Listeners have been glued to their media players and iPods to catch the weekly message from the man who first coined the term “search engine optimization”.

The show has touted some fascinating guests including Matt Cutts, Avinash Kaushik, and Bryan Eisenberg.

The 100th episode promises to be a show that will allow listeners to interact with the hosts.

On behalf of WebmasterRadio.FM, we couldn’t be more privileged and honored to be working with the team at Bruce Clay first and foremost as a longtime sponsor, but as a partner in delivering high quality educational and informative programming.

We encourage everyone to join us for the live broadcast and interact with listeners in our chatroom as we congratulate SEM Synergy for being one of the best programs on the network.

Here’s to 100 more incredible shows!

Re-branded and reorganized as AffCon2010 – Denver, the affiliate focused conference and tradeshow will take place at the Colorado Convention Center June 21st – 23rd. As with the previous conventions in the AffCon affiliate marketing series, working affiliate marketers are eligible for free full-access admission.

AffCon2010 – Denver is designed as a convention specifically targeting affiliate marketers. While there is a great deal of involvement from affiliate networks, managers, programs and merchants, the information panels and interactive sessions are primarily targeted to working affiliates. (Our definition of “working affiliate” is one who is promoting products or services on their own web pages through one or more unique affiliate programs or networks.)

Registration
We’ve made registration for AffCon2010 – Denver easier with a distinct registry process for Affiliates and another for Networks, Managers, Merchants and others. Those applying for free admission as affiliates will be asked a series of questions to determine their business and personal interests so we can match them up with relevant network sponsorship.

Accommodation
AffCon2010 has secured a large room block for the Denver convention and tradeshow at the Hyatt Regency Denver. The Hyatt Regency is offering a healthy discount on rooms for AffCon2010 attendees with rates starting at $164/night for a standard King sized or 2 double bed room. Book your room early to take advantage of this rate and to be placed near other AffCon2010 participants.

We’re getting another great agenda together and plan a larger show and a far more interactive experience. The two previous shows were considered tremendous successes and we look forward to hosting the affiliate marketing industry in Denver from June 21 – 23 at AffCon2010 – Denver. See ya there.

Third Door co-founder Danny Sullivan is about to conduct a live conversational interview with Steve Ballmer. Danny is one of the best known and most respected voices of the search community and one of the first to popularize search engine marketing in it’s earliest days. Having Steve Ballmer as a keynote interview is a great coup for Danny and SMX.

Promptly at 9:00am pacific time, Danny Sullivan and Steve Ballmer are quickly introduced. The following is a rough play by play of the conversation.

Danny asks about the deal with Yahoo and the time lines.

Ballmer says, Quality from advertiser and user experience depends on relevance of advertising and density of bids. The ability to put together Yahoo and Microsoft’s volumes is absolutely fantastic for both parties. More eyeballs on one campaign, for those here and
more relevant ads for users. There is a huge advantage to scale – good for SEOs

Danny
Will greater volumes will improve results for searchers?

Ballmer
As we get more signals, we’ll do a better job providing results. Here’s an example.

Danny
Have not had big game changer in search in a while. We’ve seen big shifts in market share but no game changer. Is there something else out there?

Ballmer
There are a number of potential game changers. It is important to be in game with forward momentum and with a differentiated point of view. Total game changer? Ahhh… we’ll get there. We’re finding opportunities for game changers. Will continue to make positive progress. We have not figured out how to remake the business model of search but we think there is a lot of innovation and game changing on search side.

Danny
Can you be #1 in US?

Ballmer
There is no good answer to that question. If you say YES, you sound arrogant. If you say NO, you have no faith so the answer has to be YES, someday. No one does things with goal of being second but a fair amount of realism is required about the state of things. It is competitive market. Level of competition in search has ramped up in last few years. Good for advertisers, searchers, users…

Danny
Would you be happy as #2?

Ballmer
Again no good answer… We have great optimism. We’ll keep working on it

Danny
On the way to being #1…. is Yahoo going to survive as a search player?

