Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Hope your week filled with silliness->>googleblog

MarkL said he noticed lots of people staying late a few nights ago in his workgroup at Google. I was wondering just what they were working on. The Official Google blog might just provide some answers. Heh!

Sounds like they are gonna play some pranks on someone. I am glad I’m not the one who comes back to work to find 250 lbs of Silly Putty in my office!

A friend, though, once told me about a prank he was involved in. They filled some exec’s office with, if I remember right, ping pong balls. All the way to the ceiling.

Well, hope your week is filled with silliness!



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Friday, December 23, 2005

Official Google Earth Santa Tracker >>>

Google has released their own Santa Radar Tracker [Google Earth File. You must have GE installed.] . According to the announcement at the Google Earth Community the tracker will update every 10 seconds starting around 9:00 AM EST December 24th. The announcement was also made at the Google Blog.

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Embed braking news Videos in Blogs or Website

If you are blogging about a breaking news event, there is a high probability that your article links to a story on CNN, AP or Reuters. Your site visitors may read a few lines on your website and then quickly leave for the original source to read the full story.

So how do you prevent this blog exodus ? Simply broadcast the news video from your website itself. Your visitors will watch the entire news video on your website without leaving.

Embedding Videos is now simple. To broadcast breaking news stories live from your website or blog, you will need to sign up for the free Reuters Affiliate Network pilot program. If your website or blog gets approved, Reuters will send few lines of javascript for you to insert them in your Blog template where you want the video player to appear.

The Associated Press is also teaming up with MSN to develop the AP Online Video Network. They will also be launching a similar program, providing AP members with news videos for their Web sites through an ad-supported model.

Reuters produces over 18 hours of news video every day. The Reuters news video player, which is based on Brightcove technology, has up to 20 of the latest breaking stories from around the world updated throughout the day. The Reuters Video player is Windows and Macintosh compatible. Visitors can watch full news stories right in the context of your page; there are no pop-ups or software installs.
[via]

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Thursday, December 22, 2005

About AOL Announcement in GoogleBlog

The recent announcement of the AOL partnership has been the source of a lot of rumors and misconceptions. We'd like to clear some of those up. The article in googleBlog writes:

Indexing more of AOL's content. Our goal is to organize all of the world's information. When we say "all the world's information," this includes AOL's. We're going to work with the webmasters at AOL -- just as we work with webmasters all over the world -- to help them understand how the Google crawler works (with regard to robots.txt, how to use redirects, non-html content, etc.) so we don't inadvertently overlook their content.

AOL will receive a credit towards advertising purchased through Google's ad program. You might wonder if this will affect the ad auction. It won't. We don't offer preferential treatment on advertising (in either the auction or the display) to any of our partners.

We have a service called "onebox" for which we provide some additional links separate from ads (sponsored links) and search results. (Try searching on [new york transit strike] and look for the news section.) AOL and its products have always been a part of onebox, along with many other providers, and will continue to be.
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Add Christmas Themes to Google Adsense

Google adsense has added christmas theme ad units for this Christmas. The article is googleblog says :

Whether you're gazing up at the glistening giant Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center in the heart of Manhattan or passing by the elaborate gingerbread house in the window of your local candy store, it's mighty hard to miss that the holiday season is in full swing. The creativity and energy people put into decorating is so inspiring, in fact, that we decided to do a little decorating of our own in Google AdSense (those "Ads by Google" that you've probably seen on lots of websites and blogs).

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Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Time Saving Yahoo! Search Shortcuts

Open Shortcuts (beta) are custom keywords that take you directly to a site, a search, or start a task right from the search box. In Unix speak: if the search box is the command-line of the web, shortcuts are aliases.

To use an Open Shortcut, you type ! (exclamation point) followed by the name of the shortcut in the Yahoo! Search box. For example, type: !ebay lamps. This takes you directly to www.ebay.com and searches for lamps.

You can create your own shortcuts to:

* Instantly navigate to any URL on the Internet
* Easily recall common searches on Yahoo!
* Quickly search favorite sites
* Jump start frequently used Internet applications
If a few months from now you can’t remember what shortcuts you created, just type !list and get a list of your Open Shortcuts.

[via Yahooblog]
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Dell XPS M170 Gaming notebook review

Dell wants to make something clear with its latest XPS notebook: "XPS" stands for more than just gaming. The XPS M170 ($2,899 direct; E-Value code: 1111-M170PC) is the next generation of the Inspiron XPS Gen 2, though it drops the Inspiron moniker. It's also part of a new campaign and line from Dell that focuses on high-end, luxury entertainment products and services.

The XPS M170 is one of Dell's best-designed notebooks, identical to the Inspiron XPS Gen 2. The arctic silver cover is customizable with snap-on lids. The surrounding black areas are equipped with six grills illuminated with LED lights. You can change the lights (up to 16 colors) to suit your mood using Dell's Quickset interface.

The M170's performance highlights the inherent gaming nature of the system, and gamers will not be disappointed. Thanks, in part, to the hot new nVidia GeForce Go 7800 GTX (256MB) graphics, 3DMark 2005 scores tore off the roof, surpassing the 6,500 mark. Doom 3 scores broke 100 frames, a first for notebooks. SYSmark 2004 SE scores were very good. nVidia effectively manages the power consumption of the 7800 GTX, thereby helping to increase MobileMark battery scores to 2 hours 34 minutes, which isn't too bad for a 17-inch powerhouse.

find more reviews at Cnet, Laptop review, reviews

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Google Trends - New feature in Personalized search

From the Official Google Blog, there is a new feature which is an extra feature to the Google Personalized Search. It basically shows trends in your search, like which ones are your top searches.

As part of the personalization team, I'm pretty addicted to looking at my search history for interesting patterns. So I decided to go a step further and write a script to pull together some stats about how I was searching. We thought other people might like to see this sort of thing too, so today we launched a Trends feature that gives you a look at a list of your top searches and clicks and other info about your search activity.
To use this feature, you have to login in to your google account while searching. Sign in to see your statistics of search in this month

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Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Most popular searches in Google this year

Google Zeitgeist
At google zeitgeist you find the top google queries statistics of weekly monthly and yearly.
A typical weekly Google Zeitgeist lists the top 10 gaining and declining queries and some handpicked statistics such as top Google News queries or popular sequels; fun facts (Tour de France vs. Wimbledon); aggregate information gleaned about Googlers, including operating systems, Web browsers, and languages; and any other trends that the Zeitgeist crew cares to delve into

Here are three most popular searches this year on Google this year.

Google.com - Top Gainers of 2005
1. Myspace
2. Ares
3. Baidu
4. wikipedia
5. orkut
6. iTunes
7. Sky News
8. World of Warcraft
9. Green Day
10. Leonardo da Vinci

Google News - Top Searches in 2005
1. Janet Jackson
2. Hurricane Katrina
3. tsunami
4. xbox 360
5. Brad Pitt
6. Michael Jackson
7. American Idol
8. Britney Spears
9. Angelina Jolie
10. Harry Potter

Froogle - Top Searches in 2005
1. ipod
2. digital camera
3. mp3 player
4. ipod mini
5. psp
6. laptop
7. xbox
8. ipod shuffle
9. computer desk
10. ipod nano

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Monday, December 19, 2005

Del.icio.us extension for Mozilla Firefox !

