SEO for your product/company - what is the 'optimization' level to aim for?

First off, I am not giving any tips for SEO here - there are experts who have tuned this to a perfect science and it works phenomenally well if you follow a few simple steps towards getting the name of your company or product on to the first page of search results. What I am asking is, what is the ideal mix of those results?
I have been looking for some information about a group of companies and wanted to read reviews about their products/services. My goal was to check whether the products/services are creating enough buzz to qualify as a threat/interest and be acknowledged as trendsetters. What I realized was that most of these companies have managed to optimize their information out there to get themselves onto the first page of almost every search engine that one might use. However, all these results seemed to be nothing more than information about the products and not really reviews or customer comments. For those, I needed to navigate to second or third page, by which time, I would have left investigating the company.
There might be some good strategic levers that prompted this action by the companies. However, from the point of view of an analyst/researcher (i.e. me) or a prospective net-savvy customer, this would be a handicap towards making a choice or decision about a product.
Based on this experience, I would say that the optimized mix would be a mix of product information, customer testimonials on the company website and the customer website and a few reviews by independent sources like specialist bloggers, users, technology sites and others. After all, if you want to buy or evaluate a product off the web, you would not want to converse only with the salesperson, or the owner but also have the opinions of the independent specialist and satisfied customers.

xBox + Hulu = Great partnership strategy?

Damon Brown at BNet seems to think so.

For starters, what makes XBox a better partner than iPad is because it is more suitable for live streaming, given that Apple is limiting heavy-data programs to wi-fi and AT&T has now capped data plans.

And then, there is the fact that video game systems have evolved surreptitiously over the years to come with keyboards, NetFlix and Blue Ray options. Not to mention, a built-in payment system that makes it convenient for Hulu, similar to NetFlix previously.

So, Hulu might very well look forward to adding enthusiastic gamers to its list of customers, what say?

You have been infected by a computer virus...

A scientist claims to have been affected by a computer virus.

Interestingly, Dr Mark Gasson not only infected himself through a computer chip, but also transmitted the virus to a PC, to prove that malware can move between human and computer.

**I have no idea why this reminds me of avian flu.Or of my car being connected to a computer to see why the 'engine check' light was on.

Sony Unveils Flexible OLED

Now this is aesthetically and technically awesome and the implications are large:
 http://inhabitat.com/2010/05/26/sony-unveils-flexible-oled-thinner-than-a-strand-of-human-hair/

I was thinking of newspapers, watch-like gadgets, but I am late, they are already there and there.

Why?

When I was a kid, and my father, a Maths teacher himself, wanted to help me get that 'stronger base' in Maths and Physics in secondary school, I am sure he got more than he bargained for. That was simply because I needed to have my 'Whys' and 'What's the use' answered, everytime. It thus seems only fair that I now explain why I needed to have another blog, though I already have one already, which, incidentally I keep orphaning for months or years sometimes.

To start with, I like to organize my thoughts (yes, I still think), and personally I would hate to read about business strategies and movies in the same blog, so I needed a different one to try and summarize my thoughts and observations and learnings from what is happening around, and what other wise people are talking about what is happening.

So, yes, this blog will be different, serious, and maybe, geeky. As serious as it can be from a person who hates taking anything too seriously (except hunger and the obsessive need for organization). This blog will also have less opinions, and more "news" and links about news that interest me in the business world, mainly, technology, marketing and reactions from users. This blog will be about those links which I 'chase' through the virtual space simply to know 'why it is happening' and 'what's the use' and 'how it all started'. I can safely blame this tendency on Baba for not asking me to shut up and learn what is given in the books, when the time was still right.

And of course, as old habits die hard, this blog just might be because of my narcisstic need to let others know what I think, and involve everyone in a conversation to satisfy my incessant need to talk to people, at least virtually.

So, here's to another journey with opinions and arguements, facts and effects, past actions and future plans - a chance to ask why and a place to air thoughts.