Google Offer Serious Art

http://www.smartcompany.com.au/Free-Articles/Trends/20080502-Googles-new-weapon-in-the-traffic-war-art.html?source=cmailer

70 of the world’s most famous artists gave provided their art to make your iGoogle page more beautiful. Note that it was Google that came up this, not Yahoo or MSN. They still lead in innovation.

Google Content Lawsuit

Most Google lawsuits are frivolous, but I'm all for this one. Almost everytime I create a new campaign in Adwords, because they do not prompt me to do so, I neglect to find and deselect the Content Network option. Consequently I check in a day or two later to see all these worthless clicks I have paid for. In my business, the content network converts so poorly, I never want to use it.

The lawsuit alleges that by not offering the option to opt-out of the Content Network, which is universally acknowledged as performing poorly relative to the Search Network, Google are being unfair.

At SEW they have a page-by-page description of the campaign creation process:

The advertiser uses the third screen to add the first set of keywords. No mention of content, but a potentially misleading line: "When people search Google for the keywords you choose here, your ad can show." A perfect place to clarify that ads can also appear on AdSense site pages.

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3629264

Google Offer Whois

If you are in the USA, a quick Google search consisting of the word whois and a domain name will provide you with its age, and a link to the full results at DomainTools.com - which is pretty good for that business! Proof that being the best gets lots of free link juice and occasionally a big boost from Google.

Couple Sue Google Over House Image

Yet again the courts need to decide whether "you can always ask us to remove it" is reasonable. As more and more sites and services potentially infringe on copyright and privacy, are companies and individuals expected to constantly crawl the web and look for their image/info/work being listed, and then look for a way of opting out?

I'm pretty sure that Google are legally allowed to take photos of streets and use them in Google Maps. The couple are asserting that Google "entered the driveway of the couple's private property, in order to take pictures to be uploaded on the website". If that is the fact, and can be proven, it might be an interesting case to keep an eye on.

Google April Fools Not Funny

Well, there's so many this year, one guesses they are dreamed up by individual employees, rather than professional comedians. Some are funny, like every "featured video on the YouTube homepage linking to Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up", or Google's aim to "organize all of human ignorance". Some are mediocre, like Virgin and Google planning to colonize Mars. And then there's the unfunny scratch'n'sniff books available via Google Books.

Some new Easter Eggs

Over at ZDNet is a leprechaun who follows you around in Google Maps.

And Blogoscoped has found a disturbing cross between Google's logo and "Clippy" the weird little fellow from Microsoft Office that was universally hated.

Search within search within search...

A new experiment from Google has site search boxes within the search results. This example make great sense:





Because many/most folk who visit Amazon, the first thing they do is search for a product. Google has saved them making that extra step. The only downside is they miss out on seeing whatever Amazon are promoting on their home page.

All Your Budget Is Ours

Adwords will be rolling out a "feature" in which all an advertisers unused budget will be spent on keywords of Google's choosing. This might be ok for some, but there are others who bid $10 but pay 5c, and those people often necessarily have budgets way higher than they are comfortable with.

Google say it is opt out, but I really hope they see commonsense and make it opt in before they launch it! More...

The End of Google Checkout?

It's just a possibility, based on a rumour that says:

...nearly 90% of merchants have dropped the use of Google Checkout after the discontinuation of their “free” processing period.

I think Google will be needing Checkout in the future, for other projects, and they will keep it running even if nobody is using it.

Adwords: Age & Gender Targeting

Some AdWords users can now utilise a beta function that allows you to only show your ads to people of certain age and gender.

Obviously the regular Google search doesn't have this - because you and I have not told Google this information. It will only apply to those sites in the Google search network that can make this info available to Google.

100 Google Maps Things

100 Things to do with Google Maps Mashups - and these are really just a sample of the possibilities. Basically anything that exists in the physical world can be mapped, from pedophiles to Great White Sharks (if they have a GPS tag), from McDonalds to public toilets.

The link is to Google Maps mashups - where somone has combine an XML file that contains location data, with a map from Google. They are quite easy to do, and worth attempting if you can think of an original use...

Like this one - Find high risk areas for modern marine pirates

How to get the attention of Matt Cutts

Use his name in the title of your blog post:
Matt Cutts, Why Am I Still Being Punished?

The result, lots of comments and advice from the man himself, regarding penalties for paid links and paid blog posts.

Prediction: within the next week a dozen bloggers will try this.

Google on the Yahoo/Microsoft Deal

Google isn't happy - here's a snippet:

Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC? While the Internet rewards competitive innovation, Microsoft has frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies -- and then leverage its dominance into new, adjacent markets. Could the acquisition of Yahoo! allow Microsoft -- despite its legacy of serious legal and regulatory offenses -- to extend unfair practices from browsers and operating systems to the Internet? In addition, Microsoft plus Yahoo! equals an overwhelming share of instant messaging and web email accounts. And between them, the two companies operate the two most heavily trafficked portals on the Internet. Could a combination of the two take advantage of a PC software monopoly to unfairly limit the ability ofconsumers to freely access competitors' email, IM, and web-based services? Policymakers around the world need to ask these questions -- and consumers deserve satisfying answers.

Google bids on Yahoo!

No, they haven't, and I doubt they will. Google's competition is not really Yahoo or Microsoft. It would be Ask, except Ask is old and it's too hard for them to get new users.

If Microsoft buys Yahoo, they'll probably screw up on search, and that will leave lots of room for a newcomer

Google will save their money, and when the next search king comes out of the woodwork, they will buy it. And then either integrate it, use parts of it, or bury it.

(It won't be Wikia, but it will be something like it...)