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.

An Interview with Chitika(CHIH-tih-ka)

Founded in 2003, Chitika (pronounced CHIH-tih-ka), is a full-service on-line advertising network serving over 2 billion monthly impressions across more than 30,000 websites. For advertisers and media buyers, Chitika is a proven channel for targeting on-line consumers and qualified buyers. For all publishers, Chitika is an easy-to-use platform for earning daily ad revenue.

What does Chitika mean?
When Chitika co-founders, Venkat Kolluri and Alden DoRosario left Lycos in 2003 to start their own company, they sought a name that would suggest the speed with which its customers would be able to put up ads on their Web sites. Chitika, which means β€œsnap of the fingers” in Telugu (a South Indian language), captured this sentiment and Chitika Inc. was born. Chitika introduced its online-ads service in January, 2004.
Chitika-eventfamilypic
Since the start of the company it has been mentioned in many of the mainstream media and has been one of the favorite for many “A” grade bloggers. We also use chitika, its been so great in terms of income generation so far. Haven’t seen us, using Chitika, that’s the secret of Chitika(premium) ads. They are invisible to direct visitors!

Ok, without much delay, here we present you the interview that we did with Ryan Travis Director of Client Services
Chitika, Inc.

1. We are very much curious about all the guys behind Chitika, and we want to have a look at your office. If you have any video or photographs(of your employees and office) then please share it with our readers.

Ah – sorry – I don’t have any pictures other than what you can see on our family page!

2. Do you read blogs? If yes, then which are your favorite blogs?

Yes I definitely do read blogs. For keeping up with business, I love to read ProBlogger, TechCrunch, ShoeMoney, and many others. For pleasure, I read PitchforkMedia.com (great for news), Stereogum, N4G, and lots of other sites (I’m a big music and video games nerd!).

3. We know that Chitika was started in 2003. So its not that old, so how could you manage to get the exposure? What do you think, was a stepping stone for Chitika?

Well our first major step was actually somewhat of an accident. Darren Rowse (ProBlogger) came across our ads and began using them, and they worked really well on his sites. He ended up writing a very positive review on the performance, and we really got a lot of exposure from that.

More recently, our Chitika | Premium ads have taken us to an even bigger audience. Our original eMiniMalls ads worked great only for sites about products, but now our new Chitika | Premium ads are doing fantastic on all types of sites (finance, travel, etc. – and don’t worry – they still work great on product sites too!).

4. How do you define success?

Heh.. that is a good question! I would define success as meeting or exceeding the goals that you have set (or that are set for you).

5. What are the mistakes you see your publishers and advertisers are making, in using Chitika

Well I am on the Publisher side so I can only speak for publishers – but the biggest mistake that I see constantly is placement. Publishers will often put our ads in placements that are just not good at all, and then they get upset when they don’t get any clicks on the ads. It is very frustrating! We try to fix this by sending out emails and creating pages to educate the publishers, and by putting up placement guides like this one.

6. What repels you the most from a blog/website(animation at your face advertising etc) ?

Yes – extremely animated ads (“shoot the monkey”, etc.), and especially ads with sound. I really hate hearing “Congratulations, you have won a free iPod!”.. that drives me crazy!

7. What are the new year resolutions for Chitika?

In 2008, we surpassed Ask.com in monthly search-targeted ads served. The next largest provider is Microsoft, and in 2009, we want to surpass them too.

8. How is Chitika differ from other ad networks?

We do a lot of things differently from other ad networks, but I would say that the main difference is in how we target and display our ads. With Chitika | Premium ads, we will only display to search engine traffic, and we will target the ads to what the user was searching for.

This allows us to show extremely relevant ads, and gives the users a good experience. Regular readers who come to your site directly will not see the ads at all – which makes them happy and keeps them coming back.

9. What inspired the idea of targeting the search engine visitors ?

The basic idea is this: better targeted ads means more money – for both publishers and advertisers. If we can target the ads to what people are searching for, then that is really a win-win situation for everyone involved.

