Three weeks ago Google bought Clever Sense, maker of the app-ssistant, Alfred.

Last week, I shared my take in MediaPost’s Search Insider: Will Clever Sense Help Google Become The Perfect Search Engine?

Sometime, we’ll get our answer.

2 days ago, at the Search Insider Summit, I tackled the heady topic of the perfect search engine and, after 45 minutes on stage with Alan Osetek, Jason Lehmbeck, and Vural Cifci, we made a good deal of progress but could not reach consensus on what would make the perfect search engine. At the end of the day, it appears one man’s perfection is another man’s defecation.  Now we know what life is like for the engineers in Mountain View! Here’s the vid and, below that, the deck…

Otherwise this Q&A would’ve gone D&O (down and out)…

Q: Who Will Google Buy Next?
A: Tune in to my Search Insider column to find out.

Yesterday, I made the trek to Boulder to speak at the inaugural PivotGuild event. The Boulder Digital Arts center was packed… and dark!

My presentation topic was Why Social Media Matters to Your Business but rather than tell people what they already know (It matters because everyone’s doing it!) I addressed that in 1 slide with a link to an AdAge column that features 50 Social Media Stats to Kickstart Your Slide Deck.

Then I got into my revised topic: MAKING Social Media Matter to Your Business. I used the 20 Googley Lessons in my book as a framework and shared successful examples (and some not so much) of social media initiatives that reflected each one. I only got thru the first 10 in my 40 minute talk. As usual, I strayed from the script and improvised. No rapping this time though. Boulder struck me as more of a rock town.

Here are the slides…

Many thanks to Alyson Miller and Don Greenfield at PivotGuild (pictured with me below) for organizing a great event and inviting me to present. Boulder’s got a great creative, digital, and entrepreneurial community and Pivot Guild is positioned nicely at the intersection.

Among the many interesting folks I met in Boulder was Russell McDougal who is a punny photographer and amazing acronymizer. He has a product called Isle of View (I Love You, get it?) that turns words into acronyms. He also has an iphone app that lets you put in your name (he has 4k total in his database) and get a custom output. He can also do them quickly on the spot. Here’s mine.

A.A.R.O.N. – Awakening Awareness Reveals Ongoing Nourishment
G.O.L.D.M.A.N. – Google Offers Life’s Directions – Manifest Answers Now

And here’s a custom card Russell whipped up for me…

Until next time, Boulder (and there will be a next time!) keep it real and keep it googley!

Update Sept. 26, 2011: Another one of the cool cats (check that, Kats) I met at this event was Brett Greene from Hip Chameleon. Here’s a quick video we ripped after my talk. Brett asked me to pick the one (just one!) great nugget from my book. I told him that’s like asking which of my children I love best! Finally I settled on one (nugget, that is, not kid!)…

Last week Google bought Zagat for a rumored $125 million. I shared a quick point of view on the deal with MediaPost for its coverage: Google Buys Zagat To Support Mobile Local

“Zagat gives Google quality reviews to fuel business listings through Google Places,” said Aaron Goldman, Kenshoo CMO. “Professional reviews, rather than biased reviews from families of restaurant owners or competitors that weaken the signal from other review sites, is what differentiates Zagat.”

Over the past week, there’s been a healthy debate about Google getting into the content creation business and whether that jeopardizes its status as an unbiased search company. For what it’s worth, I think that’s a very tired and, frankly, irrelevant thread.

Google’s in the business of organizing (and monetizing) all the world’s information. Zagat’s content is very valuable information for restaurant seekers. Local and mobile search queries are becoming more and more prevalent. So what better way for Google to improve (and monetize) its local restaurant information than by buying a company that has developed a means to continually provide it?

The bottom line is Joe Searcher doesn’t care if Google is biased. Joe Searcher has come to learn (and trust) that Google will find the best and most relevant information for each query. Joe also doesn’t care how Google gets the information. In fact, Joe might prefer Google to be biased if it means it can give him the best and most relevant information.

This isn’t about journalism or publishing. This isn’t about church and state. This is about needs and fulfillment. Supply and demand. Once again, Google is well-positioned at the intersection. And it will continue to zig-zag along the way.

