As for the other part of the equation, the post continued, “Now you can settle that debate there and then by searching Google from your mobile; you can speak your question into Google Search on Android or Google Mobile App for iPhone, or you can visit google.com from your mobile browser to type your search.”

The letter singled out Google, the market share leader at 80 percent, for its privacy practices.

“Considering Google’s dominant position in almost every E.U. member state, with a market share of up to 95 percent in some national search engine markets, the company has a significant role in European citizens’ daily lives,” the European panel wrote. “The company’s apparent lack of focus in data retention is concerning.”

Through Google’s free analytics tool, the Google Moderator, politicians can engage with voters in a one-to-many dialogue via video and text from their YouTube channel. These tools along with other paid formats such as TV Ads Online and Promoted Videos, organizations can keep staff and volunteers on the same page while informing and engaging voters.

“As access to information online is increasingly important in elections, we’re pleased to continue developing useful tools for voters and candidates,” said Ginny Hunt, head of public sector programs at Google.

According to the Google blog post, Google TV uses Google search to help users navigate television channels, websites, apps, shows and movies. Users can also browse content using their standard program guide, the DVR or the Google TV home screen.

While the new Google TV is great news for TV watchers, it also provides a new playground for developers. Google is challenging developers to design new web and Android apps as well as the opportunity to begin optimizing their websites for Google TV.

Google is working with Sony and Logitech to make the new experience available inside televisions, Blu-ray players and companion boxes. The company plans to launch these devices this fall at Best Buy stores nationwide.

Steve Jobs has gone crazy. Taking the bait on a late-night e-mail from Valleywag Editor Ryan Tate, Jobs defended Apple’s App Store for offering “freedom from porn,” among other things.

Tate posted the entire back-and-forth, which began with his slightly drunken rage over an iPad commercial that promises a revolution. Tate tells Jobs that revolutions are about freedom: “If (Bob) Dylan was 20 today … Would he think the iPad had the faintest thing to do with ‘revolution?’”

Jobs’ response:

“Yep. Freedom from programs that steal your private data. Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom. The times they are a changin’, and some traditional PC folks feel like their world is slipping away. It is.”

After a thread of seven e-mails debating Apple’s ban on Flash for iPhone OS devices, the merits of native vs. cross-compiled apps, and a police raid on Gizmodo editor Jason Chen’s home — another Gawker media blog along with Valleywag — Jobs dismissed Tate and writers in general:

“By the way, what have you done that’s so great? Do you create anything, or just criticize others [sic] work and belittle their motivations?”

It’s certainly possible that Jobs didn’t write the e-mails himself, but they fit his profile: Concise, opinionated, and completely bereft of corporate speak. If Apple public relations was picking through each line, they didn’t change much. Besides, Jobs sent the e-mails between 12:52 a.m. and 2:20 a.m.

As for the content of Jobs’ e-mails, I agree with Tate that Jobs’ offer of “freedom from porn” is unsettling in an Orwellian sort of way. It’s also not true, as there’s plenty of sexual content to be had just by searching the Web in Safari; and some adult material is selectively offered for iPhones despite Apple’s policy against it.

More troubling is how Jobs’ definition of freedom entails shielding your eyes from offensive material, as Apple defines it. That’s a slippery slope, and it’s already caused trouble in Cupertino. I think there’s value in criticizing Apple on that front, even if you haven’t created tech products yourself.

Bizarre interpretations of freedom aside, I enjoyed reading the e-mail exchange between Jobs and Tate. There’s a difference between spin and opinion, and Jobs’ e-mails display the latter. I can’t say the same is true with Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, who has also sent e-mails to bloggers. Jobs is a perfect fit for Twitter, after all.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/196427/steve_jobs_spars_with_valleywag_editor_by_email.html

Steve Jobs Offers World ‘Freedom From Porn’

I didn’t plan to pick a fight with Steve Jobs last night. It just sort of happened: An iPad advertisement ticked me off; I sent the Apple CEO an angry email; he told me about “freedom from porn.”

The electronic debate proceeded from there.

Of course, there was a bit more to it than that. There’s the context: Jobs’ legal fight with my employer Gawker Media, over the handling of an iPhone prototype; my long-simmering worries about Apple’s growing power to limit self expression through its lockdown on iPad apps; and the fact that my wife, who might normally (and quite sensibly) veto the idea of spending Friday night sending email flames, was out of town.

So in retrospect I was primed to lash out. But there was some serendipity too: Watching a new episode of 30 Rock on my digital video recorder, I somehow failed to skip over an Apple ad I’d never seen before, one that billed the iPad as nothing less than “a revolution.” You can see an excerpt of the ad at the bottom of this post.

With a Stinger cocktail at my side, I dashed off a short, pointed question to Jobs’ well-known email address.

A few hours later—after midnight here in California—he got back to me. And I got back to him. And so on.

I didn’t identify myself as a writer for Gawker in my initial email, sent from my ryantate.com email address. But, as you’ll see in the exchange below, I eventually made my affiliation clear, and Jobs didn’t seem bothered. Between that and the fact that Jobs regularly uses emails to disclose new information to the public, knowing full well recipients now regularly make the exchanges public, I feel fine reproducing the thread below.

It’s a feisty discussion, as you’ll see. And heated, especially on my part.

Rare is the CEO who will spar one-on-one with customers and bloggers like this. Jobs deserves big credit for breaking the mold of the typical American executive, and not just because his company makes such hugely superior products: Jobs not only built and then rebuilt his company around some very strong opinions about digital life, but he’s willing to defend them in public. Vigorously. Bluntly. At two in the morning on a weekend.

As much as Jobs and his actions anger me, and as harsh as I was to him, I came away from the exchange impressed with his willingness to engage.

Some notes on the actual content follow after the emails. Click any message to enlarge:

A few notes on the emails:

• There’s something absurdly Orwellian about Jobs’ line that the iPad provides “freedom from porn.” It’s a statement I suspect will haunt him.
• My line about Flash and my MacBook Pro is silly; Flash as a Web plugin is, as I myself have written, a resource hog, no matter how well the miraculous battery in my Apple laptop handles that hoggery. There’s no telling how Flash might hobble my iPad”s A4 processor. But cross-compiled Flash apps are an entirely different matter: They run as native Objective C code, and Apple has a chance to review them for performance. Apple has never tried to argue that cross-compiled Flash wears batteries down any more quickly than other Objective C code, and in fact approved more than two dozen such apps before changing its policies.
• Speaking of regrettable lines: Why the heck did I bring up my wife in connection with “freedom from porn?” I was trying to say it’s a canard that porn somehow harms families, or something terrible and shameful, so I mentioned the other half of my family.
• I was a little unfair summarizing my contact with Time Inc.; the company has not “crowed” about its iPad bridge software, and in fact has plans to iteratively improve its iPad product. That line was based on email exchange that I had with a Time Inc. executive who was speaking off the record and not on behalf of the company. As such, I’ve blurred a name that I had no business dropping. But I do think, as I said, that a native Objective C app that merely contains magazine content, like Time‘s, is a lot less exciting than an app that has some real interactivity, even if it’s been cross compiled from Flash.

And here is the end of the iPad commercial that set me off:

According to the InformationWeek article, the phrase “how to quit Facebook” had 16.9 million results as of Tuesday morning while the similar phrase “how do I delete my Facebook account” generated an additional 15.9 million links. While it’s impossible to tell exactly why the spike in interest in learning about deleting Facebook accounts has gone up, recent concerns about Facebook’s privacy policies is a likely cause of at least some of the issues.

Facebook users can either deactivate their account (which removes them from any friend’s lists or groups but lets them become active and start using the account at any time) or delete it entirely. Several high-profile tech names like Matt Cutts of Google and Engadget/Gizmodo founder Peter Rojas have publicly decided to leave Facebook in recent weeks, with Rojas citing the amount of time spent managing privacy settings as a key factor.

Google’s Android operating system edged out Apple’s iPhone operating system for the No. 2 spot in the U.S. consumer smartphone market in the first quarter, research firm NPD Group reported Monday.

