Adsense Cheque Received via Blue Dart

After a long wait, we received the Adsense cheque from Blue Dart. It arrived nicely packed with Google India, Hyderabad office seal on it! We really miss those Singapore, Buffalo and New York seal πŸ™‚
blue-dart-adsense-cheque
The tracking code is now available in all Indian publishers adsense account and can be found in their payment history link, if they are eligible for payment.

AdSense Account > Payment History > Payment Issued – Details

Here is the full mail which adsense team sent to us:

Hello,

We’d like to inform you that your most recent AdSense check has been shipped via Blue Dart. You can now find a Blue Dart tracking number in your AdSense account. For your convenience, we’ve also included this tracking number here: XXXXXXXXXXX.

You can use this number to track your payment at www.bluedart.com . Please contact your local Blue Dart office if you have any questions.

Thanks for your patience.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

Note that, Blue Dart had informed Adsense team that they are unable to reach some of the publishers as they have invalid address!

Here is the exact email from Adsense team, that some of my friends received:

Hi,

We are in the process of delivering your recent AdSense payment via Blue
Dart. However, Blue Dart has informed us that they are unable to deliver
to the address currently listed in your AdSense account. We therefore ask
that you update your address by following these steps:

1. Log in to your AdSense account
2. Click on the ‘My Account’ tab
3. Click the ‘Payee Information [edit]’ link
4. Edit the appropriate fields
5. Click ‘Save Changes’

Once you have made the changes, please contact Blue Dart to ensure proper
delivery of your payment.

So please double check your address and make sure everything is upto date.

As this is the first time adsense cheque delivery from Blue Dart, it had some issues(late delivery) and we hope that it will not happen in the future. I think Blue Dart had not expected such a huge number of adsense publishers in India πŸ™‚ . Thanks for Google for making this service free of cost. And the best thing about Blue Dart is, we can track our cheque by using the tracking code in our adsense account and searching for it in bluedart.

If you guys are waiting for your cheque then make sure your address is upto date. And if everyone else got the cheque except you, then the reason may be..Blue Dart is not able to service all areas throughout India. If you live in a location they don’t service, your check will be sent by Registered Post and should reach you within 2-3 weeks of the mailing date.
More chances that your cheque is on the way. Have a great week end. Cheers!

Google Chrome ads on TV: Google launches its 1st TV ad

Google trying all means to promote its browser, Chrome. Google had never advertised on traditional TV. response when it first launched. But as for today, there are only 1.4% of internet users using Chrome.
A couple of months ago, Google Japan team had produced a fun video to demonstrate how clean and simple Google Chrome user interface is. This video went viral in the blogoshere/and internet as a whole, by seeing this positive response, Google has decided to make the video reach more people.


we talked to our Google TV Ads team to see how we could show the video that our Japan team developed to a wider audience in a measurable way. Using some of the results from our placement-targeted ads on the Google Content Network, we designed a Google TV Ads campaign which we hope will raise awareness of our browser, and also help us better understand how television can supplement our other online media campaigns.
So today, we’re pleased to announce that we’re using Google TV Ads to run our Chrome ad on various television networks starting this weekend. We’re excited to see how this test goes and what impact television might have on creating more awareness of Google Chrome.
Source: GoogleBlog

Google Bus on Indian Roads [Bangalore]

Google announced the launch of Internet Bus Project[on February 3, 2009] – a mobile bus designed to showcase the benefits of Internet to the people across the cities of Tamil Nadu[A state in India].
Google_bus_India

This project was limited to Tamil Nadu and Google had promised to visit other areas, if they get a good response to the program. Now as we had guessed, Google Bus will be seen on Bangalore roads(Karnataka).

Featured Internet Bus Video:-



Internet For Communication:-



Internet For Information:-



Internet For Education:-



Here is the list of places and schedule for the Google Bus:-
04 May Kolar
06 May Mandya
08 May Mysore
13 May Bengaluru
14 May Hassan
17 May Arsikere
18 May Shimoga
21 May Bhadravati
24 May Chikmanglur
27 May Tumkur
30 May Chitradurga
02 Jun Davangere
06 Jun Hubli-Dharwad
11 Jun Belgaum
15 Jun Gadag
18 Jun Hospet

To know more about the Google program, read our previous article @ Google Bus on Indian Roads. You can also look at more pictures on that earlier post.

