Happy to see that I post I wrote a little while back finally got published How to Identify Foursquare Influencers using Check-in data, over at OurSocialTimes.com today.

But what really got my attention was something that, I admit, might be old news for industry insiders in SEM, but not typical knowledge, that American Express is now offering Search Engine Marketing Services.  That’s big news.

It says to me, that Search has gone totally mainstream, and now … American Express had decided to throw their hat into the ring to help businesses grow their visibility (and I suppose, measure their campaigns and ROI from Search) via it’s own services.

I suppose, it’s a few steps down the line when the do Social Media Analytics too – maybe just monitor the brand mentions, then do sentiment, then before you know it – offering an entire brand monitoring solution.

I wonder if this is a sign of a growing trend in 2012.   I’ll have more to say about it next month when I write my predictions for 2012 along with how I did with my 2011 predictions.