According to NPD, devices running Android accounted for 28 percent of the units sold to U.S. consumers in the first quarter of 2010. BlackBerry devices made by Research In Motion, which use RIM’s homegrown operating system, took the top spot with 36 percent of the U.S. market. Apple’s iPhone, which had been in the No. 2 spot previously, fell to third place with 21 percent of the market.

NPD’s figures are based on self-reported consumer surveys and they estimate the number of devices sold to consumers. The figures do not include sales of devices to business customers through enterprise contracts.

Android is an operating system that is available on several different models of phones made by different manufacturers, such as Motorola, HTC, and Samsung. Meanwhile, Apple’s operating system is used only on Apple’s own iPhone.

Ross Rubin, an analyst with NPD, attributed the strong growth in Android to the fact that devices using Android software are now available on all major U.S. carrier networks. Verizon Wireless, in particular, has helped fuel success for the operating system. Verizon launched a major marketing campaign for devices, such as the Motorola Droid, last year. And Verizon, the largest U.S. wireless operator, has also been including Android devices in its buy-one-get-one free smartphone promotion. T-Mobile USA also features Android phones as its flagship smartphones, and AT&T has begun selling Android phones.

“The wireless carriers in the U.S. are still the king makers in the mobile market,” said Rubin. “Verizon in particular is what is making the Android so successful right now with its promotions and marketing.”

Rubin said that strong sales of the Motorola Droid, HTC Droid Eris, and RIM’s Blackberry Curve via these promotions have helped keep Verizon’s smartphone sales on par with AT&T in the first quarter. NPD’s data suggests that smartphone sales at AT&T account for nearly a third of the entire smartphone market, about 32 percent. Verizon Wireless accounted for 30 percent of smartphone sales. T-Mobile made up 17 percent of all smartphone sales and Sprint brought in 15 percent of all smartphone sales.

There is no question that Apple’s iPhone is still very popular. Last month, AT&T reported that it had activated about 900,000 iPhones for new customers during the first quarter. It also sold another 1.8 million iPhones to people who were already AT&T customers. Without the iPhone, AT&T’s subscriber growth for contract customers would have been negative.

But the NPD findings suggest that sales of the phone could be even higher in the U.S. if the device was available on other carrier networks, such as Verizon Wireless. Reports surfaced in March that the iPhone could be coming to Verizon soon. But definite plans for a Verizon iPhone have still not been announced.

“If the iPhone was available today on Verizon, Apple would certainly grow market share,” Rubin said. “But it’s harder to say what will happen in the long term. It’s difficult to know what the feature-set will look like on phones in a year. But it’s clear the iPhone still has enough cachet today to pick up market share.”

Googles New Face

For example, the Search Options panel allows users to customize search results by suggesting the tools that are most relevant and helpful to the query. The second tool, Google Squared, which is available on Google Labs, helps users locate and compare entities.

Along with the new left-hand side navigation bar, Google has revamped its look and feel. The company updated its color palette and logo. The new logo is free of the heavy drop shadows and the letters seem brightened up a little. The trademark sign has also been removed.

In a post on the Google blog, VP of Search Products & User Experience Marissa Mayer said “Today’s changes are the latest in our continuing efforts to evolve and improve Google.

“We’ve been testing these changes with users over the past few months, and what we’re launching today reflects the feedback we’ve received.”

“Most often, click fraud is the work of cybercriminals who put up websites carrying online ads and no other content,” said USA Today.

“The criminals then retain the services of cybergangs in control of sprawling networks of infected PCs, called botnets, which are directed to repeatedly click on the ads. This triggers payments to the crooks who put up the Web page.”

Click-fraud scammers are responsible for stealing millions of dollars annually, making it an obvious concern for big search companies. For example, Google spokeswoman Rachel Nearnberg told USA Today that the search giant allows advertisers to check for patters of fraudulent clicks. The program allows advertisers to count the exact number of clicks that are filtered out on each ad campaign. Despite their efforts, the article suggests that stopping the criminal activity is difficult to do.

According to the article, more often than not, “advertisers eat the losses.”

Among many back-end upgrades, the new version also allows citizen reporters to submit photos, view and edit video captions and upload multiple videos on a single page. The mobile application code is now available for both the iPhone and Android.

Google says there are nearly 400 news partners on YouTube including launch partners (ABC News, the Huffington Post, NPR, Politico, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Washington Post) and many other news organizations and websites such as Tribune Company, Gannett, Al Jazeera and ITN News.

Guess what search term was the top search term at Google, Bing and Yahoo for the month of March? It was Facebook! Hitwise released data for the four weeks ending March 27th saying that across the three major search engines, the top query is the term [facebook].

Of the search terms they tracked on Google, 1.17% of those searches were for facebook. Bing had more, with 2.6% and Yahoo saw 1.70%.

Here are the top ten search terms for the month of March at Google, Bing and Yahoo according to Hitwise:

If you try to access Google’s external keyword tool, you may notice that you are sent to the new keyword tool Google began offering in September 2009. A Google spokesperson told me that they are now encouraging users to use the new tool over the old tool and have decided to direct a portion of those users to the new tool.

I asked Google if they plan on phasing out the old tool. Google told me that the old tool is still available from the new tool via a link at the top right that reads, “previous interface.” Google told me they do plan on phasing out the old tool for the new tool, but would not give me an estimated date for that to occur. It is my understanding that Google wants to wait to hear any feedback prior to making that decision.

The new external keyword tool is still available to any user, without a login required, but there is an immediate captcha that is required before you utilize the tool. There was an captcha on the old tool as well.

Here are screen captures of the new and old tool:

New Tool:

Old Tool:

In how many ways did Google respond to this week’s letter (PDF) from the data protection authorities of nine countries criticizing the company’s approach to privacy?

The first response came in the form of a statement from Google’s official PR operation.

Predictably, it was blander than bland. “We try very hard to be upfront about the data we collect, and how we use it,” the statement suggested. “Of course we do not get everything 100 percent right — that is why we acted so quickly on [Google] Buzz.”

This is the happy-clappy voice of Google’s PR operation, a vast exercise in passive aggression designed to prop up the perception that Eric, Larry and Sergey really, really, really, don’t want to do evil.

Much more interesting was the verbal assessment a PR representative offered up to the Wall Street Journal.

“We have discussed all these issues publicly many times before and have nothing to add to the letter,” the spokesperson told the Journal.

Here, I think we’re getting closer to what Google really feels. The tone is tetchy. The underlying message is clear: Google would like the letter’s signatories to go forth and multiply.

Yet this response is also a problem for Google. The letter it received was signed by data protection bureaucrats in Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain and the UK.

You’ll notice that the US isn’t on the list. So ask yourself how the spokesperson who talked to the Journal would have responded if the US had been among the signatories.

Would she have taken the time to discuss “all these issues” once again? You bet she would. Would she have suggested that responding to the letter was pointless? I doubt it.

At this point, it’s fairly obvious that that Google has made at least three mistakes.

First, there’s the use of corporate weasel words in the original statement. When Google uses this voice to talk about important issues, it sounds just like most other large companies. The desire to disagree with something without provoking an equal and opposite reaction is a very specific form of corporate cowardice. My sense is that Google — as it grows larger — is starting to do this more often.

Next, there’s the US-centric view of the world that leads a spokeswoman to dismiss the letter during a discussion with the Wall Street Journal.

Google is not immune to the deep parochialism of Silicon Valley. Yet this is a company that generates over half of its revenues outside the U.S.

On this basis, it’s surely madness to dismiss the arguments of nine states whose representatives are deeply dissatisfied with Google’s position on privacy.

If you doubt this, listen to the supporting commentary offered by Jacob Kohnstamm, the chairman of the European Commission’s Article 29 working party on data protection. The letter, Kohnstamm told journalists, represents a “last warning to the online world”.

Finally, there’s the tedium-filled hope that the awkward squad will simply shut up and go away.

