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I spent the past couple of days wandering around the expo hall at the Seach Engine Strategies conerence here in Chicago.
As with most expos, there was a ton of stuff of dubious value, as well as a few opportunities to meet people with whom I've been doing business with for years. Search Engine Optimization appears to be on its way down the hype-list, thank G-d, and a lot of folks appear to have bought the message I've been preaching for years, that succeeding in search is mostly about making yourself useful to prospective customers.
One interesting twist that has really been a long time coming is blog marketing. It's easy: XYZ Corp wants to build buzz and search appeal for their new product, so they pay a bunch of bloggers a few bucks apiece to noodle about it. Beer companies have been doing this for years... did you really think that svelte little hottie slithered up next to you to wax poetic about her favorite beer just because she liked your toothy grin, slick? Nah. This is classic guerrilla marketing, and it works.
Here's a case in point: I just signed up for Blogsvertise, who will probably pay me a buck or two to type this message. See? I completely whored out my journalistic integrity, and you didn't even notice! 
There's bound to be lots of controversy over this in the blogosphere, most of which will completely ignore the fact that all the big guys have been doing this for years. As for myself...
Well, we all know what kind of boy I am. Now it's just a question of haggling over my price.
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