Several applications have sprung up that tie real-world actions to online communities, and allow for an experience that goes beyond the TV screen and into the palm of viewers' hands. Here are a few applications that we see as category leaders.

As the search for local information continues to rise, so does the need for a shared consistent identity across all platforms. These best practices will ensure a normalized version of your company's anchor identity throughout search results.

Facebook's 2011 advertising revenues were $3.1 billion, up 69 percent from the year before, according to the Menlo Park, CA-based firm's S-1 filing today for its initial public offering.

Forget Google+. Pinterest is the hot new social network right now. Numerous reports agree that unique visitors to Pinterest are skyrocketing, and that Pinterest is driving more referral traffic than Google+, LinkedIn, Reddit, and YouTube.

The great Google privacy policy change freak out continues. In the latest developments, Google has defended its changes in a letter to Congress, and will send two Google reps to Washington, D.C., to give a "closed-door briefing" on the new policy.

Led by Google and aided by the Summer Olympics and national elections, search ad spending will grow 27 percent to $19.51 billion in 2012, according to a new eMarketer report. By 2016, U.S. search spending could approach $30 billion.

There are hundreds of ways to build links the wrong way, and just as many ways to do it right. Your goal should be to be able to survive and thrive with or without Google. Never forget the quality, intent and relevancy of the link building process.

Google's privacy policy revisions and the continued expansion of Google + are part of an important trend in paid search: targeting ads to people, not just search queries. The more relevant the ads, the more satisfied users, the more clicks on ads.

Search advertisers who employ these popular tips that emerged from a series of workshops hosted by Yahoo over the past year will find it easier than ever to get their accounts in shape for what's expected to be a big year for paid search.

Business optimization in a digital age is the overriding theme for SES London this year. But it goes far beyond that. Experience first class business education on the latest SEO, social, PPC, local, and mobile strategies, as well as networking.

The top U.S. search engines have entered into an agreement with Universal Business Listings and Bruce Clay Inc. to launch a new program called Local Paid Inclusion that promises to "put your business above the competition" in local organic results.

Yandex, the leading search engine in Russia, has expanded its mapping capabilities by purchasing from NAVTEQ a license for digital maps of Europe, North America, Australia and developed countries in Asia to expand their Yandex.Maps product.

Yesterday, President Barack Obama participated in a "virtual town hall" with citizens from across the United States in a Google+ Hangout. Obama fielded mostly pre-selected, but some spontaneous, questions from the West Wing.

Due to the rapid growth of mobile phones in the world and the advancement of Google's mobile search advertising business, mobile ad spending is expected to grow past $2.6 billion in 2012. Overall ad share for Google is around 51 percent.

Campaign structure optimization is critical, but remains woefully undervalued. Let's look at the three main areas you should focus on when creating the structure of your account: relevancy, better budget control, and advanced targeting.

Digital marketing optimization is more than just optimizing the media and content for search engine rankings. Your digital asset manager can leverage every asset to gain a wider audience and opportunities for sharing and linking to your content.

For years legislators, privacy advocates, and the FTC have suggested Google simplify its privacy policies. In consolidating policies associated with various Google products, it stands to reason the company believed it was satisfying such requests.

WordStream has updated their AdWords Performance Grader, released in August, 2011. Peer report data is now more accurate, as the tool has analyzed almost half a billion in annualized PPC spend, about 1.5 percent of Google's total ad revenue.

SEMrush is set to launch their new AdSense Advertiser Report as part of their SEO toolkit. The report offers downloadable data on AdSense publishers as well as metrics for individual text ads and can be used to check out your site or a competitor.

Twitter is expanding its rollout of enhanced profile pages to include advertisers with $25,000 or higher in active ad orders on products including promoted tweets and trends. The new pages will begin rolling out February 1.