Archive for October, 2008

New iGoogle Feature and Keystroke Conservation

October 22, 2008

The most recent update of iGoogle features a button for each post published through RSS feeds.

I just noticed the (+) button next to the RSS feeds I subscribe to, but hadn’t actually clicked on one until today.

iGoogle Viewer

iGoogle Viewer

Clicking the (+) button pulls some or all of the story into your browser so you don’t have to leave the browser frame to review and read individual posts.

iGoogle Viewer Feature

iGoogle Viewer Feature

If the entire story isn’t displayed and you still want to see more of it, then click through to be taken to the RSS source site.

Otherwise, enjoy consuming the same amount of information while conserving keystrokes at the same time with iGoogle’s new RSS viewer feature.

This new RSS button may have already been in iGoogle for some time.

If it has, then I guess my particular case of iGoogle button blindness has now been cured.

New Flickr Homepage

October 22, 2008


New Flickr Home Page

Originally uploaded by TimCohn

From the Flickr blog:

“We’ve rolled out the new Flickr home page to all of our members. Why the change? The layout, design and new features now surfaces much more of the action going on around you.”

Flickr has definitely put more information on user’s home pages.

As with every other technology driven change, it will take some getting used to.

Yahoo Workforce and Market De-Cap-itation

October 21, 2008

I have always found Yahoo related market news ironic when its front and center on the Yahoo Finance site – particularly when the news isn’t so good.

Yahoo Finance

Yahoo Finance

Like today’s news of Yahoo’s plans to fire 1,500 employees or 10% of their workforce just eight short months after receiving and then rejecting a $47.5 Billion dollar purchase offer from Microsoft.

At the close of business today, Yahoo’s stock market capitalization was $16.73 Billion – approximately one third Microsoft’s $47.5 Billion offer.

Yahoo Market Cap

Yahoo Market Cap

In either case, whether you were an employee who was fired – or you still own Yahoo stock – ouch!

Ask.com Sponsored Listings Conversion Tracking Now Available

October 20, 2008

Ask.com and their search advertising product – Sponsored Listings – is now offering conversion tracking to their advertisers.

Ask Conversion Tracking

Ask Conversion Tracking

More about Ask.com conversion tracking offer:

“When you activate ASL conversion tracking and track at least one valid conversion by October 31st, you’ll receive a $25 credit! We’ll automatically credit your account after your conversion tracking has been verified.*”

Ask.com’s reasoning for deploying Conversion Tracking within their Sponsored Listings product:

* Increase your ROI: Measure and optimize your cost per acquisition (CPA) and improve your overall Return on Advertising Investment

* Gain deeper insight into your campaigns: Remove under performing traffic sources

* Get comprehensive reporting: View your Ask.com advertising by account, campaign, ad, keyword, conversion type, and date

Ask.com’s conversion tracking offer’s boiler plate:

“*Offer Terms and Conditions: in order to qualify for the $25 account credit, you must place the ASL conversion tracking tag on your web page and record at least 1 conversion by October 31st, 2008. ASL will verify your conversion and credit your account within 15 days of your conversion. Only one credit will be given for each individual account, web domain, and/or company.”

Its been a long time coming but all four major search engine advertising providers – Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.com now provide conversion tracking within their search advertising platforms.

If not for all search advertisers now – soon – precise measurement of search advertising return on investment will be the rule not the exception.

Adwords Translation Services

October 19, 2008

I get emails regularly from a variety of different web specialists who are looking for additional work.

Today I received the following email:

“I worked for Google as a QA Tester Adwords and Adsense, all in Spanish language at their headquarters in Mountain View.

I am looking for a position that will utilize my knowledge in Google products (Adwords / Adsense) as well as in Spanish. I also speak Hebrew and Arabic. I tested Adwords in BIDI languages (Bi-directions language – right to left).

I would like to work with you educating people on the power of Adwords, specifically the Spanish speaking population.”

Although I don’t have a need for translation of my Adwords campaigns into Spanish, Hebrew or Arabic – if you are looking for Adwords translation services, send me an email and I will put you in touch with an Adwords specialist who can translate your campaigns into Spanish, Hebrew and Arabic.

Chinese Domain Name Registration Game

October 17, 2008

I received the following email today from a Chinese “entrepreneur”.

The email is a rather exaggerated attempt at selling Chinese domain name registrations via the 87Global.hk web site.

The email sender’s reply address @ “Registry-China.org” redirects to 87Global.hk – a domain which in turn was registered by “Wang Yugen”.

87Global.hk

87Global.hk

Both the above domains have been registered and online less than three months…

The domain “registrar” site does provide legitimate lists of Asian Pacific and European domains.

Asia Pacific Domains

Asia Pacific Domains

Asia Pacific Domain Extensions

European Domains

European Domains

European Domain Extensions

The site also has a form for registering the following extensions including .Com.Cn domains albeit – at unbelievably high prices.

The .Com.Cn domain is an interesting extension. I am not sure how it came about, but Google already finds about 524,000,000 pages with “com.cn” in them.

.com.cn

.com.cn

I am sure if I did some digging, I would find that both site’s have content that was either – in whole or in part – copied and pasted directly from known and reputable registrar sites.

What I am not sure of is whether anyone has ever registered a domain successfully through either one of the two domains mentioned above.

