Beyond Google. Where will customers be searching in 5 years? Dixon Jones of Receptional asks the audience: Who doubts life after Google? About half the audience raises their hand. According to Dixon, there will be life after Google and we are already there. He cites Facebook as an example of a site that is growing links more quickly than Google. He then goes on to discuss the Trust/Convenience Contract.

by Claudine Zap Hey, Twitter : Facebook is now following you. They've noticed your little microblogging site. It's adorable. But they think they can give Facebook users that Twitter feeling without having to leave their Facebook friends. Think a simple, "lite" version . You got your status updates, your wall, your photos, your friends. They'll match you, tweet for tweet. First Tweet : 140 characters? Really? Second Tweet : We had no idea.

The largest website optimizer test to date was revealed with tens of millions of pageviews. At the Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Jose Google's Website Optimizer Product Manager Eva Woo talked about the test and its results: "The test was done on YouTube in an effort to increased registered signups. This was an important test of whether we can increase the number visitors that register when they visit. We tested 3 different parts of the YouTube index page.

Facebook has moved forward on several fronts this week, from tweaking its search capabilities to include out-of-network user updates for a more "real-time" experience, to the purchase of FriendFeed and most recently the beta testing of a so-called stripped-down Facebook Lite . While there are separate logical reasons for each of these changes, many commentators have remarked that in total they suggest a renewed focus on Twitter .

Recently Google Australia introduced some new social features to iGoogle, specifically social gadgets that bring iGoogle closer to becoming a full-featured social networking site.  And it didn't take Google that long to make these social gadgets available for all iGoogle users. These social gadgets for iGoogle allows you to share, collaborate and play games with other users. That is on top of  the iGoogle being a user's start page.

Do you like to check up on your friends and family on Facebook? Now, you can stay up to date on the latest news and gossip too by becoming a fan of Hot Searches on Facebook. We give you daily updates that appear in your news feed, so you are never out of the loop and you don't have to go digging around for what is hot! Visit our Facebook page now and become a fan of Hot Searches today!

by Manoj Jasra Yesterday at Search Engine Strategies in San Jose we caught up with Larry Kim and got his insight on his new keyword research product, WordStream . Larry is the VP of WordStream and he provided a lot of the early vision behind the technology. Read our conversation below: [Manoj]: What was the inspiration behind developing WordStream? Was there a 'pain' in the industry you were trying to solve? [Larry Kim]: I spent about ten years marketing software products,

Being somewhat of a fan of buzz marketing, day two starts with a panel I've personally been looking forward to.  Igniting Viral Campaigns:  Leveraging Consumer-Generated Content promises to unveil the "secret techniques" and technologies that enable companies to stand out and be talked about through a viral word of mouth buzz. Aaron Kahlow, Chairman & Founder, Online Marketing Summit moderates this panel of speakers: Brian Ellefritz, Senior Manager,

This could possibly be Bing's biggest market share gain since it was launched more than a month ago. According to Efficient Frontier , Microsoft's  paid click share in the the first week of August has increased by 44%  from what it was in June. The last increase that Microsoft was able to achieve in this arena was only 13%.

Google AdWords Business Product Management Director Nicholas Fox gave a keynote speech at Search Engine Strategies. He talked about where the search industry is going, and where it's been. On the history of AdWords, he says Google quickly realized that banner ads didn't make sense with search, sow they tried the text ad, and it has worked pretty well. Google is now running over a billion text ad auctions a day. Fox says there are about 100 billion pages on the web,