Ballmer
For us, the goal has got to be to expand the total amount of searches on our platform. Job 1. We want Yahoo to do a good job of that and we want to do a good job on that. We have given Yahoo a lot of leeway on how to do it. They have a good sense of economics but growing overall search share is job 1 and we need them to be successful with us.

Danny
But you’re going to be doing the same thing as them so if you want to be successful in the ….

Ballmer
There are several paths in front of us. There is an advantage to having the power of two as opposed to power of one so I am excited about the partnership as a partnership.

Danny
A WSJ article puts Microsoft behind anti-trust complaints against Google…

Ballmer
We have issued a blog post that is pretty open about our issues. There are several items of interest and it is well outlined on at the Microsoft public policy blog. As in our case, a lot times initial complaints come from competitors. We’re not being silent in this game.

Danny
In that post, it says “Google’s practices….” You don’t think they’re doing stuff that’s legal? What are those things?

Ballmer
Legal is divined by regulators, not Microsoft. We comment when we have users, publishers and advertisers when they share things with us.

Danny
Is anyone out there frustrated with Google
[ONE HAND GOES UP, laughter in room]

Danny
The post mentions concern Google has a lock-in on publishers making it hard for Microsoft. What lock-in?

Ballmer
There are a number of things. I don’t want to itemize as there is a lot of nuances. There is a lot of places where it is hard to break through. There’s nothing wrong with a strong position. The book deal, as an example, takes someone with a strong position and gives them a stronger position than anyone else in the space.

Danny
You jumping back into books though you left it two years ago? Now we’re concerned from a business standpoint but you didn’t think it was a business then.

Ballmer
We’re participating in a consortium albeit at a lower investment. But one guy got a special deal on scanning books. The world would want a level playing field and one that is appropriate with proper paying to authors and publishers.

Danny
Google China. what does that mean for Bing?

Ballmer
Don’t know what is happening with Google. The real force in China is not Bing or Google but Baidu. Google isn’t the side-show. To be #1 competitor, you need to compete or partner effectively with Baidu. Nothing has changed with Google search in China. not sure if it will change.

Danny
Distribution Deals. Firefox doesn’t have you…. are you going to yell at them?

Ballmer
I FIND WHEN SELLING TO SOMEONE YELLING DOESN’T WORK!
[Laughter]

Danny
About Bing powering search on iPhone…

Ballmer
I was in Europe reading about it when a journalist had asked me about it. Weird how rumors fly.

Danny
You doing it?

Ballmer
That’s wild stuff. What we want to do is have a good Bing app on the iPhone. Other than that, I’ve read rumors. We’re going to continue to do good job with Bing for iPhone

Danny
Did success of iPhone Bing app surprise you?

Ballmer
No. we knew we would get a lot of curiosity and that feeds things. It is free and that’s the right price tag.

Danny
There was one report that queries from iPhone are in excess of those from Verizon where you have a commercial deal.

Ballmer
iPhone does deliver a lot but some of the most valuable commercial queries are less likely to be oone from phone but number of queries are huge.

Danny
Bing app for Android?

Ballmer
It’s ab it more complicated as Android is not Android is not Android. We have Bing for Blackberry and for iPHone. It is tricky to understand where the market opportunities are for us with Android

Danny
How do you see mobile in relation to the search space? Is it the year of mobile.

Ballmer
It is A year for mobile. The number of mobile queries will increase. Not predicting a drop in queries from PC but we’ll see a rise overall. For most people in 3 yrs, most people probably won’t see much difference between platforms though some will be mobile specific.

Ballmer
It’s a new market. The only thing Google benefited from in search is they did it right first. We started later. the other guy had a… there is value in incumbency… We have a value in incumbency in some of the things we’ve done….

Danny
How big a chunk of Microsoft do you see search becoming?

Ballmer
Didn’t we answer that question earlier? There is no right answer. I don’t know how long it takes. I don’t know if I’ll be in my 50’s, 60’s. … truth is, we have ambitions to grow. What is the economics of search in the future?

The dynamics of an advertiser supported business are really fantastically interesting. There is something simple to “I build X, sell it, you give me money for it”… “Now, I’m doing something for you, you pay for it, I can’t cut my price for you because it is auction bid so the dynamics of business model competition is fascinating. There is still a whole set of innovations around business model that will make it more efficient for publishing, advertising and users.

Danny
What is your time like? You do a lot of search

Ballmer
Take a look at the profile of Microsoft’s businesses. We have seven big businesses. I am generally working at things that are at the intersection. What is the next frontier between search and Office, between Bing and Xbox, and what we’re trying to do with TV? When it gets time to drive the search team, we have people doing that. I give a lot of feedback. I am falling in love with our real time search.

Danny
You mention Twitter. Buy them, should you buy them. They have all that beautiful data. Shouldn’t you own them?

Balmmer
Not clear to me. I would hate to NOT have the partnership. if we need to own the company is unclear to me. as an independent, they have credibility. would htey have that credibility if they were captive., not sure.

Danny
You going to get on Twitter, I think you should be Yelling at us via Twitter. selling and yelling

Balmer
the truth is, not terribly much. the things I want to say broadly I am likely to say in a web page than in a series of short tweets. I am a much more of a consumer than author in real time search.

Danny
So you have a steath account and we just don’t know where it is?

Ballmer
Of course.

Ballmer on Bing Loyalty:
We are a religiously PRO BING family. no BLAH BLAH BLAH users. My dad worked at Ford for 30years, I still drive a Lincoln. I hope my kids 50yrs from now will still use a BING

Danny
What needs most improvement

Ballmer
We’ve done a lot of great stuff in user experience that we need to consolidate. we’re onto right thing when we talk about making decisions and taking action. How do we dive that? Build relationships with SEOs… we’re on the right wave length. Great opportunities to improve relevance, particularly on ‘tail queries’. then we have to take show on road, we’re in UK, and Canada and a few other countries… we want to expand over the next few years.

Bing maps are fantastic.

Danny
What is the biggest opportunity in search?

ballmer
It ties back to this notion of action. Help people get done what they want to get done.

Ballmer asks the audience:
How should we think about evolution in privacy and confidentiality from POV of user. My belief is we should build around user needs. Some will give up privacy for better service. From this audience’s perspective, I am curious to know if this is a major issue on people’s minds. If so, I’d love to hear how folks are thinking about the issue.

Drawing few responses, he gives his email address and asks for opinions. steveb@microsoft.com

As part of our pre-show coverage, WebmasterRadio.FM is proud to present interviews with keynote speakers, David Meerman Scott and Avinash Kaushik. Both interviews will begin playing on the network early next week. As an added bonus, David Meerman Scott will be appearing on the WebmasterRadio.FM show, Cover Story on Wednesday March 3rd at 2pm eastern.

David Meerman Scott will deliver his conference opening keynote speech on “The New Rules for Marketing and PR”. Known as a marketing strategist, keynote speaker, seminar leader, and the author of the award-winning BusinessWeek best-selling book The New Rules of Marketing and PR, now in its second edition, David Meerman Scott has just released a new book called, “World Wide Rave, Creating Triggers that Get Millions of People to Spread Your Ideas and Share Your Stories.”

Check out David’s blog at WebInkNow or download his free ebook The New Rules of Viral Marketing: How word-of-mouse spreads your ideas for free.

Avinash Kaushik is one of the best known and most respected Google employees in the world. He is Analytics Evangelist for Google and the co-founder of Market Motive Inc.. Avinash has also recently published his first book, Web Analytics, an Hour A Day.

As a thought leader Avinash puts a common sense framework around the often frenetic world of web research and analytics, and combines that with this philosophy that investing in talented Analysts is the key to long term success. He is also a staunch advocate of listening to the consumer, and is committed to helping organizations unlock the value of web data.

Avinash works with some of the largest companies in the world to help them evolve their online marketing and analytics strategies to become data driven and customer centric organizations. He recently received the 2009 Statistical Advocate of the Year award from the American Statistical Association.