The aforementioned email:
_____________________________________________________________________________
(If you are NOT the CEO, please forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. Thanks.)

Dear CEO,

We are the department of registration service in China. we have something need to confirm with you. We formally received an application on October 17th, 2008, One company which self-styled “POI Soft, Inc.” are applying to register “marketingprinciples” as internet brand and CN domain names as below:

marketingprinciples.asia
marketingprinciples.cn
marketingprinciples.com.cn
marketingprinciples.com.tw
marketingprinciples.hk
marketingprinciples.in
marketingprinciples.net.cn
marketingprinciples.org.cn
marketingprinciples.tw

After our initial examination, we found that the internet brand applied for registration are as same as your company’s name and trademark. These days we are dealing with it. hope to get the affirmation from your company. If your company and this “POI Soft, Inc.” as the same company, there is no need reply to us, We will accept their application and will register those for them immediately.

If your company has no relationships with that company nor do not authorized, please reply to us within 7 workdays, if we can’t get any information from yours over 7 workdays,we will unconditionally approve the application submitted by “POI Soft, Inc.” .

Thanks for your cooperation.

Best Regards,
Xx Yy

____________________________________________________________________________

If you have an interest in registering your brand or brands in foreign markets and instead of risking domain registration with an unknown registrar, visit Internic to find an accredited registrar for the country and language you plan to register in.

Incidentally, none of the above Chinese “registrars” are listed on Internic’s page of accredited registrars.

More Adwords Campaign Data Summary Display Options

October 16, 2008

Adwords is now offering seven different levels of campaign summary data at the Adwords campaign level.

The seven options are:

1. Summary: The Adwords campaign summary combines all data into a single top line of data.

Adwords Campaign Summary

Adwords Campaign Summary

2. Split – all search/content network: Search networks are combined and displayed along with content network results.

Adwords Split All Search Content Network

Adwords Split All Search Content Network

3. Split – Google search, search partners and content network: All three types of Adwords search distribution are delineated and displayed – Google search, search network partners and content network.

Adwords Split Google Search Search Partners Content Network

Adwords Split Google Search Search Partners Content Network

4. Only Show  – Google search / search partners: Adwords combines Google search and search partners’ results ( if in fact search partners distribution has been enabled ) into a single total.

Adwords Google Search Search Partners

Adwords Google Search Search Partners

5. Only Show – Google search: Adwords campaign results data for only the Google search portion of a campaign.

Only Show Google Search

Only Show Google Search

6. Only Show – Search Partners; Adwords campaign results for search partners only – again if your campaigns have been enabled to distribute ads via Google search partners.

Only Show Search Partners

Only Show Search Partners

7. Only Show – Content Network: campaign results from Google Adwords content network distribution.

Only Show Content Network

Only Show Content Network

By providing these additional levels of data at the campaign level, Google Adwords has made scanning and interpreting Adwords campaign distribution results quicker and easier.

Google Street View: Eiffel Tower Paris France

October 16, 2008

Google Maps now have Street View available live in France.

To get an idea of which cities in France have Google Street View available, search Google Maps for “France” and switch to the street view tab.

Google Street View France

Google Street View France

This will give you a general idea of where Google has street view images available in France.

Next, search street view while in Google Maps for a specific city within France to see whether the city has been photographed yet or not.

This image indicates Paris, France has live Google street view images.

Paris France Google Street View

Paris France Google Street View

A search for Eiffel Tower Paris France then produces a view from the base of the Eiffel Tower.

Clicking or moving the orange person icon onto any blue street and panning the camera image can give you a better perspective of any location or landmark as in the picture below.

Welcome to the Eiffel Tower.

Eiffel Tower

Eiffel Tower

Firefox Beta 3.1, Google Search and Poll Daddy

October 15, 2008

I have downloaded and started using Firefox Beta 3.1 and I’ve immediately noticed some new features.

Search terms are now highlighted in search results pages.

Google 3.1b1

Google 3.1b1

This feature highlights searched for terms in bold wherever they appear within the search results page.

By reducing the eye focusing labor required in the browsing process, Firefox Beta 3.1 makes searching for and finding what you are looking for much easier.

Search terms are highlighted in search results within Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.

I haven’t yet checked site search or any other search engine.

Firefox 3.1b1

Firefox 3.1b1

In Firefox 3.1, when a RSS is available from a particular site, the RSS icon is displayed in the far right end of the address bar.

Displaying the RSS button in the address bar makes subscribing to any web site’s feed far easier than hunting down the RSS button within a particular site.

Firefox Beta 3.1 Address Bar RSS

Firefox Beta 3.1 Address Bar RSS

RSS feed sources aren’t often easily located through a site’s internal search.

If I haven’t been able to locate a site’s syndication button from within a couple of clicks of a site’s home page, I will search Google for RSS XML and the domain name or business publication I want a subscription to.

The Google search query looks like this: “get RSS XML Adweek”

Google Search RSS XML

Google Search RSS XML

This type of search query will usually produce the RSS feeds page address – if there is one – within the first two search results for any web site – large or small.

Firefox Beta 3.1 new features make browsing more intuitive and working online more efficient.

Take the Firefox Beta 3.1 poll with the new WordPress Poll Daddy polling tool: