Adwords: Demographic Bidding

Obviously this new beta feature will only apply to the parts of the search network that know the sex/age etc of their members - sites like MySpace, Friendster, HotOrNot and Flirtbox are part of the test.

This might be a useful way for find out how well ads on these sites convert...

Xooglers, retire or ?

What would you do if you were flush with $10 million or $100 million? Would you retire, go to work every day at the company that made you rich, or chase other dreams?
That's the multimillion-dollar question for hundreds of early Googlers. By some estimates, more than 900 employees became instant millionaires when Google went public in August 2004, and that total has likely ballooned along with the stock price. On Friday the stock closed at $600.25, up more than 600 percent from its opening price of $85.

News.com finds that some of them are going down the PayPal path by becoming entrepreneurs in their own right:

Like some of his peers, Harik is investing in small companies like Wi-Fi company Meraki, and he's helping to develop a Web-based video conferencing company called Imo.im with his brother. Harkening back to his college studies of mathematical models of genetic algorithms, he's also opening a yet-to-be-named research lab in Palo Alto to develop artificial-intelligence software for the fields of biotech and medicine. He plans to invest about $100,000 in the lab this year.

Whereas others have become philanthropists:

Now, with millions in the bank since leaving in December 2004, she has retired, set up a charitable foundation, and written a book called Giigle, which went on sale at Amazon.com last week. She spends her time between a house in Nevada and a Southern California beach house, where she sees her grandkids.

Blatant Rule Breaking in Adwords

Check out this US search result for a very popular keyword "ringtones" (click on it to see the full size)



Loads of ads from the same advertiser - something that Google does not allow.

There is an ongoing discussion at WebMasterWorld concerning Google's role in this, highlighting the possibilities of Google deliberately letting this happen to increase revenue, or perhaps just failing to police this any more because they don't care:
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google_adwords/3520638.htm

GPS Device gets Google Local Listings

I guess this will be common in the future:

1. Driver of car feels hungry
2. Passenger (or driver if she/he pulls over) types in "pizza" into GPS keyboard
3. GPS device provides options for pizza nearby, and directions to each
4. Google gets paid by the pizza provider
5. Phone company that provides internet connection to GPS is paid by you

Get this soon with the new Magellan Maestro Elite 5340+GPRS

Google used less now

comScore reports that while Google properties accounted for nearly 7.4 billion searches this month (over 52% of total queries). The number of searches on Google.com actually fell 4.2%...

The previous month rose by over 14%, so this isn't really a long-term trend! More here.

Some Google Earth highlights

Nice collection of Google Earth highlights:
http://www.flixya.com/post/NicheFunny/93744/The_Strangest_Sights_in_Google_Earth

Including UFO, sea monster, impossible parking, tragedies and bikinis!

Google circa 1950

Enuff said!

Google Answers rises from the grave

Rick Aristotle Munarriz thinks it will be a success, and even suggests that "Yahoo! and Microsoft will have to scramble to copy Google before their own models are coated in cobwebs. Copying the copier? It sure beats the sound of the rustling tumbleweed."

Meanwhile an unofficial Google blog has published evidence that Google "Questions and Answers" is real:

Paid Posts / No Follow Debate

Matt Cutts has extended his opinion on what links should use the no follow tag to include "paid posts".

Basically, if a blogger is paid to promote a product via a blog post, and that post includes external links, they should be tagged no follow, regardless of whether they are to the sponsor, or just regular info (say a Wikipedia page on the topic).

Mr Cutts didn't say you can't use plain links, just suggested it would be safe to no follow them.

Summary of this ongoing debate is at Search Engine Land