Alternative perspectives spark creativity. Start thinking about better ways to use search engine marketing in ways other than simply directing people to the landing page, through the mobile app, and into retail store. What happens between the searches and why do they occur?

Facebook, a mobile-first company, has bought the shopping search engine TheFind, with plans to capitalize on the technology and close it down. Some members of the team will join the social site to integrate its technology. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Millennials continue to take the spotlight these days. In past years attending South by Southwest, I noticed it at this conference more than anywhere else. This year seems different. Walking through the halls of the convention center, I observed a wider range of ages. One thing is certain: the millennial generation continues to make an impact on business. In fact, millennials are having a profound impact on purchase decisions at the companies in which they work, and the B2B vendors who want to do business with them. Separate studies from Google and IBM show how marketers need to rethink their …

In the Consumer Finance industry, the estimated traffic loss for a typical brand is 13,208 clicks monthly. Clothing & Apparel is about 36,200 for a typical brand with 1 million monthly branded searches, per a report, which details potential losses in about 10 industries across AOL, Bing, Google, and Yahoo.

ChannelAdvisor released its February same-store sales (SSS) year-over-year analysis for Google search ads, comparison shopping engines, Amazon, and eBay. Search ads did fairly well, but comparison shopping engines plummeted.

Adobe will announce a slew of partnerships Tuesday at its annual summit in Salt Lake City. IBM Interactive, Accenture Interactive, Rosetta, Razorfish, BrightEdge, Gigya and SapientNitro are among those on the list that will help the Salt Lake City company build out a network of integrated services.

There's a clear chasm between the haves and the have-nots when it comes to mobile Web site performance. Best performers saw the highest-percentage increase of Web site traffic from mobile phones and tablets, up 15.5% and 13.4% year-over-year (YoY), respectively, per data released Monday.

I'm trying to decide whether to take my Sony laptop with the big screen or Microsoft Surface Pro to South by Southwest (SXSW). Last year I took the Surface Pro. I found the small device easy to transport from one location to the next, but I missed the large screen on my laptop. It's a huge dilemma. Do you sacrifice the large screen for a small gadget and more space in the travel bag? Phablet -- the device that looks like a phone, but has a screen size of 5.5 inches or bigger -- accounts for 12.8% of all mobile …

Sorry, it's true. Most brand marketers -- especially in search -- are not mentally ready for the Internet of things, and their company's infrastructure is not physically ready. That doesn't mean the strategy isn't high on the list of priorities for CMOs or senior marketing executives. Several studies suggest the topic is high on the list of priorities for 2015. Perhaps the disconnect fall in the "not now" thought process. Research from the Economist Intelligence Unit found that CMOs and senior marketing executives believe the IoT won't have the biggest effect on marketers until 2020.

RadPad on Wednesday will release a feature in its mobile app that allows renters to split the rent among roommates and pay electronically through the application. On the roadmap scheduled for release within the next two months, a pre-qualification tool giving landlords more information about prospective renters such as whether they smoke or have pets, as well as their name, phone number, annual income, and access to view their social profiles. The app also enables renters to search for properties by city, features and more.