10. We see you in twitter, helping your publishers in all possible manner. How do you manage your time?

Ha – terribly! That is something that I am really trying to improve on. It is hard to find a balance between helping everyone out individually, and forming higher-level plans of projects and different items I want to do. I’m still trying to figure out the correct mix, but I feel that it is extremely important to get out there and interact with our customers, no matter what size their sites are.

11. How big or how small is Chitika, as a company?

We are medium-sized. You can see some of us on our “Family” page – that shows the people who have been here the longest. Also – we are currently hiring for several new positions.

12. What all features are in your to do list of Chitika?

Too many! If I list them all here, I might take up all the space on your server πŸ˜‰

13. If you knew what you know now when you first started Chitika, whats the one biggest tip you would give yourself today?

Do crazy stuff. I think that we all tend to get a little caught up in our worlds of trying to meet our numbers goals, and we get scared to try new/wild ideas. I have found that some of our most successful projects were the “crazy” ones.

14. Strategies used to promot Chitika ?

Lots – but mainly we rely on word-of-mouth. If we do a great job at helping publishers make money, then they will talk about it.

15. Your advice for all chitika publishers/advertisers to make the most out of chitika.

Try new things, and track them by using channels. It is amazing how much improvement you can make by just testing out little changes, like placement, link colors, etc. You should try a lot of different ideas, and see which ones work best. Check out the Chitika Blog for tips on where to place ads, and different ways to customize them.

16. Please tell something, that you would like all your advertisers/publishers/ and others to know about Chitika

Our ads work best when used together on the same page with AdSense – we are meant to be used as a compliment for AdSense, rather than a replacement. Our most successful publishers use both together.

Hope you enjoyed the interview. Ryan is really helpful for all the publishers. If you are a Chitika publisher, then feel free to contact him, if you have any problem or if you need any suggestions. Thanks Ryan and Chitika for the interview.

If you have not yet tried Chitika, then please give it a try. Chitika premium really works like a charm on many sites. Signup for chitika. And please leave your valuable comments in the comment section.

Microsoft Testing Kumo! – Rumoured to be new Search Engine

Microsoft is trying all possible ways to get a prominent share in Online Search Market! With its failure in acquiring Yahoo!(which is much of a failure of Yahoo! πŸ™‚ ), Microsoft is said to be hard at work implementing a new search product by name Kumo. Kumo is a Japanese word, meaning cloud and spider. Its still in its testing face and the code name is Kumo, and nothing sure that the new search product will be named as Kumo. Infact kumo.com is not even accessible to public and is only available inside its corporate network.[One thing is sure that Kumo.com is registered by Microsoft, so the story becomes even stronger πŸ™‚ ]
Kumo-Microsoft

Source:kara.allthingsd Kumo screen shot — Click to enlarge
Kumo may be a new search algorithm that Microsoft is testing to implement in its live search or it may be just trying to re-brand its live search by making some changes to its live search(with new name). But we are not expecting the same old wine in the new bottle..for GOD’s sake or for Microsoft’s sake!

Have to wait and see whether Microsoft can play any new game or change the existing game! as Google had done with its entry into the search market.

Blue Screen of Death — On HTC touch 3452

One of my friend also own a HTC Touch 3452 and he had read my blog and was knowing that I also have the same phone.

He had trouble restoring his phone to factory settings. Last week we had written an article about “Resetting HTC touch 3452 and 3450“. He was very happy after seeing the article on our blog and rushed to format his phone.

While formatting / restoring he remembered that his Memory Card was still inside the phone! So he again rushed to remove the card before the phone restarted automatically(after confirming the restore activity).
To his shock, after the phone got restarted it started showing a blue screen(similar to that we see in Windows computer OS, when there are some major errors!).