This, of course, will not happen. In the end, Google will become a regulated quasi-utility. It’s easy to suggest why this should happen, but profoundly difficult to imagine how. Yet where there’s a will, the political elites will eventually find a way.

The key challenge for Google involves slowing down the process. Arguably, this now matters more to shareholders than new product development. Regulated companies make smaller profits than you’d otherwise expect. For a company whose shares still trade at 25 times earnings, this is a fate to be avoided.

In this respect, Google has generally performed well so far. Unlike Microsoft in the 1990s, the company hasn’t allowed indignation to tip over into public aggression toward its opponents.

In no small part, I suspect that this is attributable to Eric Schmidt, who witnessed Microsoft’s fatal weakness for confrontation at close quarters as the chief executive of Novell and CTO of Sun Microsystems during the 1990s.

When dealing with critics in public, Schmidt frequently behaves as if he has listened to their complaints. This is a habit that Bill Gates never acquired.

Schmidt also delivers bullshit with aplomb. When he announced the launch of Fast Flip, he made it sound like the future of news. Clearly, it wasn’t. Yet tokens like these slow down the pursuing pack, sowing division among the ranks.

Subtlety comes naturally to Schmidt. Asked to respond to the latest of Rupert Murdoch’s copyright tirades a few weeks ago, Schmidt remarked dryly that it’s best to look at Rupert’s comments “in context of a business negotiation”.

This response worked well, combining economic rationalism with a tease for the assembled journalists and criticism of Murdoch’s vaudeville style.

In many ways, it’s a shame that Schmidt can’t be seconded to run Google’s PR operation. Arguably, he’d add more value to the company in this role.

This week, for example, Schmidt would probably have drawn attention to what I initially fancied to be Google’s third response to the privacy broadside it received on Monday.

On Google’s corporate pages this week, there was no missing the news about the Government Requests Tool, a new initiative from the office of David Drummond, the company’s top lawyer.

Among other things, the Requests Tool clarifies how frequently governments ask Google to hand over users’ personal data (mostly to assist with law enforcement investigations). The results can be interpreted as an index of governmental willingness to invade privacy.

Here’s the league table for the period between July and December last year in the case of signatories to Tuesday’s letter:

The connection between these rankings and the letter from data protection bureaucrats is clear. Eight of the nine governments that complain so vociferously about Google’s privacy policies also appear on this list of governments who take a keen interest in their citizen’s private communications.

The point is worth arguing. Governments might be keen on regulating Google, but they also represent a huge threat to privacy in their own right. Google itself acts as a restraining influence on their behaviour. This week, the company confirmed that it sometimes “refuses to produce information” or “tries to narrow” the requests for data made by governments.

If Eric Schmidt had been running Google’s PR operation, I suspect he would have used this league table as a riposte to the privacy commissioners.

But he isn’t, and it wasn’t. The fact that the privacy letter and Drummond’s tool became news stories on the same day appears to have been coincidence.

We know this because the ham-fisted spokeswoman who talked to the Wall Street Journal described the timing as “ironic”.

The best PR operators grab passing circumstances and impose order upon them. This week, Google failed to do either.

Google’s longstanding Google Advertising Professionals program is going away, to be replaced with a new Google Adwords Certification program, Google has announced. The change means those certified through GAP will have six months to recertify under the new program. The change may also allow more companies to gain certification, as the overall required spend level has been lowered.

Google Advertising Professionals launched in 2004 and is being phased out in place of the Google AdWords Certification program. Part of this change is to offer more training materials, more challenging certification exams, offer more advanced exams to test search, display, reporting and analysis and a shiny redesigned Certified Partner badge.

This change means that those who want to be individually certified now need to pass two exams. Companies wanting to be certified need to have one individually certified employee and have a spend of $10,000 per quarter.

Google is also relaunching the AdWords Professionals Search, which quietly went live in December 2009. The new name for the search is the Google Partner Search.

Google has also changed the pricing of their AdWords API usage structure. There is now a new preferred pricing section that takes you through to see if you qualify. This means some developers will get free API units based on managed client spend. You are eligible to apply for preferred pricing if your company is a Google AdWords Certified Partner and AdWords API-based tools remain in compliance with the AdWords API terms and conditions, including the required minimum functionality. More details on this at the AdWords API Blog and AdAge has some other details on this as well.

Postscript: I asked Google what happens to those GAP certified advertisers, do they lose their certification? Google sent me the following reply:

Yup, they’re still certified. That said, partners who are GAP certified will have to meet the new criteria, along with new terms and conditions, within a six-month period.

To be certified, each company must have one employee who has passed the Google Advertising Fundamentals exam, along with one Advanced exam (there are now four exams which cover a range of topics — Google Advertising Fundamentals, Advanced Search Advertising, Advanced Display Advertising, and Advanced Reporting and Analysis — instead of one broad exam). Additionally, the company must reach a 90-day minimum spend criteria of $10,000 USD or currency equivalent — which was previously $100k — and agree to new terms and conditions.

The GAP exam always had to be renewed every two years. The broad AdWords Certification exam (Google Advertising Fundamentals) is still valid for two years. However, the the advanced exams (Advanced Search Advertising, Advanced Display Advertising, Advanced Reporting and Analysis) that must be renewed annually, so it won’t be constant recertification.

Google sent over more details about the terms for individual certification:

* The spend requirement has been removed (formerly $1,000 USD over 90 days).
* Individuals must achieve a passing score on two exams — Google Advertising Fundamentals, along with one advanced-level exam — as opposed to one exam.
* Formerly, these people were designated as a Google Qualified Individual. Now, they are Individually Qualified in Google AdWords.
* Individual badges will be phased out and replaced with certificates and an individual profile page hosted by Google – see example

Google noted that they added a new search option for TV show related queries that let you filter by show episode.

For example, here is a search query with the search options showing video and episodes:

Episodes on Google Video Search

This is a pretty neat filter to have, especially when you are trying to find that show you remembered, but didn’t quite know how to find.

Google started playing with “augmented reality” — I’m using the term here loosely — in the PC version of Street View several months ago, but now appears to be rolling it out more extensively.

Local business listings now appear as small icons connected to their buildings in the Street View image.

Clicking on one brings up an “info window” overlay on the map. Clicking through on the info window to “more info” brings up the Google Place Page:

Bing has a more elaborate version of this with map apps that surface all sorts of content (including tweets and Foursquare “tips”) about a location in a similar fashion, as a layer on the map.

PPC engines have many features that let you have control over ad display, however, if you just use these features to serve ads—then you’re not taking advantage of the opportunities available. You should move past just serving ads to putting forth comprehensive strategies that will grow your business.

Just to clarify, advertising is the paid promotion of goods and services. Advertising is an outlet for your creative message. Advertising is about reaching consumers. While reaching consumers is important, the message that’s delivered to those consumers is what makes them wish to do business with you instead of your competition.

Advertising is reaching consumers. Marketing is communicating with consumers. We shouldn’t be having conversations about just how to reach searchers and serve ads to them. Instead, we should be having conversations about how to connect with searchers once they have seen the advertisements.

The various PPC engines each have various features which let give us control of ad serving. However, with a little bit of effort, we can take those advertising methods and turn them into effective marketing messages.

Reaching Consumers by Time of Day

Both Microsoft adCenter and Google AdWords support the concept of ‘day parting’. Day parting (Google calls it ad scheduling) is serving your ads at certain times of the day or days of the week.

If you know that consumers are more likely to buy from your website between noon and 5pm, you can serve ads only during that time. This will help conversion rates, ROI, and reaching consumers when they are most likely to buy from you. However, this can be taken a step further and turned into a marketing message.

Consider a searcher seeing these ads while shopping around at 3pm on a Friday afternoon:

“$350 Cancun Specials, call a Travel agent today!”

“Receive a 15% discount between noon and 5pm on Fridays”.

“Friday afternoon special: Spend the weekend in Cancun for $350″

The generic ad that isn’t changing its message based upon the day is not nearly as compelling as those touching a consumer in the moment. Now, instead of just running ads at times where conversions are more likely, you can connect with searchers by time of day, or day of the week. The closer you can identify with characteristics of a search, the more likely the searcher will connect with your marketing message.

