Hey all... welcome back to Klog. As promised, I'll be providing you with day-to-day coverage of the SMX Conference - more or less my notes and thoughts of the events as they unfold here in Seattle.

Today was a great conference day for me... the perfect mixture of quality presentations, solid information, laughs, and networking opportunities. It all started with a quick trip to the registration area to pick up my access badge, conference guide, and freebies (a 2008 SMX Advanced Pin and an officially branded SMX backpack), then a pit stop at the continental breakfast for a cup of tea and pastries, and then off to claim my seat for this morning's Keynote presentation with Microsoft's President of Platform & Services Division Kevin Johnson.

To my surprise, I found the keynote to be an excellent Q&A discussion regarding Microsoft's Live Search, and the company's intent to eventually beat out Google, the very heavily trenched-in king of search, in the years to come. In fact just thinking about the possibility of this all happening makes me giggle with disbelief, as I'm sure it does you.

To think that Microsoft, a company with a current industry market share of just 9% - 10% of all Internet searches, will some day rule supreme in an industry where their biggest competitor already has them beat by margins of over 60% market share and is synonymous world-wide with the word "search", is just not likely going to happen. However, in that exact same breath I must also say that I for one would never bet against it either. To me, Microsoft is a lot like the New York Yankees. As much as you hate them, they're still a team to fear and no matter how badly they play you should never bet against them. That's Microsoft.

As one would expect after recent weeks, the topic of Microsoft buying Yahoo! did come up during the interview, but was quickly addressed and tossed aside. Kevin did comment stating that the idea of buying Yahoo! was a strategy for gaining market share and relevant search technologies that would allow them to further compete with Google, but it is something that didn't happen and so they've moved forward. After chatting with my friend Dustin Woodard in between sessions, we both feel that even though it appears that Microsoft is moving forward, that there is still some behind the scenes dealings going on - but, then again, what the hell do we know?

The topic of "brand confusion" also came up - referring to how frequently Microsoft changes the name of their search platform. First it was MSN, then Microsoft Live, and now it appears to be Windows Live Search. Kevin mentioned that this was not a new topic of discussion for them, and that it is something their marketing department will be addressing in due time.

Other highlights from the keynote include the mentioning of Microsoft's new operating system, IE8 beta. Kevin went on to say that he is really excited about the browser and firmly believes that it is an overall better browser than Firefox.