He was in a hurry so I couldn’t get a screen shot of it. The blue screen had a message that, he should not remove the battery while the phone restarts and it said to click on the “Yes” option(there were two options “YES” and “NO” on the screen) to continue the booting of the device.
But to his surprise when he clicked on the “Yes” button with his stylus, it never responded to the touch. He had tried all other means like, using the top most button to switch OFF/ON the phone, removing the battery and putting it back. But nothing had worked. He was tensed and finally called mobile service center, but they never responded to his problem but instead told him to submit the phone to their service center and they would test it for a week and tell him the result πŸ™
Obviously no one likes his personal phone to be in someone’s hand so long!

Simple solution to this problem is….there are 2 buttons on the phone, below the screen. Its main function is “accepting”(in green colour) and “rejecting”(in red colour) calls. Just press the green colour button and the device will restart by itself and everything will work normally from then.

htc_touch_3452_3450
As the device is a touch screen phone with no external keypads in it, people tend to forget two keys present on the phone. In the above case, as the OS has not yet loaded, so the touch functionality also wont be working. So we need to work using the minimum keys present on the device.

New Chat & SMS Widget inside Classic Yahoomail!

I was using Yahoomail as usual, and suddenly something popped up with a water bubble bursting sound. I could see a blue widget above my email folders. I never did anything to get this. No settings, no modifications, no plugins. I was just checking my mail and the blue widget appeared and after a refresh it disappeared. I used the back button in my FireFox browser and took the screen shots of the chat & sms widget.
It had already imported all the contacts and mobile numbers from my Yahoo! messenger.
It looks cool, loads fast.
Here are some screen shots:
New-Yahoo-Chat-in-mail-box-Classic

It appeared in the Classic Yahoomail and not in the upgraded version of YahooMail. Upgraded version of Yahoomail already has a separate portion for chatting. But this is something new and better, as we need not move from the inbox to start chatting(some what similar to that in Gmail.)
Yahoomail-classic-chat-sms-settings

Yahoomail-classic-chat-sms
Click above image to see in full screen
Yahoomail-classic-chat-sms-box
Tab for multiple user chat
Did you notice this widget in your Yahoo mail? Hope this is in the initial state of testing. And Yahoo! will rollout this feature to all its users some time in the future.

Got the Chat and SMS widget back in my Yahoo Mail again. Its not disappearing now. Its nice to chat and adds more fun to its already famous Mail

Foot Steps of Marketing — Where Do You Stand ?

We have heard a lot about both Online as well as offline marketing.
Marketing strategies have been changing from the day it was invented. Its good to see many new and sophisticated techniques coming every now and then and solving many problems..and creating some!

First thing first..

What is Marketing ?

Marketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.

Ethical / Unethical Marketing ?

With increase in the population and user demands, many businesses started appearing and the competition obviously increased among businesses. It increased so much that its now the matter of survival to most companies. So the only way left on their part is aggressive marketing strategies, which brings them large number of conversions.
An example:-
We see in daily commercials showing, women with black colour skin complexion being harassed and the white women being respected, and the next thing is they show their cosmetics product and tell us to use it and to turn white! and to get the respect from the society. These kind of ads work magically and bring about many conversions.
On the other hand if they start showing ads with not so good looking women in the ad, people watching it, will take it easy and are less likely to purchase the product!
I don’t really have to tell you which ads would be more desirable to marketers.
But the question is..Do you think such ads are an ethical marketing?
Playing with the human emotions? Yes…No.
Answer varies from person to person, depending on their perspective.
Some people may say that this kind of marketing is not at all wrong, because we all see it almost daily and are used to it!. We are so used to it that we think that its not a big issue.

While some people say that this kind of marketing is completely unethical, as it plays with the emotions of people for meeting marketers selfish goals. There are many others who defend that this is a ethical marketing and the best way to get a conversion.
Its interesting to hear all your ideas and thoughts. So please please please share your thoughts in the comment section of this article.

