columns back, when I said Google's Glass might not be ready for mass adoption, fellow Search Insider Rob Garner gave me this advice:"Don't knock it until you try it." So, when a fellow presenter at a conference I was at last week brought along his Glass and offered me a chance to try them (Or "it"? Does anyone else find Google's messing around with plural forms confusing and irritating?), I took him up on it. To say I jumped at it may be overstating the case - let's just say I enthusiastically ambled to it.

On Sunday, I ran my first (and last) marathon. Here are some of the key lessons I learned, and how they can be applied to search engine marketing:

This past week I was fortunate to be able to participate on a panel discussion titled "Moving Beyond Search & Retargeting: What's Missing from Your Performance Strategy?" The format of the panel was simple: an hour devoted to panelist presentations, followed by 15 minutes of Q&A time. And after I overcame my initial nervousness, I came away with a clear view of what challenges are before us in the near term and what many of us now struggle with daily.

Humans are not good data crunchers. In fact, we pretty much suck at it. There are variations to this rule, of course. We all fall somewhere on a bell curve when it comes to our sheer rational processing power. But, in general, we would all fall to the far left of even an underpowered laptop. Herbert Simon recognized this more than a half century ago, when he coined the term "bounded rationality." In a nutshell, we can only process so much information before we become overloaded, when we fall back on much more human approaches, typically known as emotion and …

In late September, Google released research on the role of click-to-call in the path to purchase. Surveying 3,000 consumers who recently made purchases from their smartphones, the study found that 70% of them called businesses directly after making a search. Calls were identified as the most important way to contact businesses for those consumers who were "ready to buy." Categories included in the study were Travel, Auto, Local Services, Finances, Retail, Restaurant and Technology. But is anybody answering the phone? I'll share some data that may surprise you.

Italy's Agriturismo program has been a success by any measure you might want to use. Since the initial legislation was passed in 1985, thousands of small farms through Italy, teetering on the edge of extinction, have been thrown a financial lifeline by letting operators supplement their income welcoming tourists to "stay on the farm." The program's success, however, has superheated the competition for tourism among the operators. Here, online ratings are the currency of choice. A top spot in an online directory is the difference between life and death for these businesses.And the smartest of the operators have taken this …

Over the last 14 years, I've worked with many companies for whom Christmas was vital for annual revenue goals, and I've been shocked time and time again at how many companies take an almost cavalier attitude toward holiday marketing planning. So with this in mind, I give you my five top tips for making sure this Christmas season is merry for both your customers and your marketing team.

It's hard to believe, but the holiday shopping season is quickly approaching. As search marketers, the time for effective planning to stay ahead of the fray is now. One growing and sometimes overlooked idea to consider: using product-listing ads, or PLAs. These are cost-per-click (CPC) ads that online merchants or retailers buy, with Google being first to adopt (surprise, surprise) this approach. We know that Bing is also taking a hard look at PLAs, engaged in what amounts to a closed beta, with select retailers using PLAs on Bing.

I had hoped that I wouldn't have to write another column on this topic, but Monday's big news is forcing my hand. Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land first broke the news that Google is now directing all users to its encrypted search engine. Now, all Google-referred organic traffic will report search queries as "not provided," making the process of search engine optimization (SEO) decidedly more difficult.

A friend's friend runs an acting studio focused on the Meisner technique. The morning after James Gandolfini's death, the actor friend shared an article on Facebook where Gandolfini discussed his study of the Meisner technique. Rather than following the style of Sanford Meisner, screaming "Hate this!" at the computer screen while punching it, my pal unfriended that narcissist.