When you're navigating through a High Risk/High Reward purchase, you can be forgiven for appearing schizophrenic in your decision-making process. We swing back and forth from logic to what can only be described as love, with the volatility of a pendulum. If ever we were fully engaged in a buying process, this is the time. It's all hands on deck for this purchase.

In my last column, I put out 10 crazy 2011 SEM predictions. Today, I'm going to play it safe with five no-brainer predictions adapted from the Kenshoo 2010 Online Retail Holiday Shopping Report that was released on Monday.

Google Webmaster Tools is full of powerful features, but if you're not familiar with GWT, you might be missing out. GWT essentially provides a convenient way for search marketers to communicate their preferences to Google. Here are my top seven reasons why search marketers should be using GWT:

Ever since my pal Peter Hirshberg got me hooked on Marshall McLuhan about five years ago, I've enjoyed learning as much as I can about the man who predicted the social, silly, indispensible Internet and the mechanisms, such as search, that would enable it. What's most remarkable about McLuhan is that he made his predictions beginning in the 1950s and never lived to see the fullest manifestation of what he predicted.

What's a word worth? If we use the old saying, it's worth approximately one one-thousandth of a picture. Yet, in the advertising world of today, a word may be the most valuable commodity we have at our disposal. In a world where the majority of dollars still go to the creation and associated costs of placing moving pictures in front of consumers, it is the words, put together in unique combinations by consumers, that give us the greatest level of insight into behavior.

After a brief detour last week (thanks for the many heartfelt messages for my Uncle Jim) I want to return to my exploration of the role of risk and reward in our online consumer behaviors. We looked at the low risk/low reward and low risk/high reward quadrants. Today, we'll continue by exploring the High Risk/Low Reward quadrant.

As I continue along in my sporadic series about brand content publishing in a real-time marketing environment, today I'm going to touch on the concept of assessing "conversational demand," in social and network marketing, as opposed to just "keyword demand" in search.

For Christmas I decided to treat my husband, also a search marketer, to a Logitech Revue with Google TV. Honestly, my curiosity as a search marketer was getting the best of me. What is Google TV like, and do I need to consider it in my search marketing plans?

Anyone living in the San Francisco Bay Area can tell you that we're in the midst of yet another Silicon Valley bubble. Unlike past bubbles, which focused on Internet commerce or enterprise efficiency or the rise of social networks, this current bubble has more to do with mobile apps, personal efficiency, and how best to leverage the crowd. In terms of 2011, it's the crowd stuff that I predict will be the dominant feature in terms of new innovation.