He is also a frequent speaker at industry conferences in the US and Europe, such as Ad-Tech, Monaco Media Forum, iCitizen, and SES, as well as at major Universities, such as Stanford, University of Virginia and University of Utah.

You’ll find Avinash’s web analytics blog, Occam’s Razor at http://www.kaushik.net.

As it stands today, California residents are supposed to declare the value of all online purchases. The effect of this legislation transfers responsibility for paying taxes on online purchases from consumer to seller. Naturally, online merchants are reluctant to visibly increase prices by 8.25%. Affiliate programs are also reluctant to assume the costs of calculating, tracing and paying sales taxes in differing jurisdictions.

Facing an estimated $20Billion budgetary deficit, the state government is believes it can reap over $175million from a California affiliate tax. Unfortunately, the state legislators might not have thought this plan fully through.

The introduction of similar taxation programs by other state governments have resulted in affiliate networks abandoning those states. When affiliate programs leave a state, they also leave all affiliate marketers in that state. Ultimately, the effect of affiliate taxation tends to be a reduction of realized revenues as the state loses taxes on the incomes of those affiliates.

Recently, a coordinated effort in Colorado led to the alteration of a tax on online sales to exempt affiliates. WebmasterRadio.FM will watch the California situation and inform readers and listeners on how they can participate in opposing California’s latest efforts to impose such a tax.

Here are the interviews Bas and Jon gathered:

Global Site Clinic, Feb 19, 2010
Andy Atkins-Kruger, Managing Director for WebCertain discusses her participation on the Crossing Borders: Global Site Clinic at SES London 2010.

Analytics Importance to State of Search – February 19, 2010
John Marshall, SES Advisory Board and CTO, Market Motive, give his take on the State of Search Marketing and how analytics research is being used as a measure for success.

Affiliate Marketing Opportunities – February 19, 2010
Matthew Wood, Founder, a4uexpo, discusses his participation on the SES London 2010 panel on New Affiliate Opportunities and Strategies for attendees looking to get in to the world of affiliate marketing and become an affiliate for the first time.

SES London 2010 Moderators- February 19, 2010
SES London Moderators Erica Schmidt, SES Advisory Board and Global Search Director, iProspect and Jon Myers, SES Advisory Board and; Head of Search/Associate Director, Mediavest discusses their participation moderating panel on Global SEO panel, Intro to SEM and Meaningful SEO Metrics.

OK. Thanks for your patience. In case you were wondering, I just had to check a few numbers and found I am pretty happy with them. A new wave of Tweets was issued a few minutes ago and several outstanding members of our small legion of followers have taken the time to reTweet them. That happy circumstance confirmed, I can feel my heart rate receding back to its normal rate of 60 someodd beats per minute. I am resisting the urge to look at the landing page stats until our team-meeting later today. Having people around me when I look should serve to dampen my pie-eyed child-at-Christmas reaction to numbers. I am a mature professional web marketer and I can exercise self-control when I need… I need. hmmmm. OK, ’scuse me. BRB.

What most surprised me yesterday about what could only be interpreter by my followers as a Tweet for Help was how many respondents actually sympathized with me. I figured they would despise me for morphing into the low-down stats addict I seem to have become. It seems they too are statistically addicted to campaign stats and they gleefully reached out to my message about campaign stat addiction (at least, according to my stats). Informed minds love company it seems.

In rare cases, such as with the late journalist Hunter S. Thompson, embracing our addictions can be a path to success. For web marketers, knowing who is doing what, when and where, and then being able to ascribe correct values to the next questions, why and how is critical. For instance, I am pleased to know that nearly 70% of those who have responded to our Tweets live in the United States. Another 8% live in Canada. Those are the folks most likely to buy the service we’re selling.

Furthermore, I have happily created spreadsheet after spreadsheet detailing data about what times draw the greatest response and which messages prompt the most action. My brain is practically salivating at the thought of gathering enough data to start creating line graphs. mmmmmm….. line graphs make the world a better place.