The del.icio.us extension for Firefox offers everything you need to seamlessly integrate the del.icio.us service with your Firefox browser. Included in the extension are two buttons which allow you to easily post items to del.icio.us, and access your saved items from del.icio.us. In addition to the buttons, the extension allows for right-click posting functionality. A del.icio.us menu is also installed which allows for quick access to common pages on del.icio.us as well as keyboard shortcuts. The extension also installs the del.icio.us search plug-in right into the existing Firefox search toolbar.

for more info visit mozilla.

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Saturday, December 17, 2005

Get the traffic stats of your website with Google Sitemaps

Google Sitemaps now offers detailed statistics on your top Google search queries, crawl status, and more. These reports show you how Google search is driving free traffic to your site and can help you make your pages more crawler-friendly.

The best part: you can start getting these new stats today. Just create a Sitemaps account and add your site to it. Once you verify site ownership we'll start showing you these detailed reports. You can always add your Sitemap later and, in the meantime, you'll be getting useful feedback on your Google traffic and crawl status for pages already in the index.

read more about mobile sitemaps.


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Access Gamil account from Mobile

Gmail Mobile
Now you can access your Gmail account from your mobile phone or device. Just point your phone's web browser to http://m.gmail.com. Your Gmail account stays synched, whether you access it from the web or the mobile interface. It's easy to use and it's free (but yes, your wireless plan could still charge you).

It also has these cool features:
• Automatically optimizes the interface for the phone you're using.
• Opens the attachments you receive in messages, including photos, Microsoft Word documents and .pdf files.
• Lets you reply by call to people whose phone numbers are in your Gmail Contacts list.

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Friday, December 16, 2005

iPod and MP3 players top US Christmas wish lists

Santa's sack will be bulging with iPods and other trendy digital audio devices, according to a new survey of America's Christmas wish lists.

"The portable music device category exploded this year, with interest in MP3 players up nine percent over last year's survey," said Todd Board, leader of Ipsos Insights Technology and Communications practice.

"This big leap reflects the 'sweet spot' appeal of these portable devices, which balance compactness, simplicity, capacity and features while managing to maintain affordable price-points."

The poll found interest rising among Americans in game consoles and interest still high in digital cameras, but cell phones were less popular gift choices than in previous years.

Tags:,google

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Google Launches Music Content search Feature>> New!

Online search engine leader Google Inc. will begin giving some musical artists the star treatment by spotlighting links to their songs, lyrics and other related material at the top of the results page.

The music section, scheduled to debut Thursday, is designed to provide a more direct route to the content that most music fans want to see when they inquire about a singer or band, said Marissa Mayer, Google's director of Web products. "We are addressing a deficiency in our Web search," she said.

The music section is similar in concept and placement to other special sections Google has created to make it easier to find information about airline flights, express freight shipments, news stories, movies and weather.

Among other things, Google's music section will provide lists of all the songs recorded on a specific album and also will point to places where the music can be legally downloaded. Google is working with several online libraries to make sure its song list remains up to date.
[via Yahoonews]
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Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Two New Google Firefox extensions >>

Google today two new firefox extensions for browsing safely. The two firefox extensions are named as 1. Google Safe Browsing Beta. 2. Blogger Web Comments Beta.

1. Google Safe browsing Beta: Google Safe Browsing is an extension to Firefox that alerts you if a web page that you visit appears to be asking for your personal or financial information under false pretences. This type of attack, known as phishing or spoofing, is becoming more sophisticated, widespread and dangerous. That's why it's important to browse safely with Google Safe Browsing. By combining advanced algorithms with reports about misleading pages from a number of sources, Safe Browsing is often able to automatically warn you when you encounter a page that's trying to trick you into disclosing personal information.

2. Blogger Web Components Beta: Blogger Web Comments for Firefox is an extension that makes it easy to see what bloggers are saying about a page you're viewing in Firefox and even make your own blog post about it, all without leaving the page you're on.

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Mozilla Says Firefox 1.5 Bug Not Serious

Computer users who have not upgraded to the latest version of Mozilla's Firefox browser may now have an extra incentive to do so, thanks to a hacker who has posted an exploit.

On Sunday, a hacker going by the name of Aviv Raff published sample code that could be used to take over the computers of Firefox users running version 1.0.4 or earlier of the browser. The exploit takes advantage of a known bug in the way Firefox processes the popular Javascript Web programming language.

Mozilla Corp. has warned users of its newest browser, Firefox 1.5, that a bug in how the software handles extremely long names can make it seem that the computer has crashed. The flaw, however, does not expose users to attack, contrary to earlier reports by researchers.
[more from yahoonews]

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Del.icio.us Users Debate Yahoo's Buy

Last week Yahoo announced the acquisition Del.icio.us. Many Del.icio.us users are fretting over the social bookmarking company's acquisition by Yahoo because they fear the Internet giant will alter their beloved service in ways that would make it unappealing to them.

Users have posted hundreds of comments to the blog entry on which Del.icio.us founder and CEO Joshua Schachter announced the Yahoo acquisition last Friday. Reactions range from users who are absolutely elated to those who are irreparably distraught.

However, most users fall somewhere in the middle of those two extremes, congratulating Schachter for the deal's financial benefits, but also expressing skepticism and concern about Del.icio.us' future as part of Yahoo. Common worries are that Yahoo will wallpaper Del.icio.us with banner ads, force users to obtain a Yahoo ID and change the user interface. Currently, Del.icio.us is free to use and free of ads.

[via-YahooNews]

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Apple-Aperture! Takes Digital Photography Back to the Future

Apple has just begun shipping its $499 pro-level digital photography workflow and editing application, Aperture.

Apple set out to create a program that lets photographers and photo editors work in ways reminiscent of film photography, with tools like the Light Table and Loupe. These allow you to look at multiple images in more flexible ways--such as being able to spread out your work and group, rearrange, and stack images as you go along--which even resolute digital-imaging partisans should appreciate. Other distinguishing features include Aperture's use of the RAW image file format for viewing and editing--the most information-dense type of file you can get out of a digital camera--as well as the program's ability to display multiple images side by side and to edit in almost any view.

The Light Table lets you arrange and resize images to see how they'll work together. The two flashy features mentioned above, the Light Table and the Loupe, caught my eye right away. The Light Table allows you to arrange and resize multiple photos to see how they will look together, then print the group or export it as a PDF. Light Table works well for creating rapid mockups of a collage of pictures, or for viewing images at different sizes in groupings.