Here’s the presentation I gave at SES San Francisco this week about automating Facebook ads. Sorry no rap video accompaniment. All footage of my rapping at the SearchBash and singing before my Theater Presentation (Oh Say Can You Tweet…)  has been sequestered. You can scroll down for some pics from the conference, though.

All good at the Kenshoo booth.

Poppin’ off at the DataPop happy hour.

I’ve gotten some feedback from people that they expected my book to provide more specific tips for creating and managing search engine marketing (SEM) campaigns. (Including one person who posted a 1-star Amazon review saying he “felt tricked by the title” and to whom I’ve offered a full refund.)

Indeed, I did not set out to write an SEM 101 book. There are plenty of search engine marketing 101 resources out there.

Instead, I wrote a book that dissects Google’s success and shows how others can implement Google’s business and marketing strategies . Along the way, I drop tidbits about pay-per-click (PPC) search and SEO tactics, such as Chapter 7 in which I cover SEO Ranking Factors.

At the end of the day, though, my book is a narrative. It’s not a how-to manual. It has some practical exercises and best practices for readers to put the concepts I discuss into play for their organizations, but it’s meant to tell a story and get the mind thinking.

In other words, as Jason McDonald observed in his 4-star Amazon review, I wrote both a “forest” and a “trees” book.

Nonetheless, I realize that there’s strong demand for introductory SEM material and I’m in a good position to deliver it having been in the space for over 10 years working with some of the biggest SEM spenders and savviest search marketers around.

So, in this week’s MediaPost Search Insider column, I laid out 20 tips for search marketing newbies. And I’ll be sharing 20 more SEMy Lessons in 2 weeks. True to form, I tapped the wisdom of crowds (chapter 2) to come up with the list. And, truer to form, there’s plenty of pun-derful (ad)word play.

ZMOT is a new ebook published by Jim Lecinski, Google’s US Managing Director of Sales and Service. It’s also the subject of my latest Search Insider column. Some of what I wrote for MediaPost is regurgitated here but most of the following is original material and incremental observations. (Update: for a “behind-the-scenes” look at ZMOT, be sure to read the 2-part interview between Jim and Gord Hotchkiss in MediaPost.)

I’ve known Jim for quite some time as our paths have crossed repeatedly in the world of search and the streets of Chicago. I’ve always been impressed with his ability to relate to brand marketers and put key principles of Google into a broader marketing context. And ZMOT is no exception.

ZMOT underscores the point I was trying to make in Chapter 4: Mindset Matters. ZMOT is the moment after some stimulus has compelled you to act but before you actually take action. In a shopping scenario, ZMOT is the moment when your decision takes shape of whether or not to buy and, if so, which brand.

In his book, Jim describes a new “mental model” in which ZMOT follows a stimulus but precedes FMOT (a term coined by P&G for the first moment of truth at the store shelf) and SMOT (the second moment of truth when the consumer experiences the product that he/she purchased) before reappearing when the buyer decides if the brand is a keeper and worthy of sharing with friends (or, in marketing terms, lifetime value and word of mouth).

Here are some other ways Jim describes ZMOT:

• “A moment where marketing happens, where information happens…”
• “That grabbing-the-laptop moment.”
• “The moment of highest impact”
• “‘Before the store’ moments”

So how to make sure your brand is available at ZMOT? Well let’s turn to Chapter 17: Show Off Your Assets. Aptly, in this chapter I recount a meeting with none other than Mr. Lecinski at the Google Chicago office in 2006 in which he preached about the importance of brands digitizing and optimizing all their assets — images, videos, manuals, and even brand attributes.

In my book, I point to Ronald.com as an example of McDonald’s digitizing one of its assets, the Ronald McDonald mascot. But beyond just Ronald himself, McDonald’s took the brand promises of happiness and giving and optimized them for kids around the world to experience in a safe virtual playground.

There’s no question McD does well at ZMOT. (Hmm, I’m hungry, what should I eat?) But it’s not just because there’s a McDonald’s in every major city and most of the not-so-major ones. And it’s not simply because there’s a McDonald’s ad that reaches you when you’re hungry and/or close to one of their locations. And it’s not only because the food comes out fast and there’s a ball-pit for your keys to play in. It’s because of all these things! McD does well at ZMOT because of all the touchpoints they’ve created with consumer and the emotional connections they’ve built.

