While Yahoo continues to slip in search share -- by 0.3% in January, according to recent numbers released by comScore -- the company refuses to stop fighting for survival. The seeming weapon of choice: innovation. Yahoo has begun testing new ways to put ads in front of consumers with two projects -- Your Ads, and Search Assist Ads.

Don't make assumptions on who searches for your products, or the best way to market them, according to Jeff Chun, Personalization Mall marketing manager. He suggests doing as much research as possible. Then cast a wide net with keywords and paid search ads. The results may surprise you.

Will the introduction of Buzz bring Google to another privacy roadblock? Some people aren't ready to trust an application that ties Facebook-like sharing features with email, especially when you consider that Google also added a geographic, location-based feature for the mobile phone.

For years marketers have tried to determine the correct budget to allocate for keywords by estimating revenue each would generate. Now a company that collects tons of data introduces a keyword tool Tuesday aimed at optimizing the amount of funds spent for search engine marketing.

If you had any doubt that Microsoft will continue to step up efforts to overtake Google in world search domination by building search traffic on Bing-powered sites, consider its latest expanded relationship with Facebook.

Although the Labor Department reported Friday that the economy shed 150,000 jobs in December -- compared to 85,000 previously reported -- many companies in Silicon Valley have begun to hire in force. Silicon Valley companies will reinforce their respective roles in innovation this decade, starting now, says Trip Chowdhry, managing director at equity research firm Global Equities Research.

It's a no-brainer that if marketers observe products or services that fail, either their own brand or a competitor's, they should call their ad agencies to reinforce their brand's position in the market. But if you don't know that a competitor's failure is also the perfect time to build search marketing keyword campaigns, I'm telling you now. In fact, it just might be the most strategic-related search campaign you can build.

Will Google continue its long-term partnership with AOL, powering search across all of the company's properties? During AOL's fourth-quarter 2009 earnings call Wednesday, the company's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Tim Armstrong provided insight into its decision-making process, but did not give a final answer.

If Google makes a move to revisit and possibly redesign Google Solution Marketplace to support third-party business applications through download or cloud computing, it shouldn't surprise anyone. A redesigned site should represent the next step in Google's strategy to promote its own enterprise apps and those of its business partners.

Real-time search moves into real-time marketing this year, where thousands of bits and bytes of collected data determine which ads to serve up, along with what Web site configurations to show each individual consumer, based on an IP address and information stored in the browser cookie. This trend also means that "Facebook becomes as important as Google," according to Adchemy Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Murthy Nukala.