Demographic communication

Demographic targeting is most commonly done by age and gender. However, it can be quite granular and take into factors such as ethnicity, income, marital status, children status and industry into consideration. Targeting by demographic characteristics isn’t new. This is the basis for many TV and radio campaigns. Banner ads have been targeting by demographics for years. However, are you taking advantage of demographic targeting on Google’s Site Targeting or with Microsoft adCenter?

Do you know the demographics of your customers? Do you have an ideal consumer profile defined? Going through the exercise of profiling your ideal customer can be very useful as it will give your meaningful data about who you should be targeting.

Consider these ads for wrinkle reducer cream where the target audience is a female over 40. Which one seems more appealing to that audience?

“New wrinkle reducer cream. Revolutionary anti-aging cream to fight the aging process.”

“New wrinkle reducer cream. Designed for women over 40 to recapture that twenties allure.”

“Our wrinkle reducer cream is specially designed for the skin of women over 40.”

While a more creative marketing message can be written that takes into account adjectives and conversational language of that demographic, I’m using a more straightforward ad to illustrate my point.

Don’t just write generic ads that talk about your product. First define your ideal customer. Next, determine how to use demographic targeting to advertise to that audience. And finally, craft a message that transforms your advertising efforts into a successful marketing campaign.

Identifying with consumers geographically

With the release of Panama, all three major PPC engines support geographic targeting. This is the ability to serve ads to searchers within a specific geographic area.

Geographic targeting is one of the most powerful forms of PPC targeting. It allows local businesses to bid on non-geographic based keywords. As most searchers are still not using geo-qualifiers in their searches, geographic targeting is an effective way to send your advertising message to local searchers.

However, most geographic ads are still very straightforward. Do a search for “Columbus Plumber” and almost every headline is “Columbus Plumber.” One of the key aspects of marketing is identification. The closer a user can identify with you, the higher the chance of interaction. People are proud of their locations, and often wish to do business locally. How do the locals describe the geography?

Consider these ad copies (”the loop” is what locals call the downtown Chicago area):

Chicago Sushi Restaurant
Dine-in, delivery, or pick-up services.
Open 11am-10pm M-F.

Chicago Loop Sushi
Guaranteed delivery in under 25 minutes
Our Friday special is chef’s choice sashimi.

Loop Sushi Delivery
Guaranteed delivery in under 25 minutes
Chicago’s freshest sushi restaurant.

Ok, I cheated and added both a geographic and a time of day message in the middle ad copy. However, there’s no rule saying you can’t combine these marketing messages to reach consumers on multiple levels at once. The goal of marketing is to encourage those who see your marketing message to do business with you.

Don’t just advertise to consumers, market to them

While undoubtedly, some marketing guru will pick apart my definitions and interpretations of advertising and marketing. Advertising is reach. Marketing is message. However, it’s about the message being communicated, not the definitions. This goes to both my usage of the words, and the message itself.

It’s not enough to just serve ads based upon a keyword search. It’s not enough to just change bids by conversion rate. It’s not enough to find your ideal time to advertise and take advantage of whatever controls are at your disposal. If you aren’t connecting with consumers, bid or keyword changes aren’t going to matter.

Learn about your customers. What are their ages, demographics, locations, and surfing habits? Understand the PPC engine ad serving controls. There are a lot of them. You can target by more options than I have listed above.

Once you understand your ad serving options, then you can determine how you can identify with the consumer. The crafting of an effective marketing campaign takes both creative and analytical skills.

PPC engines can deliver the advertisements. However, you must first create the message that compels a searcher to take action before you can be a successful advertiser.

Finding tickets for your favorite concert or sporting event can be hard enough, but if your search starts with Google, chances are good that your first challenge will be getting around the veritable spamfest that ticket affiliates and second-tier ticket resellers have created.

A reader contacted us last week to point out what’s going on. Have a look at these Google.com search results, all of which show spam-filled Google Maps Oneboxes. (Note: current search results may differ from when we took these screenshots.)

lady gaga tickets tacoma

bon jovi tickets winnipeg

u2 tickets seattle

paramore tickets grand rapids

Get the picture? Google is showing local business listings, but these aren’t local businesses; they’re national ticket resellers/affiliates that have created local listings often using the street address of the venue where the concert/event is happening. There are countless similar examples across the U.S. and Canada for a variety of artist/concert-related searches. (I didn’t see any similar oneboxes on a number of sports-related searches, like baseball team tickets and NBA and NHL playoff tickets.) Let’s look a little more closely at these phony business listings.

What’s Going On?

Some person(s) or company(ies) has created local business listings in Google Maps that target local ticket searches. For more detail, we’ll use the first example shown above, a search for lady gaga tickets tacoma.

Business Name: In all three cases, the fake business name uses the exact keyword string of the search: “Lady Gaga Tickets Tacoma.” That’s the case in all the example searches above, and many others, too.

URLs: All three listings use .info domains with multiple keywords in the domain and sub-domains. The URL for Listing A points to a site called Tickets In Town; Listing B points to DoItBigTickets.com, and Listing C points to Click4Tixs.com. All three are showing the same ticket inventory in their databases (but with slightly different prices). Here’s a side-by-side look at the inventories for Listings A & C:

Other URLs we’ve seen in these phony local listings point to domains like DoItBigTickets.com and Myticketin.com, which also have the same inventory as the sites above. If you begin the ticket buying process on some of these sites, the small print often indicates that you’re buying from TicketNetwork.com, but it’s unclear if these domains are owned by TicketNetwork.com or are just affiliates.

In fact, this is where it gets a little complicated. It appears that, despite their similarities, these sites and listings aren’t related to one another. We researched the domain registrations of many of the .info URLs used in these listings. Many, like u2-concert-events.info and bon-jovi-concert-events.info have hidden registrations. But some domains have the contact information of a local search marketing company called Top Local Search.

Earlier this week, I spoke with Bill Connard, the president of Top Local Search. Connard says he was also contacted by someone in the ticket-selling industry and was accused of spamming Google Maps with phony business listings using venue street addresses. “That accusation is untrue,” Connard says.

He told me that Tickets In Town is one of his company’s clients, and that Tickets In Town owns the domain that appears in Listing A above — lady-gaga-events.info — along with other similar ticket/event-related domains. But Connard says his client isn’t related to the companies showing up in the B and C spots. He says his client hasn’t created any fake local business listings in Google Maps, and that the place page for Listing A is actually a Google mistake: a merged listing that shows his client’s logo and URL, but was created by the site from Listing C, Click4Tixs.com.

Indeed, a closer look at the place page for Listing A does appear to be a merged record: It uses the Tickets In Town logo at the top and their URL, but the email address seems to belong to Click4Tixs.com and the Photos/Videos section shows the logos of both Tickets In Town and Click4Tixs.com.

(In my experience, that’s a tell-tale sign of a merged listing. My wife’s local Google listing is very similar right now; it shows her name and photo, but another real estate agent’s phone and URL. And the Photos/Videos section shows both her and the other agent.)

Connard says he believes Google has associated his client’s logo and domain with this listing by virtue of crawling the Tickets In Town web site, which lists the Tacoma Dome address (see below) in association with the lady-gaga-events.info domain and the upcoming concert.

Address: In many cases, the phony listings use the street address of the venue where the concert is happening. In the Lady Gaga example, listings A and B — at 2727 East D Street, Tacoma — are using the address of the Tacoma Dome. You can probably guess that the Tacoma Dome has not claimed its own local business listing in Google Maps.

Listing C — 602 S 11th St, Tacoma — seems to be the middle of an intersection, a fairly common tactic in recent years of companies in other industries that have spammed Google Maps.

Phone Numbers: The area code for the Tacoma Dome is 253. The A & C listings shown above — area codes 618 and 708 — are both Illinois-based. Listing B uses a Minnesota-based area code.

