Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman made a prediction at the company's global partner summit this week that puts Google's Android operating system in line to become a closed OS because of its relationship with Motorola. Bill Slawski points to 97 HP patents recently assigned to Google, one originally co-invented by Altavista's search pioneer Louis Monier.

HTTPS has become the default for all users in an effort to keep content encrypted when being sent over unsecured Internet connections, such as public Wi-Fi networks. The company announced the change earlier this week. For those who don't want it on, there are directions on how to turn it off in your account settings.

With the launch of Google's Screenwise research, Kevin Lee ponders whether the search giant will launch its own research panel business. Perhaps not for profit, but to support decisions the company makes when launching campaigns and products. Lee presents numerious scenarios and describes Bing's program Rewards that the company could also use as a research panel. The loyalty program produces tons of data -- a byproduct of the program that Microsoft would be crazy not to use, Lee writes.

Google's sweet tooth could have it releasing another Android update this summer called Jelly Bean that some Taiwan-based supply chain makers say would compete with Microsoft's forthcoming Windows 8 operating system. Reports suggest that the Android 5.0 Jelly Bean will attempt to more closely integrate the netbook OS, as Ice Cream Sandwich did with the smartphone and tablet systems.

Customer segements, also known as personas, are often based on demographic and behavioral data that help define customer wants and needs. But there's another variation: the role-based persona. Some of the unique benefits of this type of persona help marketers anticipate site visitors' goals. Here are some tips that explain the process of building this segment, such as reviewing analysis, surveying visitors, and putting together user flows to determine how specific visitors might move through the site.

The YP local mobile search engine seems to have capitalized on finding consumers the best price for gas in an economy that, at least in southern California, has no issues with pushing up the price north of $4 per gallon. The app enables consumers to search through more than 16 million local listings by typing or browsing categories, including gas prices, restaurants, bars, hotels, mechanics, dentists, and even AT&T Wi-Fi Hotspots. A shortcut option allows users to customize information displayed on the home screen, gaining easy access to weather, gas prices, and more.

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Search engine optimization within enterprise organizations will become more important this year as companies realize the power behind optimizing for social signals in search engine results. But there is other content that marketers should consider. For instance, Google has increased its focus on rich snippets such as author information. Adam Audette lists four top enterprise SEO trends that marketers should know and watch in 2012.

Rand Fishkin shows us that the numbers and the queries in Google's AdWords data may not always match what is actually happening on Google's search engine. He warns against running discovery-focused searches in AdWords., which may not show all the high-volume keyword phrases connected to a word and phrase. Fishkin provides a few ways to address the challenge.

About 95% of marketers have optimized Web sites and landing pages to serve up results near the top of the search page, but the use of paid-search ads is much less pervasive, according to a new study released by B2B. In fact, only 35% of respondents have had nothing to do with paid-search ads. Christopher Hosford takes us through the numbers released in the study and covers topics such as marketers' focus on lead generation and branding as one of the main goals of search marketing.