Target Audience(Target marketing):-

Marketers target group of people who are more likely to purchase their products, hence making them more profits.

Some examples:-
1. Ads showing more imaginary adventures, cartoon etc may target children.
2. Quick Money making ads may attract more of business people.
3. Cosmetics ads for girls.
4. Body building ads for men.
5. Speaker systems for music lovers. etc.

As all these production industries have a lot of competition, they need to reduce the price inorder to sustain in the growing competition.

Desperate buyers:-
There are products like medicine which will be purchased by people as they are in a situation where they can’t give more importance to money(when compared to their health). They are in a position where purchasing the medicine becomes crucial. In these kind of situations marketers may take advantage of the situation of people and may try to mint more money. Making use of the desperate situation will get them more conversion and hence more money. But again the question arises in our mind..Whether its Ethical or unethical marketing ?

Obviously, I’m not speaking about all emotional marketing. Most of the marketing involves interaction with peoples emotions, but I am talking about the one’s which is too low in its purpose and aims only at the sale of their product(conversion).

Impatient Aspirers

Impatient Aspirers are a group of target customers who have some what same taste and status. Watch the funny video below. Please do not miss watching the video. Its funny as well as insightful, and worth thousand words.



Marketing and Blogging:-

There are many ways of monetizing a blog. One way is to write an ebook and sell it on your blog. This is a popular and proved to be efficient way of making money online. Now to get most money out of the ebook, you need to sell as many copies of ebook as possible. And to do so, you need to Market it properly(if you do not have an already well established blog).
Landing page should be more engaging and trust worthy. When someone lands on your landing page and reads about your product details, you need to arouse their interest first. You might not know every single person who reads your site, but that’s fine. Because you do know what they are generally familiar with. Use those references to bridge the gap and connect. Attention getting strategies and tactics can be helpful if the product, service or information lives up to the promise.

Rather than trying to sell an idea to the masses, you sell something desirable to people who already want and have a need for it. It’s much easier to fulfill a need than to create one.

So there are many many marketing strategies and as far as I know many people are trying and succeeding with newer marketing strategies each day. So, as a marketer we need to be innovative, creative and responsible. As a customer we need to be more cautious and clear about what we want and what we do not want.

Word of Mouth Marketing:-

Over years we have seen many MLM’s(Multi-Level Marketing) or Network Marketing coming, growing, glowing and going!
What makes people join MLM’s ?
Its the money. The easy way to start earning money, by referring other people to join under you.
So, from where do MLM companies get the money from?
Most MLM companies sell products. By purchasing which people become their members. These MLM companies remove the middle man between the product and the customers, hence saving a lot of money.
Another big saving comes from the marketing effort. There is no need to get a VIP or a celebrity to endorse the products. So a lot of money is again saved. These MLM companies then distribute the money saved, to all its members, by following some of their rules/policies.
So, how do these MLM companies do the marketing ?
Its done by the members of MLM. These members do the marketing on behalf of MLM company through WORD OF MOUTH, these products will be sold and new members keep joining(thus products are continuously sold), everybody(most of them) make good income.MLM is just an apt example for the WORD OF MOUTH marketing.

Here is a list of WORD OF MOUTH marketing, that you can choose, test and implement on your blogs, to increase the traffic and conversion rate significantly.

Word of mouth marketing:

* Buzz Marketing: Using high-profile entertainment or news to get people to talk about your brand.

* Viral Marketing: Creating entertaining or informative messages that are designed to be passed along in an exponential fashion, often electronically or by email.

* Community Marketing: Forming or supporting niche communities that are likely to share interests about the brand (such as user groups, fan clubs, and discussion forums); providing tools, content, and information to support those communities.

* Grassroots Marketing: Organizing and motivating volunteers to engage in personal or local outreach.

* Evangelist Marketing: Cultivating evangelists, advocates, or volunteers who are encouraged to take a leadership role in actively spreading the word on your behalf.

