Posted by Sam Niccolls

• Eric Schmidt – What the Internet Will Look Like in 5 Years:
  Google’s CEO takes a look into the future and talks about some of the ways the internet will change, such as Chinese language sites outnumbering English language sites, an increase in the number of digital natives in the tech workforce, and the difficulties search engines have around ranking real-time search.

• eCommerce – What the Telco Industry Tells us About Product Selection:
  From button treatments to product matrices, there are likely a number of telco industry learnings highlighted on the Get Elastic Blog that can be applied to your eCommerce site.

• Retailers Going Too Far Tracking Web Habits:
  I’m probably the only person on earth who puts items into his shopping cart and intentionally abandons sites in order to get product discount e-mails a week or two later, but the USA TODAY discusses two issues that are hot button topics for more normal consumers: Cookie usage and behavioral targeting.

• Grammatically Incorrect Keywords:
  In her Search Engine Journal Post, Susanna Speier talks about how even though grammatically incorrect keywords aren’t going to win you any spelling bees, they might be the ones that’ll make you the most honey, er-um money.

• Andrew Chen – Building Lifestyle vs. VC-Backable Companies:
  In an interesting post pulling from his VC experiences, Andrew Chen discusses the fundamental differences between building a self-sustaining company and one that’s VC-backable.

• SEO by the Sea on the Importance of Listening:
  In a step away from his usual technical and analytical posts Bill Slawski takes a thoughtful and reflective look at how his life experiences have validated the importance of listening. Also, Slawski’s post about How a Search Engine might distinguish between bots and humans is not to be missed.

• Amazon vs. Walmart – The Battle of the Books:
  Target is a distant third in the online book sales race, but Compete provides some interesting, in-depth analysis on the toe-to-toe battle this month between Amazon and Walmart. 

• Halloween E-mails:
  Campaign Monitor’s Halloween E-mail Roundup shows some creative, brand specific examples of Halloween e-mails that’ll give you some last minute idea fodder for this year or things to think about for next year.     

• Update on Google Rich Snippets:
  Google has been working on better using structured data and expanding rich snippets for a while, but this week’s post on the GWC blog calls attention to improved documentation and tips around their rich snippet testing tool.

• WSJ – Why E-mail No Longer Rules:
  You may have caught the Wall Street Journal post earlier this month, but if you didn’t, it’s worth a read. The negative backlash across the e-mail industry continues several weeks later.

• Integrating E-mail with Other Marketing:
  A well executed e-mail is no different from a fine wine… it’s good on it’s own, but it’s better when given the right pairing. In a useful post centered around e-mail marketing, Joel Book addresses how the most successful e-mail initiatives integrate with other marketing efforts.

• Google Analytics Qualification Test:
  GA has had a more heavyweight certification for agencies for some time, but now available to individual marketers is a test that gives web analytics users personal certifications.

• Networks, Publishers, & the Evolution of Search & Display Ads:
  Jonathan Mendez talks about emerging trends in the ad world and makes some predictions as to how the landscape will change for both networks and publishers.

• Creating a Multi-Cultural Website:
  If you’ve ever tried to market a product internationally, Forrester’s post about the importance of market research when creating a multi-cultural website might strike a nerve. 

• Google Website Optimizer API Released:
  GWO rolled out a new API, which, depending on your CMS provider, can allow you to create and launch tests without touching any of your website’s code. Pretty useful stuff. Although a major limitation is that the API currently only integrates with two CMS providers.

• Google Analytics – Be Careful When Rearranging Goals:
  With GA’s release the other week came a myriad of fantastic features, including customized alerts and expanded goals. But as James Svoboda points out, if you want to preserve your goal history, you might want to think twice before rearranging your goals.

• Seth Godin – Some People Are Better Than Others:
  The short post about customer types earns a spot in this weeks roundup for one reason: The use of the word sneezers, which Godin uses to refer to the customers and brand evangelizers who are best at spreading your company’s word.

• 5 Social Media Lessons for Paid Search Landing Pages:
  Scott Brinker takes a fairly basic, but worthwhile look at some things to consider when optimizing your PPC landing pages. 

• Google Now Treating 410 Status Codes as More Permanent Than 404s:
  Historically Google has treated the two status codes the same, but now, as stated by Google’s John Mu, 410 status codes will be treated as more permanent.

• Bing It On:
  Google is still going strong, but Bing’s share of the search market continues to grow.

• How SEO and Sex Are the Same:
  In a post with gratuitous use of the word ‘sex,’  Joel Leydon’s parody highlighting the similarities between sex and SEO is an entertaining read. Both sex and SEO are basic needs, they’re both organic, and yes, as Leydon points out, you can also pay for each, too.

Top YOUmoz entries:

1. Case Study: How Building a Site for Users Improved Rankings by csaliba
   

2. Web Analytics and Segmentation for Better Conversion by philou2803

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