Social media. Buzz words?  Yes.  Important for your job search?  An understatement.

Talking turkey for a moment, if you don’t have a profile up on LinkedIn, you’re a dinosaur.  If you’re not on Facebook, maybe not quite so bad, but not great either.

Last year, Jump Start Social Media conducted a survey that found 75% of recruiters use LinkedIn to conduct candidate searches.  48% use Facebook and 26% turn to the Twit-monster.  My guess?  These percentages are much higher now.

That said, I can’t tell you how many times a client comes to me for help with a resume but doesn’t think about their social media branding efforts.  Most have a LinkedIn page but with nothing significant on it.  Many are not involved with Facebook or Twitter.  Having a page on LinkedIn that just lists the places you’ve worked is like joining Match.com and not posting a picture of yourself. Who the hell is going to call you?

Read More: Let’s Talk Turkey

Ad Network? Video Ad Network? Why Not Both?

Ever wonder why a separate class of so-called video ad networks emerged over the last decade? Or, why more display ad networks don’t serve pre-roll video ads? The reason is simple: a lack of standards for video ad serving required specialized technology to translate between a network’s ad server and the growing hodgepodge of different publisher video player implementations. This was not an insignificant undertaking, so networks choosing to focus limited technical and operational resources on it became, de facto, video ad networks. But all that’s about to change, due to the IAB’s ground-breaking standard for online pre-roll video advertising (or “VAST”, if you like acronyms).

Read More: AdAge

Ad Servers Rigged To Be DSP’s

Previously I wrote about adservers touching on Full Service options and open source options on the publisher side. One trend I would like to highlight is manipulating Adserver arrangements to put together a Demand Side Optimization Platform (DSP).  This seems to be a trend with smaller networks setting up “private networks”.

Read More: Mobtown Labs

On a Scale From 1 to 10, How Weird Are You?

This interview with Tony Hsieh, the chief executive of Zappos.com, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant.

Q. What are some of the most important leadership lessons you’ve learned?

A. After college, a roommate and I started a company called LinkExchange in 1996, and it grew to about 100 or so people, and then we ended up selling the company to Microsoft in 1998. From the outside, it looked like it was a great acquisition, $265 million, but most people don’t know the real reason why we ended up selling the company.

Read More: NY Times

AOL’s Board Approves Restructuring; $150 Million in Severance Charges

AOL’s board has officially approved the restructuring started by CEO Tim Armstrong last month, as part of its first official board meeting as an independent and public company last week, according to an SEC filing. The company has said before it will be slashing a third of its staff of about 7,000. through voluntary buyouts and layoffs. In the filing, it said that the $200 million or so in charges related to this reorg, about $150 million would be in severance and benefit costs, and up to $50 million of charges related to facility closures and other costs.

Read More: PaidContent.org

Are spam, hackers, privacy concerns and commercialization killing social media?

Social media comes in many forms and flavors with new types coming in and some older ones slowly dying out. It has become so ubiquitous that we rarely think about it when we use it. I primarily use Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and LinkedIn, in addition to my blogging, but I have become less and less enamored with social media over time. Although I was never a rabid user of Twitter, I did initially use it on a regular basis but now will frequently go days between tweets or without even looking at it.

Read More: Forbes

The Coming of Age of Local Online Advertising

The future of local online advertising is bright. As we stand on the brink of 2010, there are many reasons to be hopeful. We are seeing new innovations on search engines, the proliferation of hyper-local content developed and managed by micro bloggers and business owners directly, and a resurgence in online coupons with sites like Groupon. All of these trends are driving an increasing number of consumers to go online more often to find local products and services. More than 80 percent of consumers are searching online for local products every day. They are searching from their homes, but increasingly they are searching on mobile devices — and the new Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Nexus phone will likely offer souped-up search capabilities.

Read More: E-Commerce News