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Intel touts power of new laptop chip

Intel announced that its next-generation platform for laptop computers will use 25 percent less power while boosting performance, helping it stay on top of the fast-growing market.

The overhaul of Intel's Centrino technology, code-named "Napa," comes as the world's largest chipmaker is getting a boost from laptop sales, which are growing faster than the overall computer market.

At the heart of Napa is Intel's new Yonah microprocessor, which will be its first mobile chip to have two cores and will be built with the latest technology that etches circuitry more than 100 times thinner than a human hair.

[via-laptop reviews]

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Amazon to Sell Build-Your-Own Search Engine

Nearly all the raw material to run a fairly complex Internet search service is now available, for lease, from online retailer Amazon.com Inc.

For a fee of as little as $1 a day, Amazon will provide access to an index of 5 billion Web pages plus the Internet-based tools to create new twists to mine the information warehouse and present findings to an audience.

At the core of Amazon's latest move is a rather novel idea for Internet search, Amazon believes. But it's based on an old business model whereby a company builds a product for other companies to buy or lease, develop further, then brand as their own.

[via] YahooNews

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Tuesday, December 13, 2005

New! Google Releases Homepage API

Tonight, Google released a new service allowing developers the opportunity to create "modules" for the Google personalized homepage. Google software engineer, Adam Sah posts on the Google Blog in: Build your own Google homepage, that the Google Homepage API has been released. They even offer a collection of a few modules including a clock, a weather map, and a way to personalize the Google logo.

In other words, more tools for developers. Btw, this news comes on the same day that Yahoo renames their Konfabultor product, Yahoo Widgets. Widgets are small apps (calendars, image viewers, search tools, weather info, etc.) that are downloaded to the users desktop.

The Google Homepage API provides a way to put third party content onto the Google homepage. The main use of the Googe Homepage API is to create modules (mini-applications) that users can add to their Google personalized homepages. For example, you could create a photo album module, or a module that displays an interactive game. The API is designed to be simple enough that anyone can turn his or her web page or application into a module.

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Google to Expand European Base in Ireland

Irish Enterprise Minister Micheal Martin announces that the internet search company Google will create over 600 new jobs with the expansion of its Dublin-based European headquarters, Tuesday Dec.13 2005. The Internet search engine giant's Dublin office, established in 2003, supports its European, Middle Eastern and African activities and is Google's largest base outside the United States.

Internet search provider Google Inc. announced Tuesday it will expand the workforce at its European headquarters by 600, or 75 percent, over the next two to three years.

The company's Dublin office, established in 2003, supports its European, Middle Eastern and African activities and is Google's largest base outside the United States.

Google credited the high caliber of European university graduates available — and Ireland's unusually low corporate tax rate — with influencing its decision. [via-YahooNews]

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First Customer to buy Microsoft XBox-360

The first customer to buy Microsoft Corp's Xbox 360 video game console at a store smiles as he shows off the product on an early morning in Tokyo December 10, 2005. Xbox 360 is the first next-generation game machine to enter the Japanese market, putting the world's biggest software maker at an advantage versus competitors Sony and Nintendo Co, which plan to launch their latest consoles next year.

Microsoft Corp.'s new Xbox 360 video game console got a lukewarm welcome in Japan on its debut weekend with fans buying fewer than half the games available in stores, a market researcher said Tuesday.

Microsoft, which started selling the Xbox 360 in Japan on Saturday, is trying to break into the world's second-largest video game market and challenge the longtime dominance of Sony Corp.'s PlayStation. Read more

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Yahoo upgrades widget engine


"Yahoo launched a new version of its widget engine, a platform for running mini desktop applications built by Yahoo or third-party developers for search, photo and mapping services, and other functions."

Yahoo widget engine 3.0
Keep the stuff that you love right at your fingertips.
Bring life to your desktop with fun, stylish,
and useful Yahoo! Widgets.

To get Widgets on your desktop, you first need
to download the Yahoo! Widget Engine.

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Yahoo releases Yahoo Answers

Yahoo has released a new service called Yahoo! Answers. The article in yahooblog says:

Personally, I usually just write up a blog post or use our internal "random" mailing list at work. It takes almost no time to send spam (err, I mean "email") to hundreds of coworkers who are willing to read and occasionally respond to seemingly random questions. But most people don't have ready access to such a group.

That's what Yahoo! Answers was designed for. We want to give anyone a place to tap the collective wisdom of the Internet for advice, recommendations, theories, jokes, ... whatever. Anyone can answer. It's free. And once your question is answered, you get to pick the best answer and the whole thread is archived and searchable. So in addition to getting answers, you're helping to add to the "the Internet's" collective knowledge.


Tags:, camers

How to react to Google's latest AdWords change

Google has incorporated a new factor to its Quality Score. If you're advertising with Google AdWords, this new factor might influence the position of your ads and the minimum price you have to pay for your bids.

What is Google's Quality Score?

Google's Quality Score is Google's method to evaluate the position and the minimum bid of a text ad in Google AdWords. Google hasn't reveal ed all details about the Quality Score. All we knoe is that the text of an ad and the clickthrough rate are important factors that influence the position of your ad and the minimum price you have to pay per click.

Last week, Google announced that it would also include the landing page in the calculation of the Quality Score. That means that the web page that is linked to an AdWords ad will also be analyzed to determine the position and the price for the ad.

What does this mean to your AdWords ads?

If you bid for many different keywords, it might be that the prices for keywords that are only loosely related to your web site go up for you. The less a web page is related to the keyword, the more you have to pay to get an AdWords listing for that keyword.

What can you do to lower your per click prices?

To pay as little as possible for a click, you have to follow Google's quality guidelines. The better your ad, the less you have to pay per click:

* Make sure that your AdWords ads have compelling titles that inform web surfers about what they can expect on your site.

* Use interesting descriptions that are related to the keyword. If possible, include a call to action or a reason to click in your descriptions.

* Create more PPC landing pages that are directly related to your keywords.

* Make sure that your landing pages are relevant to what web surfers are looking for.

Google's latest change in the Quality Score won't hurt you if your ads are compliant to these points.

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Innovative Moves in Search Engine Advertising

SeoChat wrote an article about New moves to Search Engine Advertizing.

Many people who handle SEO also must consider search engine advertising on one level or another. This article covers some different approaches to search engine advertising from Yahoo! and MSN. It leads off, however, with a small company that thinks outside the box when it comes to keyword search ads.

If you have placed keyword-related ads with search engines before, you know that it operates like an auction. Take Google AdWords, for instance. These ads are displayed next to search results for particular keywords. For keyword-targeted ads, advertisers specify the maximum amount of money they’re willing to pay for each click, and only pay when someone clicks on their ad. For site-targeted ads, advertisers pay for each 1000 impressions regardless of whether the ad is clicked or not.

