Way back when )in internet time( when ClickZ launched its merry band of internet marketing pioneers, one Jim Sterne was amongst them. And now he's back! And we're delighted to have you back on board, Jim! Over the years Jim Sterne and I have spoken at a gazillion online marketing events. And not only is Jim one of the original online marketing masters, he's one of the nicest guys in the industry to hang out with. So heads-up,

Yesterday, we learned that despite the economic times, Zillow saw a record year at their real estate search site . Now, Trulia is reporting similar results for their real estate search offering. "We dedicated 2009 to delivering a great consumer experience. Looking back on the engagement data makes me believe we are delivering on what the consumer wants.

The Conference Board has released data showing online job listings rising by 255,000 last month. The average monthly increase of jobs for 2009 was just 60,000. "Employers' modest increase in demand for labor in the second half of 2009 is a nice way to end what has been a very challenging year," said Gad Levanon, Senior Economist at The Conference Board. Online job listings still remain below average. While the total number of vacancies last month was 3,642,000,

Chinese search engine Baidu is planning to launch a Hulu-like site. The site will offer licensed online video content and be supported with advertising. The site will be set up as an independent company. Providence Equity Partners, an investor in Hulu, is teaming up with Baidu for the venture. Yu Gong has been named CEO. Gong was formerly CEO of China Mobile's 12580 business. Baidu stock is traded on NASDAQ in the US, who was happy with the news, boosting shares by 1.

Image by SESConferenceSeries via Flickr According to comScore Video Metrix , more than 170 million U.S. Internet users watched nearly 31 billion online videos during November 2009. This means 84.8 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video that month, a new record. Americans watched an average of 182 videos per viewer during the month. And the duration of the average online video was 4.0 minutes. This means the average online video viewer watched 12.

Image by SESConferenceSeries via Flickr Avinash Kaushik, author, blogger, and Analytics Evangelist for Google, is one of my heroes. And he's giving the morning keynote at SES London 2010 as well as one of the keynotes at SES New York 2010 . If you want to learn web analytics the right way, I strongly recommend that you read Web Analytics: An Hour a Day by Kaushik )Sybex, 2007(.

Nielsen Online has released data from a new survey suggesting that premium content just might work , but it depends on the type of content. 27,000 consumers in 54 countries were surveyed. I don't know how this survey found people who actually said they would pay for things such as newspaper articles that they currently get for free, but they did. Survey participants were most likely to shell out the dough for music and movies. Least likely was blogs. Ironically,

Unless you've been living under a rock or undergoing a digital cleanse )John Mayer(, then you've probably heard something about Google releasing its own mobile phone, dubbed the Nexus One . Today, the Nexus One moved from rumor to reality with a big announcement out at Mountain View. Here are the specs and details: Manufactured by HTC 3.7" OLED display )the iPhone's screen is 3.5"(, 800 x 480 pixels Thin )59.8 mm thick( and Light )130 g w/ battery( Runs Android 2.

You would think that 2009 was not a great year for a site like Zillow . After all, the housing market was rough, as it was one of the driving forces behind the global economic downturn that began in 2008. "2009 was a wild year for real estate, with continued home value declines, government intervention, record low mortgage rates, and an enormous amount of consumer uncertainty about what the future holds," said Spencer Rascoff, Zillow's chief operating officer.

New year's resolutions is usually about going back to basics, but it should not be reserved just for your personal life. Here's some search marketing ones to consider. 1. Be a Nice Link Builder Stop bulk emailing people. Instead, commit to contacting them directly with genuine points of interest. Offer sites you'd like to be getting links from, something genuinely useful for their sites. Think pimp. Other webmasters want bling websites,

I've seen a ton of blog posts and articles regarding the unhip situation that is parents friending their kids on Facebook . It's all backwards. The truly socially tragic situation is when your kids friend YOU on Facebook. Recently, I caught my 11 year old daughter saying to her 12 year old brother, "Stop being a douchebag!" I was stunned. Naturally, I reprimanded, "Don't say that!" The retort: "You said it on your Facebook page." And the follow up: "What is a douchebag anyway?

The 2009 holiday online shopping season began with a 3% increase over 2008. But as the season progressed, so did the shopping. Soon, there was a 4% increase. And just when it seemed like that's as good as it was gonna get, a final point increase came in at the last minute. In the end, e-commerce was up 5% over the dismal 2008 shopping season, according to comScore numbers: For a look back on tracking e-commerce through the 2009 holiday season,

After beating Google for most web visits on Christmas Day , Facebook once again whooped up on Google on New Year's Day . Granted, the margin wasn't as large, but since Google is the clear winner every day, it's nice to see someone else wear the crown here and there. Facebook is a great way to connect with a bunch of people all at once. Update your status with Happy New Year and it goes out to your entire network - family, friends, coworkers - whoever you've allowed in.

Happy New Year, SEWatchers! Hope you had brilliant holidays and a chance to relax. Now time to ease ourselves back into the driving seat and plan the year ahead. Here is one approach to get you started. Click to read the rest of this post.

On January 29, 2008, we launched SESConferenceExpo's Channel on YouTube just before Search Engine Strategies London 2008. So, we're approaching its second anniversary just before SES London 2010 . Over the holidays, I spent some time reviewing what we've learned optimizing and promoting 403 videos that have 166,198 received views over the past two years and thinking about how to get more YouTube channel views in the year ahead. Yes, yes, I know 166,

Serials Solutions has announced the launch of their new and improved 360 Search. The federated search service incorporates technology from WebFeat, which they recently acquired. "We were given the opportunity to combine the top two leading federated search services into the single most powerful and feature-packed solution available," said Rob Mercer, General Manager of Serials Solutions. "The new 360 Search combines proven technology, world-class service, phenomenal support,

The head of Google's Community Affairs Matt Dunne is running for governor of Vermont, the Associated Press reports . "Dunne is one of five Democrats vying for a chance to face the expected Republican nominee, Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie, in the November election." Dunne has a web site and ranks number one for his name and occupies the top six listings in Google's organic results, so obviously he knows SEO. HIs site calls him "flat,

The 2009 most searched lists just keep coming, this time from voice mobile search provider, Vlingo : YouTube Facebook MySpace Weather Movie Times Twitter Yellow Pages MapQuest craigslist White Pages So where are the Michael Jackson searches? Vlingo president and CEO Dave Grannan explains: Unlike traditional Web searches that focus on specific search terms such as 'Michael Jackson' or 'Twilight,' our data shows that on mobile phones,

StumbleUpon has had quite a year. They bought themselves back from eBay and launched a URL shortening service , among other things. Now, they're revealing the most stumbled sites for their historic year that was 2009 . Here they are,

Google thought it had a right to own Groovle.com , so it took it's case to the National Arbitration Forum )NAF(. )The NAF is an international arbitration service accredited by ICANN.( But the NAF didn't agree with Google that Groovle could be confused for the search giant. Groovle does use Google's custom search. It also provides a service where you can skin your Google homepage with a photograph )similar to Bing without the hotspots(. Still,