Next stop for the Internet Bus

Bengaluru (Bangalore). Arriving on 13 May for 1 days.

If you are staying in any of these places, then consider visiting the bus. Do not wait for the bus to visit you πŸ™‚

And if you are one of them to visit the bus, then please share your thoughts about the Google Bus program with our readers.

On April 1st 2009, GMail turned 5

Its not an April Fool prank. Google might have also found it quite embarrassing to put the Birth Day doodle on Google.com yesterday(on 1st of April).
Google-Gmail-logo.png
mvelope_fifth_bday_cake
But sometimes GMail seem to be making fool out of us, by showing errors, mainly while using the lab apps! Anyway, GMail is still in BETA, so no complaints!

Five years ago, before Gmail was launched it was just used for the internal messaging requirement in Google Inc. Later with the users request and a lot of inconvenience with other mailing services(mainly for storage), Google decided to take the step towards email service, which mainly aimed at providing faster and spacious mail box to each user.

Even though GMail is still in its Beta, it has improved a lot from its initial days, making its users more and more lazy by adding more and more features which lessens our job πŸ™‚
search_autocomplete_contacts
search_autocomplete_operators
From its simple text based plain emailing feature to the newly added video chat. From its invite only to, open to general public. Every move seem to be have taken more carefully and thus making it our favorite email service πŸ™‚ ..ok most of our favorite mailing service. I have seen most of the bloggers use GMail and are addicted to check their mail 5 to 6 times a day. Crazy, isn’t it ? And orkut, FaceBook, communities having millions of GMail fans. With all these crazy fans and useful apps, service, GMail turns 5. We wish GMail and GMail team a brighter future ahead.

Adsense Publishers — Update your Privacy Policy

Google has started showing message(TIPS) in the adsense account to update our privacy policy regarding Interest Based Advertising.
Adsense-policy-interest-Based-ads
Here is what the message tells(in case its not visible in the above image):

NEW: In preparation for interest-based advertising, please ensure that your site’s privacy policy is up to date by April 8, 2009.
Visitation information from publisher sites will be used to create user interest categories, delivering more relevant ads and improving monetization for publishers over time.

Here is the link to what you need to update in your privacy policy.
In short, we need to add the following to our privacy policy(Recommended to read in detail from the above link):

  • Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on your site.
  • Google’s use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to your users based on their visit to your sites and other sites on the Internet.
  • Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy.

Have you updated your privacy policy ?

Interest Based Advertising — Are you really Interested ?

Google has officially announced to show ads based on the interests of the users.

Example of Interest Based Advertising:-
Meet Mary
Mary’s favorite hobby is gardening. With Google’s interest-based advertising technology, Mary will see more relevant gardening ads because she visits many gardening websites. Here’s how that works:

1. When Mary visits websites that display ads provided by Google’s AdSense program, Google stores a number in her browser (using a “cookie“) to remember her visits. That number could look like this: 114411.




What is cookie?

2. Because many of the websites that Mary visits are related to gardening, Google puts her number (114411) in the “gardening enthusiast” interest category.
3. As a result, Google will show more gardening ads to Mary (based on her browser) as she browses websites that use AdSense.

How do I manage my preferences?
You can go to the Ad Preferences Manager to add or remove interest categories.

Using a different computer or clearing the browser’s cookies
Anytime we start using a different browser or computer, our cookie number won’t carry over because it is specific to the browser we used before. When we clears our browser’s cookies, the number is deleted and Google no longer knows that a user of that browser may be interested in gardening and golf.

Opting out
If you prefer not to receive this type of interest-based advertising, you can always opt out by clicking the “Opt out” button on the homepage of the Ads Preferences Manager. After you opt out, Google will not collect interest category information and you will not receive interest-based ads. You will see the same number of ads as before, but they may not be as relevant.
But once you clear your browser, your optout setting will also be lost. So you can make use the optout plugin, to opt out of these behavioral or interest based target advertising permanently.

How does the Google advertising cookie opt-out plugin work?
The plug works like this: When you clear all cookies in your browser, the plugin automatically sets the DoubleClick opt-out cookie again, so that cookie is effectively not deleted and your opt-out setting stays enabled.

How long will the Google advertising cookie opt-out plugin last?
As long as you keep the plugin installed, it will ensure that the DoubleClick opt-out cookie is set in your browser.

How do I remove the plugin if I change my mind and want to receive interest-based advertising?
You can uninstall the plugin at any time and then opt back into interest-based advertising.

