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The IAB has announced what I think is very good news for us online marketers…or maybe bad news? Online ad spend has reached $5.8 billion in the first quater of 2008, which is an 18.2% from last year and said to be the second highest quater recorded after the previous quater.

Sure, as the digital age grows and the internet becomes the substitue in marketing for companies rather than television, newspapers, magazines, and radio, it will become more and more competitive. As an online marketer who works on my own projects and managing certain clients, as much as the saying that competition is good goes, it probably is better when there isn't so much of it.

Ask people advertisers who compete in Google for debt consolidation or life insurance if competition is "good". What is a good sign is the increasing understanding of small to medium size business owners of the importance and power of online marketing and the impact it can have on your business. A good PPC campaign or good SEO results can take your business to the next level. Its 2008 and we now live in a globalized world where a product consumers are looking for are just a click away. Are you in the mix?

If you aren't to technical like myself and have had a wordpress blog for a while, when it comes time to move servers, you'll come to realize its not as easy as 1,2,3. Maybe I'm just really not technical myself but I should really thought about where I would host this blog long-term before I started because if you've been blogging for a while, I'm sure your blog is one of your most prized possessions.

The time has come where I had to move this blog to another server (long-term plan) and as we speak, its about to migrate. How the hell do you migrate all these files, etc?

Here is what it says on the official wordpress Blog, but my suggestion, ask your new hosting company if they can do it for you or throw someone that knows how to do it a couple of bucks and save yourself the headache or risk of losing your content.

Moving WordPress to a New Server

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There is one major concern in the mind of 99% of all Americans right now and that is gasoline. It maybe a good thing for companies who cleverly enough, are paying people to put advertisments in their car for free gasoline.

Want free gas? Visit MyCarMyCar.com which brokers the deal between advertisers and "publishers"

As most of you online marketers have probably heard already, Microsoft and Yahoo have stopped all talks for good and Yahoo may partner with Google to outsource their paid search. Yahoo has been struggling with paid search for years trying to compete with Google, and now eventually they are giving in paid search.

Personally, I’m not sure if this will be a good thing or bad and whether it will be a good thing or bad thing. I was thinking about how this could affect my campaigns considering I’ve had some very good success with Yahoo that I haven’t had with Google because of quality score issues for the most part. Yahoo has been good to me for the simple reasons that it was very different than Google in its paid search platform.

Don’t get me wrong, Google has proven great for me as well but it actually has kept me from launching some campaigns because of quality score issues where Yahoo has been less restrictive in that respect.

An example is an eBook campaign I have run. When I first launched it months ago, Google proved to give me results in terms of good quality score but no real conversions. Yahoo has always converted with lower cost-per-clicks. I spoke to a Google Adwords rep and she told me because of user experience, ebook sites are ranked with poor quality scores and bids start from $5.00. You may get away with a good or OK quality score, but I’m talking in general.

I’m not exactly sure how the partnership will be handled in terms of Yahoo panama disappearing or Yahoo just using Google for content paid search which Yahoo has lacked for…well, since always.

We’ll see how this affects us search marketers in the coming weeks.

From the Financial Point of View:

Cintas, a corporation that makes bathroom supplies and products has launched a campaign to select the best restroom in America. The public can now vote at BestRestRoom.com.

Great marketing technique to go viral if it does.

What Makes a Public Restroom Great?
You may not have considered such a question before. But think about it. When you walk into an exceptional restroom, you know it. The cleanliness, the style, the amenities – it’s unexpected, but certainly appreciated. It tells you that the organization that created this inviting atmosphere must really care about you. A great restroom takes many forms, as you’ll see when you visit the ABR Hall of Fame.

I came upon this list on SEO2020.com and thought I'd put it up since people are always looking for free website submission directories. You should not go crazy submitting your site to every directory as it is important to choose certain directories and be selective where you submit your site.

A great place to also get directories is through forums such as Digital Point or even ask people in the industry you know.

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