Place Pages/Business Listings: While the Tacoma Dome hasn’t claimed its own business listing, the ticket sellers haven’t either — instead, they’ve created and claimed entirely new business listings using the venue’s address. The place pages show the ticket company logos and are clearly marked as “owner-verified,” meaning someone had no trouble getting around Google’s verification process, despite using the venue’s address (or an intersection) and phone numbers halfway across the country.

What It Means

Google has been holding its own against map spam lately, and even declared a year ago that it had all but eliminated the hijacking of business listings. To be fair, this widespread ticket spam in Google Maps isn’t so much about hijacked listings as it is about phony listings and what appears to be some form of automated bulk spamming.

The specifics are interesting in this case:

• It’s not small, local businesses being victimized here; it’s major entertainment venues, whose addresses are often being used for the phony local business listings — listings that are getting prime real estate on the search results page, ahead of the venue web sites and the official ticket sellers and promoters, like Ticketmaster and/or Live Nation.
• The ticket sellers are creating local business listings for businesses named “[artist] Tickets [city]” — clearly these aren’t actual business names.
• It seems that the combination of using keywords in the phony business names, as well as in the “business” URLs (the .info domains and sub-domains) are enough to trigger a Maps Onebox on highly-competitive queries.

One suspects that such a consistent pattern of abuse in this case should make it easy for Google to deal with this type of spam going forward. But until then, it’s another black eye for Google Maps.

The result is that lots of geeks are considering leaving Facebook,
and perhaps even more interestingly, veritable droves of Google
software engineers are among them. This includes Matt Cutts,
head of the webspam team at Google (see below) who has not technically
left, but has deactivated
his Facebook account.

Admittedly, there’s probably not a lot of love lost between Facebook
and Google right now, but it is certainly fascinating to watch these
Facebook departures from people who are early adopters, and deeply savvy
about the Web.

UK-based Buzz search engine Buzzzy has picked the following up, and we reproduce

some examples of this mass exodus below.

I assume this will continue to go live on the various Google destinations as the clock hits Saturday around the world.

Brazil tops the list of countries in terms of both requests for data (3,663) and to take down content (291). Brazil has had a long-standing dispute with Google over requests for information about criminals using the site’s Orkut social networking site. The United States ranked second in requests for data and fourth in number of requests to remove content.

“There is a lack of information about what governments do, and that makes people wonder,” said Google deputy general counsel Nicole Wong.

Help Net tried searching for Gray Powell on Google and found that the first page of results returned 4 malicious links. Out of 10. Ouch. More disconcerting is that fact that only one quarter of the engines used by Virustotal.com detected the malware being served — double ouch.

So Powell’s unfortunate legacy (which of course has absolutely nothing to do with the man himself) will ultimately be thousands and thousands of Windows PCs infected with malware by users who just aren’t paying enough attention to what they click.

I’m guessing Apple is only a little bit sad about that prospect. Or perhaps not.

The Apple iPhone was indeed revolutionary and provided the true smartphone leap forward, that has been followed and in many ways being surpassed by Android, with more and more mainstream users browsing online via mobile devices.

How does this impact & affect the SEO that you have already carefully crafted for your sites?  Not much…for now.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt stated at the 2010 Mobile World Congress their new mantra & current strategy is “Mobile First” thus you can be first by getting ahead of your competition by planting these mobile seeds into your site:

• Create a mobile version of your site optimally in a mobile subdomain or  subdirectory rather than a separate domain or TLD such a .mobi

• Render this mobile version of your site via mobile user agent detection while also providing the user an opt out to the standard web version.

• The mobile version of your site should have the following DocType declared above the HEAD code:  <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//WAPFORUM//DTD XHTML Mobile 1.0//EN” “http://www.wapforum.org/DTD/xhtml-mobile10.dtd”>

• The SEO coding elements will remain the same in the mobile version but to improve usability & reduce any possible duplicate content issues its best to strip extraneous content, JavaScript & graphics out – optimally via CSS.

• A mobile site should have at least half the load time in comparison to the standard site with a true target of under 2 seconds load time on an Edge or non-3G signal.

• A mobile sitemap XML should also be created which has as the main difference from the standard sitemap XML a <mobile:mobile/> declaration after each URL listing – Google Mobile Sitemap Instructions

• Affirm your mobile progress by using the tools at W3C & MobiReady to validate your code for mobile readiness as well check load time and actual mobile device rendering.

Currently Google Mobile search is nearly identical to the standard search but there is a separate mobile index which will only grow in providing differentiated results.

I will detail in next month’s mobile post at Search Engine Journal a key set of code that will give you this mobile search edge.

According to the firm, companies that carry out SEO campaigns incorrectly, or those which optimize their websites in a non-standard manner could end up being blocked from search engine results pages.

Google claimed that badly designed websites can be mistaken for ‘phishing’ operations and could be wrongly identified as carrying out illegal or malicious activities by crawlers.

The warning highlights the importance of turning to a professional search engine optimization (SEO) firm when attempting to improve search engine rankings for specific keywords and key phrases.

Secondary domain names that are improperly linked to a firm’s main website are also a major source of problems for online businesses, the search giant states.

Google notes that these additional websites can often have very little to do with a firm’s core content and as a result can be flagged up as unrelated or illegitimate.

The search engine firm also noted that companies should be cautious when using third-party logos on their landing pages, as branding that belongs to another company can lead to confusion, particularly if logos are placed next to login fields or on online forms.

According to Google, crawlers can mistake the combination of data gathering text boxes and unrelated company logos with phishing scams – especially since there has been a dramatic increase in the number of fake landing pages being used by cyber criminals to steal people’s passwords and bank details.

With this in mind, Google urged firms to refrain from asking for passwords to other sites as this will instantly earmark a website as fake.

This common-sense approach to website design as a means of boosting a firm’s search engine ranking was recently highlighted by industry expert Howard Rybko.

Mr Rybko told Media Update that fancy website design should be secondary to a clear and functional approach that leaves visitors unfazed and unconfused.

Much like a successful search engine optimization campaign, Mr Rybko claimed that good website design involves the strategic application of resources and careful planning.

http://www.bignews.biz/?id=863264&keys=marketing-optimisation-seo-promotion

Before joining Yahoo!, Irving was a professor at Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business and Management in Malibu, California. Irving’s resume also includes serving as Corporate Vice President of the Windows Live Platform group as well as development and product marketing management positions at Xerox Corp., Oki Electric Industry Co. Ltd. and Compaq Computer Corp.

In a post on the Yahoo! Yodel Anecdotal blog, Irving writes, “This week marks an exciting new journey for me personally, and I’m thrilled to be sharing my experiences and background with the world class people at Yahoo!

“We have big opportunities, as well as big challenges ahead of us, and I’m getting ready to dive in and work with this great team to make Yahoo! even more central to daily online life than it has been over the past decade and a half.”

Irving will assume the position on May 17.

“It’s time to be much more optimistic about the European tech startup scene,” said Anil Hansjee, Google’s head of corporate development for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

“There is a lot of innovation here and now the tech eco-system across academia, corporates, startups, venture capital, and government is responding and supporting this effort.”

The YouTube video reminds users that, like with all Google products, “you have to be at least 13 to use Buzz” — even though Google only recently began asking Google Buzz users to verify their age. The video gives five tips for teens on “controlling” their Google Buzz usage:

Keeping information private: the video reminds teens that any information posted on Google Buzz is publicly accessible.

Know your followers: Users can choose to block someone if they request to follow you, and they won’t know they’ve been blocked.

Manage your profile: You don’t have to give more than a first and last name to set up your Google Profile — giving less information can help you maintain your privacy.

Understand how to regulate posts and comments: Users can edit or delete not only their posts, but comments left on their posts and their comments they’ve made on other posts.

Turning off Google Buzz: Users can turn off Google Buzz through their settings.

Chief Health Strategist for Google Dr. Roni Zeiger told the Times that this change is only the second time Google has “added such guidance on troubling search terms.” The first time was a few months ago when Google added a phone number for the national poison control hotline for searches related to the phrase “poison emergency.”

