Tired, was about to go to bed a few hours ago – but I’m still up posting – and here’s why – a few stories I didn’t get a chance to post about – so here goes.

JaTin writes about Yahoo Acquires Associated Content which I thought was an interesting play because …. Yahoo! is still a Search Engine -  Yes -  Yahoo! is buying a content mill.

It’s as if search engines have evolved past finding the best content to making the content for you. Normally, this would be a conflict of interest as Yahoo! Will surely prefer it’s own content to your content, if it had to choose. But now, the lines of what a business like search is .. Is so hazy … It’s not clear if a line truly has been crossed or not.  According to the post:

If you’re wondering how this purchase has anything to do with Yahoo’s core businesses – and/or whether it represents a wise decision – Carol Bartz is eager to voice her opinion.  In a statement, she addressed the second issue by saying, “Combining our world-class editorial team with Associated Content’s makes this a game-changer.”

Bartz also explained, “Together, we’ll create more content around what we know our users care about, and open up new and creative avenues for advertisers to engage with consumers across our network.  These are important aspects of building engaging consumer experiences on Yahoo!, and one of the reasons why we’re one of the most visited destinations online.”

With a photo like that  … I don’t have to wonder. What’s Google going to do … buy up Demand Media? I mean,  Google doesn’t really need to buy Demand Media – they started “being the destination” a few years back when Google wanted Knol to replace Wikipedia – but how well did that work out?

Since this whole thing of “conflict of interest” seems to be a theme I’m uncovering while writing this post – how about …. Buying  Facebook Likes ….Yeah .. that’s already happening – care of USocial.

Get this .. according to USocial …

…..  why would one want to buy Facebook likes?

The answer to that is simple: In the world of social media, the more friends, fans, connections and the larger your circle of influence, the more money you’ll make and the faster your message will spread virally. Period. And one of the best site case studies to point this out is the simple fact that on a daily basis, you see fan pages (now called community pages) with tens, or hundreds of thousands of members, all growing rapidly because of the viral effect that Facebook marketing has.

And while it’s all well and good to note that many of these pages did rise like a Nazi German dictator to prominence on their own, the fact is that 99% of Facebook community pages never get over a couple of hundred members. Unless you’re going to spend $0.20 per click on Facebook advertising to get someone to your page (bearing in mind that you won’t convert all of them — in most cases, less than 40%) or your content is something which is basically guaranteed to go viral by itself, then you will need help.

I guess Social Media gets corrupted, just like Search did – as buying “likes” is about the same thing as “buying links” – which, incidentally, a lot of sites do – and very successfully – even though it’s against Google’s official policy … still – it’s done – and by many, many, many big players.

Which reminds me – JaTin posted today on SEOs Can’t Agree on Risk of Link Buying where

that SEOs can’t agree on this topic. I asked to rate how risky link buying is on a scale from 1 to 5, 1 being the very risky and 5 being not risky. Most SEOs voted on 3, yes, 93 votes or 31.42% were saying its risky, but not too risky. Then 24.66% or 73 people said it is closer to not being risky, voting on 4. Then the next most popular vote was 20.95% or 62 people voting 2, for just behind being very risky. 11.82% said it is not risky at all and 11.15% said it is very risky.

Here is the chart:

Again, my understanding is that Link Buying is the staple of many large sites where the risk is low and the benefits high … Google might have started out trying to make the Search Engines do all the heavy lifting – but most of the time, they’re patching up holes in how they rank and show content – many sites don’t know what to do – they’ve given up trying to figure out (and if they did – Google would just change the rules again so as to outwit Black Hat Seo’s – whatever that means now) and just go buy links.

When you consider Yahoo! buying Associated Content (above) and Google …. attacking WikiPedia a few years back, and slowly eating up the rest of the Web, becoming it’s own destination for a link – I can see where a lot of businesses see Search Engines as just another game – and if buying some links will help you rank better in that game – they’ll fork over the money – hire a text link broker, mix it up with some organic seo – and call it a day.  And, in fact, that’s what I think a lot of SEO has ended up being.

And that reminds me of another story about Wikipedia – that Jimmy Whales role sorta changed - all of a sudden this week; at first we heard he was out, then he was back in – who knows what to believe – all we know is something went down that wasn’t totally kosher – I would tend to believe Whales over anyone else in this.