Either way, if you want to get the top spot for your ad – which will give you the most views and, theoretically, the most success for your advertising campaign – you face a lot of competition. To quote from Google’s FAQ about how such ads are ranked: “Having relevant keywords and ad text, a high CPC [cost per click], and a strong CTR [click-through rate] will result in a higher position for your ad. Because this ranking system rewards well-targeted, relevant ads, you can’t be locked out of the top position as you would be in a ranking system based solely on price.”

Nevertheless, the maximum cost-per-click plays an important role in where your ad will appear. And some words may go for upwards of $40. Is there a way to reach your target audience without busting your bank account?

A year-old start-up company in Mumbai, India, believes it has the answer to this problem. Named Pinstorm, the company’s team offers its clients a combined 35 years of experience in online marketing. Its international scope is already breathtaking; its search marketing reaches across 13 languages and 204 countries. Its magic formula, if it can be called that, would be familiar to Apple fans: think differently. Read full 4 page article at SeoChat.
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Monday, December 12, 2005

Google developing Google Earth for Mac OS X

Google Inc., the world's largest search engine, is developing a beta version of its fascinating Google Earth geographical satellite imagery and mapping application for Apple Computer's Mac OS X operating system.

The application asks users to type in an address and will then "fly" the user from space to the address through satellite imagery. Users can then zoom in on the aerial satellite view of the search location, view buildings and landscapes, and tilt and rotate the view to see 3D terrain and buildings.

Google Earth also offers driving directions and lets users search for schools, parks, restaurants, and hotels. Additionally, the application includes multiple layer support, allowing users to annotate satellite views and combine multiple layers of information such as restaurant locations, driving directions and service stations.

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Sunday, December 11, 2005

Man Apologizes After Fake Wikipedia Post

A man who posted false information on an online encyclopedia linking a prominent journalist to the Kennedy assassinations says he was playing a trick on a co-worker.

Brian Chase, 38, ended up resigning from his job and apologizing to John Seigenthaler Sr., the former publisher of the Tennessean newspaper and founding editorial director of USA Today.

"I knew from the news that Mr. Seigenthaler was looking for who did it, and I did it, so I needed to let him know in particular that it wasn't anyone out to get him, that it was done as a joke that went horribly, horribly wrong," Chase was quoted as saying in Sunday editions of The Tennessean.

read more at Yahoo news
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Why Google is not happy with its results

Google's recent Jagger update has caused a lot of trouble for many webmasters. Although Google tried to eliminate spam pages from its search results, many spam-free web sites have also been hit by this ranking algorithm update.

During Google's update, MSN.com temporarily had a PageRank of 2. Even the spam-free blogs of some Google employees were removed from Google's index (they have been restored in the meantime).

It's obvious that Google had some problems with this ranking algorithm update and that not everything went the way it should.

Why did Google run such a big ranking algorithm update?

Google's founders are not satisfied with the quality of Google's search results. In a new book, Google founder Larry Page told the author what he thinks about the results:

"Well, Larry Page, one of the co-founders of Google, is not very satisfied with the results of Google searches.

On a scale of 1 to 10, he thinks that Google delivers about a 3. They want to do everything they can to improve the quality of search."

Given that statement, we can expect quite a lot of Jagger style ranking algorithm updates in the future.

How to survive future Google updates

If you want your website to survive future Google updates, you must find out what Google is trying to achieve with its updates. Google wants to present high quality web sites that are interesting to web surfers in its search results. Whenever Google updates the ranking algorithm, they try to give those sites more relevancy.

If you want to survive future Google updates, you must make sure that your web site looks attractive to Google:

  1. Your web site should have a certain age

    The older a website is, the less dramatic are the fluctuations with each algorithm change. If your website has a certain age and if the content of your website has regular updates then search engines know that it's worth to list your web site because you'll probably still be around tomorrow.

  2. Your web site should have good content

    Search engines want to redirect web surfers to web sites on which they can find useful information. The more content your website has, the better you'll be listed. It's very difficult to get good search engine rankings with a website that has only a few pages.

  3. Links from other sites are still important

    The more websites link to you, the more important is your website. Of course, you shouldn't link to every Tom, Dick and Harry and the other sites that link to you should also be related to your site.

    Consider how the link popularity principle was originally meant: you think that another website is a great resource and then you link to it. If you get links like that, you'll get solid search engine rankings.

  4. Make it easy for search engines to index your site

    Many websites have great content but it is nearly impossible for search engines to index them. If you want high search engine rankings, you should make it as easy as possible for search engines to index your site.

We can expect many more ranking algorithm updates from Google and the other search engines. If you prepare your web pages as described above, you don't have to be afraid of upcoming changes.

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Saturday, December 10, 2005

Blog Ads in Video format





Vive Network is hoping to expand the money-making potential of blog. Vive recently introduced targeted Video Ads for Blogs. The Video ad format will display video ads related to the content on the blog site. Blog authors will receive up to 60% of the total revenue share.

Just like Google Adsense, Vive too will run a mix of CPC and CPM ad campaigns. Currently participation by invitation only and limited to residents of the United States. Request an invitation by sending an email with your name and blog URL to videobeta@vivenetwork.com. Once approved, Vive Network will immediately start serving targeted video ads for your blog.


The Vive Video ads are actually Flash (swf) files that can be easily embedded just like Text or Image Ads.

read more from labnol

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Yahoo! buys del.icio.us

del.icio.us has joined yahoo family. Yahoo! have done some major strategic shopping lately, and their latest purchase is no exception. This time they have bought del.icio.us - the world’s largest service for handling bookmarks and tagged links.

We're proud to announce that del.icio.us has joined the Yahoo! family. Together we'll continue to improve how people discover, remember and share on the Internet, with a big emphasis on the power of community. We're excited to be working with the Yahoo! Search team - they definitely get social systems and their potential to change the web. (We're also excited to be joining our fraternal twin Flickr!)

Read more from yahooblog, What's so cool about del.icio.us?,

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Friday, December 09, 2005

Google has added four new features to Gmail

Google has launched more features to Gmail. Here are the latest four new features added to Gmail

Feed me
View your favorite RSS feeds right in Gmail as “Clips” along the top of your Gmail screen. Display clips from blogs, news sites and other online sources. Pick from the latest headlines, random popular feeds, or add any RSS/Atom feed you want.

Here's how to customize which Web Clips are shown in your account:
  1. Log in to your Gmail account.
  2. Click Settings at the top of any Gmail page, and open the Web Clips tab.
  3. Browse popular clips by selecting a topic link along the left. Search for feeds by entering topics that interest you -- use this feature like you would Google Search. Or, enter specific feed URLs.
  4. Click Add next to the clips you'd like to see in your Gmail account.

See it now
Don’t want to wait for an attachment to download? Now when you get Microsoft Office, OpenOffice or .pdf attachments, you can view them as a web page in HTML by clicking the "View as HTML" link right next to it. For when you're on a mobile device or you don't want to install some new software just to view a document. Or if you just want to see it faster.

