Friday, April 17, 2009

Google Loves Twitter, Wants To Collaborate On Ads!

Twitter's sudden popularity is bringing praise from everyone, from lowly you and me to Aston Kucher, Oprah and the big shots like Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, who seems to have a special love for the advertising capacity of Twitter and anyone that does real time updates like Twitter.

"The question is how could you make some money on that? Without comment specifically about Twitter, because there are a number of real-time update companies like Twitter, you can imagine that to the degree they become successful, and obviously Twitter is already doing so, it could be a channel for product information, marketing information, real-time information, for which you can hang advertising products, whether it's a text ads or video ads.

I don't know personally their strategy, but it strikes me that's a logical strategy to pursue. It's something we'd be very happy to pursue with them and all the other players in that space.

The great thing about Twitter is it shows people really want to communicate, and that communication can occur in many, many different forms." Eric Schmidt said 15th April during the conference call to report Google's first-quarter profits,



Wednesday, April 15, 2009

ADSPACE Conference and Expo

ADSPACE Conference
Among bunch of emails I received, I found this little gem, ADSPACE will host an event to connect Advertisers, Adverting Hosts like AdSense and other small to mid-sized contextual advertising publishers. Present in this inaugural ADSPACE conference and expo, are Google, eBay, Facebook, Amazon and Zappos. The event is co-hosted at ad:tech San Francisco. on Aprill 22nd 2009.
Opening Keynote will by
Brad Bender
Product Management Director Google

"If you are looking to increase your site revenue, this one day conference will give you the latest “how to” techniques to maximize eCPM and become a publisher success story!"
Register today

Amazon, LiveJournal, mySociety and Netmums, to Block Phorm’s Webwise

Open Rights Group is reporting that the controversial spyware like program by BT will be blocked out by websites like Amazon, LiveJournal, mySociety and Netmums from scanning their sites. The program intrudes into your web surfing purporting to be a nanny;
".. makes the ads that are normally shown on participating websites more relevant by anonymously matching them to your interests. It does this by replacing generic ads with ones which may be of more interest to you based on the web sites you visit and the things you search for."
Make sure “Webwise”/”Phorm” spyware system does not scan pages on your site and if Phorm is installed on your computer by visiting this link.
Open Rights Group

Monday, April 13, 2009

SEO Bailout On Taxday

Aaron Wall is Interviewing Perry Marshall on April 15th to give readers and followers a business bailout, how to maximize advertisement expenses on Google Adwords.

Perry Marshall is the author of "The Definitive Guide to Google AdWords" and one of the best known AdWords specialist on the Internet.

Perry will explain ways to reduce AdWords clicks cost by 20% to 70% than your competition is paying for the same traffic, and how to get the best out of your advertising investment. He'll discuss why "SEO people" often avoid Pay Per Click and how to blend both worlds together for not just 2X results, but 3X.

Time: 2:00pm Central Time (3pm EST / 12pm Pacific / 19:00 GMT)
Date: Wednesday April 15, 2009
MP3's/transcripts will be available for purchase.

Reserve your spot at http://www.perrymarshall.com/aaron/

Friday, April 10, 2009

Another Microsoft Ad, Search For $1500 Laptop May End In Darkness Engulfing You

Looks like your search for PC under $1500 may end you up engulfed in darkness, as it takes too long to choose a notebook as Technically incorrect pointed out. Other thing is that I did not see could not find Sony FW series VGN-FW378J/B, the only Sony FW falls under the criteria, at BestBuy either. Is it all a Dark Lie

OpenX Ad Server 2.8 Released.