Unfortunately, I can’t expect to have enough data to make a remotely useful or even interesting line graph a few more days. There’s something to look forward to thought the prospect of a weekend suffering delayed satisfaction syndrome is daunting. It’s ok. In the words of the great Hunter S. Thompson, “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” I’m already a pro. I can deal with any weirdness thrown at me by my lack of useful line graphs. I’ll have enough data soon enough. Until then, I can satisfy my urges with little peaks at the raw numbers. Just a short glance, mind you. I do have real work to do.

Increasingly, our society is rightly starting to view addiction as a disease rather than a personal weakness. To tell the truth, I don’t really feel much dis-ease when I comb through campaign stats. I feel rather good actually. It’s the obsession I have an issue with. Perhaps that sort of obsessiveness is useful to my employers. They seem to think it is at any rate. But it is a relatively beautiful day here and I am spending way too much of what could otherwise be free time examining stats. At least they’re good ones.

In his coverage of SES London, Edinburgh based search marketer Andrew Girdwood quotes speakers from the lunch hour keynote panel, “SEO, Where to Next?“, each of whom says page and site content remains the most important element effected by search engine optimization. Girdwood, who is the Head of Strategy at bigmouthmedia, offers excellent coverage of the session on his blog at arhg.net.

Moderated by Dixon Jones (Founder, Receptional Ltd.) the panel featured Maile Ohye (Senior Developer Programs Engineer at Google), Dan Cohen (Global SEO Lead at MSN), Julian Sambles (Head of AUdience Development at the Telegraph.co.uk), and Lisa Myers (CEO of Verve).

Each of the panelists noted the underlying importance of content as the primary signal for search engines. Some organizations built on quality content like the Telegraph prepare content stubs in advance of coming events. Sambles suggests constant preparation is far easier than constant reaction.

With advances towards the personalization of search results, knowing what content individual visitors want to read is extremely important. Sambles said the Telegraph examines what site visitors read and tries to tailor content to their wants. I think the assumption here is that reader preference as shown on site will also be shown in personalized search results. In other words, if the website knows what individual visitors want and manages to serve that content to them, references to that site should show in personalized results for relevant search queries.

Even with the advent of personalized search results, giving Google and other search engines a full view of your website content is extremely important. Though the article never mentions the word cloaking directly, the implication is that in most cases, cloaking remains a no-no for Google. (Perhaps the inclusion of an overall site-map showing Google all content while tailoring content to the interests of registered members is the answer)

Social media and local search are playing rapidly growing roles in search engine optimization. As the two often go hand-in-hand, media organizations are asking their staff to use social networking applications to communicate with their audience in order to draw traffic and create placement blips in personalized results.

The advent of social media, combined with long term abuse of link-focused SEO technique has made the pursuit of useful links far harder. Earned trust continues to be an important factor in the valuing of links.

The four panelists appear to have agreed that SEO as a service has not died but has fundamentally changed its focus from applied technique to communications and education. Andrew cites Google’s Maile saying, “… the barrier to entry on these SEO 101 factors has dropped. You can achieve it with WordPress plugins, for example. That’s why SEOs need to try harder to add value these days and why Google is keen to continue to communicate with website owners.”

Google and the other search engines see SEOs as important links in the chain of communication between the engines and website owners.

High end web design has become far easier over the years while at the same time is a career option for a far larger group of people. SEOs aren’t the only expert web designers working with or for an organization any more. What makes them different, as attributed by Andrew to Julian Sambles, is that, “Things change and digital marketers have their jobs because of this; they provide the solution to these new challenges.”

The Web that SEOs work on has changed fundamentally as well. Google’s Maile Ohye pointed out that the way users access applications or the Web itself has moved from double-clicking on the desktop to entering applications from the Web itself.

Maile’s observation points to a shift in the way Googlites look at the Internet environment with an increasing focus on cloud computing, networking and data storage. Whether they be apps made for mobile or apps used through a desktop computer interface, Web Apps are a major component in Google’s forward thinking thoughts.

