There’s a big dust-up going on over at the Outspoken Media blog today after Robert Scoble questions whether SEO will be as important in 2010 for small businesses. Scoble says:

The writing is on the wall. Small business marketing is moving away from focusing on SEO. Why do I say that? Because, well, Google and Bing are changing the rules so often and are getting so good at figuring out the real businesses that deserve to be on pages.

…and then goes into using examples in both the text and video portion of his blog post. He makes his case.

Lisa Barone, a rising star on the tech, social media and internet marketing scene, uses her relatively newfound clout (backed by a degree in Journalism and several years experience in online marketing) to confront Scoble, saying that since he still has some “street cred,” he “should know better” than to say SEO isn’t important, or AS important as it once was.

Of course, the gloves come off in the comments on Lisa’s post.

You gotta love it – two characters in a performance who are so good at polarizing their audience while they play in each other’s sandbox.

So who is right? Why, they both are. Because they’re both stressing different aspects of the same point.

And then there’s Loren Feldman. The guy who turns the whole damn thing into a puppet show. Mr. “It doesn’t mattah…”

And he’s right too; especially about the “New Web Order.”

All the Web’s a stage.

But if I had to choose one of the actors who I thought could help my business the most in the long run, my money would be on the girl with the dimples. Because she’s on the winning team.

Photo credit: Lisa Barone’s Daily Booth