Shortcuts on the right
Now Gmail automatically detects addresses and tracking numbers, and displays useful information for them alongside your messages. With a single click, you can get directions to that address your friend sent you, or find out when the new book you ordered will arrive. Pretty handy!

Virus scanning is here!
Get an automatic check-up every time you open or send a message with an attachment. We even try our best to remove viruses so we can protect you against all the ones we find. You're on your own with the common cold (try chicken soup)

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Yahoo Site explorer for International Destinations

Yahoo Search launched Site Explorer beta to international destinations. With Site explorer you can find backlinks the link to your domain and also number of pages indexed by yahoo search.

Site Explorer also tries to make it easy for you to tell us what we don’t know about your site. To make it even simpler, we now accept site submissions in the following formats.

* RSS 0.9, RSS 1.0 and RSS 2.0, such as CNN Top Stories
* Atom 0.3, such as, Yahoo! Search Blog
* A text file with a list of URLs, each URL at the start of a new line
* A single webpage

The article in Yahoo blog says :
Two months ago we launched Site Explorer, a tool to explore the pages from your site in the Yahoo! Search index and the inlinks to those pages. Many of you have been using the tool actively and we appreciate the positive response and feedback we have received. It was gratifying to see the panelists at Webmaster World using the tool for site reviews. We have now launched it as a Beta on our International destinations, including Argentina, Australia & NZ, Brazil , Canada (English and French), France, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Singapore, Spain and UK as part of the Services and Tools.

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Virtual Earth Changed to Windows live local

Windows local live from MS Blog
Virtual Earth is now called Windows Live Local and inlcudes an incredible amount of new images, enhanced features, and new ways to find what you're looking for.

Read the official article from microsoft blog, view Live Local Beta - Las Vegas bird’s eye view

* A brand-new, low-angle, very high resolution view of locations all across the United States never before seen on the Web.Now you are no longer limited to seeing the tops of buildings —you can see the sides of buildings from 4 different directions!.
* Create driving directions and then customize how they print.
* Add your own custom pushpins anywhere on the map (just right-click on the map).

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Google Transit Trip Planner beta

Google Transit trip planner imageGoogle announced Google Transit, a new service that provides the Public Transportation Routes, Schedule and other related information.

Google could encourage more and more people to use the public transportation system by comparing the cost of your trip using Public Transportation with the cost of driving the same route.

Do you live in or near a city? Want to go someplace—to the airport, to dinner, to work every day—and not worry about the hassles and expense of driving and parking? Google Transit Trip Planner enables you to enter the specifics of your trip—where you're starting, where you're ending up, what time of day you'd like to leave and/or arrive—then uses all available public transportation schedules and information to plot out the most efficient possible step-by-step itinerary. You can even compare the cost of your trip with the cost of driving the same route!

At the moment we're only offering this service for the Portland, Oregon metro area, but we plan to expand to cities throughout the United States and around the world.

Visit: Google Transit Trip Planner beta

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Thursday, December 08, 2005

Google Adsense Preview - Firefox Extension

The Google Adsense Preview Firefox extension brings the functionality of the Official Google Adsense Preview Tool in Firefox.

The Google AdSense preview extension will add a Preview Google Ads menu both to the Firefox toolbar and the right click popup menu. Clicking on Preview Google Ads menu item will open a new tab containing a preview of Google ads that may show on the web page.

The Ads will be displayed in all official Google Ad formats. Firefox 1.5 and greater are supported.

Download Google Adsense Preview 1.0 - Choose Save Target As and save the xpi file to your desktop. Then drag the xpi file to your Firefox window.
Source: Digital inspiration

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Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Find top rank blogs at blognetworklist

blogmedia has launched new website called blognetworklist which will rank the blogs depending upon their yahoo, google indexed pages,backlinks and alexa traffic rankings. Technorati rankings and backlinks are also considered for ranking the blogs.

Some of the top blogs are:

Engadget (Weblogs, Inc.)
Michelle Malkin (Pajamas Media )
Lifehacker (Gawker Media}
Gawker (Gawker Media )
Wonkette (Gawker Media )

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Forumatrix: Post articles and earn money

ForuMatrix is paying its registered uses for posting messages in the forum. The site says:

Forum Matrix is now paying 2.5 cents (40 Posts equal to $1 USD) for EVERY post you make on our discussion forums, regardless of the category. You can start a new thread or reply to existing threads. Start new topics of interest in different categories and earn while you post.

Registered members can enjoy this feature. Registration is free, you can register now to start posting.

Once logged in as registered member you can click "My Earnings" link at the top of any forum to keep watching how much you have earned.

Note: Your posts must contain at least 255 characters (3 lines) and should be in compliance with Posting Guidelines.

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Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Check link popularity, keyword rankings and unique back links

Most of the major search engines now factor Link Popularity ( back links) into their relevancy algorithms. As a result, increasing the number of quality, relevant sites which link to your site can actually improve your search engine rankings. There is still no one "secret trick" to getting good rankings, but boosting your site's popularity may give it the edge it needs.

Knowing who links to your site and increasing the number of quality links is an important part of any web site promotion effort. This free service allows you to query Google, Altavista, and Hotbot and reports on link popularity.

check free link popularity ,keywords rankings and unique back links from the following websites

1.Announce.com: This is free service where you can find link popularity of a website, Index report ( Number of pages indexed in search engines ) and keyword rankings

2.posttrades: The site is helpful to find unique back links for a perticular site and index report also.

3.Linkpopularity.com: Find backlinks in google, msn, yahoo, altavista.

4.webuildpages: This website has lot of useful free tools for search engine optimization. The tools useful for finding unique back links urls and anchor text on the back link url. it also has keywords ranking tool finds rank of a keyword in major search engines.

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Monday, December 05, 2005

Choosing Keywords for adwords campaign

The best way to make money online is to focus on one method and one method only. Work it to death. Make sure everything is perfect and then tweak it and work it some more. You will find that focusing on one thing will be much more profitable than branching out into several areas at once.

Once you have a nice flow of profits coming in from that one project and it is running on autopilot, then you can move on to the next project and focus all your efforts on that. Focus rings very true for website owners. You know you are dealing with an amateur when you see a website that is full of banner ads and affiliate links. These people wonder why they are not making any profits, I mean they do have all these ads on their website.

The reason they are not making money is because they are not focused. If a surfer comes to their website, there are so many options that they get confused and leave. No sale will come of this. A website should focus on one product and be dedicated to promoting that one product only. You will convert many more sales if you focus your website.

Focus also comes into play when you are running AdWord campaigns on Google. Many times people will come to me wondering why they are not making any profits. They tell me they are promoting 20 different ClickBank products and still not making any profits. Well the problem is obvious to me. How can they keep track of all these campaigns at once? I ask them how many keywords each campaign has and they will say 10-20. No... you need a lot more than that to be successful. It should be more like 100-200 or more.

