• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, December 8, 2011

A feisty audience at the Search Insider Summit. During the panel I just moderated on intent- and interest-based search  marketing, Rimm Kaufman Group co-founder and CEO George Michie just disputed the very existence of the much-cited purchase intent funnel, with its different stages of latent intent, research, intent to buy, and so on. According to Michie, the data he has seen suggests that the purchase intent funnel is "a nice story that really doesn't happen very often." Shaping up to be an interesting and disputatious SIS.