Naturally, this feature has implications for both search engine optimization and user experience. Having been on both sides of search: designing the search itself, and optimizing content for display in result sets, I can certainly see user advantages to this feature. Plenty of users have adopted the behavior of using Google as a launcher of sorts, so allowing those users to customize their search results for individual effectiveness entrenches Google even more firmly within those users' web workflow. This is smart.

What I've always struggled with on the search design side, though, is that the more freedom users have to tailor their search experiences, the harder it becomes to present fresh relevant content to them. How Google will integrate new content into the personalized result set remains to be seen, but there must be allowance for it.

On the SEO side, optimizing content for display in search engine results has tended to be thought of in terms of anticipating the behavior of the algorithm first, and then trying to anticipate the behavior of the user. With this change, the user experience becomes more prominent, and the SEO must think harder about motivating the user not only to determine content relevant enough to click, but now the goal is to motivate the user to rank the content higher in a given result set. Ultimately, this bodes well for the user.

What are your thoughts on SearchWiki? Share them in the comments.

Yammer also makes it super easy to keep up with the flow of information via an Adobe Air based desktop application as well as an iPhone app. Now anything I want to know about the goings on at Sitening, I just look down in the bottom left hand corner of my monitor. Yammer keeps me up to date on everything I should know, even laid up in bed seven miles away.

O'Neill will take on many of the responsibilities currently managed by Sitening partner Jon Henshaw, freeing Henshaw up to lead product development and marketing for Raven SEO Tools, the agency's flagship tool for managing search engine optimization. "There's a bit of cult of personality about Jon, both among clients and in the community, and with this focus, he'll continue to be a leader in the SEO industry," said Patrick Keeble, Sitening President. "Kate brings a strong SEO background as well, and adds tremendous strength in other areas, including web analytics, usability testing and site optimization, and those will be key to our continued growth."

"I'm excited to join such a talented group of web professionals as Jon and [Sitening partner and System Architect] Scott [Holdren]," said Kate O'Neill. "There's wonderful enthusiasm and innovation with this team, and a genuine focus on improving the customer experience. As successful as the company has already been, I'm confident that it will be even stronger with the focus we're going to be able to apply."

About Sitening, LLC.
Sitening, LLC is a full service Internet marketing agency focused on building online ROI. Their services include search engine optimization, online public relations, web analytics, user testing and pay-per-click advertising. Sitening also provides an industry leading SEO product, Raven SEO Tools. Raven helps SEO professionals and search marketing agencies efficiently run their SEO campaigns, and provides tools for performance reporting and ROI. Sitening is a privately owned company and is based in Nashville, TN.

For additional information, contact: Alison Groves, 615-469-5150, press@sitening.com

• Keyword centric domain name
• Reviews include good details and images of the competitor's products
• Every review includes a "Recommendations" section at the end, comparing and linking to your product page

The best way to create a site like this is to make sure it looks professional. You may want to consider building it on WordPress and then using a free or premium WordPress theme for the layout. The reviews should be relatively matter-of-fact, using easily available information about their products. That includes a brief description, a list of technical details and at least one good image of the product. The end of the review should have purchasing recommendations and should mention your product along with a link to your product page.

When making a site like this, it's important to keep yourself out of trouble. For example, it would be a bad idea to slander or make up things about the competing product. Basically, stay away from making false statements about a competitor's product, because you may be legally liable for it. Instead, focus on the standard description and features of the competing product and use the recommendations section to legitimately talk about how and why your product is better. If you can't make a positive comparison for your product over theirs, then you may want to consider not reviewing it at all.

For fun, I made this very unethical and legally questionable example for my presentation. In it, Friskies is competing against Fancy Feast. They've created a website called "Cat Food Reviews.com" and have determined that Friskies is probably better for your cat, unless you want it to end up like the cat in this picture.

BarCamp is free to all of those who would like to attend and is a fantastic way to hear about all of the exciting things happening in Nashville's digital world as well as meet some of your peers from not only Nashville but from all around the country. The event will be a full day of speakers, discussions, and networking in a casual setting that aims to educate as well as foster community.

BarCamp is this Saturday at the Sommet Center and is going to be a great day for the community. To prepare for the event I’ve been spending a lot of time writing copy for the site, writing our email marketing campaigns, and being a general point person when someone has a BarCamp question. I also spent a Sunday in the Sitening Recording Studio producing a radio ad that is running on WRLT. It has been a ton of work, but I’m looking forward to the event on Saturday and seeing everything come together. I’m also the “trade show manager” for the day so if you are in the cafe/networking area, be sure to find me and say hello.

And you know why you’ll REALLY want to find me? Those of us from Sitening who will be at the event will all have some drink coupons to hand out good for a beer at the bar which will be running from 12-4. Free beer on Sitening? Sign me up! Just look for someone in a Raven t-shirt, say hello and we’ll hook you up. Hope to see you guys on Saturday. You won’t want to miss it.

On the InstantAmber centric episode of Jumping Monkeys, Matt tells the story of how his youngest child went missing one day out on the beach, how the event prompted him to start a child safety company, and discusses in great detail exactly how InstantAmber works. If you are a podcast listener, you can find this episode of Jumping Monkeys on iTunes or Twit.TV. We hope you enjoy it!

If there is anything that is up in the air these days when it comes to telecommunications, it’s phones. Land lines, cell phones, VoIP – there have never been more options when it comes to phone service. But what do you do with that number that you’ve had forever and want to either use cross platform or just hang onto for a while? Nashville company NumberGarage allows you to hang on to that phone number you love and do one of two things with your number: park it or forward it.

