Merrill Goussot

You are probably familiar with blogs like OverheardinNewYork.com or OverheardinDublin.com

Following the same idea, I set up a new blog called Overheard While Traveling  where travelers can share titbits of conversations they overheard on their journeys.

The site is very new and your feedback is more than welcome, and if you heard something funny during one of your trips, please share it.

Within a few days, I've attended two great events in Dublin. One dedicated to Open Source projects, the other one to Search Marketing.

OSS Barcamp took place in DIT and reunited a crowd that had a great nerdy/geeky feeling. Don't get me wrong, I include myself in that lot. Some of the talks were too technical for me (I'm not a developer) so I focused on the sessions related to Open Source Softwares like Gimp, Mixxx and Freemix. I was really inspired by Luis' playful approach to technology.
The funniest guys at the event were the ones from TOG. They want to create a hackerspace in Dublin and their performance took everybody by surprise. I also enjoyed catching up with James (who I had not seen in a few months) and Jamie (who I had not seen in a few years!).

The Search Marketing World Conference was a more business orientated event, but one that I also truly appreciated. As an in house PPC marketer, it is great to get an opportunity to exchange with fellow Search Marketers in real life rather than just via blogs, forums or on Twitter. I had some great chats with Jason, Lisa, Dave, Alan etc...

Video was clearly showcased as the next big thing, even bigger than mobile. Youtube is now the second most popular search engine in the world ahead of Yahoo! and MSN.  And Google now shows videos directly in the Serps which gives businesses yet another opportunity to appear on the precious first page.

The Content Network still divides marketers, some clearly advising to switch it off, while others argue that it has really improved and now brings good ROI.

A/B testing, usability: it seems that search marketers in Ireland still have a lot to do in order to catch up with that. At a session on A/B and Multivariate testing for example, I was the only one to raise my hand when the speaker asked who was already using Website Optimiser. But I expect it to change dramatically in the next few months from the interest that the sessions raised.

Google Analytics: If some other analytics were mentioned, it was only in passing. The one people use is Google Analytics.

Local Business Ads, Google Gadget Ads, Facebook Ads, Twitter...I hope these subjects will be covered in a next event in Ireland.

The book version of Entendu à Paris is planned for September. The book will be published by Editions First.

Voyageek has been added to Travel.Alltop.com

The next French Friday will take place on Sunday 29th, but next month we'll be back on...Friday.

Forum Irlande got its 700th member and ConversionR its 20th...

My mate Neil from SeoClient asked me to start posting about PPC on his blog. You can check my first guest post covering the subject: "The Top PPC Twitterers You Should Follow"

Google is using its Moderator tool to get feedback from PPC marketers about AdWords. You can submit ideas or vote for other people submissions. According to the site "The top three ideas will be presented to the AdWords Product Team and a response will be posted in the forum", however, there is no indication of when this will hapen.

The current top idea is "To be able to set different bids on Search Partners for my adwords campaigns!".

You can also vote up my submission: "To be able to download changes for a specific campaign/adgroup in AdWords Editor".

Why would anyone create an ad with the url checklivescoresandresults.com but not even bother to buy that url ?

Well, checklivescoresandresults.com is now mine.

Image : screenshot of Myhome.ie with the ad from Ireland.com