Google made a move this week to help small businesses get found on its search engine. It began rolling out Place Search to combine local and organic listings on Google.com when searchers look for information around location. It aggregates results based on places, so searchers can compare information, but there are a few things SEO experts will want take notice of when optimizing Web sites for local search.

The search, advertising and marketing industries face a quandary. There's no doubt Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz remains in the hot seat as she attempts to turnaround a faltering company. While analysts have different views, a study HiveFire will release next week may shed insight into why Bartz strategy could pay off.

There are people who want badly to finance AOL CEO Tim Armstrong to buy Yahoo, Needham & Co. Analyst Laura Martin told OMMA Publish Entertainment conference attendees in Santa Monica on Tuesday. Leverage, however, is really difficult. Companies can't get more than five times their value.

While I don't find myself searching more or less or any different as a result of Google Instant, a study by Marin software, a paid search platform company, suggests something different.

Today, we Google things on our computers and on mobile phones, but in the future you might Google something in your head through an implant.

WebVisible released interesting statistics Thursday in its State of the Small Online Advertising report that suggests small businesses are ready to experiment with new media and have begun to better understand search marketing. The average small business search advertiser spent $2,373 in Q3 2010, up 6.4%, sequentially, and 43% compared with the year-ago quarter.

Some real-time search engines have been throwing in the towel or trying to find a different business model that doesn't compete with Google, Bing, Yahoo and Twitter. Last week real-time search startup OneRiot revealed it would shutter its search portal. Thursday, the company reported transitioning search partners to real-time engine Topsy, which makes the feeds available to Web sites through an API.

Will the Yahoo and Microsoft search alliance do the Sunnyvale, Calif., company more harm than good, or more good than harm in the long run? The alliance seems to have reignited an identity crisis. I thought the company had extinguished the fire, but earnings clearly show that's not the case.

Steve Jobs showed up during a routine earnings call Monday to gloat about the company's first $20.3 billion quarter. Apple's CEO also trashed Google's Android mobile operating system and defended the company from criticism related to the Apple platform running on a closed proprietary system as being a disadvantage when compared to open-source systems like Google's Android.

Online advertising is going through a Frankenstein phase. A bold statement, yes, but let me explain how the modern Prometheus will become the social network. I'll preface the following by saying that by no means do I view online advertising as being destructive. But it will become more disruptive. It will continue to create questions about privacy. And, it will spark a variety of new industries supporting online advertising.