Edward Snowden will speak via teleconference at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin Monday on the need by the tech industry to protect its data and customers from mass surveillance. Ed Krayewsk reports that the Senate Intelligence Committee, which oversees the CIA, is investigating the agency for spying on the committee and its members. You can watch the live free stream of the session courtesy of the Texas Tribune.

Gathering information on competitors' mentions can improve on your brands' Web performance. Nikhil Jain runs down a list of tools to help marketers get started. They include InfiniGraph, Google Keyword Planner, and Instapaper. Jain lists about 25 tools to help marketers collect all sorts of open data to analyze to improve search and social campaigns.

I'm not sure "stealing" is the correct word choice, but Shankar Ganesh steps through eight ideas to improve customer service. Common sense says marketers should take time and listen to consumers to get a better understanding of their needs. Answer questions on video. When Warby Parker discovered the difficulty in trying to answer questions in 140 characters on Twitter, the company decided to leverage video. Make the videos fun. It gives the company a human touch.

The BostonGlobe.com has set up a metered subscription model that will allow occasional readers to search and sample some content for free, as GateHouse Media puts up paywalls on some of its local sites. The Boston Globe's shift to the metered model is part of an effort to experiment, test, and analyze how its readers engage with its digital content.

About half the marketers participating in a study said they use tablets to show customers how their product works. B2B marketers were most likely to report successfully using tablets in sales to either walk through customer presentations or demo solutions to customers, per eMarketer, citing a study from Corporate Visions and SAVO. More than six in 10 respondents said they could perform these activities on a tablet.

Marketers with experience in using negative keywords might want to skip this one unless they're looking for a refresher on basic tips. Google's and Microsoft's paid-search ad-serving platforms both have it -- a negative keyword feature. It prevents ads from serving up to people who are searching or visiting Web sites, looking for products or services your company doesn't sell or offer. It also aims to reduce costs by excluding bidding on keywords that don't produce a return on ad spend. Dan Shewan takes us through the basics, including how to produce a negative keyword list and how to use …

Google Authorship connects the piece of content to an established author. Placing the authorship code connecting the content to your Google+ profile changes the way blogs, article, and other content appears in Google search engine results. Shane Jones provides an example. The Authorship provides one way Web site owners prove the quality of their content, per Jones. It requires the authors to use rich snippet code called the rel=author tag. Jones also explains AuthorRank and how Authorship works.

Some 30% of a Web site's traffic comes from something other than a traditional desktop and laptop devices, and up to 7% of total online revenue comes from comparison shopping engines, per a study that analyzes the state of ecommerce in 2013. The ShopVisible benchmark report cites a 20% increase in mobile traffic during the 2013 holiday season.

It's important to understand how consumers use ecommerce shopping carts. While some might use them to make a purchase, others use them as a holding tank for items they could eventually buy. eMarketer has found an upside to shopping cart abandonment in MarketLive data. A new report from eMarketer suggests the measurement combined with other metrics and shopper intent in buying cycles can provide details on how to gain better performance and improve conversions.

Dentsu plans to acquire German-based search agency Explido GmbH & Co. Kg. The company has offices in Augsburg, Hamburg and Frankfurt. It provides services in search and affiliate marketing, display advertising, Web development, conversion optimization, and social media.