This blog post refers to a neat tip on using Google filters, and itself refers to a script on how to better target PPC ads using Google Analytics and Adwords, by going from a broad match to an exact match for example. PPC (Pay per click) advertisers (and others) may find it interesting. Cool trick.
Videos are hot. Youtube now has introduced a remixing option. But are there any other options? Readwriteweb has a article on just this topic covering spots like jumpcut and eyespot.
Came across this recently.Â
Youtube, the leading online video spot, now offers the ability to edit videos online through its website. The service is powered by Adobe premier express (a popular entry level consumer off-line tool for editing videos). Mentioned at Tech Crunch.
This article talks about the upcoming Lions festival for the best ads in Cannes, France, and talks a bit about the future of advertising.
Aaron Wall mentioned the following tip at his website: 20% off coupon code for business.com listing: AVIVA .
Aaron Wall mentioned on his June 9th blog entry that adding &pws=0 to the URL of a search query will allow one to avoid personalized google results without logging off. A useful tip.
A recent article pointed out the disconnect between the time consumers are spending online and the amount advertisers are committing online.
Consumers are spending about a third of their “media-consumption” time online. But fortune 500 advertisers are only spending 6% of their ad dollars online.
What this suggests is that the online advertising market is likely to continue to grow strongly.
Related information here.
New results show that online advertising is surging. Gains may be as high as 25%. In contrast, overall ad spending fell 0.7%. Ad spending in “traditional” channels like tv, radio and newspapers were down. Check out details here.
Microsoft surface (tabletop): New physical virtual world interfaces and interactions
Microsoft is introducing so new ways for the physical and virtual (e.g. computer) worlds to interact. For example, instead of just the typical keyboard or mouse input mechanisms for computers, one can use fingers and physical brushes to input information to the tabletop “computer”.
Check out the quick introductory videos here. Also mentioned at readwriteweb.
Note: The basic concepts of virtual and augmented reality are mentioned in the ecommerce well paperback book.
There is an interesting article at business2.com by Paul Sloan on ways money has been made on domains.
For example, the article talks about how people mistyping .cm instead of .com for unregistered names may be directed to agoga.com, which may monetize the traffic (perhaps around 8 million visits per month overall) with ads.
Google appears to be working on search beyond language. In essence,  if one types a query in, say German, the search engine could find the best search results in English translate them to German, the best search results in French translate them to German, and so on and find out which of those German and translated results are the best results to display. So the process would display the best search results for that query in any language for the German query.
Sounds interesting. Read about 12 language plans here.
Microsoft popfly seems like an interesting new product. It comes in two parts.
In their words:
Our team’s vision is to democratize development by making it approachable to an entire class of people that want to “create” without necessarily having to write code.
Project is in alpha.
Links:
Video is currently hot. However, does it make sense to use video for one’s ads? If you have a complicated product that needs visuals to quickly explain its benefits, a picture (or series of pictures) can be worth a thousand words. In addition, Google adwords is also offering a marketplace to find people to make your videos more cheaply. Here is a “case study” or real world example of video ad use offered at a google blog.
Misc Links:
google video marketplace
In an earlier post I talked about explosion of micro niches and in another closely related post discussed the “long tail” effect. While the internet has certainly been creating “markets” for small niches that may not have been viable earlier, another trend is also happening.
Increasingly, the top web properties are becoming increasingly dominant. It seems likely that the pareto principal type effect where a some number of search results dominate web surfer attention is likely to increasingly manified. Whereas the pareto principal typically refers to a 20/80 split, these numbers are likely to be significantly more skewed on the internet. There is an interesting older article here (or here) about how large web properties are getting larger.
The next version of google search is on its way in. Google has been working on a number of far reaching changes behind the scenes to integrate content from Images, Maps, Books, Video, and News into their web results. You can read the details on Google’s official blog. Danny Sullivan also mentions it in more detail here.
Google is upgrading its popular (free) analytics package. The changes are mainly in the UI/reporting aspects of the product. Email and pdf are some other features. One can check out the flash demo or read about changes on this blog.
In an earlier post, I had referred to google adword’s ppa (pay per action) beta launch. There is also an adsense ppa beta launch. If one owns website properties and wishes to monetize them in a ways other than PPC (pay per click), this might help. Offers potentially higher payout rates (with lower conversion rates).
Note: If these terms are difficult to follow, many popular ecommerce terms are defined in the (currently free download) ecommerce primer on this website.
Entreprenuer.com did a short piece on some free website tools and services. One can check it out here.
Came across this interesting tidbit. Authors speaking at google, and author conversations on youtube. Some authors and publishers may find it interesting. See authors@google (or Google’s blog. )
Readers who love their authors and books may enjoy watching these author talks on youtube. Authors include people like Chris Anderson (Long Tail) , Ken Roth (Human Rights Watch), Steve Wozniak (Apple co-founder), Steve Stiglitz (nobel prize winner), George Soros (Open Societies Institute), Lawrence Lessig (creative commons). There are some really interesting names if one goes through the youtube videos. If one likes booktv, one may like this even more (the subject matter is more diverse it seems). Appears to be a very interesting resource for book lovers. Videos here. (Thanks to the Google folks for sharing this with the rest of the world.)
Developing country governments can apparently buy a microsoft xp version and an office version for $3 for its students under certain circumstances. This bbc article talks about it (it also mentions the $100 laptop initiative and google’s free docs and spreadsheet suite). Or check out microsoft unlimited potential and this.
One of the emerging marketing trends is using widgets to get exposure on blogs and websites (widget marketing). Clearspring and widgetbox are two enablers in this strategy. “Widgets” allow companies to get “presence” on websites and blogs. You may read more about it at readwrite.