Google was at it again over the weekend adjusting the page rank algorithm. This seemingly quarterly change has once again altered current page ranks, thankfully not as much as October’s change. Beware and monitor your site’s rank. You may have to make alterations to your organic SEO strategy.

Pew Internet has reported that

48% of internet users have been to video-sharing sites such as YouTube and the daily traffic to such sites on a typical day has doubled in the past year. The basic findings in a national phone survey that ended in December show:

thereby further demonstrating the viral potential for online video, whether it be a advertisement, or educational in nature. In any case videos are reaching people, and those companies who choose to enter, and use wisely, this form of communication will maintain a competitive advantage over those that do not.

So I am going to be interested to see what type of traction Facebook picks up in the next quarter after their belly-flop onto prime time television via their sponsorship of the presidential debates. The various juries are still debating the degree of success, if any, that the interaction between Facebook users and the CNN news crew had in the past week. As an innocent bystander watching the evening I could only imagine how many times the question “What is Facebook?” echoed through middle America. I will give them one thing, they got their brand out there for sure, now the question becomes “How exactly can they capitalize on a bunch of confused middle-aged news watchers?” Time will tell, until then I am going to shine up my new Pownce profile because I am super cool (I actually think they sent a rater large number of invites out).

So what is Data Portability? Well here is the mission statement:

To put all existing technologies and initiatives in context to create a reference design for end-to-end Data Portability. To promote that design to the developer, vendor and end-user community.

Who is the involved? Only a few little web initiatives known as Google, Facebook, and Plaxo.

What does Data Portability meant to the market? That’s easy. Cross platform data exchange, competitive intelligence and marketing across platforms.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an annual meeting where our leaders and brightest minds come together to discss major social and economic problems that we currently face across the planet. Since 1971 little has changed with this forum until this year, for on January 23, 2008 the forum will be showing requested Youtube videos. What is that you say, the World Economic Forum is going to make use of Youtube. Can this be true? Well the answer is yes, and in fact our world leaders have asked the public to “What one thing do you think that countries, companies or individuals must do to make the world a better place in 2008?” Furthermore the public is then to vote on the best user videos. See below for an example.

Well at this point you may be saying thats great. Maybe the “people” will be heard, and possibly some change could come from that. Well whether or not change occurs as a result of these videos, the point is that the World Economic Forum - the world leaders and brightest minds - have recognizedly the power, ubiquity, and pervasiveness of Youtube, and it is exactaly these traits that make Youtube a marketing machine to reach your consumers. Whether it be an advertisement or simply educational, you can no longer forget this touch point when doing business.