The economy may be sputtering, but search remains relatively strong, say experts, who share their thoughts on the latest trends in 
this continuously evolving sector.

Local search offers all the accountability and potential for delivering high ROI that make SEM such an attractive channel for marketers, and can help businesses geo-target as well. OrangeSoda co-founder Derek Miner and Gregg Stewart, SVP, TMP Directional Marketing, offer tips on how to become local search-savvy without letting dollars fly out the door.

With last week's announcement that Owen Van Natta, a Facebook alum, would replace Chris DeWolfe as CEO of MySpace, the social networking giant still finds itself quickly losing more friends to Facebook.

Bob Lord was named CEO of digital agency Razorfish. He previously held the role of president of the East US region. Former CEO Clark Kokich now serves in the newly created position of chairman.

Web site communication tool provider Bravestorm has released BoldCall Express, the company's first standalone click-to-call lead generation software for online publishers. Aimed at small businesses, the tool allows business owners to customize if or when a user of their site sees a pop-up prompting them to click to have a sales representative contact them directly.

Digital agency Razorfish has named Bob Lord CEO. Clark Kokich, who has been CEO since 2007, will take on the newly created role of chairman. All of Razorfish's presidents will now report to Lord.

Yahoo has reported a 78% drop in profits in the first quarter of 2009 to $118.7 million, compared to $536.8 million in the first quarter of last year. Yahoo also is cutting more than 600 jobs, 5% of its worldwide work force. Total revenues were $1.58 billion, down 13% from 1.817 billion a year ago. Gross profits also were down from $1.06 billion in 2008 to $879 million this year.

Internext Media Corp-owned pay-per-click (PPC) search network ABCSearch has acquired Advertise.com. Now, all of ABCSearch's services will be transitioned under the Advertise.com Inc. brand. Over the next six months, the company will be rolling out new technologies to provide multiple integrated programs, including PPC, local and contextual targeting, as well as display ads.

Local online marketing company ReachLocal has launched ReachLocal Xchange, an ad technology platform, whose anchor publishers are the Fox Audience Network and Ask Sponsored Listings—Ask.com's paid search ads.

Ask.com in the UK has returned to its Ask Jeeves branding after a three year hiatus. The Jeeves brand was dropped shortly after Ask was acquired by IAC in 2005.