We should have taken it as a sign of things to come. The panel I was moderating at OMMA Global, with the highly provocative title "The Evolving Role of the Search Marketer," was in a tiny room that seemed to be an afterthought of whoever planned the meeting space layout in the Marriott Marquis in New York. You actually had to walk through another, much larger room and go through a door tucked in the back corner. If one of the show organizers hadn't been personally guiding me, I might never have found it.

Facebook had a big week last week -- potentially the biggest of its seven year existence. At the F8 Developer Conference on Thursday, a completely overhauled layout and user experience were unveiled. Developers were also introduced to a slew of new features that will enable deeper user engagement and more meaningful social experiences. As you might imagine, these announcements were met with mixed reviews.

As an SEO consultant, I have worked with a variety of content management systems (CMS) over the years, and when it comes to SEO, some provide better options than others for optimization. Here are my five key features to look for when choosing an SEO-friendly CMS.

Lou Kerner of Wedbush Securities, who covers the social Web space, is fond of referring to Facebook as the second Internet. He calls it this, of course, because so much of what one can do on the open Web one can also do on Facebook, including email, chat, search, e-commerce and dozens of other activities. I think there are at least a couple of parallel "Internets" emerging: one, as Lou contends, controlled by Facebook, and the other by Apple. It could also be argued that the real, original Internet is increasingly controlled by Google.

Word came through the wire last week that Bing will be introducing a new tweak to its results ranking algorithm called "adaptive search." Over the past two years (give or take) Google and Bing have been making tweaks to their ranking codes so that search engine results page listings would become more personalized to the individual end users. The idea behind personalized search was to use search history to provide a more intuitive page of results for each individual user's intent.

Is a Groupon model the next big thing for B2B? Apparently not. Or, at least, not now, based on an early trial by a Chicago-based consulting firm, Ajillitee. The company used Groupon to offer $25,000 worth of consulting services at half price. It was the biggest deal Groupon had ever offered. Hey, keeping $12,500 in your pocket is nothing to sneeze at. And, since buying consulting services is not exactly the same as snagging a half-off lunch coupon, the offer stayed open for three weeks, giving all potential takers plenty of time to act. But, at the end of the …

Google's been on an acquisition spree lately, buying 10 companies since June. Meanwhile, Google's done a fall spring-clean, shutting down 10 products and features. The latest additions to the Google graveyard give us some insight into areas Google is NOT focused on, such as land (that's the opposite of cloud, right?) and man (Aardvark and Image Labeler proved no match for the machine). So what's Google's next move? I think it will be something in the TV space.

Last week I was fortunate to speak at SMX East in New York, and I attended the majority of sessions in the Technical SEO track as well.Normally, I live-blog these sessions, but they were so packed with good, detailed information, I had to hold off and cover the sessions when I had more time to digest all of the data! So here are my key takeaways from those sessions.

News out of Twitter last week about its evolving advertising platform, and follow-up speculation by a well-informed John Battelle about Twitter's plans, indicate one thing: Twitter's advertising platform is a next frontier for search marketing professionals.

My friend and colleague Scott Gillum recently wrote a piece arguing that social warrants experimentation, but until more is known about its impact on the bottom line, marketers should be sure the basics are covered. Gillum's piece and my recent MediaPost column, "Social Is the New Search," have been positioned as a point-counterpoint of sorts. I'm on record saying that the future of search appears destined for decentralization into social venues; Gillum advocates that organizations place social opportunities on a shelf until the search house is in order. Who's right? Or is it just a matter of perspective?