Image via CrunchBase

If you haven’t scrolled down the conference agenda for SES New York 2010 lately, then you might have missed the news that’s hidden in plain sight in the right-hand sidebar: An Affiliate Marketing Track has been added to Day 3. Now, you can learn affiliate marketing secrets from Kris Jones, the President and CEO of Pepperjam, among others.

But wait! There’s more! Admittance is free for all SES New York attendees, including expo-only pass holders. That’s gotta be the deal of the decade — and the decade has just started.

The conference sessions in the new Affiliate Marketing Track include:

Affiliate Marketing for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses — This panel will include case studies outlining what has and has not worked for small and medium-sized businesses interested in affiliate marketing.

Affiliate Marketing and Social Media — This panel of social media and affiliate marketing luminaries will discuss recent trends on the part of affiliate networks and affiliates to leverage social media as a new marketing channel to grow affiliate sales.

Grow Your Affiliate Sales with Pepperjam Network — Attend this session to get a LIVE advertiser demo of Pepperjam Network and to ask questions directly to Pepperjam Network executives and account managers about how you can grow your affiliate sales with Pepperjam Network.

Affiliate Marketing 3.0 — Learn about the newest innovations in the affiliate marketing space.

Jones has come a long way since 1999, when the word “Pepperjam” was a reference to one of his Grandmother’s favorite dishes. Today, the Pepperjam Network is a next generation affiliate network, which was recently acquired by GSI Commerce (NASDAQ – GSIC).

You’ll want the recipe for his success.

I should disclose the Search Engine Strategies is a client of my agency. But trust me on the recipe.

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Tonight, at 9pm EST, President Obama will give his second State of the Union address. For those unfamiliar with American politics, this is an annual speech given by the sitting President addressing the current state of U.S. affairs and his plan for the future.

You can catch the speech online at many sites. Here’s a list:

WhiteHouse.gov
Hulu
YouTube
Ustream (CBS coverage)
CNN
C-SPAN

What other sites are streaming the State of the Union live tonight? Leave the links in the comments section below.

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Cover via Amazon

If you work in the public relations industry, you should beat a path to the Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo this year. You have nothing to lose but your jobs.

According to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, more than 14,000 journalists working for newspapers in 2001 have lost their jobs. That means roughly 25% of the newspaper industry’s “ink stained wretches” are now gone.

Unless 25% of the flacks want to follow the 25% of the hacks who are part of the unemployment rate, they will need to reinvent their problem-solving, critical-thinking, trouble shooting and communication skills. Consider this advice some “tough love,” an oxymoron that means I may treat you harshly or sternly, but my intent is to help you in the long run.

So, where do you go to learn what David Meerman Scott calls “the new rules of marketing and PR“?

If you are in the U.K., then you should go to SES London 2010, which will be held Feb. 15-19. You will find a number of conference sessions that will help you learn the 21st Century skills you need to continue your public relations career. Here are some of the ones that I’d recommend you attend:

“Is Social Media the Future of Search?” The morning keynote is moderated by Aaron Kahlow, Chairman & Founder, Online Marketing Summit.

“Social Media Best Practices for Marketers Inside the Brand.” This session is moderated by Rand Fishkin, CEO, SEOmoz.org.

“Twitter Me This!” The speaker is Heather Lutze, CEO & Co-founder, Findability Group.

“Real Time SEO: No More Yesterday’s News.” I’m moderating and the speakers are Brent Payne, SEO Director, Tribune; Paul Roach, Technical Lead for SEO, guardian.co.uk; and Drew Broomhall, Search Editor, Times Online.

“Social Media & the Marketing Mix.” Mel Carson, adCenter Community Manager, Europe, Microsoft adCenter, is the moderator, and the speakers are Crispin Sheridan, Sr Director of Search Marketing Strategy, SAP Marketing; Bas van den Beld, Search Strategist, NetTraject/ Searchcowboys; Marco Corsaro, Managing Director, 77Agency Ltd; and Anders Hjorth, CEO, Outrider.

