Gawker
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adsense
Google Sees Right Through Julia Allison
NonSociety, Julia Allison's experient in making macro bucks from microcelebrity, hasn't come up with a clever way of paying the bills. So she's running cheapo Google AdSense ads! Do they ever tell a story. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by friend_of_a_friend: Every time I see that pic all I can think is "Mutton dressed as lamb." 17 Responses | Other threads
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politics
Misplaced Prop 8 ads sparking Google boycott
As the election approaches, more bloggers are noticing ads from backers of Proposition 8, the gay-marriage ban appearing on Californians' ballots, courtesy of Google. The search engine's algorithm is mindlessly matching them to phrases like "gay marriage," regardless of whether the blog in question is for or against. Scott Beale, who blogs about Internet culture at Laughing Squid, has blocked the yes-on-8 ads, and, for good measure, taken Google's ads off his site altogether until after the election. He's not alone; one fashion website adminitrator tells Valleywag she's taken similar measures. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by dancurranjr: I also added the ads URLs to the Competitive Ad filter at Adsense this morning yet they are still showing... 2 Responses | Other threads
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meltdowns
Google's scary reassurances
In tough times, overcommunicate, says Kleiner Perkins partner John Doerr, doing an inadvertent impression of so-sharey-he's-scary videoblogger Robert Scoble. One Kleiner portfolio company has gotten the message: Google! Kim Scott, the company's director of online sales and operations for AdSense, the company's system for placing ads on other websites, has sent a mass email to Web publishers who use the product. The letter refers to "recent economic turmoil" and reassures publishers that the company is "continuing to invest in innovations" — as opposed to, say, milking publishers for everything they're worth. The question Scott's letter really raises: Who's Google afraid of? More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by nevermind_y: If a publisher is small & stupid enough to ruin their inventory with Adsense and be satisfied with pennies whereas... more » | Other threads
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online advertising
Sexing up Sarah Palin with Photoshop draws AdSense ire
A photo that may or may not depict a young, nude and brunette Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska and the Republican Party's vice presidential nominee, has made the tabloid rounds after being featured on blog Hollywood Newsroom. It was sent in as part of a Photoshopping contest, but looks legitimate enough as a photograph (though not necessarily of Palin). Either way, it's too racy for Google — which strictly forbids placing its automated advertising next to "adult or mature" content. More »
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By Jackson WestComment by vision4bg: Better (real) pic here - [i37.tinypic.com] more » | Other threads
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online video
AdSense video unit, presumed extinct, discovered in the wild
YouTube has an embeddable player with features that might feel familiar to publishers who've used Blip.tv's show player — it's not meant for casual embeds, and isn't accessible from the standard embed code found on most video pages. It's meant for static placement on Web sites for featuring multiple videos from a single partner, and can carry both the standard in-video overlay ads as well as a text ad block from Google. It was released last October for AdSense customers, but isn't in particularly wide use. Why mention it now? More » -
online advertising
Google testing video AdSense for games
VentureBeat's Dean Takahashi did the reporting so I don't have to: "Sources close to the matter said that Google has developed an in-game advertising technology that allows it to insert video ads into games. In demos of the technology, a game character can introduce a video ad, saying something like, 'And now, a word from our sponsor,' before showing a short video at the end of a sequence in a game. Since testing has been going on for some time, Google could launch the technology fairly quickly, if it so chooses." Microsoft bought Massive, a company which inserts ads into games, in 2006, and Google bought AdScape, a similar startup, in February 2007. Sony's also getting into placing ads in videogames, but most past efforts have dealt with still images, not video.
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By Paul BoutinComment by Shadowlayer: in-game ads are another reason to stand up and go to the fridge. Thanks google for helping ruin games for everybody,... more » | Other threads
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online advertising
Google's Ad Planner no threat to Nielsen, ComScore
Media buyers and major publishers say that despite ComScore shareholders' worries, Google's Ad Planner, which provides Web metrics and demographic data to online advertisers, won't dislodge Web-traffic measurement leader ComScore or its rival Nielsen. “[Google needs] to add so many things, it’s not even a consideration at this point,” Mediasmith CEO David Smith told Mediaweek. “It’s absolutely not ready for prime time.” And publishers say Ad Planner won't provide advertisers a more accurate look at their inventories. “Their numbers are as bad or worse as anybody else’s out there,” Forbes.com CEO Jim Spanfeller said. So why bother? Google just wants advertisers to pay more attention to the sites it reps through its AdSense network.
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Comment by bl.asphemo.us: Yep. I think it it has a way to go before being a major competitive threat to such vendors. I... more » | Other threads
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online advertising
Why doesn't Facebook serve contextual ads against messages?
