Before worldwide mobile advertising revenue, including search, can reach Gartner's estimated $24.5 billion in 2016 -- up from $11.4 billion in 2013 -- the industry needs to revamp cost structures, ecommerce features, and privacy concerns that put a stop to apps collecting data from contact lists and mobile commerce transactions.

Google released three new AdWords measurement reporting tools for video Wednesday, which makes me wonder how soon until the engine brings video to text and product listing ads (PLAs).

As search becomes more personal, marketers will see an increase of technology supporting social analyses. Rio SEO launched a suite of social media marketing products Tuesday with technology from Seattle-based Meteor Solutions, which parent company Covario acquired in November 2012.

Google held a hackathon for Google TV and YouTube last weekend in Los Angeles to find innovative developers. The company has stepped up a search for new hires, mentioning multiple times during the event that it's looking for qualified coders with good ideas. Job seekers might find it difficult to secure the perfect job, but execs admit that finding candidates with ambition, education and skills is still trickier than some might think.

In the future, you become the query, according to Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, speaking with Bloomberg at Davos about the future of search technology. Mayer finally spoke up, providing insight into her plans for Yahoo.

Public company earnings reports can provide a wealth of information for search marketers, from device activations to investments in research and development. This may help to refine search desktop and mobile campaigns. Here are a few bytes.

One of every 2.5 visits from organic search queries to B2B sites does not provide a referring keyword, according to a study released Wednesday. About 41% of the keywords previously tracked are no longer available through analytics systems due to SSL search. Google identifies those as "not provided" values assigned to referring keywords.

Fragmentation continues to complicate search marketing campaigns as an onslaught of new mobile gadgets makes audience segmentation and bidding for specific operating systems and device types more important. adMarketplace changed that Tuesday with the release of a feature that allows search marketers to segment paid-search bids.

Labor constraints, or lack of qualified search marketers who can analyze data, could derail search engine marketing campaigns both for optimization and paid search. Findings reveal that 56% of companies participating in the survey plan to hire new employees to handle data collection or analysis, with the most common position being a data analyst or strategist.

Reputation plays a major role in how consumers choose to interact with brands and share their opinion on products and services. It will become more important as Facebook Graph Search changes consumer behavior in social media. So what's a brand reputation worth? General Sentiment tries to answer that question each quarter in a report that measures a brand's value based on news mentions and social media discussions. Here are the top five for Q4 2012.