Google - Part 4

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 🙂 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 🙂
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

Download YouTube Videos Officially

Everyone knows that video sites can be addictive. So YouTube had been the 4th most visited site for many years.
It comes to no surprise that people like to watch videos and want to download it to their computers or some other video players, to watch it offline and whenever they want to watch. There are many sites and software to fulfill these needs, those sites and software are also very popular.

Recently YouTube has officially announced that it is now giving video owners the chance to offer their property for download, either for free or for a small fee. Furthermore, the videos will be assigned to a specific Creative Commons license, which will govern how and where they can be reused and altered. Payment for the purchase of the videos will be made by GoogleCheckouts(Ofcourse) and a new My Purchases tab, which is already been incorporated into everyone’s account, will allow you to keep track of what you’ve bought.
You can also visit the Google help forum for any clarifications and recent modifications.
YouTube-Official-launch
Now does this move from Google(YouTube) make any difference to you? Hope not! As many people use to download the videos using some thirdparty software and websites. Now this move will surly hurt those thridparty software and website owners to certain extent 🙁

Since the purchase of YouTube, Google have been paying a lot for the maintenance, development and lawsuits coming on its way!
Hope its trying to get back some money. Recently Google started showing sponsor ads on its homepage, which pay them a lot. It launched adsense for video to adsense publishers. After that it started embedding ads into the video. Now its giving the authority to its users(uploaders — it means the owner of the video!) to charge some fee or to give it away for free.
YouTube-Official-launch
This move will certainly attract some business people in this niche to get started with YouTube, as they constantly search for some means to get the customers for their videos.

Update: “Download this video” link is not seen below every YouTube video because this feature was not available at the time of upload of those videos. New video uploads will have this, if the owner(one who uploads) of the video is willing to give it for free download.

Does this official announcement make any difference to you? And do you think there will be more active users who will be willing to give their videos for Free ? Please share all your opinions about YouTube(The largest Video portal in the internet).

Eye Tracking and Mind Mapping by Google

Google recently conducted eye tracking and usability test, and found some interesting results.

Some of the things to note in the research are:-
1. Most users scan only the first 2 results and their focus fades while going through the rest of the results.

2. Google Experience Research team has also found that people evaluate the search results page so quickly that they make most of their decisions unconsciously.

3. People tend to scan the search results in order. They start from the first result and continue down the list until they find a result they consider helpful and click it. You can see in the below image[Heat map] that the users attention moves in “F” shape.
2-goldentriangle
Above heat map like image is called as Golden Triangle by Google. The bigger the dot, longer the person spent time looking at a particular part of the page.

4. The team wanted to incorporate thumbnail images to better represent certain kinds of results. But they had a concern that showing thumbnails of images and videos would effect the higher order results. But the studies showed that the thumbnails did not strongly affect the order of scanning the results and seemed to make it easier for the participants to find the result they wanted. Interestingly enough the thumbnails also seemed to make it easy for people to skip over the results with thumbnails when those results were not relevant to their search.

Here is what Google say about the eye tracking and mind reading:-

To help us get some insight into this split-second decision-making process, we use eye-tracking equipment in our usability labs. This lets us see how our study participants scan the search results page, and is the next best thing to actually being able to read their minds. Of course, eye-tracking does not really tell us what they are thinking, but it gives us a good idea of which parts of the page they are thinking about.

Here is a video clip shows in real time how a participant involved in the study scanned the page. That’s how fast the eyes move when scanning a page

Google also use this eye tracking and usability test on Google News and Image Search. And Google also uses interviews, field studies and live experiments, to compliment and to support its eye tracking and usability test results.
These results can be made use of properly by web publishers for the placement of ads and banners. But interestingly enough, Google did not mentioned about the usability of their CPC ads on the SERP(Search Engine Result Page), in their eye tracking tests. But we know that, Google runs a serious of tests before making any changes for their ad placement and the background of those ads etc. So its always ideal that we run similar tests on our blog and know which part of our blog receives more visibility or user attention. By knowing these things we can easily get the attention of more audience.
Source: GoogleBlog

Google Bus on Indian Roads

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 India Product Manager Prem Ramaswami said, “It is like a pilot study (for us). More than 19 per cent of Tamilians prefer Google Tamil for accessing the Internet and that is also one of the reasons to launch the bus project from Tamil Nadu,”.

Below video is really inspiring:

Its mainly aimed at people who are not aware of the power of Internet. This projects main aim is to showcase how the Internet can make everyday life simple through services like search, email, social networking, maps and others. The Internet Bus will be loaded with useful and informative content in English and Tamil.

