Lisa Barone tells us about augmented reality, a technology that merges a real-world environment with computer generated imagery. Think "digital layer on top of the real world," she writes. (That's an accurate description, actually.) Barone points to mobile browsers that layer the data and allow people to interact with the elements on a mobile phone. Her rough blogging is difficult to get through, but the concepts are clear and the information enlightening. Brands using augmented reality for marketing include Esquire, Star Trek, General Electronic, and USPS.

Optimizing all the assets should become a priority for Web site owners. So if you couldn't make it to SES New York, here's a lengthy synopsis of the Beyond the Crawlers Track, Digital Asset Optimization breakout session from Lauren Litwinka. She explains the panel covered the opportunities and the fears of universal search and digital assets, reminding attendees that everything searched on can be optimized. Some of the advice from one panelist includes taking an inventory of digital assets, sorting it according to commercial, editorial and entertainment value, and building in testing to analyze user behavior and technical limits.

Kate Mats (short for Matsudaira) steps through ways to use online video, from creating the strategy to optimizing the videos. In the detailed post, Mats suggests why you might want to host it or just post it on a site already built, such as YouTube, MetaCafe or DailyMotion. Some advantages to posting on big video sharing sites include no bandwidth costs and lots of traffic. She also explains the reasons why you should pay close attention to the metadata.

Analytics gurus Avinash Kaushik and Nick Mihailovski answer Google Analytics questions in a video. The post links to the list of questions asked, as well as provides a list of questions answered. For example: Why do searches from Google Image Search appear as referrals in Google Analytics?

Google Tuesday won a legal battle in Europe against a luxury goods manufacturer. The European Court of Justice ruled that allowing third parties to buy brand names as key advertising words, which link to their online stores, did not violate luxury goods trademarks. Still, as Catherine Boyle and Michael Herman explain, the search engine could still be sued in a French court.

In a Dear Nestle letter, Josh Millrod tells the consumer products goods company how to fix its online problems for as little as $7.49. He points to Nestle's being publicly called out by Greenpeace for contributing to rainforest deforestation. Rather than bullying YouTube to take down that video, Nestle should have launched the Web site Nestlecares.com on Godaddy for a pittance, or a profile on Twitter for free, says Millrod.

Marcus Taylor runs down the top 10 most important steps to optimize videos for search. For one, he explains it's important not to limit SEO video optimization to YouTube. Instead, host videos on multiple sites, making sure to slightly vary title tags to make it easier for search engines to find and index each piece of content.

Why is Google hiring bond traders? For its new bond trading platform, silly! According to The Business Insider, Google has long considered using its access to massive amounts of data to build a hedge fund. Meanwhile, a trader who interviewed for one of the positions tells the blog that the effort is a way for Google to make use of its immense cash reserves. At present, openings include traders of foreign government bonds, portfolio analysts for Google's U.S. government bond portfolio, and a portfolio analyst for agency mortgage-backed securities.

David Harry has run a few surveys to find out what's on the minds of SEO geeks. Questions include where SEOs are weakest, where search is headed, and if 2010 is living up to the hype. Some of the answers might surprise you. While Harry provides the results, he leaves the takeaways to readers

Ann Smarty tells us about three WordPress plug-ins that make guest posts on blogs easier. The plug-ins offer easy notification when contributors submit a post, create a new widget for the dashboard that posts pending reviews, and allow the addition of quick private notes to run with the posts.