According to Zeiger, “A mother wrote in a suggestion to us — her daughter had swallowed something that she thought was dangerous, and she had a hard time finding poison control. Now when you search for poison control or similar queries, we make it straightforward to find the number for poison control.”

What causes this dissatisfaction, especially for B2B marketers? There are five factors at work:

* Most agencies specialize in consumer search marketing and their services are inappropriate for your unique needs as a B2B company.
* The agency business model skews in favor of the largest spenders and under-serves the majority of B2B advertisers.
* Agencies will never understand your customers and your business as well as you, especially B2B firms that sell more complicated products and services.
* The need to coordinate with outsiders implies latency and information loss, meaning you lose the flexibility and agility to react quickly.
* Outsourcing means losing control over a critical portion of your demand generation strategy to outsiders who may have different incentives than you.

The main value provided by agencies is expertise with SEM, and as I’ll explain, you can bring much of that expertise in-house by using the right kind of pay per click management software. A technology solution can create the best of both worlds: the control and business knowledge of doing it yourself, combined with the SEM best practices and techniques of an expert.

Before diving into this “inconvenient truth”, it helps to understand the common arguments used by agencies to convince B2B marketers to outsource their PPC campaigns.

Why Companies Outsource PPC Campaigns

The first argument falls into the broad category of FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt). It takes on various forms, but comes down to this basic point:

“Search is really, really hard – you should leave it to the experts.”

Tactics like this are meant to instill fear that if you don’t outsource, you will fail miserably with search. The head of one agency likes to say that “There are only two kinds of marketers at the top of the auction based search results: Brilliant Marketers and Total Lunatics.” Since most people don’t think of themselves as brilliant search experts, the implication is that if you don’t hire his services then you must be a total lunatic.

A more subtle form of this argument says that the world of PPC is changing so fast that you could never keep up yourself. No matter what form it takes, this argument is self-serving to the agencies. Although it might have been true a few years ago, today the in-house B2B search marketer has access to easy-to-use PPC management software. These tools help to level the playing field by automating the techniques and best practices used by the agencies.

While the first reason B2B companies outsource their PPC marketing has to do with knowledge and expertise, the second reason has to do with time. The core of this argument is:

“I’m too busy to manage search. It’s easier to pay an agency to take care of it for me.”

I have no doubt that most B2B marketers feel beleaguered for time, and that dealing with PPC can feel like yet another burden. The allure of being able to pay an agency to have one less thing your plate is appealing. This can be a valid reason to hire an agency, although the appeal fades once you realize you should be highly involved on an ongoing basis to get the best results from an agency. The agency doesn’t understand your business like you do, so they can’t react to competitive changes or deal with new business initiatives as well as you can. The only things they can do without you are tweak bids, use tools to suggest new keywords, and generate reports – all tasks that automated software can do better and cheaper than a consultant can.

Why Companies Shouldn’t Outsource PPC Campaigns

1. Most agencies don’t specialize in B2B search marketing. B2B search is different from B2C search, meaning it requires different techniques and optimization methods. B2B keywords tend to be lower-volume than B2C keywords, but the value of a B2B lead is much higher. Also, B2B transactions have a more complex sales cycle, involving multiple decision makers – each using search in different ways, with different motivations, and at different times during the sales cycle. An agency that works mostly with consumer companies may not have the proper expertise to deal with the specialized needs of B2B.

2. Agency business models are focused on the largest spenders. Agencies are, by their nature, service businesses that are only profitable if companies spend $10,000 per month or more on search. (These minimums keep going up every year.) That leaves the majority of B2B companies out in the cold. Be wary of agencies that promise to provide reasonable service at levels below $10,000, since at those levels an agency can profitably give you only a few hours a month. It is much more profitable to focus on the largest accounts, leaving the smaller accounts to run mostly as-is. (Of course they still earn their fees every month, regardless of how much time they spend on your campaigns.)

3. You know your business better than the agency. One of the most important skills for PPC success is picking the right keywords that your prospects actually use when they search – something you know best. Also, when determining rankings, Google and now Yahoo! care as much about the relevance of your content as they do about your bid (aka “what you say is as important as what you pay“). This means a good understanding of your business and your industry is at least as important as being a search “expert”. Over time, the balance of power between business knowledge and SEM knowledge will shift even further towards business as Google continues to find ways to reward relevant content and discount search agency tricks.

4. In-house improves flexibility and the agility to react quickly. I recently met with one B2B marketer who was paying his agency a whopping 40% of his overall PPC budget, yet they were still bidding on words that were not converting to leads. All the back-and-forth emails and phone calls required to coordinate changes created latency and information loss. This meant it took weeks to get a new campaign launched. In contrast, his competitor who kept search in-house could launch new campaigns in under one day. It’s no wonder the competitor had better PPC results.

5. Agency incentives are not aligned with your goals. When you outsource PPC, you give up control over how your money gets spent. Whatever your agency promises, their first incentive is to grow their own business – meaning they will usually tell you that search is performing great. This is the fox guarding the henhouse! It is up to you to put their information in the context of your overall demand generation strategy and to make the critical decisions about whether your marginal dollar is best spent on search or another demand generation activity.

When to Bring Search In-House With Technology

There are a few basic skills required to succeed with SEM: pick the right keywords, optimize bids to achieve desired business outcomes, create great landing pages that drive conversions, and use testing and measurement to continuously improve your process. Each of these requires business expertise and SEM expertise. Only you can provide the business expertise. SEM expertise can be found in an agency, and for some companies that will always be the right choice. For example, I have no problem with outsourcing your SEO campaign. Also, if you don’t use search today and outsourcing gets you started, or if don’t have enough time to spend on search, then using an agency is certainly better than doing nothing. (This is especially true if your agency takes advantage of technology to automate the tasks that software does best!)

However, I believe that your best results will come from having your PPC campaigns managed by the true experts – you. The same techniques and best practices used by agencies can and should be automated with technology. Choosing B2B search marketing software allows you to optimize your PPC campaigns like an expert, without the loss of control, latency, and overhead associated with an outside agency. And that’s an inconvenient truth for the agencies.

• SEO
• SEM
• SMO

HRH Media understands the intricacies of Search Engine Marketing (SEM), but what is it?

• Individuals corporations and businesses describe Search Engine Marketing as a practice that promotes websites by improving visibility in  Search Engines.

How can Search Engine Marketing (SEM) help me grow my business?

• HRH Media utilizes cutting edge products and services to optimize for Search Engine Marketing (SEM). HRH Media provides SEM campaigns that generate real world results for eCommerce Merchants and Websites that promote services. HRH Media provides full analytics and optimization pre-campaign, during and post-campaign.

I have an eCommerce website how can Search Engine Marketing (SEM) help me?

• HRH Media provides eCommerce Search Engine Marketing (SEM) solutions for online merchants by Merchant Advantage. As a Value Added Reseller (VAR) of Merchant Advantage, HRH Media provides you the tools to promote your Product Feed in “One Manageable Area.” Merchant Advantage gives your business the ability to promote your feed to all your favorite shopping channels such as Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, Overstock, Google, PriceGrabber, and Shopping.com. Merchant Advantage has no limitations; it supports over 300 known channels.

• HRH Media offers Channel Management and Optimization Services of Merchant Advantage tools. We do just about everything you need for you data feed. HRH Media can optimize your Shopping data Feed, Product Optimization, Channel Optimization distribution and more.

• HRH Media manages PPC or Paid Inclusion campaigns for merchants who have as few as 1,000 sku’s to merchants with over 1 million sku numbers.

For businesses that require a more well rounded solution to promote their business, HRH Media offers services using techniques for both Paid Inclusion or PPC and Search Engine Optimized ranking.

• Search Engine Optimized Press Release Solutions (now being used by IBM)”
• Website Content Writing Services
• Publicity/ Public Relation
• Social Media Content Optimization

Give us a call Click here

Social media optimization (SMO) is a group of tools for creating publicity through social media, online neighborhoods and public websites. Techniques for SMO contain adding RSS feeds, social news buttons (like the one below), blogging, incorporating third-party community functionality like images and videos. Social media optimization is linked to search engine marketing, but varies in several ways, principally the spotlight in driving traffic from sources other than search engines though improved search ranking which is also one of the advantages of successful SMO.

