Hey everybody,

I started a little game for some Friday fun in the internet marketing realm. It’s called Guess the Internet Marketing Site and you guess by looking at a covered image of a home page with a few cutouts revealed. The winner wins a short post about them and their site with a link.

Come by and play, it’s at the MIMA Search Marketing site mimasm.com.

Cheers,
Chris

Do you keep up to date with the latest search engine marketing news? If you do, you most likely frequent at least a couple of these sites. If you don’t you should check these out. These are my current 5 favorite sites that I follow for search news.

• Search Engine Land
• Marketing Pilgrim
• Search Engine Journal
• Search Engine Roundtable
• Web Pro News

Danny Sullivan with Search Engine Land has in my opinion improved on what he previously had with Search Engine Watch. Search Engine Land pumps out loads of search engine news daily, announcing the breaking news and providing in depth commentary and opinion. He has a top-notch staff and a stable of writers that cover all aspects of the field. Danny also has the Daily Search Cast where you can catch the daily news with a live podcast on Webmaster Radio or download the archived version. If you want only one source for search news, Search Engine Land is it.

Andy Beal has built The Marketing Pilgrim into a first class search marketing news and analysis source. The Marketing Pilgrim covers all the top stories of the day with the help of a fine collection of writers. A great hook for the Pilgrim is a job board and the recently reintroduced search marketing weekly podcast. Andy does a great job sharing his knowledge and can be hired for his expert search marketing services.

The Search Engine Journal by Loren Baker also dishes out the top daily search news items. Loren delivers the goods on search marketing with high-performance style and substance and I like to read the stuff he writes. The Search Engine Journal also carries a cast of reporters to make sure all the deserving stories are covered.

Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable is a blogging madman. I don’t know how he has time for his Rusty Brick web design business with all the reading, research and writing he does for Search Engine Roundtable(seroundtable) and Search Engine Land. With seroundtable.com Barry and his comrades pick out and show you the most interesting search marketing threads from the top webmaster forums. Consider this the search marketing word on the street with Barry and CO cutting through the BS and delivering the worthwhile stuff.

Web Pro News by iEntry has a less personal feel with a network presentation of the news. The hook I keep going back for are the video clips and interviews. When a major conference is going on Mike McDonald does a great job with video interviews on the current issues in search marketing.

Of course there are many other blogs out there that deliver great news and articles on search marketing. I don’t mean to leave them out but here I wanted to focus on the news sites, the sites that are about getting the news out on a daily basis and are often some of the first to report on it. If you have a favorite search marketing news site you want to share please let us know with a comment. I’ll get to sharing other groups and categories of sites down the road. Til then,… later!

I signed up for every major candidates’ email newsletter programs a couple months ago, hoping that one of them would finally understand what this communication channel could bring to political activism. I won’t get into my politics here, other than to say that I will be fair and balanced in my ripping of all major candidates and parties. Politics does not exist at MIMA.

My curiosity continues to grow as I get daily and weekly emails from the national political scene. Who’s doing the best job so far? Who lost me? Who never had me?

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I recently returned from an amazing trip to the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive and Film festival in Austin, Texas. Despite the perfect 80 degree weather, I was able to suffer through and enjoy my time there. I was completely inspired by the experience and was lucky to be among the best and brightest minds in the interactive space – enjoying sessions from viral videos to designing on a grid. For a net.geek like myself, this was Internet-Mecca. If anyone else is considering a pilgrimage next year, I highly recommend it.

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