“Social Media Metrics.” The morning keynote speaker is Jim Sterne, Chairman, Web Analytics Assn & Founder, eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit.

“Automating Twitter.” The moderator is Cindy Krum, Chief Executive Officer, Rank-Mobile, LLC, and the speakers are: Ralph Tegtmeier, aka, Fantomaster; Paul Madden, Owner, Crea8 New Media; Pierre Far, PhD, SEO and Web Analytics Specialist, pierrefar.com; and Tracy Falke, Social Media Specialist, Freestyle Interactive.

“YouTube and Video Marketing Workshop.” I’m the instructor for this half-day training workshop on the Friday after the event.

If you are in the U.S., then you should go to SES New York 2010, which will be held March 22-26. Here are the sessions that you won’t want to miss:

“The New Rules of Marketing and PR.” The opening keynote speaker is David Meerman Scott, author of World Wide Rave as well as the best-selling book that is the title of his keynote.

“Social Media Checklist.”

“News Search Optimization.” The moderator is Lisa Buyer, President & CEO of The Buyer Group, and the speakers are: John Shehata, Director of SEO & Social Media, Advance Internet, Inc.; and Matthew J. Brown, Director of Search Strategy, New York Times Company.

“Real Time SEO: No More Yesterday’s News.” The speakers are Simon Heseltine, Senior Marketing Manager, AOL, LLC; and Brent Payne, SEO Director, Tribune.

“Social Media 101.” This solo presentation is by Liana Evans, Director of Social Media, Serengeti Communications.

“The Business Value of Social Media.”

“Social & the Marketing Mix.” The speakers are Adam Sherk, Search and PR Strategist, Define Search Strategies / The New York Times Co.; Veronica Fielding, CEO, Digital Brand Expressions; and Beth Harte, Community Manager , MarketingProfs.

“Search, PR and the Social Butterfly.”

“Building a Content Strategy to Maximize Your Search & Social Efforts.” The instructors for this training workshop are Stoney deGeyter, Pole Position Marketing and Jennifer Evans Laycock, Search Engine Guide.

In addition to the conference sessions, top PR people will want to visit the exhibitors in the expo hall. They will see some familiar faces, including Marketwire and PRWeb.

At SES Chicago 2009, Byron Gordon of SEO-PR interviewed Andy Beal of Trackur and Marketing Pilgrim, about the future of online PR. So, this topic isn’t a new one for SES events. As a matter of fact, it’s been discussed since SES New York 2004. Check out Beal’s latest advice.

Future of public relations in an online world with Andy Beal, Trackur, at SES Chicago 2009

I should disclose that Search Engine Strategies is a client of my agency. But trust me on the tough love.

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Factery Labs has launched what it is calling a Real Time Fact Engine. Go to the Factery Labs homepage and you’ll see a bunch of boxes with trending topics and facts about them. You can navigate along the top right to see those topics filtered down by category.

Factery Labs still needs to work on combining the real-time with the search engine. I tested the engine by looking up Andy Roddick who is currently playing Marin Cilic in the Australian Open quarterfinals. Factery Labs returned facts about Roddick, but they weren’t Roddick’s most recent career stats.

This happened with every search query I entered. The trending topics automatically appearing on the homepage do have updated facts, however.

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Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have filed plans with the SEC to sell five million shares of Google stock each over the next five years. The sale will bring the pair’s ownership of Google down to 48%, slightly less than majority control.

Not to worry as CEO Eric Schmidt still owns 10%, keeping the trio well in charge of the goings on at the Mountain View-based company.

Google has a dual-class stock structure. Execs get 10 votes per share of Class B stock, but when they are sold, they become Class A stock with just one vote per share.

Currently, Page and Brin own a combined 57.7 million shares of GOOG.

via New York Times

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Rich snippets allow webmasters to include structured data that search engines can include in their search results. Google is introducing a new format for rich snippets: events.

The events markup is based on the hCalendar microformat. Here’s how it would look in the search results:

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