Social media optimization is linked as a practice of viral marketing where word of mouth is fashioned not by means of friends or family but with the use of networking in social bookmarking, video and photo sharing websites. Comparably with blogs achieves the same can be said of sharing content through the use of RSS in the blogosphere and special blog search engines.

Social Media optimization is regarded an essential piece of an online reputation management (ORM) or Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM) strategy for organizations or individuals who care about their online presence.

San Francisco, California – - July 10, 2008 – Over 100 Internet marketers, advertisers and business professionals, joined industry experts from Microsoft, Google and other firms, at The Pay Per Click Summit in San Francisco.

One of the notable participants, included PPC Summit CEO Mary O’Brien, former Yahoo! Search Marketing Director, who was joined by Keynote speaker Jorie Waterman, Microsoft AdCenter Product Manager, and other industry gurus who shared proven strategies to increase online market share. During the two full days of training, expert trainers presented on these topics: search marketing, bid management, keyword targeting, B2B and B2C advertising, click fraud, landing page and website optimization, Google Adwords tools and other hot topics. For more information about these sessions or other industry trends, take advantage of the Internet Marketing tips covered in the PPC Summit Secrets Revealed email newsletter. Sign up information can be found at

www.ppcsummit.com/overview.html?PRW10.

PPC Summit has received positive feedback from many San Francisco attendees who have already implemented strategies resulting in higher sales and return on investment.

Attendees learned new insider information, strategies, tools, manuals and case studies to integrate into their marketing programs. Attendees had the opportunity to meet and discuss with industry experts how to better position their products/services and increase their search engine marketing results.

David Wagoner, a San Francisco attendee noted, ”My sales are up 350% and cost per sale is down 48.3% after incorporating the expert Pay Per Click and Search Marketing strategies I learned. You can count me in for the next Summit in Los Angeles.”

PPC Summit thanks those industry leaders who sponsored the event: Microsoft, Google, Business.com, Context Web, Engine Ready, Lyris HQ, BidHero, Saturn and Lutze Consulting. PPC Summit has opened registration for the next workshop coming to Los Angeles, September 25-26, held at the Omni Hotel where Microsoft and Google are set to speak. The PPC Summit expert trainers offer the latest industry technologies and strategies which draw many repeat attendees who want to stay abreast on industry information and maintain a competitive advantage.

Registration space is limited to ensure optimal training and provide ample time for attendees to network with the industry experts. All interested participants should register online before the early bird date to save $200.

To learn more, please visit: www.ppcsummit.com.

Under the terms of the agreement, Google will make more of AOL’s industry-leading content available to Google users. The new alliance expands on the original relationship between the two companies launched
three years ago.

Time Warner Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Dick Parsons commented on the expanded relationship, ”We’re very pleased to build significantly on our special relationship with Google in a way that will meaningfully strengthen AOL’s position in the fast-growing online advertising business and help drive more advertisers to its web
properties. This agreement is key to fulfilling our commitment to realize the potential of AOL’s very large online audience. As digital technologies continue to drive industries together, the great value and
opportunity inherent in Time Warner’s structure and array of premier businesses becomes increasingly clear. A critical piece of this strategic alliance will be our content, which we will be making more accessible to Google users.”

Eric Schmidt, Google’s Chief Operating Officer added, ”AOL is one of Google’s longest-standing partners, and we are thrilled to strengthen and expand our relationship. Today’s agreement leverages technologies from both companies to connect Google users worldwide to a wealth of new content. We’ve also created a simple way for AOL Marketplace advertisers to buy and place search-related advertising across the AOL network. This partnership is an important next step for our companies.”

Under the new agreement, Google and AOL will continue providing search technology to AOL’s network of Internet properties worldwide. The agreement’s broad range of new features for users and advertisers include:

Creating an AOL Marketplace through

• white labeling of Google’s advertising technology – enabling AOL to sell
  search advertising directly to advertisers on AOL-owned properties;
  Expanding display advertising throughout the Google network; Making AOL
  content more accessible to Google Web crawlers; Collaborating in video
  search and showcasing AOL’s premium video service within Google Video;
  Enabling Google Talk and AIM instant messaging users to communicate with
  each other, provided certain conditions are met; and
• Providing AOL marketing credits
  for its Internet properties.

AOL and Google have also agreed to extend the term of their existing European relationship, and, subject to mutual agreement, they may extend the AOL Marketplace internationally. In addition, Google, AOL and Time Warner may choose to expand the new partnership to Time Warner’s other advertising opportunities.

Google will invest $1 billion for an effective 5% equity stake in America Online, Inc., allowing the company to participate in AOL’s future success. Google will become the only shareholder in AOL other than Time Warner. Time Warner will retain management control and full strategic flexibility over AOL, while Google will have certain customaryminority shareholder rights, including those associated with any future sale or public offering of AOL. Additional financial terms of the  agreement were not disclosed.

Mr. Schmidt continued, ”Our investment underscores our recognition of AOL as a valuable strategic asset and our desire both to contribute to and participate in its future success. We look forward to working with Dick Parsons and the management teams at Time Warner and AOL to take our already successful AOL relationship to even greater heights.”

Jonathan Miller, AOL’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer said, ”AOL and Google have a very successful history working together, and this is an opportunity to take it to a new level that will benefit both companies and the customers we serve. We are excited about working with Google on the next generation of AOL products, while further expanding our presence on the Web. This is a great moment for AOL.”

To learn more about America Online, please visit: www.aol.com .

For further information on Google Inc., please visit: www.google.com .

Paul Muret, Google Engineering Director, and one of the founders of Urchin commented on the announcement, ”We want to give all online marketers and publishers access to powerful web analytics to help them better understand what their customers want. With this knowledge, businesses can create more accurate advertising and build better websites. By making this powerful service free, we aim to give all websites – large and small – the tools they need to better serve their customers, make more money, and improve the web experience for everyone.”

Google Analytics can enhance every aspect of online marketing – from selecting and bidding on effective keywords, to determining the most relevant offers in email campaigns, to optimizing website design. By acting on this information, businesses of all sizes can attract more visitors, convert more prospects to customers, and improve the overall return on their marketing investment. Google Analytics is simple enough for businesses new to web analytics to get started quickly, and sophisticated enough for the most advanced online marketers.

In addition to being free, Google Analytics includes:

• Integration with Google AdWords, and works with any online ad network: Users of Google AdWords can access web analytics from a new interface within their AdWords account. Google Analytics automatically tags keyword destination URLs (which saves time and reduces the potential for errors), and imports cost data for ROI reports (for fast set-up and ease-of-use). Google Analytics is also able to track the results of any online marketing campaign, including banner ads, referral links, email newsletters, and organic and paid search.
• New reporting dashboards: Google Analytics executive summary reports for the three most common decision makers – executive, marketer, webmaster – will ease access to crucial information across departments.
• Global reach: Immediately available in 16 international languages: UK English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Portuguese, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Russian.

Google Analytics runs on the same computing infrastructure that powers Google.com so it can support the traffic demands of any site, from those with a few visitors a week to hundreds of millions. Google Analytics is already used by many of the top properties on the web, including dozens of Fortune 500 companies. Businesses such as The Financial Times, National Semiconductor, Ritz Interactive, Agency.com and Deckers Outdoor Corporation use Google Analytics to improve the user experience and marketing effectiveness of their websites.

Jeff Saville, Marketing Manager at Deckers Outdoor Corp. (Teva, Ugg, Simple Shoes) added, ”Much like it did with web search – Google is making web analytics simpler and more accessible for millions of sites on the web. With the new features, and the fact it is free, Google Analytics will give us a much clearer view of how we’re serving our customers, and the information we need to make it better.”

