• by Aaron Goldman , Op-Ed Contributor, December 14, 2011

The meme is officially meta! I’ve tracked the buzzwords at the past 11 Search Insider Summits -- but last week’s event took things to a whole new level as the buzz itself became the buzz.

Indeed, thanks to DataPop and Chacka Marketing, we had two, count ‘em, two buzzword bingo games with prizes that had attendees buzzing.

So how good a job did Frank “the tank” Lee and Janel “cheery” Laravie do at predicting the buzz? We’ll see as I reveal the top 10 buzzwords from #mpsis last week in Deer Valley. But first, for context, a recap of the most oft-dropped buzzwords at each of the previous 10 shows…

November 2006

1. Branding
2. Integration
3. Engagement
4. Assists
5. Mobile, Local (tie)
6. Long Tail
7. E-mail
8. Click Fraud
9. Truthiness
10. Relevance

May 2007

1. Transparency
2. User-centricity
3. Content
4. Analytics
5. Community, Connection (tie)
6. Integration
7. Discovery, Personalization (tie)
8. Social, Mobile, Video (tie)
9. Funnel
10. Intent -
 
December 2007
 
1. Consumers
2. Universal
3. Big Agencies
4. Query
5. Facebook
6. Analytics
7. Recession
8. Mobile
9. Widgets
10. Transparency
 
May 2008 - Part 1 and Part 2
 
1. Google
2. Clicks
3. Social, Facebook (tie)
4. Integration
5. Conversation
6. Branding
7. Data, Analytics (tie)
8. Strategy
9. Twitter
10. Mobile, Local (tie)
 
December 2008
 
1. Google
2. Economy, Recession (tie)
3. Data, Analytics, Attribution (tie)
4. iPhone, Mobile (tie)
5. Microsoft
6. Relationship, Transparency (tie)
7. Strategy, Tactics (tie)
8. Bid Management, Quality Score (tie)
9. Omniture
10. Social
 
May 2009
 
1. Twitter
2. Attribution
3. Exchanges
4. Last-Click
5. Bless You, Gesundheit (tie)
6. Economy, Recession (tie)
7. Free, SEO (tie)
8. Affiliates
9. Social, Mobile (tie)
10. Osprey
 
December 2009
 
1. Google
2. Crap, Suck, Puke (tie)
3. Attribution
4. Social
5. Agencies
6. SEO
7. Twitter
8. Metrics
9. Bing
10. Yahoo, AOL (tie)
 
April 2010
 
1. Intent, Targeting (tie)
2. Apple, iPad, iPhone, iAds (tie)
3. Mobile
4. Audience
5. Apps
6. Facebook, Social Media (tie)
7. Content
8. Attribution
9. Bark!
10. Digital Natives, Gen Next (tie)
 
December 2010
 
1. Google
2. Facebook
3. Like
4. Data
5. Bing
6. Mobile
7. Attribution
7. Display, Yahoo (tie)
9. Groupon
10. Funicular
 
May 2011
 
1. Marketing
2. Google
3. Facebook
4. Twitter
5. Brand, Branding (tie)
6. Minority Report -
7. Bing, Yahoo (tie)
8. Love
9. SEO Rapper
10. Search

December 2011

1. Google - Topping the list for five of the past 11 shows, Google once again showed why it has become the verb for search. The Big G was everywhere in Deer Valley (well, except the search syndication panel), and Google reps were more forthcoming than usual, sharing its vision for indoor maps and disclosing that +1s influence organic results.

2. Yahoo, Bing (tie) - Not to be outdone, the Search Alliance made a strong showing at SIS. Mr. Clippy even came out of retirement for a brief appearance on my panel. It seems that most attendees are quite active on adCenter, which makes sense, given that SIS usually draws the bigger spenders from the brand and agency community. More importantly, it seems that both Yahoo and Bing are keen on continuing to innovate in search --which should bode well for consumers and advertisers alike. 

3. Mobile - It didn’t take a keynote from Michael Slinger, Director of Mobile Advertising at Google, to convince the crowd at SIS that mobile was important. Although the stats he shared certainly didn’t hurt:

• 51% increase in purchase for retailers with a mobile site
• Black Friday sales influenced by mobile up to 10% from 3% last year
• 1 in 7 queries for financial services come from mobile devices

Slinger also hyped Google’s new GoMo initiative and Bid by Distance beta.

4. Apps - Slinger shared some case studies featuring marketers who built condensed mobile sites with “only two to three buttons” to focus on the key tasks people want to accomplish on their device. That got the devil’s advocate in me thinking, “Why do we even need mobile sites at all? Why not just build an app that allows people to handle the core tasks and remain persistent on the device for future use?” I socialized this idea with a number of folks in Deer Valley, but the consensus seems to be that mobile sites are still needed -- at least, until a better app search engine appears, as people will not want hundreds (make that millions!) of apps on their device for each brand or retailer they want to interact with.

5. Siri - Speaking of a better app search engine (and speaking of “speaking,” for that matter!) Siri was all the buzz at SIS. Beyond being the “perfect” way for people to interact with search engines, Siri has the potential to change the way people interact with any and all information and their devices themselves. The implications for marketing are tremendous, especially if Siri goes back to the pre-Apple model of enabling users to complete transactions through the app. 

6. Social, Facebook (tie) - As Google has become interchangeable with search, Facebook has become the verb social. And like Google, Facebook captures the lion’s share of the budget for its market, according to Neil Doshi of Citi. Doshi went on to predict that the same way Google was the main beneficiary of the last economic recovery, Facebook is poised to grab the next one. Why? Unlike Google, people spend time on Facebook. Lots of it. Accordingly, Facebook accounts for more ad impressions than Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL combined.

7. KITT, USS Enterprise, Watson (tie) - Who knew “Knight Rider,” “Star Trek,” and “Jeopardy” were leaders in search engine innovation? Alan Osetek, that’s who. On my panel fleshing out the perfect search engine, Alan referenced these technological marvels as examples of how he (and his mom!) would like to interact with search engines.

8. Global - When he was done gushing over Facebook, Doshi of Citi discussed the impact of global economic markets on search marketing. The global perspective permeated a number of other sessions as well as the tweet-board.

9. Value - There was lots of discussion about the value of search and importance of focusing on “orders of magnitude,” aka activity that actually moves the needle on business results, rather than busy-work that makes an incremental difference down the long tail. Russ Mann, CEO of Covario, was highly quotable on the topic, with such gems as “We have too much right-of-decimal thinking going on,” and “I’d rather be directionally correct than precisely wrong.”

10. Bourye - it’s not just fun to drink, it’s fun to say. Try it. Boo·ri. Just remember, you break it, you  bought it!