You need to focus on 2-3 campaigns at a time and don't move on until you have either squeezed every ounce of profits from them or you have come to the conclusion that they won't be profitable and have deleted them. Focusing on only 2-3 campaigns at a time will free you up enough to analyze and tweak each campaign accordingly. You'll be able to make sure that there are no weak spots in your campaigns. This will strongly increase your chances of success.

So in a nutshell, make sure you focus your efforts. Don't try to do everything at once. If you are a beginner, you need to realize that the big profits come from a strong foundation and building up from there. You need to secure the projects you are working on now and only then should you move onto the next profit making project.

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Steve near to Six figure income mark

Steve Pavlina who started blogging since last year has started earning 4700$ per month now. He started earning as low as 10$ per month in early days and he's goal is to reach six figure income next year.

Last month this site generated over $4700 in income for me, about 98% of it from advertising and the rest from affiliate programs. My income goal for the year was to reach $3000/month (from this site that is — this isn’t my primary source of income). In January of this year I made less than $10 from this site, so that’s a nice increase. Aside from adding new content, every month I dive through the metrics and do more experimenting and optimizing. This year my plan was to put down a solid foundation for future growth without concerning myself too much with making an income from it — the second year will be a lot more exciting. Even if I did nothing but continue to write new content and stopped working on optimization altogether, I’d be very surprised if this site generated less than $100,000 next year, so I expect I’ll soon be joining the ranks of six-figure bloggers


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Sunday, December 04, 2005

Yahoo Publisher Network Debuts RSS Feed Ads

Yahoo Publisher Network Debuts RSS Feed Ads Yahoo Publisher Network, which is in beta testing, has added RSS feed advertising, available for MovableType and Wordpress powered blogs, to its selection of site and blog monetization and publishing tools. For those of you who have not heard of YPN yet, its is bascially Yahoo(YPN) Search Marketing’s answer to Google AdSense.


To activate the RSS feed advertising in the Yahoo Publisher Network admin, go to the Ad Setup area and select RSS Ad Layout. First register their RSS feed, and then generate the RSS ad code which is to be installed in the blog’s RSS template. I have not tested this part of Y!PN yet, but do understand that such implementation of contextual ads into RSS templates can be a bit tricky. Y!PN is offering a guide on doing so called the Ads in RSS Setup Guide, which is available on the ad setup page. I’m not sure how this implementation works with blogs that use Feedburner for RSS tracking. If you use Feedburner and have some insight on RSS Ad implementation and whether it works via FB service, please leave a comment below.


Personally I’m not very fond of RSS ads as a publisher because I’d rather have the end user visit the site, then be given a choice of ads.. especially if I’m running CPM based ads on the site along with pay-per-click contextual advertising such as Yahoo Pulisher Network or Google AdSense.

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Comparing AdSense and Yahoo’s Publisher Network

Jen has a very interesting post comparing Adsense and Yahoo’s Publisher Network ads on her Women’s Finance blog. It’s well worth a read as it reveals that both YPN and Adsense have some clear advantages over one another.

If it’s high click values that you’re after it seems that YPN is your best bet - however if it’s CTR, ePCM or ad relevancy you’ll probably lean toward Adsense. Of course it’s very early days for YPN - without a doubt they’ll be working on issues of relevancy and CTR - if they can it could be well worth the switch when they come out of beta.

Check out her full post for all the details.

In related news - I’ve noticed that in the last few days quite a few bloggers have been accepted into the YPN beta test. It looks like they’ve opened things up to a second round of testers which is a sign that it is a step closer to full release. Still no non North American testers though as far as I can see.

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New Colors for Firefox Referral adsense Ads

Adsense have just released a few new colors of their Firefox Referrer adsense ads. In addition to their white background ones they now have yellow/orange and blue as follows:

Firefox-2 Firefox-1
Firefox-3

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How to choose a domain name

Although by itself not a real important factor. Google currently does look to see if your keywords are used in the actual domain name of your site.

Given that you can register domain names for as cheap as 6.95$ per year ( see godaddy.com for details ), it might make sense to register your Primary keyword phrase for use as the domain name to your website. If the .com version of a domain name is taken then try .net version or the .cc version. It doesn't matter to Google.

When registering a domain name seperate each keyword in the domain name with a hyphen, otherwise google will not be able to recognize the phrase and will think it is a single( usually nonexistent ) word. Here is the correct format to use for domain names.

http://primary-keyword-phrase.com

As a general rule of thumb, don't use more than two hyphens, it looks spammy and google may take a closer look at your site for other possible issues.

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Saturday, December 03, 2005

Download Firefox 1.5 Web Browser

is available now and it is the first major upgrade to Firefox since 1.0 shipped just over a year ago.

A quick look at the release notes reveals some new features like Automated update to streamline product upgrades, Faster browser navigation with improvements to back and forward button performance, Drag and drop reordering for browser tabs, a better popup blocking and the ability to clear Private Data for an easy way to quickly remove personal data . There is also Better accessibility including support for DHTML accessibility and assistive technologies such as the Window-Eyes 5.5 beta screen reader for Microsoft Windows with new support for Web Standards including SVG, CSS 2 and CSS 3, and JavaScript 1.6 and many security enhancements.

It seems it is time to upgrade firefox to it new version 1.5, not only for a better browsing experience, but also better software compatibility, more security and fewer bugs! Look out for incompatible extensions when you update.

Also participate in the Extend Firefox Contest organized by the Mozilla Corporation to encourage development of Extensions for the Firefox Web browser. Learn to create your own firefox extension, and check these essential firefox extensions.

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Google adwords review

What are Google AdWords?
Google AdWords are little advertisements displayed on Google. These advertisements appear on the right hand side of the browser every time a search is done on the Google search engine.Anybody including you and I can purchase advertisements on Google.

How do Google AdWords Work?
Google AdWords uses the pay-per-click method.

Pay-per-click just means that the advertisers pay a predetermined amount of money every time someone clicks on their advertisement.

For Google, advertisers bid to have their ads shown when a specific search term is entered.
The higher the bid the higher on the page the ad will show. Being at the top of the page will get you more clicks than ads lower on the page.

Advertisers bid anywhere from $0.05 to $50 per click. That click sends the Internet surfers to a website address of the advertisers choosing.

The thing that makes this advertising method superior over other methods is that your ad will only be shown to people that are interested. It is a very targeted method that leads to more sales.

Let's say that you are selling flowers. You would bid on the search term "flowers". When somebody does a search on Google for the term "flowers", your ad will appear.

On the other hand, when someone does a search for the term "dogs", your ad will not appear because you did not bid on that search term. You get to decide which search terms are relevant to your campaign and bid on that search term.

What is so special about Google AdWords?
Simply put Google AdWords are better than any other advertising method on the Internet. The second you put up a Google AdWords ad your will start to see results.

