WebConnoisseur

Social search engines have become more and more popular this year with sites like Eurekster’s Swiki, Rollyo, Google Co-op Custom Search, PSS, Yahoo Search Builder, and MSN Search Macros, but Search Wikia brings in a new spin: it is an effort lead by the founder of Wikipedia.

Search Wikia, which was mistakenly called Wikiasari by some, is still a bit fuzzy on the details. It aims at being a community-built search engine, but appears to be in the very early stages (even the name appears to be up for grabs). Wikipedia certainly has a large audience, much in-part due to the search engines ranking it so high, so there’s a good chance they will have some success getting it off the ground. What will make Search Wikia different is that:

• It is built by a team of non-paid editors
• It hopes to become an open-source search engine with the success that other open-source programs have acheived
• It runs as a non-profit
• It may put it’s own highly successful organic search listings in other engines at risk because it is basically challenging the hand that feeds them.

As of now, Search Wikia is nothing to get excited about, but it will be interesting to keep an eye on it to see if it develops into something people will actually use. You can learn more by visiting the Search Wikia site.

I’m not referring to the tagging you may be thinking of. It seems there’s a few friendly games of tag going on in the SEO community (and in the general blog community). I was just tagged by Lyndsay Walker. Seems like games like these have been going on for a decade (mostly in email), but I decided I’ll participate because it gives us SEOs some fun information about eachother (and provides exposure to some of the lesser-known SEO blogs, like my own).

Five Things You Didn’t Know About Me:

1. I’ve appeared as an extra three movies: Twin Peaks: Fire Walks With Me, The 6th Man, and Prefontaine.
2. My Wife does real-life CSI stuff. She’s a Forensic Scientist and helped with the Green River Killer Case when she first started years ago.
3. I was the captain for 13 different Intramural sports teams in college. Intramurals were very competitive @ the University of Washington. There are literally hundreds of teams (some featuring Division one athletes), but there is no prize for 2nd place. My team took 2nd place twice in Soccer , but finally took the championship in volleyball. 
4. I have a dead man’s tendon in my knee. I blew out my ACL playing soccer a couple years ago and went through the whole painful ACL surgery/recovery thing. I wonder if I will ever get to learn who the donor was (maybe I don’t want to know).
5. I like to snorkel in foreign countries. I’ve snorkeled in: Australia, Fiji, Mexico, Venezuela, Cayman Island, and Kauai (I know, not a foreign country, but it felt like it).

My turn to tag 5 bloggers: Sean Mulholland, Shaun Ryan, Wendy Boswell, Bill Tancer and Eric Peterson.

You can track the SEO tag meme here: http://www.soloseo.com/blog-tag-tree.html (hopefully he fixes my last name).

Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year” just came out. In 2004, George Bush took the honors. In 2005, it featured Bill & Melinda Gates, plus Bono. This year, Time Magazine decided to feature me! Or you. Depending on who’s holding up the cover featuring a mylar mirror.  

As I read through the feature (on their site of course–I would never pay for the magazine), I noticed it really shouldn’t say you. It should say “Web Junkies” because when they describe “you,” they talk about video bloggers, Wikipedia editors, Flickr posters, Firefox creators and YouTube founders. Hardly an example of your typical American or Time Magazine subscriber.

Regardless, my first thoughts were: Cool. Someone finally gives recognition to those who have contributed to the growth of the Web. But after reading through all their features, I realized this really was just about recent Web hype.

The cover might as well said “YouTube” instead of “You” as YouTube must have been mentioned a hundred times. YouTube is great, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see YouTube decline in popularity in favor of the next wave of Web 2.0 newcommers. It would almost be the online communities’ way of slapping traditional media back in the face. I can almost hear the public now: “You Don’t Determine Who Is the Person of the Year - We Do!” Because let’s face it, should Time editors really get to determine who the person of the year is? Let’s face it, when Time picks the person of the year, it is all really about Time and not the person they pick.

Okay enough dissing Time. I do appreciate them pickin “us” over political figures or CEOs. Ironically, I’m signing off to go cast my nominations for Webby Person of the Year…

Thought I’d share my thoughts after attending my first Pubcon in November. Overall it was a great experience.

SES vs. Pubcon:
As a more advanced SEO, I must admit I like how SES has advanced level tracks. At PubCon panelists were often answering very basic questions, which I’ll admit are amusing, but of no value to a large percentage of the audience. As with SES, the networking and face-to-face time is what is of most value.

Search Industry
I really love this industry. Despite how competitive search marketers tend to be, people are very welcoming in person. You’d expect most SEOs to keep their strategies or tactics completely secret, but by sharing small nuggets with each other, friendly SEOs become even smarter, which is extremely important in this fast-moving highly complex industry.

Shout Out
I especially enjoyed my time with Neil & Cameron, Matt Tuens, Dave & Sally, Lyndsay, Sara W, Jessica B, Rob Snell and limited time with Rand and Joseph M. It was great to finally meet Todd Malicoat, Eytan, and HLM.

People who I didn’t bump into that I enjoyed spending time with at SES San Jose include: Danny S, Elisabeth O, Matt C., Greg Boser, Vanessa Fox (hopefully I’ll catch all of you at my next conference).

There are dozens of others I shared a meal or brief conversation with. Each conversation was a pleasure!