Gord Hotchkiss and Mike Margolin squared off in this morning's keynote on the topic of big agencies "getting" search...

Gord Hotchkiss says no. He argues that big agencies throw pennies at search compared to their spends in traditional media -- and its because they have way too much invested in those media plans to change the status quo.

After declaring himself nearly blind (sorry, only those in the room will get that one) Gord got the buzz-o-meter off to a furious start in his Summit Intro. In a span of 10 minutes, Gord rattled off the key trends in search from this past year and what to look for in the coming year. In no particular order, here are the early-front runners for top SIS buzzwords.

A recent Enquiro webinar featured execs from Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask, and they all said that while search personalization shows a lot of promise -- don't expect it to impact the overall user experience that much in 2008.

Search is changing. Search is growing up. Its not just a direct response tool, its branding, its advertising, it's marketing overall.

Jeremy Crane from Compete kicked things off with a virtual tour of Park City in the context of segmentation. He talked about how each of the big 4 engines stack up in terms of segmentation share and used sample segments of the Park City variety -- skiers, jewelry shoppers, and general affluent consumers. Google indexed best against skiers and affluent consumers. MSN and Yahoo were tops for Jewelry shoppers. Interesting to think about slicing market share data by segments as opposed to the general share stats you always see in the press (with Google continuing to grow its massive …

Well, folks, another SIS is upon us. This time around, we've abandoned the beach resorts for a ski resort. While the weather may be different, the mood is just the same. Everyone seems amped and ready for a few days of snow and search (snearch??) The summit kicks off shortly with a reception, then we dive in tomorrow morning with a breakfast sponsored by Compete and a keynote with Gord Hotchkiss and Mike Margolin debating if big agencies will ever get search (I anticipate a lot of time spent defining "get.") As I have for the past …

As another great Summit comes to a close, we all leave with more contacts, lots of great ideas and case stories to apply to our programs, many intriguing conversations, potentially some great partnerships to explore, and definately less sleep than we need. My top five observations and predictions for the industry...

How the heck do companies decide on a tech solution these days? Here's the bottom-line, in-a-nutshell advice of the this morning's three tech-expert panelists...

Who's using what when it comes to tech solutions? Moderator David Baker, VP Email Solutions, Avenue A/Razorfish, provided attendees with this handy industry breakdown...