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2.5.08 - The Super Tuesday edition of the Free Line Report.

First, a chance to win 500 bucks from StomperNet faculty member Dan Thies. He’s holding an SEO training competition. In this contest, the goal is not to get ranked for an esoteric keyword phrase like “sushi milkshakes,” but to make a video that teaches search engine marketing. The prize is $500 for the best SEO video and $500 for the best pay-per-click video.

Andy Beal, [Blooper Update: Not to be confused with Andy Beard], and also known as Marketing Pilgrim, has a great list of 26 free tools you can start using right away to track your company’s popularity and online buzz. He lists everything from the obvious sites like Google’s Blog Search, Technorati and Digg to some little known gems like Compete’s Search Analytics and KeoTag. If you’re interested in what’s being said about you or your company, or your company’s CEO, get all these tools up and running asap.

If you’re following Web 2.0 and you’re interested in HOW search engines will soon be able to pull up, say, everyone you know who lives in Europe, or any of your friends’ friends who made a blog comment on a given topic, check out the Semantically-Interlinked Online Communities Project – It’s called SIOC or shock.

This is the kind of thing that will change the way we view the world. As they say, sometimes it’s WHO you know and sometimes it’s what…no it’s pretty much who you know.

And speaking of who you know, it’s Super Tuesday and while the presidential candidates are out stumping for votes, the U.S. House of Representatives has already announced that it will hold hearings as quickly as this Friday on Microsoft’s bid to buy Yahoo. And Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, telephoned Yahoo’s Jerry Yang to see if he could help fend off the bid.

Now there’s a call you want to get. The guy who’s been kicking the snot out of you for the last couple years now wants to help. Almost reminds you of the American political parties – after they choose a candidate. Forget all that stuff I said – I’d be a GREAT vice president.