WebProNews spoke with former Congressman and Internet Innovation Alliance Honorary Chairman Rick Boucher about these questions and others, who gave us his perspective on the companies. Congressman Boucher supported the merger, as he told us in a prior interview, because he believed it would bring innovation, help the economy, and produce jobs.

He told us that, although AT&T would not be able to complete its goals in the same time frame it would have if the deal had gone through, he believed it could still meet them. The Congressman also said T-Mobile was a strong company, and he believed it would remain a player in the mobile industry. However, its biggest challenge will be gaining the capital it needs to deploy 4G.

Even though he thinks the companies will bounce back from this hurdle, Congressman Boucher told us that the mobile industry, consumers, and the economy would be impacted long-term.

What’s your prediction for the future of AT&T and T-Mobile? Let us know in the comments.

Jack Pflanz, a spokesperson with Sprint, told us that the company hopes the program will help people in need communicate with potential employers and find jobs. Assurance Wireless is currently available in 31 states and is expected to expand further.

For those that do not qualify for Assurance Wireless, Sprint also offers another service called payLo by Virgin Mobile. This service is for value-conscious wireless consumers and offers a prepaid phone with rates as low as $0.20 per minute.

To see if you qualify for either program, visit Assurance Wireless or Virgin Mobile.

Former Congressman Rick Boucher, who is also the Honorary Chairman of the Internet Innovation Alliance (IIA), is among this group of supporters because he believes the deal would be advantageous for innovation, the economy, and job creation. He spoke with WebProNews and said that the merger would not only achieve broadband deployment, but that it would also help fulfill the President’s goal of having 98 percent of the country have access to broadband.

For these reasons and others, he believes that it will be approved. Do you agree?

As the economy continues to turn around, there are some elements that retailers should apply to better leverage the comeback. From a paid search perspective, Gibson recommends that retailers update their keywords based on incoming inventory.

During the recession, many retailers cut back on their inventory. Now that the economy is starting to improve, they are ordering more products. Gibson says retailers need to make sure that their new inventory is represented in paid search. He also adds that retailers need to optimize pages to guarantee that they are found in the search engines. Ultimately, no one will benefit if the new inventory cannot be found.

Gibson also tells WebProNews that The Rimm-Kaufman Group is adding products. In the past, the company focused primarily on paid search. As Gibson explains, it is now adding an attribution management component that will help its clients understand what is happening outside of paid search. RKG will talk with clients about the data it collects and help them build an attribution model.

As Amanda Watlington shares, SEO business has seen budgets cut, managers shifting their budgets to see where the value lies, and slow closing processes. In addition, some SEO consultants are focusing so much of their time on retaining their large clients that they neglect the smaller potential clients. Watlington offers this advice:

“We, as business people, have to watch that we don’t let bad work drive out good.”

On the positive side, the field of SEO has seen some increases in business. The paid search front has especially been favored because it is so measurable.

Watlington however, still believes in the business of SEO in spite of the many challenges associated with the economic climate. She says:

“Search still, in 10 years, is still to me the best game in town.”

How has the economy affected your business? What advice do you offer to other SEO consultants?

In addition to the changes, the advertising industry has been hit with a hard blow from the economic downturn. However, the advertising industry is far from being over as Steve Hayden, the Vice-Chairman and Chief Creative Officer of Ogilvy Worldwide, so eloquently explains in the above video. His words should not be taken lightly since he co-created the 1984 Apple commercial that launched the Macintosh computer, led the team that produced IBM‘s award-winning e-business campaign, and his clientele at Ogilvy has included Kodak, Motorola, Dove, American Express, and more.

With advertising, on one side lies the “fear” factor and on the other side is the “love” factor. Given the changes in the industry and the impact of the economy, it is no surprise that there is a sense of “fear” among advertisers. Steve developed a tool called Hayden’s Mandala that describes the cycle a business or even a person experiences when facing changes. The stages of the cycle include:

1.    Fear and Arousal
2.    Intelligence
3.    Intelligent Fear
4.    Arrogance
5.    Intelligent Arrogance
6.    Stupidity
7.    Arrogant Stupidity
8.    Cowardice

To counteract the current fears among advertisers, Steve introduces 3 new innovations that pushes the fears aside and brings back the spirit of excitement and love to advertising. They are: Intelevision, Bunkspeed, and Ogilvy PR’s Digital Influence program. These innovations prove that the advertising industry is still very much alive in spite of the obstacles the industry has encountered. As Steve says, many valuable inventions and developments resulted from the Great Depression and as evidenced by his 3 examples, the same could happen today.

Typically, the online space doesn’t change dramatically from month-to-month or even year-to-year.  But according to Charles Buchwalter, the Senior Vice President of Research Analytics at Nielsen Online, in the past 5-6 years, “this industry has transformed itself.”

The growth is evident not so much in the number of users, but where users are spending their time and how much time they are spending. Not surprisingly, the two biggest areas of growth over the last 2-3 years are online video and social networks. The significant growth of these two areas proves that innovation is still happening despite the current economic climate.

Additionally, there are other areas that are showing positive developments in the midst of the recession. Healthcare, packaged goods, and telecommunications were big spenders in traditional media and were slow to come online. However, those industries are now stepping up their efforts on the Web.

Jeff serves as the Executive Vice President of iCrossing and the President of SEMPO. In their latest State of the Market Survey, SEMPO found search spending at 13 billion in 2008, and saw that it would increase to 19 billion by 2011.  (WebProNews detailed SEMPO’s latest State of the Market Survey in an interview with Kevin Lee.)

While these numbers show significant growth in spite of the economic crisis, Jeff points out that these statistics do not reflect the extent of how much search has evolved. Search now looks at how users engage with content. In the past, users had to go to search engines to find websites and news. Today, users go to social networks, use various devices to search on, and want to find images, video, blogs, etc.

What does all this mean for marketers? According to Jeff, marketers need to look at their content distribution processes and make sure they are optimized for both search engines and social networks. Marketers also need to break out of their traditional molds and integrate social into their search efforts.

To better understand the search evolution and to further help marketers, SEMPO is working this year on the thought leadership of extending search beyond what it is known as today.