However, as Jim argues credibly time and time again in his book, all the connections in the world between brand and consumer are meaningless if the brand is absent at ZMOT.

Boy, how I wish this book and the ZMOT concept had been around back in 2005. I remember being in a meeting with the head of advertising for McDonald’s pitching the merits of search engine marketing and getting this objection, “Why should I buy ads on search engines? People don’t buy hamburgers online.”

But then why are people searching for hamburgers online? Why are they searching for McDonald’s? You spend billions of dollars on marketing and you’re willing to risk it all when a consumer acts on your stimulus and can’t find you at ZMOT?

Luckily, the McD ad exec remained open to the idea and, within a year, SEM was a staple on the company’s media plans.

To me, this example is the epitome of what the ZMOT book is all about. It’s 75 pages of persuasion to quick serve restaurants and other verticals (eg, CPG) that have yet to truly embrace SEM.

Now, lest you think this is a fluff read relying on heady ideas and intuition, I should note that, throughout his book, Jim backs up assertions with hard data.

In researching this book, Google conducted an extensive study of more than 5,000 shoppers across 12 verticals in April of 2011, providing a wealth of information about what ZMOT is and why it matters.

Here are some of the key stats:

• 70% of Americans look at product reviews before making a purchase.
• 79% of consumers use a smart-phone to help with shopping.
• The average shopper uses 10.4 sources of information to make a decision. (Up from 5.3 sources in 2010.)
• 84% of shoppers said ZMOT shapes their decisions. (Based on a mapping done by Google of information sources to Stimulus, ZMOT, and FMOT.)
• 62% of shoppers search for deals online before at least half of their shopping trips.
• 54% of shoppers comparison shop for products online.
• 37% of shoppers find online social sources to be an influential driver when making decisions. (Up from 19% in 2010.)
• Showing up is 80% in life. (Woody Allen quote used by Jim to encourage people to “jump in” and address ZMOT within their orgs.)

And here are some SEM stats included in the book that I found interesting:

• 20% of searches across all Google properties are local.
• 40% of all mobile searches across Google properties are local.
• Mobile-only campaigns perform 11.5% better on average than desktop-mobile campaigns
• Recipes make up 1% of all searches on Google.

One of my favorite quips in this book comes from Rishad Tobaccowala (who is quoted extensively in my book as well) commenting on the role of search engines in the buying process. “Don’t call them search engines,” Rishad says. “Call them connection engines.” A great insight and especially gratifying for me to hear as I still remember back in the early 2000′s when Rishad dismissed SEM as merely “math and machines.”

Another great quote comes from Professor Dave Reibstein of The Wharton School in framing word of mouth in today’s society. “Talking over the hedge is one-to-one. Digital word of mouth is one-to-millions.”

And here’s one from Jim that underscores my premise in Chapter 8: Test Everything. “In the world of ZMOT, speed beats perfection.”

I’ll wrap it here and leave you reason to peruse the book for yourself. It’s a great, quick read. Perfect for the too-little-time-too-many-social-networkers and instant-gratificationers among us.And, if you’re Apple-enabled, be sure to grab the free iBook to access multimedia content.

Now go forth and ZMOT!

Below is the presentation I gave today at the Online Marketing Sumit (OMS) in Chicago.

In it, I use my patent-pending “Heat-o-Meter” to describe the hotness of various companies, channels, and trends in digital marketing, including:

Companies: Facebook, Groupon, Apple, Google, LinkedIn,  Twitter, Microsoft, Yahoo

Channels: Social, Mobile, Local, Video, Search, Display

Trends: Automation, Integration, Attribution

The deck has 70 slides packed with stats and the last section has some Kenshoo case studies for context on how advertisers are capitalizing on these hot trends. So warm up your fingers are start clicking!

As is becoming habit, I rapped the Q&A portion but only had time for one topic. No video has surfaced (yet) so here’s an audio clip from Brent Payne aka the Bald SEO.