Prem Ramaswami also told that this was like a pilot project for them and based on the response they get from this project, they would continue it in other states as well.
Google_bus_India
Inside_Google_bus_India

Follow Google Bus route:
03 Feb Chennai
05 Feb Vellore
06 Feb Krishnagiri
07 Feb Salem
11 Feb Erode
12 Feb Tiruppur
14 Feb Coimbatore

18 Feb Dindigul
19 Feb Madurai
23 Feb Tirunelveli
25 Feb Nagercoil
27 Feb Tuticorin
02 Mar Pudukkottai
03 Mar Tiruchirappalli

06 Mar Thanjavur
08 Mar Kumbakonam
10 Mar Neyveli
12 Mar Cuddalore
13 Mar Tiruvannamalai

If you are located in any of these locations or near by, then make sure you visit the bus and get the information. Do not expect any advance information, as this project is focused on people who do not know more about internet.

For more on photo updates: visit Picasa.
To track the route and for further info about the project keep watching Internet Bus Project.

Get Discount Coupon For Paid Advertising

This strategy involves investment of some money. This method will surly bring in more traffic, if done in a smarter way.
Target the right audience. If your blog is about Gadgets, then advertise on those websites which are popular in that niche. By doing so, you will get some quality traffic and some of the traffic may convert into loyal readers.

Now coming to the point, make use of some discount coupons available all over the internet, to advertise using Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Market, Bidvertiser, Text-Link-Ads etc.
By doing so, you will reduce the cost of advertising to almost 50 – 80%!
Yes you read it right. You can almost reduce the advertising cost by 50 – 80% or even more.
Google Adwords or its power users has previously given 150 to 200$ free advertising coupons. Recently I had found that there was maximum of 50$ off when you signup for adwords for the first time. — Search for the coupon code in Google.
Yahoo Search Market, provides frequent free advertising coupons to its existing customers. And the first time advertiser will get 25$ off[Offer might have expired. Again use search engine and you will most probably get one].
Bidvertiser gives 20$ free advertising for the first time advertiser.
Text-link-ads, has comeup with a new adverting system called InLink advertising, where they place dofollow links on the blogs where you purchase the advertising. As part of their public launch, TLA (InLinks) is offering $100 worth backlinks for just $1, for a limited time.
tla-inlinks-example By utilizing this opportunity you can get good Technorati authority and Google may rank you high!
To grab this big opportunity, signup an account with TLA, and click on the “BUY LINKS” -> InLinks.
Text-link-ads-inlink Now enter “Keyword or phrase” relevant to your blog topic, and pick as many links as you want so that the total adds up to $100.00. Usually PR4 links come at $25 a piece, PR3 at $20, PR2 at $12 and PR1 at $10 etc. Just use your common sense while selecting these links, so that you benefit more out of the deal. After selecting the links worth 100$, click on the add to chart button at the end. Now put the link of your blog which you want to advertise. After checking everything, press “Checkout”. Now you get the option to pay 1$ by using your credit card, after using the coupon code 100free. And a happy thing is, TLA also allow us to pay using paypal.
See for the link to paypal payment at the end of the same page. Click on it and follow the instruction.

Do not fear of penalty, as the link looks very natural and not like paid advertising.
And the links will be placed for 30 days.

Now please read on further without fail..
Many of the above offers are valid only for the first time advertisers. And these offers are given with the intention that you will continue to be their advertiser even after the expiry of the offer.
So most of these companies[This is written in general, and it do not pointout to any particular company] set a “Subscription” to your Credit Card and/or to your paypal account.
So be careful and cancel[if you are not sure to continue advertising for the next month] the authorization of them once you pay them the initial amount for the first time.
For example:-
When you pay for X adNetwork for the first time using paypal, it may set the authorization to X adNetwork for further automatic payment for the coming months.
[ Actually paypal will ask you for confirmation before setting the authorization, but most beginners will skip reading and may click Yes.]
To remove it:- Goto your paypal account, click on the “Transaction Details”(in Recent Transaction Section) and then on “View Billing Agreement Details” link. Now see the “Status:” and click on the Cancel button. Thats all, you will not be billed by X adNetwork without your permission.

So be careful while doing online transaction. And do not waste your money without making proper use of discount coupons!.

Actually many adnetworks provide such discount to attract customers and to make them use their service somehow and to show them that their adnetwork can bring them more benefits. But many people just use these discount coupons and get traffic to their blog and then discontinue using them. But I think, if any of these advertising programs seems to be bringing you high quality traffic, and if you are getting more returns to your investment, then why to stop paid advertising? Use the discount coupons, offers etc and experiment which one suits you the best and continue with them.

This also holds good for any kind of online purchase. You can look for a good discount for your first time hosting.

If its hard earned money, then use it wisely 🙂
Like this, you can do a quick google search before using any ad network for advertising purpose or directly contact the company people and ask them for a discount coupon.