* To uninstall the plugin in Firefox, select “Tools” -> “Add-ons” and click “Uninstall
* To uninstall the plugin in Internet Explorer, go to the Control Panel, select “Add/Remove Programs“, select the plugin, and click “Uninstall“. In Internet Explorer 6.0 and up, you can select the “Manage Add-ons” menu option to uninstall the plugin directly from the browser.

Advertisers Interest!
In addition to ads based on interest categories, Google also allows advertisers to show you ads based on your previous interactions with them, such as visits to their websites. For example, someone who visited the website of an online sporting goods store can receive ads about special offers from that store. Advertisers cannot use this technology to identify you personally, but it enables them to deliver much more relevant ads to groups of users who previously visited to their website.

Here is a video to help us understand about Ads preferences:



Google further clarifies some of the points:-
1. Transparency – We already clearly label most of the ads provided by Google on the AdSense partner network and on YouTube. You can click on the labels to get more information about how we serve ads, and the information we use to show you ads. This year we will expand the range of ad formats and publishers that display labels that provide a way to learn more and make choices about Google’s ad serving.
2. Choice – We have built a tool called Ads Preferences Manager, which lets you view, delete, or add interest categories associated with your browser so that you can receive ads that are more interesting to you.
3. Control – You can always opt out of the advertising cookie for the AdSense partner network here. To make sure that your opt-out decision is respected (and isn’t deleted if you clear the cookies from your browser), we have designed a plug-in for your browser that maintains your opt-out choice.

To participate in Google’s Interest-based advertising beta you have to fill out the form.

Many people strongly feel that this is a threat to their privacy! But I don’t see anything new, in placing a cookie and getting the user info by websites. Even Google had previously cleared the misconception that they try to access users private data!. People around the world getting so much addicted to using Google products that Google can already be knowing most of the user behavior!. And the the webmasters most useful tool Google analytics can already track user activity on a website which has analytics codes installed. Google is now using this to its advantage, by making use of these data and showing more specific and more relevant ads to the web users.
Google is shooting to its own leg by giving the optout option πŸ™‚ But again Google highly believes in keeping the trust of their users inorder to grow in the business..and this is one of the things which we have learnt from Google and admire Google a lot for.
Only thing to make sure is, how apt the ads will be delivered. How relevant the ads start showing. Google is cleaver, as it doesn’t launch any of its product before through testing in its Beta program(we can see many Google products in Beta from years!). As always we need to wait and see how this works for Google.

And one more thing we see around the web is, many people are telling that the keywords based advertising or the contextual advertising is dead! But hey, this program is still in Beta, and there are many advertising programs like CPM, CPC, CPA(Cost Per Action), CPD(Cost Per Day) etc. Non of them killed contextual advertising. Ofcourse they took off a major market share in advertising industry and again its just a part and not the whole thing πŸ™‚
I feel that, if atall these Interest Based Advertising succeed, it will just be a smart advertising which will bring in more conversions. But contextual advertising will still play a major role, as there are many cybers, offices, colleges, schools, public places where there is a computer(with internet), where Google won’t be able to track the user behavior, as most of these places cookies will be turned off by default or Google will trace such places and start showing contextual advertising as it can’t track the user behavior at such places:)
To conclude, Interest Based Advertising can’t replace contextual advertising. Ofcourse it will take a major advertising share, if it succeeds in getting more conversion and users Interest!

What do you think about Interest Based Advertising — Are you really Interested ?
Does this solve any problem ? or does it create any ?

Please share your thoughts in the comment section.

Get Google Mobile App on your Windows Mobile

After a long wait Google has made Google Mobile App available for Windows Mobile.
WindowsMobile_app_screen
Here is how you can download it on to your phone:
Visit m.google.com using your Windows Mobile and follow the instruction.
Google Mobile App is currently available for all devices running Windows Mobile in the US, UK, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, and Germany. It is also available for iPhone, iPod touch and BlackBerry devices.
If you don’t see a download link when you visit m.google.com, then your Windows Mobile device does not support Google Mobile App. [Google Mobile Apps will support more devices soon.]



The advantage of using Google Mobile App, is there’s no need to wait for a browser to open to begin a search, and with search history available to reduce typing, you can get your search results with fewer clicks than before.
You can also access your other favorite Google services like maps, docs, email, calender etc using the Google Mobile App.

Source: googlemobile blog