Here are some of the reasons that make Google AdWords superior:
- Google boasts over 200 million searches per day
- It only takes fifteen minutes for your ads to appear
- You only need a minimum of $5 to open an account
- The traffic you get from Google is of very high quality
- AdWords is simple to use and beginners can catch on fast
- AdWords is perfect for testing potential ad campaigns

Granted, there are tons of places to market your affiliate programs on the Internet. But in my experience, Google AdWords has brought me more sales than all of the others combined.
Related articles: Six tips for Choosing Affiliate Program
Five days to sucess with google adwords

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Friday, December 02, 2005

Six tips for Choosing Affiliate Program

1) High payouts - Would you rather be paid $1 or $20 every time you make a sale? $20 of course!! I like to work with affiliate programs that payout anywhere from $15 - $60 for each customer conversion. Don't get me wrong, there is a time and place for $1 payout programs and as entrepreneurs you should always keep your eyes open for opportunities, but from personal experience, the higher payouts seem to work best for people just starting out.

2) Effective product sales page - Your success as an affiliate depends highly on how effective the sales website is for the affiliate program you belong to. I'm not talking about your personal website; I'm talking about the owners of the affiliate program themselves, the site you are sending people to. If you are sending people to a website that is constructed very poorly and has
a low sales conversion rate, you are not going to make any profits. But if you send people from your website to a website that captures the customers attention and effectively conveniences
them to buy the product, you will make much more profits per customer.

3) The amount of competition - If there is too much competition in the affiliate program that you join, it will be harder for you to make money. When there are too many affiliates vying
for the same customers, the profits that can be made by one individual become less and less. I would say that it's a good idea for beginners to stir away from the really competitive products. You will have a much better time with programs that have relatively low competition. Don't get me wrong, you can compete in any affiliate program but you need to learn certain skills, to turn
a profit.

4) Payout Dates - Be sure to check how often the affiliate program will be sending you pay checks. You don't want to be stuck waiting 3-6 months to be paid. I usually like to stick with
affiliate programs that pay every 1-2 weeks. Sometimes I will join affiliate programs that pay every month, but anything over one month is just too long to wait for. You have to think about your advertising budget. If you only have enough money to advertise for two weeks, and you get paid every three months, you are going to run out of money to advertise with. The quicker you get paid, the quicker you can take that money and reinvest it to increase your profits.

5) Payout Minimums - Almost every affiliate program has a minimum payout amount. Most of the time affiliates programs will require that you earn $25 - $100 before they will ever send
you a check. This is fine, because you should be able to hit this amount easily. If it's more than $300 then I would stir away from that program. Sometimes you will join an affiliate program and make some money, but you may decide for some reason that that particular program is
not working out. If you did not hit the minimum payout then you will never be paid. Another reason to pick a low minimum payout is that it may take you awhile to hit the minimum, so the
lower the payout level the quicker you will get your money.

6) In Demand Products - This is a very important thing to look for in affiliate programs. Choose something that people really want and find a way to give it to them. For example: millions
of people in the U.S. feel they are overweight, and want to lose that weight. It's your job to find an affiliate program that fits these peoples needs. Sell them diet pills or workout tapes, even
workout equipment. Here's another example: Many people want to find someone to date. Well you've seen all the online dating services. Guess what, most of those have affiliate programs that you can join. Direct a person who wants a date to that dating service website and you will make a nice commission.
Read Introduction to affiliate programs

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Day2-Five Days to Success with Google AdWords

Today I'm going to talk about the thing that many newcomers find most confusing about Google - and I'm going to explain why it's a really ingenious twist that will actually help you. The price you bid is almost never the price you actually pay. You almost always pay less.

First, it's a little bit like Ebay: You pay 1 cent above the position below you, not the maximum that you bid.

But there's an even more important secret that is the key to getting lower and lower prices, even while other bidders are jumping into the game: Your Click Thru Rate (CTR) is MORE important than how much you bid.

The Click Thru Rate is the percentage of people searching who click. If 100 people search, your ad shows up 100 times, and one person clicks through, that's a 1% click thru rate. So let's say I've got a 1% CTR and I'm paying $1.00 for position #2. Let's say you've got a 2% CTR --- you only have to pay 51 cents to get position #2 and knock me down to position #3.

That means if you're 2 times as relevant, you pay 1/2 as much! The rules are simple, but the implications are huge. When you achieve high click-thru rates, your bid prices go down, down, down and your traffic goes up.
Related post : Five Days to Success with Google AdWords- Day 1

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Thursday, December 01, 2005

Black Thursday for Chitika eMiniMalls Publishers

In a article at http://performancing.com wrote

Chitika eMinimalls has been a bit of a darling with profiteering bloggers since its launch. A few recent developments however suggest that the honeymoon may be over.

I first raised my eyebrows when the Chitika team took steps to lower CTR so advertisers wouldn't have to pay for "curiosity clicks" (a "curiosity clicker" being one who checks out the product, but doesn't buy). As far as I'm concerned, that move was highly questionable. After all, their competitor, Adsense, pays you for every click, and encourages you to take steps to increase CTR--so what it missing with Chitika? Besides, a pair of eyeballs is worth something, even if they don't take out their credit card--ever heard of "branding" or "product research"? If I'm only getting paid for immediate buyers, I might as well put in affiliate links, as they pay a bit better.

But another thorn in my side has been how they handle auditing (hint: it takes waaaay too long). Well today appears to be Black Thursday for bloggers using the program. Jennifer Slegg has the scoop:

In a thread at DigitialPoint, it didn't take long to see the full extent of just how significant these audits actually were. One publisher saw one day's income drop from $28.02 to $3.05 and saw similar drops on other days. Publishers are reporting drops anywhere from 10% to as high as 60% of revenue cut.

And over at SitePoint, the news gets even worse. In a thread there, several publishers report their income being audited by 70% or more... with one publisher reporting he lost 90% of his income in the audit.

Getting an ad network up and running (with sustainable growth) is a monumental task, and it doesn't surprise me that eMiniMalls is having issues. Even with these issues, they've come a lot farther than any other recent second tier ad network, and for that, I commend them. My question is, will they do what they need to do to work these things out and become a major player?

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Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Who’s Afraid of Google? - Everyone

On brads Blog i found the below article.

Of course, Google has always wanted to be more than a search engine. Even in the early days, its ultimate goal was extravagant: to organize the world's information. High-minded as that sounds, Google's ever-expanding agenda has put it on a collision course with nearly every company in the information technology industry: Amazon.com, Comcast, eBay, Yahoo!, even Microsoft

In less than a decade, Google has gone from guerrilla startup to 800-pound gorilla. In some ways, the company is a gentle giant. Whereas Microsoft infamously smothered new and open standards, Google is famous for supporting them. And the firm is softening its image, launching a philanthropic arm, Google.org, with nearly $1 billion earmarked for social causes. But that doesn't reduce the fear factor, and Google knows it. Omid Kordestani, the company's global sales guru, said at a recent conference, "We're trying to find ways so we are not viewed as a gorilla." Given its outsize ambitions, that's one search Google might not be able to handle.

