AdWeek runs a story titled, There's Still Room for Google Killers, Study Says. CNET News counters with the commentary piece 'Google killers?' I don't think so. So, which is it?

AdWeek bases its claim on the fact that general search-engine brand loyalty is almost non-existent, and the cost of switching brands (or search engines) is low (in fact, free). Meaning that Google has not yet cemented #1 search engine status. AdWeek quotes a survey by Forrester Research revealing that only 20 percent of respondents use Google exclusively, with a full 80 percent of Web surfers either tied to other search engines or brand disloyal.

CNET counters that the survey doesn’t exactly show an open playing field. 59 percent of searchers use Google most often (up from 41 percent in 2006). Also:

…while 53 percent of consumers who set Yahoo as their home page most frequently select Yahoo for search, 91 percent of consumers who set Google as their home page most frequently use Google for search.

Finally, the analyst who wrote the study didn’t draw the same conclusion AdWeek trumpeted. In an email exchange with CNET’s Charles Cooper, Shar VanBoskirk claimed, “I'm definitely not trying to say that the 'nascent search field is wide open.” Her point was that marketers should concentrate on more than just Google, as users may turn to different search engines for specific types of content. For example, Google may provide the best sites related to information, but MSN is better for news content.

Funny how AdWeek completely missed the survey’s marketing spin.

(Credit: Forrester Research, via CNET)

CNET News staffer and social media commentator Caroline McCarthy had some interesting insight into “social media’s hidden bubble” this week. “As the recession rapidly sucks the momentum out of Web 2.0's heyday,” she writes, “with it may go one of the era's most defining terms: the job title ‘social media expert.’”

I certainly welcome a thinning of the social media expert herd, if not the outright extinction. Social media expert has become a meaningless title, as the only qualification one seemingly needs for the label is a Twitter account and Facebook profile.”

Judging from Caroline’s anecdote, that is enough to fool some companies.

One digital-strategies czar at a small media company told CNET News that a while back, before she was brought on board, her employer had enlisted a freelance "social media expert" to give the company a presence on Web 2.0's most buzzworthy communities. It was a disaster, she said. The consultant charged $200 an hour for what was effectively a bunch of Facebook fan pages and a Twitter account that most full-time staff wasn't particularly sure how to use. The final bill tallied almost $40,000.

Of course, the web is filled with hundreds of examples of companies using Facebook and Twitter effectively to get their message out to the masses. However, success takes an engaging product and a healthy respect for the community. After all, authenticity in the Web 2.0 world is and always will be key (see the migration of users from Friendster to MySpace to Facebook, as I commented here).”

There is also that little consideration if the product is geared toward the 2.0 world, as one astute observer opined:

Even now I read blogs on respected websites giving advise (sic) on how to make the most of social networking without any consideration for whether a company's market is even actually present on those social networks, let alone whether the effort helps achieve high level marketing goals.

I fear that social media experts are the new SEO experts, who, in turn, were the new snake oil salesmen...