When our video producer, Richard Blakeley, sent me an invite to the Belmont stakes this weekend, a link appeared below his message. It read: More »
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Comment by Andrew Min: Remember the Gmail privacy issue when Google did this exact thing? THAT'S why. more » | Other threads
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security
Google's Blogger flooded by spammers
Over the last few months, wily spammers may have figured out how to crack the security feature known as "captchas." With an army of compromised Windows PCs known as botnets, they've been using their new power to flood Google's Blogger with spam. Why Blogger? More »
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By Jackson WestComment by DaveMcClure500Hats: wait... Google's Blogger is being used by spammers?!? NO, SRSLY?!?!?! Shocked, i am shocked. yo jackson, might want to wind your... more » | Other threads
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deals
Is Slide worth half a billion? Only if Facebook buys them
In January a pair of money managers, Fidelity and T. Rowe Price, bought 9.1 percent of Slide for $50 million. Fortune asks, "Are these widgets worth half a billion?" The mag doesn't come up with anything more than "maybe," but I'm willing to go a little further. Slide worth $550 million? No, despite its huge traffic numbers. While it's true that advertisers are desperate to reach the 18-24 market, I hardly think SuperPoke is what they had in mind. More » -
i hate it here
Googlers vent: Working here sucks, too
Last quarter, Google hired 889 people, bringing the total headcount to 16,805. What do all these new employees do? Stab each other in the back, apparently. A tipster writes: "The management within Google, especially AdWords and AdSense (the money making machines of the entire company ... engineering gets the glory but advertising brings in the big bucks) are completely disorganized and chaotic (in a BAD way- because Google sometimes tries to spin the whole 'chaotic' thing in a good way)." There's much more: More »
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Comment by allstar444: i really think GOOGLE should look into matters like this. if there isn't a process to file complaints at the... more » | Other threads
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online advertising
Glam Media raises $84 million, far short of its $200 million goal
Glam Media, the women-focused ad network, has raised $84.6 million, leaving the company valued at a rich $500 million. That still falls short of founder Samir Arora's hopes: According to a private-placement document circulating last year, he was seeking $200 million. Why'd he fall short? More »
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Comment by sggrf: The VC's in this deal are ambulance chasers, pure and simple. This company is a joke. As iVillage struggles to... more » | Other threads
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online advertising
26 million publishers commit click fraud — get over it
Fraudulent clicks accounted for 28.3 percent of all clicks on ad networks like Google's AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network during the fourth quarter of 2007. After some approximations, Freakonomics puts the number of publishers who are theoretically complicit in click fraud as high as 26 million. Which means advertisers need to get over it. Buy ads on a cost-per-action basis, where you only pay when clickers turn into buyers. Or do your own math and discount what you pay for a click accordingly — which is, in effect, what Google, Yahoo, and the like are already doing to publishers. Whining about the problem gives zero ROI. (Photo by Jason Upshaw) -
hackers
Trojan targets Google's AdSense revenue
Google is the target of a trojan that could be more damaging than the worm that has affected literally dozens of Orkut users. This new trojan, however, hits Google where it hurts — its ever-swelling advertising revenues. It redirects Web ads from the AdSense program to a rival ad provider. Bitdefender, the Romanian security-software maker which identified the trojan, does not specify who is serving these third-party ads or how the trojan is propagating. Researchers do say that Google may be powerless to stop the attack, because the malware affects personal computers, not the company's ad servers. Google is unlikely to lose substantial sums, but the search giant cannot enjoy being this helpless. No wonder it's pushing antivirus software. -
conflicts of interest
ChaCha turns Indiana University into its billboard
Hoosier-powered search engine Chacha is turning to an unlikely source to fund its already cozy deal with Indiana University. Chacha is introducing Google AdSense ads to the university's search results. ChaCha already features both Google and Yahoo ads as sponsored links, on its public search, but until recently IU had a strict policy against advertising: More » -
toogle many googlers
Another Googler takes credit for AdSense
Fortune is reporting that Google engineer Gokul Rajaram is leaving the Googleplex for a stab at his own company. Rajaram's greatest achievement? Oh, this little thing called AdSense, you heard of it? The ad system that places Google ads on blogs and Web 2.0 apps, keeping them financially viable against all business logic? After being hired in 2003, Rajaram supposedly worked to create the ad publishing network which now brings in, Fortune writes, "one-third of Google's revenue." Let's get this straight, people. More »
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Comment by cryptoglyph: You've got this wrong. The reporter highly embellished the story about Gokul. He's not the type to self-aggrandize,... more » | Other threads
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scams
How to get real Google bucks from fake press releases
Phony press releases have become the grist for the newest Internet profit mills. If you're like Chris Anderson and us, you don't read press releases. But several tech blogs were taken in by a dubious press release issued by a nonexistent company allegedly backed by real investors who may or may not have invested in several fake companies. Huh? Exactly. How the scam was uncovered, how it works, and how to avoid falling victim after the jump. More »
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By Tim FaulknerComment by merricklozano: Tim, our creditability and reputation is something we take seriously at PR Leap. The people behind these press releases paid... more » | Other threads
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online advertising
Google has changed the clickable area within AdSense ads to include just the title and the url of the ad, rather than the entire ad box. This should raise the value of ad clicks in the long run by reducing the likelihood of accidental clicks. [Google Blogoscoped] -
online advertising
Facebook SocialAds revealed!