In another matter – I’ve been posting about Keyword Tools for Social Media for over 18 months – how there really weren’t any – but then I discovered tools like Sysomos MAP with it’s Entity Analysis and for branding Radian6′s Word Clouds can be useful – but lately more people have been writing about Keyword Tools for Social Media – or if not the tool it self – techniques like this post in WordStream’s blog on Keywords and Social Media: What You Should Know.  Among other things this post says you should consider

• Sending out a tweet with a shortened URL? Why not customize that short URL text with the keywords for that destination URL? If it makes sense, is concise, and looks good then do it.
• Posting a ‘note’ on Facebook? Optimize the text on your post, add tags, and a link back to your site with your keywords.
• Uploading photos on Flickr? Fill in the captions, titles, and tags. If your keywords are applicable to the picture, then put them in there.
• Posting a video? Fill in the title, tags, and captions. Again, if your keywords are applicable: put them in there!

As you probably know by now – I’ll be attending RWW’s Real Time Web Summit in a few weeks – and I bet one of the topics of conversation will be the deal announced today  Booyah Partners With Google, First To Access Places Web Service that effectively gives Booyah 50 million additional locations … yeah … take that .. Facebook … the Real Time Web / Social Graph War is heading up.    While my insight does not seem to match the story – I think Google I/O announcements today were as earthshaking in their own way as Facebook’s F8 announcements two weeks ago.

Booyah unveiled a new partnership with Google at the I/O conference today, the creator of MyTown will be the “first and leading” partner of Google’s recently announced Places Web Service feature.

“Our collaboration with Google bridges the gap between the consumer and businesses by enabling MyTown as a vehicle for real-world benefits,” CEO Keith Lee said in a statement. “The new API affords lightning fast search for local directory content both in the US and abroad, further growing MyTown’s presence and Booyah’s leadership in real-world interactive entertainment.”

Booyah is going through a heavy news cycle. Earlier this month the company hit 2 million users, then on Monday, the company announced $20 million in new funding from an investor group led by Accel.

The API will give Booyah’s MyTown access to Google’s massive data set of over 50 million locations around the world. Currently, Booyah has roughly 2.1 million users, but all of these users are based in the United States. Through the Google API, Booyah will be able to rapidly expand to other countries (without having to form custom partnerships with local directories).

Of course – Booyah also had something else that I tracked – restaurant and location reviews and ratings – I’m sure whatever they are doing in that direction will be enhanced by Google Places – and vice versa.

Today I also read about how  Quantcast Expands Into Europe and Welcomes Phil Macauley as UK Managing Director - showing Quantcast is making it into the big leagues – I know a few people at Quantcast, including the founder and have been at their offices in San Francisco a few years back – it’s exciting to see them grow from that day in 2006 when I had Breakfast with Quantcast and where Quantcast is today, almost 4 years later.  I was one of the first bloggers that Quantcast reached out to.

Sometimes I think my life has a dreamlike quality to it - or maybe living in New York City helps.  I received an email from Konrad Feldman, founder of a new audience demographics service called Quantcast, that I posted about earlier, who was in town for Advertising week, and we met this morning at Morgans for a hastily arranged breakfast. BTW, it’s thanks to MarketingShift that I know about Quantcast at all - MarketingShift makes a lot of good calls and I read it every day.

Talking about my life having a “dreamlike quality to it” then … it’s gotten way more Dream Like .. now – I was just on the edge of it then – almost every day is turning into a dream like thing for me now – and that’s part of my life that I like the best – the dream like aspect of it.

In fact, another event just like the Quantcast / Konrad Feldman meeting 4  years ago happened tonight at dinner with Twitter Growth By The Numbers.

I was emailing Paull Young a few times this week and happened to drop by a Tribecca restaurant for a farewell dinner for a coworker and guess who was sitting at the table.  My life is turning into this  – pretty much – most of the time – and I take that to mean I’m in the right place (for me) at the right time doing, more or less, the right things – and this is the reward for it – at least – that’s how I look at it.

And I’m grateful for it.

Finally, at Google I/O: The Web Is Killing Radio, Newspapers, Magazines, And TV

According to what I read at TechCrunch:

From 2004 to 2009, stats from Forrester say that use of the web is up 117% in terms of how people spend their time in a day. That may not be too surprising, but what’s interesting is that all of the other major forms of media consumption are down or flat during the same period. Listening to the radio is down 18%, reading newspapers is down 17%, reading magazines is down 6%, and watching TV has seen 0% growth.

Ok, enough of this , I’m going to bed -  maybe I’ll dream up some more stories (being the dreamlike theme the last part of my post has).