What if Apple opened Ping, its social network for music, to the social graph and allowed public information of its members to index through Twitter posts in search results on Google, Bing and Yahoo? The more than 1 million reported members who registered for Ping since the launch in September would become part of marketing efforts for both artists and labels, neither of which would spend one dime to promote the service or songs on the site.

Cutting time and cost will increasingly become important to online marketing and advertising as the industry matures, and companies will begin to see many more tools emerge aimed at automating processes. Fred Rassam, business development manager at business incubator The Triana Group, brought one such longtail generating keyword tool to my attention. Triana helps European companies grow in the U.S.

Dear Mr. Diller: You gave up too easily by throwing your hands in the air and surrendering the $1.85 billion acquisition investment in Ask.com after concluding Google just can't be beat. Thank goodness we don't have more media moguls like you running companies and laying off 130 respected engineers. If we did there would be no SAP, because they would have conceded to Oracle or Microsoft. There would be no Research In Motion, because they would have conceded to Apple or Google. And, there would be no AOL, because the portal would have conceded to Yahoo.

Semantics play a major role when it comes to companies connecting with site visitors. Baynote recently released a suite of online tools aimed at helping ecommerce marketers connect with consumers through adaptive landing pages and search insights that consider semantics. The tools aim to increase the number of visitors to a site based on connecting through these words that searchers might not have actually used. I'll explain.

Google made a move last week to block sites like Facebook from using its contact API when they refuse to provide reciprocal data. Some call the gesture symbolic, but the social graph that underpins the Web will become the gold to mine, not only for search engines but sites across the Internet. Now Google accuses Facebook of "siphoning" off its contact lists. So, unless the information flows both ways, the Mountain View, Calif., company says it will no longer allow services to automatically import its users' email contact data for their own purpose, though at one time it did.

Google may have invented the paid search format, but in 2010 that format continues to evolve. At Digg, paid search ads continue to become contextually and community driven. The ability to add a social twist to pay per click (PPC) ads puts a a new spin on two proven search advertising models. Imagine paid search ads began appearing in the line listing of Google's organic search engine results.

In a move straight out of a scientific espionage plot to hack into the world's resources through the underbelly of the Internet, hackers could use the search engineShodan to locate Internet-connected devices and steal information. The site can locate and identify vulnerabilities in system control equipment at gasoline refineries, power plants and other industrial facilities. And though I'm not a security expert, I wonder if consumer connected devices and advertising will someone get involved.

When it came time for Sergey Brin and Larry Page to consider a CEO to run Google, the duo initially wanted to offer Steve Jobs the position. That's according to the Bloomberg video profile "Bloomberg Game Changers: Sergey Brin & Larry Page."

Familiarity makes people feel comfortable -- whether using a software program or attending an event with friends. A familiar user interface is how hardware and software companies like Microsoft and Apple built a loyal customer base.

Blekko launched a public beta on Monday, but the real question becomes can it innovate past other startups to survive? The search engine, based on slashtags, offers built-in analytics and search engine optimization features. No one suggests the engine will reach the fame or come close to owning Google's more than 70% U.S. search share, but can it offer marketers something different and useful to improve campaigns?