Parking your phone number allows you to hold onto your number without using it. If you’re moving, going to be changing business for any reason or just want to hold onto a phone number, parking the number will allow you to do so. You can truly be the owner of that number. If you’ve had a number you can’t imagine parting with, this is perfect for you.

If you want to use that number, but just on a different platform – like say you have a land line number you want to have ring through to your cell phone – then forwarding is for you. You’ll never miss your calls again, and you can streamline your communications for business and personal use. Now there are no excuses for keeping extra phone lines that you don’t need around. NumberGarage offers phone porting options that will be perfect for your specific needs.

Scott Holdren wrote a tweak for WordPress' wp-config.php file that will automatically support multiple websites. The trick is with the table prefix. By automatically detecting the incoming server name (the domain), the config file can either create a new database structure or reference the structure if it already exists.

Central WordPress Installation

Create a folder on your hosting provider and name it whatever you want ("wordpress" is probably a good name!). Copy the WordPress files into that folder. Then rename the wp-config-sample.php page to wp-config.php and follow the next step.

Edit WordPress Config File

Warning: Although we're confident with the code we've written, we've only tested this on Pair Networks and we're not responsible if you manage to blow up your WordPress sites!

In order to make this change, find and open your WordPress config file (wp-config.php). Fill in the details, like database information, and then find this line of code.

$table_prefix = 'wp_';

Replace that code with this code.

$domain_name = preg_replace("/^www\./", "", $_SERVER["SERVER_NAME"]);
switch ($domain_name)
{ default: $table_prefix = "wp_" . md5($domain_name); }

Now, if you create a new website and point it to the WordPress folder you created in the first step, it will automatically create the necessary table prefixes in the database for that site. You can continue to add new websites and point them to the same folder, and that tweak will continue to create new table prefixes the first time you visit the related URL.

What about existing WordPress installations? I thought you would never ask! Simply prepend the code with the current server name and table prefix. The code should look like this.

$domain_name = preg_replace("/^www\./", "", $_SERVER["SERVER_NAME"]);
switch ($domain_name)
{ case "current-domain.com": $table_prefix = 'wp_work_ref'; break; default: $table_prefix = "wp_" . md5($domain_name); }

With this simple solution, you can now have one code base for WordPress on your server that all of your WordPress sites utilize. Keep all of the themes and plugins in that one WordPress folder and then use the WordPress Web admin to configure each site. Additionally, when it's time to upgrade WordPress, you only have to update the files in that one folder and all of your sites will be upgraded.

You can also copy this code using the Snipplr entry

We had a little party over the weekend to celebrate the launch of Raven, our SEO tools suite (more to come on that later). A cake was purchased (after, no lie, having to jump through legal hoops to get it printed) for the celebration, and when the time came to cut the cake, the Children Of Sitening thought it was someone's birthday, so we sang Happy Birthday to Raven. Seeing as how they are all under the age of six, I say a birthday was the best way to explain to them what was going on. I mean, a product launch is like a birth right? Mark the date, October 2, 2008, the day Raven was (re)born.

So happy birthday Raven. May your first birthday taste as good as your launch.

My alma mater is a pretty popular place these days. The second 2008 Presidential debate is being held next week at Belmont University, which is just blocks from our offices at Sitening. There was word on the street that an amazing feat of temporary technology infrastructure was being built just around the corner, so I had to take a peek.  Jason and I got a fantastic tour of everything being brought in and built for the event. Let's just say the Belmont debate is as good as telecommunications gets. Fiber everywhere. Over 500 dedicated land lines. Generators to run the entire event off the grid. Temporary mobile phone towers. 47 flatscreens in the media tent alone. Enough to make tech geeks like us snicker with glee.

There are over 30 media corrals in the media tent, each one supplying enough room for a cameraman, reporter, and each individually powered and also has a dedicated internet connection. Each work station also has it’s own power supply and internet connection, as well as 29 wireless hubs in the media tent alone. There are war rooms for each party that are exactly the same size, down to the square foot, each also heavily wired with fiber for internet and television. Permanent cell towers were installed in the Curb Event Center so that cell phone traffic can be handled, no matter how deep in the building you go. Is there any way to roll this out to my house once Belmont is done with it?!

A question or two of mine was met with an “I can’t tell you that,” which was kinda fun, but I want to thank our tour guide Paul who gave us a fantastic tour of all things geek for the debate. When you watch the Belmont debate on Tuesday, just remember how much telecom these guys are sitting on. It is geek heaven.

So I kept seeing Rex Hammock's picture associated with an ad in the right column of Facebook. I couldn't make sense out of it until I finally stumbled upon Social Ads in my Facebook privacy settings. Going to Settings > Privacy Settings > News Feed and Wall > Social Ads will take you to the Social Ads privacy settings. By default this is set to Only my friends. If you don't want to have your image used to sell someone else's services and goods, you should choose No one and save your settings.

So what does Facebook have to say about this service? They explain it this way:

Facebook occasionally pairs advertisements with relevant social actions from a user's friends to create Social Ads. Social Ads make advertisements more interesting and more tailored to you and your friends. These respect all privacy rules. You may opt out of appearing in your friends' Social Ads below.

Opt out I will. That should keep Facebook from whoring out my picture to my friends to sell other people's stuff — at least for the time being.

Ah. Smells like a snack room full of awesome.