As one of the judges for this year’s US Search Awards, I knew who the winner of the Search Personality of the Year would be – Duane Forrester of Bing Webmaster Tools.  And what made this choice even better?  Sitting close to Duane Forrester as Marty Weintraub – last year’s winner – described the winner in a way that only Marty could do justice, complete with a sparkly tiara – and it was obvious no one had spilled the beans to Duane as he clearly had no idea and was loving every minute of anticipation to learn which attendee would be crowned winner.

Not only did Duane graciously accept his crown, but during his scheduled Pubcon keynote the following day, he pulled out his tiara to show it off to those who weren’t able to attend the award’s ceremony… then proceeded to rock that tiara for his entire keynote.

For those who didn’t manage to make the keynote, Duane entertained all of us immensely.  He called out other search personalities in the industry, including myself (for potential snarky tweets about Duane I might be posting), a shall-remain-nameless SEO (for being a fan of Miley Cyrus twerking), Alan Bleiweiss (for being old enough to remember a 70s computer), Simon Heseltine (for carrying a man bag, to which Simon quickly retorted “says the man wearing a tiara”) and a few others.

He also talked about how connected devices are changing everything, such as his in-vehicle GPS pointing out different fast food restaurants based on who is paying the bill to Garmin and how sensors in a refrigerator can out kids who put milk containers back in the fridge with a half inch left in the jug – and can even tweet you to tell you that you need to pick up milk on your way home from work… yes, really.

And being a Canadian, he had some good natured ribbing towards Americans, including the amazing screenshot that showed a map of the US, with the logos of all the Canadian hockey teams above it.

And even though Duane went over his keynote slot by half an hour (which granted, really wasn’t entirelyu his fault as the Pubcon draws took quite a while), we were all so thoroughly entertained, we would have happily sat a half hour longer.

And all this is why Duane Forrester is this year’s US Search Personality of the Year.  The only question remains of who can possibly rock that crown as fabulously as Marty and Duane for the next US Search Awards.

Photo credits: US Search Awards & Steve Boymel