Speaking of “forward thinking”, a line in Andrew’s piece suggests Google might make upwards of 400 changes to its algorithm every year.

The panel only had an hour to cover a rapidly evolving digital marketing environment. From the tone of Andrew’s article, it seems the panel and the audience could have spent several more hours exploring the topic. If you haven’t read it yet, here’s another link to the piece, “Is SEO dead? SES London takes a look (#seslondon)“. It’s seriously worth the read.

When I first opened Google Buzz, I saw that I was auto-following ten people. I was shocked to find my auto-follow list included a journalist who has once previously tried to scoop me, workers at a former client, an ex-girlfriend and stunningly, my ex-wife. These folks were part of my initial Buzz stream. I rejected most of them immediately while noting to myself rejection notices might be sent to those I rejected.

I’m not entirely sure how Buzz made these connections but I am sure that most of them are ones I would rather be left in my shadows. I’ve always harbored the paranoid suspicion Google was tracking email connections but since that is sort of evil, chances are they wouldn’t go there. Heaven knows I would if I was them but I’ve never claimed to consistently opt against evil. The data available is simply too fascinating not to if you have the chance. The most unimpressive aspect of Google Buzz is that the connections Google perceived are so old. Many of them come from a part of my life I moved beyond almost a decade ago.

I have an extremely open life. I feel personally secure about my digital footprint and have cleared the majority of memorable skeletons from the closet of my personal life by either making those skeletons public knowledge or disavowing the vices and communities that created them in the first place.

Nevertheless, given the nature of social networks, the potential of exposure of a lot of information about my life to others is inevitable. Given the lack of control granted by Google or personal permission granted to Google by me, I’m shutting Buzz off before it does me damage. Clearly it can cause me professional headaches and personal heartaches. I need neither.

For the record, none of my sources appear to have been exposed but they easily could have been. That very much concerns me as I’ve promised perpetual anonymity to more than a few of them. As for my ex-wife, I think she’s a wonderful person. She and I have no problems with each other, at least none I am aware of. Though either of us would be happy to have a friendly conversation with the other, neither of us really want to know about the others day to day life. We’ve both moved on, and I suspect both of us would agree that is a very good thing.

For the most part, I gave up worrying about personal privacy sometime between the rise of the security-state after 9/11/01 and 8/19/04, the date of Google’s I.P.O.. Even so, Google Buzz has left me with a bitter taste and a desire to migrate my email usage away from the convenient but privacy porous Gmail system.

Google gives you a way to turn Buzz off. Scroll down to the bottom of your Gmail page. A small link on the second line from the bottom in very fine print reads, “Turn Off Buzz”. If you care about your personal privacy, do it now.

In her post, Ms. Madigan states,

We were given an opportunity for an amendment that would exempt online affiliates from establishing nexus for out of state retailers. It would give the retailers safe harbor of 30 days to terminate any affiliates who did personal marketing or selling, which would establish nexus, thereby requiring out of state retailers to collect sales tax for online purchases.

The PMA fought the introduction of this bill with a lobby effort led by seven professional lobbyists. They were joined in the fight by over 150 affiliates from Colorado, an organized turn out that obviously surprised state legislators.

That level of organized opposition to the bill won the affiliate marketing community nearly 15 hours of negotiating time with legislators in a bid to water down or kill the bill. At this time, a draft of the amendment is not available but the senate committee promised modifications to the bill would be completed by Monday before the bill is presented to the senate for vote.

Ms. Madigan suggests advertisers seek legal counsel when the amended bill is passed saying,

This amendment, if completed as promised, may make some merchants comfortable enough to continue working with Colorado affiliates. For others, it may not. The amendment needs to be completed and available for review, and advertisers should immediately consult legal and tax experts.

Congratulations to everyone who worked together to fight the Colorado Affiliate Tax. Though a tax measure is virtually certain to pass sometime next week, the amended version should be enough to keep most advertisers available to affiliates in Colorado.

For more information, please visit the Performance Marketing Association website.