“Smokey” The Bear Gets the Munchies!

A Small County in Utah has a new DEA Assistant - “Smokey” the Bear. This bear does not prevent forest fires, but might start one when he tokes up his newly-found stash of pot. Apparently the bear loves the stuff so much he chased off the growers to keep the lot for himself!
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Google Search Upgrade: Google Suggest

Google has announced that their Suggest search tool will come out of Labs and release on the main Google search page. While many consumers may find this to be a helpful hand when searching, what does it mean to your business?

As users get accustomed to seeing and using search suggestion, odd keywords, misspellings and long-tail terms could become less relevant. As the suggestion tool “learns” from user queries, the searcher will spend less time dreaming up keyword terms. Instead, they will enter a few broad terms and start looking at the suggestion box for their final search term. From an SEO perspective, this means that your keyword research needs to get in high gear. You need to make sure that you are optimizing your pages and your tags for broad, industry terms.

But there’s another view to consider. It could be argued that people will still search long tail phrases - Suggest could even broaden some searches from one or two words to longer, long-tail terms and phrases through the suggestion tool itself.

It also is likely that the PPC marketplace is going to narrow - meaning that key terms are going to get even more competitive than they already are. That, in turn, will drive more businesses to focus on their SEO efforts. This is good reason to start sculpting your pages to better reflect your industry than your individual products, services or specialized terminology.

In reality, it will be months before we see the true impact of Google Suggest. And, some search verticals will undoubtedly be more affected han others. Therefore, using analytics to watch your keywords is going to be more important than ever before.

If you haven’t already, start searching your industry, your competitors and your own website on Google Suggest. It might also be a good idea to run some focus groups with searchers to find out how they are using Suggest to find what they want in your industry. The sooner you can master the language of this new, soon-to-be universal tool, the sooner you can make sure your site doesn’t get lost in the mix.

Dead Man Standing

A Puerto Rican man has been granted his wish. His mother asked the funeral home to fulfill her dead son’s last wish by having him stand for his three-day wake.

The funeral home used a special embalming treatment to keep the corpse of 24-year-old Angel Pantoja Medina standing upright for the 72 hour viewing.

He was dressed in a Yankees baseball cap and sunglasses while propped upright in his mother’s living room.

His brother Carlos said Anjel had l wanted to be upright for his own wake: “He wanted to be happy, standing.”

Pantoja was found dead Friday underneath a bridge in San Juan. Police are investigating his death.

Ugly Women Welcome in Australia

Mount Isa, Austrailia Mayor John Molony was asked to apologize for angering local women with a suggestion that “with five blokes to every girl, may I suggest that beauty-disadvantaged women should proceed to Mount Isa,” in north-west Queensland state.

The mayor said “a lass who is not so attractive” and might not have a date in most parts of the country would likely have more dates than she can go on if she moved to Mount Isa.

The mayor said he was “telling it like it is” in a testosterone-laden town more famous for cowboys and mining lead, silver, copper and zinc than for match-making, sitting atop one of the world’s biggest underground mines.

“I’m a bloke who respects women. I believe we should look after women. I’m told men outnumber women here by five to one. If that’s the case, then perhaps it’s an opportunity for some lonely women,” Molony said.

As much as this concept might offend you, the fact remains that if you’re a lonely woman (wether it’s due to looks or any other reason) and have nothing else to do, you could very well find love in Mount Isa. Granted, no one remarked on what the men look like…

Olympians, Cyborgs and Smart Rooms

With the Olympics in full swing, I started wondering about the latest technological advancements that promise to make humans better, stronger and faster. Enhancements like reading glasses, pacemakers and hearing aids have already brought humankind closer to becoming proto-cyborgs. But the most famous athlete to push the bionic envelope lately has been Oscar Pistorius, a double-amputee sprinter who has carbon-fiber, prosthetic feet. Read more

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