Google Analytics is available immediately for free to existing customers of Urchin from Google, as well as all new customers. Free online support is also available. Businesses can obtain customization or advanced integration from Google representatives and select Google service partners.

To learn more about Google Analytics, please visit: www.google.com/analytics .

Mr. Tabke commented on the planned event, ”We’re going to cover many Google topics including, what can we do to prevent duplicate content issues, the status of the redirect issue, will we ever see more old fashioned updates, or is the dance dead, and what is next for Google? We’ll also cover issues related to the latest Google update, named Jagger. Matt’s unique style and extensive knowledge will make this session a hit with webmasters.”

Mr. Cutts has been Google’s lead webmaster, SEO, and SEM community liaison, and he served as Google’s mouthpiece to the search engine optimization and webmaster communities.

WebmasterWorld’s conferences and sessions are for anyone involved in Internet Marketing, the Search Engine Industry, the Online Advertising Industry, Affiliates, Webmasters, and any business with an Internet presence.

Mr. Tabke concluded, ”This Las Vegas conference is a must attend event for anyone serious about their Internet presence.”

For further information on the PubCon conference, please visit: www.pubcon.com .

Mr. Chou joins Google as President, Sales and Business Development, Greater China. As President, Chou will be responsible for building Google’s sales and channel businesses, and expanding the company’s strategic partnerships in the region.

Mr. Chou comes to Google from UT Starcom, where he was President of the company’s China Operations for the past 9 years, and brings over 20 years of diverse business management experience to Google.

In addition to the appointment of Mr. Chou, Google recent hired of Dr. Kai-Fu Lee to help grow the Chinese marekt. The hires are seen as a reflection of Google’s commitment to the Chinese market. Kai-Fu Lee and Johnny Chou will jointly oversee Google’s overall operations. Chou will lead Google’s sales and business development activities while Dr. Kai-Fu Lee will spearhead Google’s public affairs and the creation of the company’s research and development center.

According to Omid Kordestani, Senior Vice President of Google’s Worldwide Sales and Field Operations, ”The leadership and experience that Johnny Chou brings to Google will be an invaluable asset to Google’s plans for developing its business operations in China. Johnny Chou has a proven track record of leading businesses to success in the complex Chinese market and will accelerate our efforts to establish Google’s operations in China.”

To learn more, please visit: www.google.com .

Limor Elbaz, Vice President of Business Development and Strategy with Finjan described the issue, ”The cross site scripting vulnerability could have allowed a remote attacker to take over victims’ Google Accounts, or fake the website’s content in order to deceive end users into downloading malicious content or providing personal and confidential information (known as ‘phishing’).”

Two google.com sub-sites contained forms which did not validate and filter input. This lack of data validation and filtering could have allowed an attacker to inject content and scripts which could allow him to steal the victim’s cookie. If the victim were to be logged-on to their Google Account at the time, the attacker, by virtue of having the victim’s cookie, could have gained access to some of the Google services like the victim’s personal account information, any saved searches, Froogle’s wish list, Google alerts, or even identify the user in the Google Groups.

The attacker might also have been able to change the content of the entire page, allowing him to perform phishing attacks, or convince the user to download malicious files. In late September, Finjan’s Malicious Code Research Center (MCRC) provided Google with full technical details, including proof-of-concept, concerning the vulnerability in order to assist Google with the fix.

Google has worked quickly to complete the fix on its website. The vulnerability is now fixed, and is no longer a cause of concern for Google site visitors.

The Malicious Code Research Center (MCRC) is the leading research department at Finjan Software, dedicated to the research and detection of security vulnerabilities in Internet and email applications as well as other popular applications. For further information, please visit: http://www.finjan.com/mcrc/ .

Finjan Software is a leading provider of proactive, behavior-based secure content management solutions, protecting close to millions of users from known and unknown attacks, globally. For more information about Finjan and its proactive protection solutions against threats driven by mobile malicious code, please visit: http://www.finjan.com .

The suit is being coordinated and funded by AAP, and has the backing of the publishing industry.

Former Colorado Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder is the current AAP President. Mrs. Schroeder had this to say about the legal actions, ”The publishing industry is united behind this lawsuit against Google and united in the fight to defend their rights. While authors and publishers know how useful Google’s search engine can be and think the Print Library could be an excellent resource, the bottom line is that under its current plan Google is seeking to make millions of dollars by freeloading on the talent and property of authors and publishers.”

Announced late last year, the Google Print Library Project involves the scanning and digitization of millions of published books from the collections of three major academic libraries – Stanford University, Harvard University and the University of Michigan – from which Google plans to create an online, searchable database. Oxford University and the New York Public Library are also participating in the Library Project, but are only making available works in the public domain.

Google has indicated its intention to go forward with the unauthorized copying of copyrighted works beginning on November 1, despite the objections voiced by publishers and in defiance of a lawsuit filed earlier by the Authors Guild on behalf of its 8,000 members.

As a way of accomplishing the legal use of copyrighted works in the Print Library Project, AAP proposed to Google that they utilize the well-known ISBN numbering system to identify works under copyright and secure permission from publishers and authors to scan these works. Since the inception of the ISBN system in 1967, a unique ISBN number has been placed on every book, identifying each book and linking it to a specific publisher. Google flatly rejected this proposal.

Noting the existence of new online search initiatives that respect the rights of creators, such as the “Open Content Alliance” involving Yahoo, Hewlett-Packard, Adobe and the Internet Archive, Mrs. Schroeder noted, ”If Google can scan every book in the English language, surely they can utilize ISBNs. By rejecting the reasonable ISBN solution, Google left our members no choice but to file this suit.”

Mrs. Schroeder has previously served as the Ranking Member on the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property. Mrs. Schroeder added, ”Google Print Library could help many authors get more exposure and maybe even sell more books, authors and publishers should not be asked to waive their long-held rights so that Google can profit from this venture.”

The Association of American Publishers is the national trade association of the U.S. book publishing industry. AAP’s approximately 300 members include most of the major commercial book publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies. The protection of intellectual property rights in all media, the defense of intellectual freedom, and the promotion of reading and literacy are among the Association’s primary concerns.

Developed by Otopy, Inc., a Los Altos-based startup, and released in Beta recently – its Internet search assistant was developed two years of research and development. Otopy’s tool addresses the problem of not knowing exactly what search term will produce a useful search result.

For most Internet users, finding a specific tidbit of information is like trying to find a word in the dictionary without knowing how to spell it. Otopy eliminates the guesswork and frustration of trying
different keywords to describe the information that one is trying to  uncover. Using semantics and linguistic analysis, the Otopy search assistant seamlessly converts initial keyword entries into multiple relevant terms. Results for all relevant terms are delivered in a easy-to-use interface.

Gene Feroglia, CEO and Co-Founder of Otopy, described the new search tool, ”We identified an opportunity to better connect buyers and sellers. The problem is that sellers describe the item they’re selling one way, and potential buyers may search for that item using different
terminology. As a result, items may go unsold simply because the buyer and seller aren’t using the same terms to describe the same item. Otopy bridges that gap by linking terms that relate to the same concept. By grouping these terms together with our proprietary technologies, we
significantly increase the accuracy, speed and ease with which buyers can find what they’re looking for.”

”While our current release is tuned for shopping, we are optimizing  additional databases for general web searches as well as for domain-specific information in the fields of law, medicine, and other
applications, including other languages and corporate applications,” added Dan Kikinis, CTO and Co-Founder of Otopy.

The Otopy search assistant is now available for free download. To obtain the search tool, please visit the Otopy website at: www.otopy.com .

The Beta release is available for Internet Explorer 6.0+ and currently supports the following search engines: A9, Google, MSN, and Yahoo! and shopping sites: eBay, Froogle, MSN Shopping, Yahoo! Shopping. The Company plans to release additional versions of the software that will
work with other popular browsers and sites.

Otopy Inc. was founded in 2003 with a mission to make Internet search easier and more effective. The privately funded venture is managed by a team of Silicon Valley veterans with expertise in search applications and technology. The technology used in Otopy’s search assistant is
covered by patents and pending patents.