The Thanksgiving season is upon us and as such, it’s time to step back and recount the things we are thankful for this year. There are many things the team here at Outrider is thankful for this year…

1. Google pulling the plug on the Google/Yahoo! deal…as this does not represent the best interest of our clients.
2. The return of Yahoo! Contextual placements as a way to test contextual networks without giving all your money to Google.
3. Mobile is taking off, FINALLY!! 2009 is slated to be a big year for mobile.
4. Fabulous entertainment and parties thrown by the search engines and our vendors.
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Today, some of you may have noticed that in conjunction with their organic listings, Google has implemented social ranking tools.  Now users have the power to promote, remove, comment or add a link to a page that they feel is more relevant for a particular search term.  This is similar to the social networking site, Digg where the first page results are based on the thumbs up or down votes cast by members.  The difference with the SearchWiki is that your vote is specific to your own secured user experience.

Doing a little research, I’ve found that while people can see the innate good in having this capability, many are skeptical and asking some of the same questions that I have…How long before this gesture to improve personalization will start to impact the overall natural listings and allow us to affect a site’s ranking based on this voting system?  If this becomes the case, then how do we keep Pandora’s Box from opening and giving companies a new space and opportunity to unethically push competitors further down in the search results?  If this is really about personalization of search, then why are comments made public? What is the real motivation behind this social engagement?  Will paid search be impacted at all?

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With the unknown future of Yahoo’s stability, the recent grumblings over Google’s advantageous use of their power, and the inefficient technology of Ask, has the search world finally entered the Era of MSN?  This is quite the possibility when you give it some thought.

We know this has been a volatile year for the top four search engines.  Google, while still mighty, has seen some backlash for some of their recent enhancement choices.  While we love Ask and want them to succeed, it seems that their current company model doesn’t support the technological changes they need to make in order to gain a nice chunk of market share.  The stability and sureness of Yahoo as a whole is, simply put, not there.  All the while MSN’s been plugging away to make their user and advertiser experience better.

If you’ve been in the search space for the last 3 ½ years, you can probably remember the entrance of MSN into the ranks.  Everyone was excited, but it didn’t take long for that excitement to change to irritation.  Many of us felt adCenter was launched before Microsoft was ready to support it and back it up with the technology it needed to be successful.  For example:

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Last  night, Yahoo announced that Jerry Yang would end his second tour of duty as CEO. Called out of retirement during the Summer of 2007 to help Yahoo adapt to life after the Terry Semel regime, to say that the 2nd Yang dynasty did not  go well is an understatement. The decisions Yang presided over to reject the Microsoft take over bid will likely define Yang, but should they ultimately be his legacy?

The day of Yang’s resignation, a story ran in Advertising Age citing the numerous reasons Madison Avenue and marketers alike find Yahoo a compelling buy on their plans. Whether Yahoo remains independent or eventually gets acquired, Yang’s legacy has taken quite the hit in the last 12-18 months. So has his personal net worth as a result of the plummeting Yahoo stock price. It seems “Yang the founder” could not separate his love of Yahoo from the function “Yang the CEO” found himself in to make the best decision for the company and its shareholders.

Was Yahoo being undervalued? Whether you think yes or no, it seems unlikely that a proud parent, one who bleeds Purple, would ever feel otherwise. And that, right or wrong, now becomes the Yang legacy overshadowing the Decade of Yahoo as the Home Page of the Internet, a title only possible because of David Filo and Jerry Yang. A title which now, like CEO, no longer belongs to Yang and his beloved Yahoo.

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I’ve decided not to open my monthly investment statements. To be honest, I just don’t want to know how much of a hit our retirement and kids’ college savings accounts have taken over the last month. But even without the concrete dollar figures, it seems hard to escape the global economic pity party. Despite any real change to our income or expenses, my household is tightening its belt. We’re paying far more attention to our spending. Even with declining gas prices, we’ve talked ourselves out of holiday trips to see family across the country. Of course, corporations have fallen into this mindset as well. There’s no shortage of business news reporting layoffs, hiring freezes and budget cuts.

But as any coupon-cutting mom knows, it’s not always about spending less. It’s about getting more for your money. Savvy shoppers know where the bargains are and are methodical about planning any shopping campaign. I think companies should take a cue from these shopping champs and ask “how can we spend smarter?”

Search is known as a highly effective marketing channel, but far too many companies are leaving opportunities on the table. Just like your mom would tell you to squeeze all the toothpaste out of the tube, marketers should be asking whether they have squeezed all the value out of their campaigns. Here are three areas where marketers can spend smarter:

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