Adsense + Video Games

Today Google announced that if you are a developer/publisher of web-based games, you'll be able to place ads within them. I realize that advertising is a key part of economics/business, but it seems like its everywhere these days and I feel overloaded by it. Check out the videos below and the Official Adsense post for more details.  

Google Roundup for September 16th-21st

Hello folks, welcome back for some more news in the world of Google, and I may sound like a broken record or mp3 player, it has been another busy week in the house of Google:

• For iPhone users, there is a new application called Earthscape and is available for free at the Apps Store and is very Google Earth-like.
• For all you people who don't want to upgrade from the free Google Earth version but want GPS tracking with Google Earth, check out this application called Navigator. This is able to automatically log tracks to a KML file and also has USB interface support.
• There is an updated version of the Arctic ice animations, check out the 30-day animation , 60-day and 90-day animations. These new animations have better coverage and higher resolution.
• Check out before and after photos of Hurricane Ike by clicking on this file for an overlay overlay image .
• Something that I didn't know was released on the Adsense blog. It is not a violation of program policies to perform searches on one's own Adsense for search boxes. But, it is highly recommended that you do not do this because it will increase the chance of invalid clicks and provide an false view of activity on your site.
• Google Desktop 5.8 has been released and is much faster than previous versions and search covers more Outlook folders and gadgets now have support for flash.
• Gmail labs has some new features; (1) ability to put labels and chat friends on the right and left side of the window instead of being stacked and (2) "Mark as Read" button can be added to top of inbox (this was created by a guy named Mark).
• Gears has been released for Safari on OS X, it can be downloaded at http://gears.google.com.
• Google Maps for mobile has been released and now included Street View. Check out the video below (the guy should invest in a new bicycle!!!). Note that this is available for Blackberry and most Java-enabled phones.
  

• Google Audio Indexing has been added which as allows searching of audio within videos, super awesome!! This can be found at Google labs.
• Those environmentally-sound Google people have joined forces with GE to allow consumers better energy choices. They basically want all aspects of power to be improved and the smart grid implemented.
  
• Google search is now available in Pirate, yep that's right, pirate.
  

Coolest Feature of the Week: For all of those people out there who forget to attach the attachment in a email, Gmail labs has a Forgotten Attachment Detector. When this is activated, an alert will occur when you forget to attach a file. Neat hey?

Google Maps for Mobile

Google Roundup for Aug. 10th-17th

I hope you all are enjoyin' the Olympics. My country, Canada, finally got some medals, yesterday they picked up 7, and what about Phelps for the US, crazy hey? Here goes another round of roundup:

• As you all know, we are undergoing climate change. One of the most affected areas is and will be the Arctic. If you have time, check out the animations in Google Earth provided by the National Snow and Ice Data Center for 30-day ,60-day and 90-day showing the change in Arctic ice.
• If your an ESRI software user, your GIS information can be viewed in Google Maps with the ArcGIS JavaScript Extension.
• To increase it's appeal to the international market, Google News is available in 9 more countries, check out this post for more details.
• If you have a RSS feed, and you are using Adsense, ads can now be placed in your feed, and the list of languages and countries for video units has increased. Languages supported are: English, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish; countries included: Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, United Kingdom, and United States.
• Google Calendar is now available in 38 languages, recent ones added are: Latvian, Romanian, Filipino/Tagalog, Serbian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Hindi and Indonesian.
• If your a user of Google Docs forms, then a few welcomed changes has occurred. These are now accessible in the Docs List page and from within other editors (i.e., Presentations). Also, the forms interface has become more user friendly.

• I love Google Reader, and an excellent feature has been added. Instead of only being able to share with all of your friends, now a custom friends list can be created to selectively choose who you want to share with.

Climate Change via Google Earth.

No More Adsense Referrals :( Google Now Searches Flash :)

Today had some bad news and good news for Google users. First lets start with the bad, Google announced that the AdSense Referral program will be retired at the end of August. For those of you who don't know about this program, it adds a referral button (for a particular product) to a publisher's website, and when someone clicks on this button and connects to the product, the publisher earns money. Google noted during the release today that the Google Affiliate Network, which is basically the DoubleClick Performics Affiliate Network, will replace the AdSense referral program. For any users that are running AdSense referral ads, they will run until the last week in August and any code on the respective website(s) should be removed before then. Google would not say why the program is scrapped, but chances are it wasn't a big cash earner.

Now for the good news. Google has developed a new algorithm for searching Flash files that contain text. To get an idea of how popular Flash is, approximately 98% of internet connected computers have Flash Player installed. The type of Flash files searchable include menus, buttons, websites, and banners. This is good news for web designers of Flash sites, since now they will be more easily seen by those search engine crawlers resulting in much better search results and more advertising money.

Google + Family Guy = This Doesn't Sound Right!!

It looks like Google is travelling down yet another avenue, this time web-only TV. It was announced today that Google and Seth MacFarlane, who is the creator of the extremely funny show Family Guy, reached an agreement to distribute web-only episodes of the series "Seth MacFarlanes Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy" which is being described as a "New York Cartoon but edgier." To promote the show, the service Google Content Network will be used, it's the first that I've heard of this service and is probably the same for a lot of you readers. The promotion works by using AdSense video clips of Calvalcade promos and then embedding them on web sites that Family Guy fans, who are typically males under 30 (I still fall in this group, yessss!), typically visit.

This deal is definitely going to make Google and MacFarlane a load of money. The average viewer is spending more and more time in front of the computer and less watching the TV (I just reduced my digital cable to basic), so it makes more sense to start airing web-only episodes and to have advertising with these. Hopefully the content will be as good as concept.

Google Roundup for June 21st - 28th

Since there is so much happening in the world of Google, I decided to start a summary called Google Roundup which mentions important Google news/products not mentioned in my blog. I'll usually post it sometime during the weekend.

• If your a NFL or MLB fan or just a fan of Google Earth, you should check out the website called EarthSwoop, which has 3D models of their respective stadiums. So far it is only for Windows, but by August other operating systems and browsers will be supported any anyone can contribute their own collection, the Argentine bridges is very cool.
• AdSense is hot in terms of online advertising, this week the 50,000 th person signed up to the English version of the AdSense help group. I'm one of them.
• Google loves mobile technology (check out the Android project), so much that they created the Google Mobile Community. This is a general discussion group where basically anything about mobile phones is discussed.
• Google also launched a site dedicated to the world of mobility; google.com/mobile. Once you find your phone type (I have a Motorola), free products can be easily accessed.
• If your a logged in user of Youtube, the personalized homepage that was only accessible to a small number of users is now accessible to all logged in users. I tried it out, the layout is OK, but the customizability is excellent.

Thats it for this week, check out the rest of my blog for more news/reviews.