OpenX has announced the launch of the newest version of OpenX Ad Server, OpenX 2.8 at the beginning of this month which I somehow managed to miss. I really like the OpenX ad platform as I learned a lot about Ad Server technology by tinkering with it and deploying it as a test for MyAdlets in a closed Alpha.
But the latest release brings us much more to promote our on line commerce. One of the new features that stand out in 2.8 is the plugin framework. The plugin Framework introduces a new path to customize OpenX Ad Server in many ways.
One is able to build ownplugins, use the OpenX community plugins or if both the previous solutions does not fit you, have OpenX Consultants build one or two for you. OpenX expects to see many creative plugins to surface in the next few months, such as Video and mobile ad plugins.
One such is the new OpenX Market plugin, which allows you to seamlessly integrate your own ad inventory with OpenX Market and maximize your revenue.
As per OpenX announcement,Key benefits of 2.8 include:
  • Easier Customization: The plugin framework allows you to customize your ad technology and build any plugin you need. You also have access to additional plugins developed by the OpenX community, OpenX and third parties.
  • Revenue Maximization: The OpenX Market plugin allows you to maximize revenue by flowing your inventory directly into OpenX Market.
  • eCPM Optimization: You can further maximize your advertising revenue by using an entirely new eCPM-based revenue optimization system for ad serving prioritization across your remnant CPM, CPC and CPA campaigns.
  • Improved Scalability: Raw data storage has been overhauled by a re-architected distributed statistics technology (bucket logging) to provide significantly improved scalability and reduced storage requirements.
  • Enhanced Usability: The first time you log in to OpenX 2.8, you’ll see significant UI improvements to make OpenX even easier to use.

You can download OpenX 2.8 immediately from OpenX Site and they also provide a pathe to upgrade to 2.8 from any prior version of OpenX.

But if you just want manage your Ads and ad campaigns and not run a bunch of Linux, LAMP WAMP servers and software, you should inquire or learn more about OpenX Hosted from OpenX Professional Services. Either way, you will be served!

VidPay, Sponsored Video Ad Platform


VidPay, dead simple white label platform for sponsored video campaigns and the best part about this startup is, it has started generating revenue from the start.
As Techcrunch says, Why didn't I think of that?

Where will my video be displayed?

As soon as you create and activate an ad campaign, your video will be displayed on Metacafe as a sponsored video, to your selected target viewers.

How do I start promoting my video?

  • Upload a video advertisement to one of our partner websites
  • Create a VidPay campaign by selecting the uploaded ads you want to promote
  • Select keywords relevant to your video ads
  • Tell us how much you are willing to pay each time a user clicks on your video ads
  • Set a daily budget for your video advertising campaign
  • Target your audience by location, language, time of day, category, etc.
  • We will then match your keywords to search terms entered by users on our partner websites. If there is a match, and the price you offered is higher than that offered for other matching videos, your ads will be displayed on the partner website. You will only be charged if a user clicks on your ad.
  • Monitor your campaign and adjust your keywords/targeting to optimize your results
How much will I pay for each click on my video?
  • VidPay only charges you for the LOWEST cost per click which would enable you to win the auction - one cent higher than the next highest bidder. The actual cost per click is never higher than your bid, and may be lower.
  • You will only be billed when viewers click on the links to your videos.
  • You can define a maximum daily budget (average).
What more do you want? (yes get this on Youtube)
Vidpay via TechCrunch

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Web Trends Map Beta, Visualization At It' Best

Information Architects has Web trends Map beta, fourth in the series of really great Web Trends Map series. They visualize the current Internet trends, fitting companies and individuals with routes and paths they cross. I simply love it. Go see how you fit in to it!

Monday, April 6, 2009

Local Google And Location Based Searches

Local Google And Location Based Searches
Google searches are becoming more local. The search engine is matching your searches to ypu locales worldwide, Google does this based on your IP address and finds what ever you are looking for, in your visinity, on a google map.
Just try searching for [groceries], [sporting goods] or [flowers], or looking for your [bank], your [gym], or the [post office], As Google Blog pointed out.
I got the right information when I searched on all the given criteria above. I also searched on restaurants and as you can see from picture above results were presented with a map and links to reviews of restaurants.
Also there is a link to change the location if you want to search the neighborhood or for some rare reason, Google gets your location wrong, for an example if you were to search over 3G on a mobile device!
So here comes your SEO needs, in order to get listed you need to be indexed by Google and need to have a bit of higher page rank. All the sites listed above in my search, had page ranks ranging from 3-5, most having Page Rank of 4.
So get your gear out. If you area restaurant, get it reviewed, if you are in places like Mountain View, CA or for that matter any populated place, Your customers might be bloggers or twitters. Find a way to promote your establishment on the net. Perhaps a advertisement at the restaurant or a simple menu insert telling your customers that if they blog their experince, on their next visit they could have a drink or a dish of their choice free.
What ever the way get yourself know, your customers are looking for ....
Official Google Blog: Google becomes more local