It looks like another year has come and gone.  And, like in past years, here are the top 10 things I learned in 2009 (at least as I see them):

1. Specializing in ‘Local’ internet was one of the smarter career moves I ever made. Who would have thought that the sum of all the small dots would actually add up to such a big picture?  Trust your gut, sometimes it tells you the right thing.
2. The Internet business is much, much different in California than it was in Chicago.  Things here move a bit faster and carry a lot more weight.  Not to mention, the weather here is great.
3. Years later, most people still don’t really ‘get it’ when it comes to SEO.  This surprises me.  But, it does make room for a lot of opportunity.  I have been doing SEO for around 10 years now, and that makes me 2 things: a) a lot grayer than when I started, b) one of suprisingly few people who actually seem to understand what it takes to rank a website in the SERPs.
4. The way things are shifting, if you don’t know feeds by now you are probably doing something horribly wrong.  The Internet is made up of tubes, of course.  It is only now becoming obvious that all of these tubes connect to make money for people who are good at filtering/sorting/combining what comes out of them all.
5. PPC advertising is not dead, not by a longshot.  But, it sure isn’t changing fast enough to keep its market share of SEM.  Turns out that display advertising has a place in the budget of even the smallest of businesses, assuming you know how to do it.  Yahoo seemed to get this when they bought Right Media, Google has been scrambling to catch up with that one— DoubleClick is still not all that effective as a display exchange and OpenX seems doomed to be an ad server.  I have little doubt that Google will succeed in the end, and fear Yahoo won’t be able to fulfill the potential RM has because of politics.  I guess that’ll be for 2010 to see.
6. When is Twitter going to figure out how to monetize effectively?  Seems a bit overdue, don’t you think?
7. Facebook seems to get it.  As a result, Facebook will probably be the biggest IPO of 2010.  Its not a bad ad platform.  Now that the privacy concerns seem to have gone away (think Beacon).
8. Bing has kind of fizzled.  I don’t see enormous growth there, although they do seem to keep tons of pages in the index for a really long time.  That’s appreciated.  Of course, never rule them out.  The Yahoo-Microsoft deal will probably start showing within the next year.  I, for one, am still excited by the possibilities.
9. If it is a good idea, Google’s probably already thought of it.  I like to think that bar codes on small business window’s that could be photographed by cell phones and easily searched on a mobile search site was my idea…. but, let’s face it Google had time to already build it, so they probably thought of it before I did.  I’ve got a few ideas that I’ve got locked in a briefcase hidden under my mattress that I’m sure Google hasn’t thought of yet.  At least, I think they haven’t.
10. Lastly, thanks to an absolutely horrible economy and all the other awful things going on in the world, I once again have been forced to realize how truly fortunate I have been.  Real estate aside, I remain pretty insulated from all the bad things out there for yet another year.  I am blessed with a gorgeous wife, a beautiful daughter and a stinky dog.  I always get to work on things that are exciting and new, I work with scores of brilliant people, and coming to work has never been a chore for me.  How many people can say that?  Not many.

Here’s hoping everyone has a happy and safe New Year, and that 2010 is full of opportunity and joy!

Happy New Year

-Ari