The Wall Street Journal is running a piece discussing how tech companies (like Google, Yahoo, AOL, Groupon, etc.) are touting new online ad formats. Author Jessica E. Vascellaro has some quotes from Google CEO Eric Schmidt about some things the company is thinking about within this realm. For one, according to this piece, Schmidt says Google is looking at addressing an apparently popular concern from advertisers - that there are too many ad formats to choose from. So too many choices in how to ...

Conversion tracking refers to an optional reporting metric that helps you measure the success of your PPC campaigns—and more accurately evaluate your return on investment—through the use of a tracking script embedded on your website.  Once implemented, this script reports back to adCenter when a user (who arrived at your site through your adCenter ad) performs some sort of desirable action while there. Enabling Conversion Tracking for adCenter When a user clicks on your ...

Microsoft and eBay made a joint announcement this morning, declaring that eBay will be one of Microsoft's first customers for its Windows Azure cloud computing platform appliance. eBay will incorporate Azure into two of its data centers. "Microsoft’s focus on and investment in the Windows Azure platform appliance shows they are committed to world-class cloud computing solutions. eBay has the right blueprint for next-generation software-as-a-service-based applications with our ...

Here's a shortcut to interesting news that you might have missed this weekend: Google App Inventor, Google China, Facebook closing down its gift store, Yahoo and Zillow and more...Click to read the rest of this post...

Building links is still a big topic with SEOs and site owners alike and we’re all a bit fed up with trying to get reciprocal links. While it may be more fun, using social media channels to build links take a lot of time and may not suit everyone. So it’s time to get creative [...]Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.Top 7 Ways to Increase Link Popularity with Content on Your Site

App Inventor is a new tool in Google Labs that makes it easy for anyone—programmers and non-programmers, professionals and students—to create mobile applications for Android-powered devices. And today, we’re extending invitations to the general public.For many people, their mobile phone—and access to the Internet—is always within reach. App Inventor for Android gives everyone, regardless of programming experience, the opportunity to control and reshape their ...

Twitter advertising is becoming big business, and not just for Twitter. As Twitter works on building its Promoted Tweets feature and sells sponsored Trending Topics spots, other companies are finding their own ways of capitalizing on the Twitter buzz. TwitVid, a popular social video platform has announced SocialAds, a stand-alone video ad network, aimed at boosting Twitter followers and retweets. "This new video advertising network represents a shift from stagnant pre-roll video advertising to ...

Facebook has partnered with the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) on a safety application for teenagers in the UK. The application ClickCEOP will appear on a user's profile page when they add or bookmark it, allowing teens to report suspicious or inappropriate behavior. "By adding this application, Facebook users will have direct access to all the services that sit behind our ClickCEOP button which should provide reassurance to every parent with teenagers on the site," said ...

Google Games - along with the company's social efforts - may stand a better chance of getting off the ground than most people thought.  Reports indicate that Google's established ties with one of the top organizations in the social gaming space by investing $100-$200 million in Zynga. Neither company's confirmed the move, and obviously there's a big difference between $100 million and $200 million.  But Michael Arrington was able to write this weekend, "Google has quietly (secretly, one ...

Google released a report on general statistics of web pages on the Internet. The report lists basic information they retrieved over the course of “Google’s crawl and indexing pipeline.” The key highlights include: The average web page takes up 320 KB on the wire. Only two-thirds of the compressible material on a page is actually [...] *** Read the full post by clicking on the headline above ***

Google has changed how they display the large map result for a single listing in web search. First covered by Mike Blumenthal, the OneBox map result has some minor changes but at the same time can have a large impact on your search referrals from Google. The example I gave was for a search on [...] *** Read the full post by clicking on the headline above ***

When you start to become a power blogger over time you will realize that some of your blog posts have a tremendous amount of web traction and others simply don’t. You will also realize that eventually at some point you will want to push your blog posts out a bit further too really increase your [...]Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.Blog Post Recycling – Get it Done Right!

Google has a new Google Labs project designed to let anybody (as in non-developers) create Android Apps. The project is called App Inventor. While in beta status, App Inventor could become a huge factor in Android growth, should it find semi-mainstream use. If you can get people of all ages creating any kinds of apps they want with little to no friction, Android becomes a much more personalized platform for mobile phone users (not to mention eventually tablets, TVs, etc.). "To use App Inventor, ...

Gmail is an awesome tool that can be used in hundreds of ways (besides actually sending and receiving email). Recently I have found a great way to manage my web tasks with Gmail filters and a FireFox addon I discovered a few days ago. Here’s the tip: Step 1: Create a Gmail Filter A Gmail Filter [...]Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.Manage Your Tasks with Gmail and “Email Yourself” FireFox Addon

Reports have it that Google has invested between $100 million and $200 million in social gaming platform Zynga. Beyond the actual size of the spend, the real question is whether this move will finally give the Mountain View-based giant the leverage it desperately needs to launch its own full-blown social platform, i.e. the rumored 'Google Me.' Click to read the rest of this post...

Here's a helpful tip: Wear your cross training shoes when you head to Connected Marketing Week, which is being held at The Moscone Center in San Francisco from August 16 to 20, 2010.Click to read the rest of this post...

Franchises and their franchisees often tend to have love/hate relationships—it’s the nature of the beast. Franchises tend to want their franchisees to focus on corporate priorities and to play by the corporate rules. Franchisees tend to want fewer restrictions from corporate and more support. In general it seems like the relationship works [...] *** Read the full post by clicking on the headline above ***

Google has developed something like an Android social network for parking spots. Called “Open Spot,” it relies on people rather than sensors or other sophisticated technology to locate parking spots that are being vacated. Open Spot users indicate when they’re leaving a spot. The phone’s location awareness indicates that person’s location on the map and shows [...] *** Read the full post by clicking on the headline above ***

The Wall Street Journal reports on new ad formats being developed by Google (and others) that would “outperform” or are intended to succeed traditional online ad formats. New “interactive video” units were briefly and vaguely discussed at the Allen & Co media confab in Sun Valley Idaho: Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt championed “interactive [...] *** Read the full post by clicking on the headline above ***

Whether you're the CEO of a major corporation or small local business, sooner or later you'll have to deal with negative publicity. In today's world, how you handle this issue for your business can be a make or break decision. ...