Is the sky falling? That's how it looks to panicked tech companies across the Valley as they contend with Google's ever-expanding power and ambition.

VIDEO
Today, Google Video is a motley mix: clips of monkeys performing karate and robot dogs attacking iguanas. Tomorrow? No one knows, but everyone is worried.

Who's threatened:
Comcast and other cable providers, Yahoo!, TV networks that still shun the Net

Signs of panic: Comcast wants to be the Google of television. Yahoo! bristles at any mention of Google Video. Networks were stunned to find Google compiling a database of their programs.

Reality check: Google Video is up and running. The question is, How much content can it attract - or pay for - to fill the database. Watch for a strategic acquisition, even something big. TiVo?


CLASSIFIEDS

When secrecy-obsessed Google let news of "Google Base" slip, it looked like an aggressive entrée into online classifieds. The test service can search ads like used-car and personals listings, which would mesh with Google Local and might even kick-start Orkut, Google's social network.

Who's threatened: Craigslist, eBay, Monster, Tribe.net

Signs of panic:
Within hours of the Base bombshell, eBay's market value dropped by almost $2 billion. And even before that, the classified sites were nervous. CareerBuilder and others fretted about letting Google host their feeds.

Reality check:
This may be an extension of Froogle rather than a stand-alone product. But it could expand to everything from travel to eBay-like offerings.

TELECOM

Free Wi-Fi in San Francisco, instant-messaging software, a widely anticipated VoIP foray - Google's telecom initiatives seem designed to make life radically easier for users.

Who's threatened: Comcast, SBC, Verizon, Vonage, what's left of AOL

Signs of panic:
Surprisingly few so far, partially because Google says it has no plans to offer Wi-Fi beyond San Francisco. Still, Comcast coined the word Comcastic - is that its answer to Googlicious?

Reality check: Something's clearly afoot, and it could be big. With great power comes great regulation - so Google recently opened a DC lobbying shop to combat "centralized control by network operators."


OPERATING SYSTEMS
If anyone can fulfill the dream of turning the Internet into the operating system, it's Google. If the company chooses to develop an OS, the move will cement Google's other initiatives into a powerful whole.

Who's threatened: Apple, Microsoft

Signs of panic:
When one of Microsoft's key operating system engineers defected to Google last year, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer threw a chair across an office and vowed to kill Google.

Reality check: The migration of applications from PCs to the Net is already happening - and it's key to Google's future. But the likelihood of a Google OS depends on what Microsoft accomplishes with its new OS, Vista.


PRINT
What if a search engine trolled not just every page on the Web, but every page in every book? Amazon.com tried it first, then Google said it would "make the full text of all the world's books searchable by anyone.

"Who's threatened: Amazon, Microsoft, book publishers

Signs of panic:
Against the interests of a legion of obscure writers, the Authors Guild sued Google. The Association of American Publishers, with more to fear, did the same. Microsoft and Yahoo! have joined a group that's creating its own book search service.

Reality check: Making every book searchable sends a clear signal that Google has the brawn to organize the world's information. But a vicious backlash could drown out that message.

PRODUCTIVITY PROGRAMS

Google joined with Sun Microsystems in October to jointly promote and distribute apps like the Google Toolbar and Sun's free OpenOffice software. Wider distribution of the toolbar, Google's most potent Trojan horse, gives the search engine access to a world of desktops.

Who's threatened: Apple, Corel, Microsoft

Signs of panic: Microsoft launched its own toolbar and protested the decision of the Massachusetts Information Technology Department to dump Office for open source alternatives.

Reality check: It may be a fiendishly clever way to attack one of Microsoft's highest-margin products, but this tactic can't be a top priority. Google Toolbar will thrive without Sun.


ECOMMERCE

Froogle threatens no one yet. But what if, as the development of Google Wallet suggests, Google handled your every online transaction? The potential revenue from Google's cut of each purchase would make AdSense look like AdCents.

Who's threatened:
Amazon, Buy.com, eBay

Signs of panic: After reports speculated that Google might take on PayPal, eBay said it would pay up to $4.1 billion for VoIP rebel Skype. Wall Street's read: With PayPal under fire, eBay needed a new growth area.

Reality check: Rather than take on PayPal directly, the company may start with something less ambitious, like handling payments for premium video content. But after that? Watch out.

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Ofiicial google blogs and New Google Firefox extentions

I happened upon the new Google Reader blog via Biz Stone and noticed this nice list of official Google Blogs: Also, here's a list of Google employee blogs (that I know of)
  • Matt Cutts - Good things about search.
  • Ah, heck. It's Friday evening, I'm tired and I think I'll just post a link to this nice list from PR Weaver.
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Google AdSense for Feeds Beta

Clickz.com News about adsense for Feeds beta

NEW YORK - After testing AdSense contextual ad distribution in a handful of RSS feeds over the past few weeks, Google is opening up the beta program to all of its publisher partners. The company made the announcement at the Syndicate conference in Manhattan Tuesday.

"We really want to nurture this market," said Shuman Ghosemajumder, business product manager for AdSense. As we're "getting the business model right for media on the Web in general, it's imperative that advertising be integrated into feeds properly."

Ads placed in Google's AdWords system for contextual distribution will automatically begin appearing on feeds. Though Google recently began testing a feature that would allow advertisers to target by site in its contextual network, advertisers will not yet be able to target their ads by feed or bid separately for feed-distributed ads.

Google's Ghosemajumder said it is too early to tell how ads in RSS feeds will perform.

"For both click-through and conversion rates, it's something that's going to vary from publisher to publisher. It depends on the content and the audience that the particular publisher is attracting," he said. "For the medium overall, we just need to see when we have a larger set of users who are seeing the ads."

The search giant is accepting applications from publishers whose feeds have more than 100 active subscribers. Once they're accepted, publishers paste Google ad code into their RSS feed templates. Text ads are then rendered as graphics -- allowing Google to ensure creative is served at the moment the feed is read, rather than when it is downloaded.

"It's mainly because a very large number of feed readers don't support Javascript," explained Ghosemajumder. "We need to conduct a real time auction process for the advertising and we need to be able to deliver the appropriate ad when a user looks at an article."

Industry-watchers expect the offering to be most attractive to smaller publishers, as larger ones could likely sell the space themselves.

"We're going to start serving little ads in our RSS feeds," said Lincoln Millstein, SVP & director of digital media at Hearst Newspapers. "I don't think we need AdSense to do that."

Google, however, contends that larger publishers are the ones that have the most to gain because they have the largest potential audiences -- and the need to cover the costs of content creation and distribution.

"We anticipate that the product should appeal to anyone that creates a feed," said Ghosemajumder.

The company also makes recommendations for integrating the ads into publishers' feeds. It suggests the placement of one ad unit per post on full-text feeds. Google's ads are targeted by the full text of an article, even if only a headline and tease are fed into RSS.

Publishers who want to participate in the public beta can apply here.

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