* Product Seeding: Placing the right product into the right hands at the right time, providing information or samples to influential individuals.

* Influence Marketing: Identifying key communities and opinion leaders who are likely to talk about products and have the ability to influence the opinions of others.

* Cause Marketing: Supporting social causes to earn respect and support from people who feel strongly about the cause.

* Conversation Creation: Interesting or fun advertising, emails, catch phrases, entertainment, or promotions designed to start word of mouth activity.

* Brand Blogging: Creating blogs and participating in the blogosphere, in the spirit of open, transparent communications; sharing information of value that the blog community may talk about.

* Referral Programs: Creating tools that enable satisfied customers to refer their friends, to your product or service.

More on Marketing Strategies(mainly to increase your blog traffic) coming soon..so please subscribe to our free email/rss updates and stay tuned.

Please do not forget to share your thoughts about current marketing trendz. What Marketing strategies you are following? What strategies worked and which did not work for you? Whats Ethical and Unethical about it? Please share your opinions in the comment section below and involve yourself in the conversation going on here.

Blog Blazer Book Giveaway

Some time ago I had written a review about a book by name “Blog Blazer“. Its a book where 40 popular Bloggers share their Secrets, to Creating a High-Traffic, and High-Profit Blog!
Blog Blazer -- the Book

Update:Winner announced. Congrats to @jagan123 for winning the book. Below this article we have added a small video which we shot during the lucky draw, to make the process more transparent.
Thanks for all the participants. We are coming up with another contest soon, and ofcourse with more number of prizes this time.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who seriously want to know and learn from people who have already learnt.
A famous English proverb states — “A wise man learns by the mistakes of others, a fool by his own”.
The book includes the interviews of most famous guys like:
Aaron Wall
Seth Godin
Stephane Grenier(Author of the book.)
Yaro Starak etc!
You can read a short review about the book for more details.

I had an extra book in the shelf, so thought to arrange a giveaway on my blog and give it to one of our readers.

So, without wasting much of the time.
Here are the quick rules for entering the giveaway:
1. Follow me @technotip
2. Tweet about this contest. Use below standard format.

RT:Joined “Blog Blazer” Book Giveaway @ Technotip.ORG.Want to participate? Follow @technotip & visit http://tinyurl.com/bc8pes

3. Stumble any one of the article from our blog. [Optional].
Condition/rule number 3 is optional and will not affect your chances of winning. But please do not stumble this giveaway post.

Contest will end on March 30th and I will announce the winner and dispatch the book on 31st of March. If I announce the winner on 1st of April, people may think that I am trying to make fool out of them! So I will make it a day early and will announce it on 30th of March.
Now you may be thinking that its a long duration or long wait for the announcement of the winner. Yes I do agree with you. But please bare it this time. And the book is worth waiting πŸ™‚

One of the main reason(or concern) to delay the announcement of the winner is, I need to make sure that there are enough people participating. I have seen many book giveaway which go so unnoticed and so boring, because there are no much people participating in it. I am not sure about the reason though.

Please encourage the book giveaway by spreading the word. A simple tweet will not take much of your time.

Blog Blazer Book had been out of stock many times and was a best seller book in amazon. So I think giving this book, will really motivate people to participate.
To encourage more and more people to participate, we have made the entry to the giveaway so simple. Just a tweet will make you qualify for the lucky draw. Remember, stumbling the article is an optional thing. To make it more easier, you just need to tweet about the contest and need not even comment here. But comments are always welcomed. I will track each and every tweet(in the above mentioned format) in twitter and will hunt for the lucky winner πŸ™‚ As usual the lucky draw will be done using the online service Random.org.



The book will be shipped by myself to the lucky winner, to his regular mailing address. It may take 4 to 5 weeks to reach you(depending on your geographical location), from the day I dispatch it.

Please help me in the good cause of encouraging the book giveaway..