Facebook updated its code over the weekend and, according to reports, Facebook's much-anticipated SocialAds are now officially part of the ones and zeroes. Based on the updates, Allfacebook created this mock-up of what a SocialAd might look like. Hmm. Looks like an ad. Here's a more revealing shot. More » -
facebook
Ad networks evolve from Facebook's primordial ooze
Ignoring the perfectly good solution we cooked up in Valleywag Labs, AdBrite and Ad Chap went to market with products for Facebook applications yesterday. AdBrite cofounder Philip Kaplan told CNET that the company already powers the ads on popular apps such as iLike and Zombies. The program is supposed to help tailor those ads better for the social environment. Google is working to do the same thing for developers using AdSense on their apps. Ad Chap's service, itself a Facebook application, is entirely new. Why it's unlikely to work? Ad Chap charges advertisers per click, but doesn't offer any targeting. For right now, there's a proliferation of ad networks on Facebook, but we suspect Darwin will soon cull the herd.
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Comment by pepelicious: Ad Age had a pretty good article on FB advertising -and the potential pitfalls. [adage.com] One good example: FB plans on basing... more » | Other threads
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online advertising
Google silent on major AdSense bug
Google's system for placing ads on other websites, AdSense, is experiencing a significant bug at exactly the wrong time. Microsoft has dominated media coverage all week with its investment in Facebook, with the promise of precisely targeted ads. Meanwhile, the search giant has been toiling since last Friday to resolve errors in how AdSense reports ad "channel" data since Friday. ("Channels" allow publishers who run AdSense to track ad performance in detail.) Google's silence has done little to assuage the complaints of AdSense users. Google's only comment came on Monday from the quasi-anonymous "AdSense Advisor": More »
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By Tim FaulknerComment by dula: funny how with 11,000 employees from ivy league schools they can't seem to fix a bug?? more » | Other threads
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don't be evil
"Is GOOG Shafting Its AdSense Partners?" Yes. Next question? Google paid out 2 percent less — from 78.6 percent to 76.7 percent — of AdSense revenue to partners this quarter compared to last. [SiliconValleyWatcher] -
venture capital
Facebook developers and AdSense publishers need not apply
Josh Kopelman sold Half.com to eBay in 2000. Since then, he founded First Round Capital and sold StumbleUpon for $75 million, again to eBay. BusinessWeek's Kerry Miller got Kopelman to complain about three ideas he tired of seeing from startups. More » -
online advertising
Has Facebook already cut a deal with Google? A French blog notes that Facebook, locked in negotiations with Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo for an investment combined with an international-advertising deal, is already carrying Google's AdSense ads. It could be a test to see if Google's ads are lucrative enough to be worth the terms the search giant is offering — or just a stopgap measure to make money before a formal deal is struck. [Adscriptor]
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By Owen ThomasComment by robinwauters: Yup I was right, took a screenshot: [www.flickr.com] more » | Other threads
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yahoo
Top-secret Project Apex to save Jerry Yang's bacon?
After Terry Semel abruptly resigned as Yahoo's CEO, founder Jerry Yang promised precipitous action — the hackneyed "100-day plan." But now, we hear that his new strategy is anything but swift in execution. Codenamed "Project Apex," the solution to Yahoo's woes centers around building a better version of Google's AdSense. AdSense, of course, is the service that places ads on third-party websites, matching the ads to their content. Yahoo already has a similar service called Yahoo Publisher Network, but it's "a clusterfuck," according to one Yahoo insider. The only problem? Yahoo's tech team thinks they can finish it in three years. Three years! (What's the average tenure of a Yahoo executive today? Will anyone be around to see this through?) More »
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Comment by Groovy Gnome: Apex has to take 3 years to complete because of the sheer amount of work involved and the amount of... more » | Other threads
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google
Marissa Mayer takes credit for not killing AdSense
Success has a thousand fathers, and failure is an orphan — unless you can somehow spin an adoption tale into the mix. That seems to be what Marissa Mayer is trying to do. In a recent interview, Marissa Mayer tries to take credit for both Google's Gmail email service, as well as AdSense, the immensely profitable system which places Google-sold ads on blogs and other independent websites based on their content. Her claim over AdSense? She didn't kill the product outright, despite her fears that it would be "creepy." But she also reveals that Paul Buchheit, the Googler who burdened the company with "don't be evil" as an unsheddable corporate motto, is the true inventer of a system that matched ads to a Web page's content — whether that content is a blog post, an email message, or anything else. More » -
feuds
Microsoft takes on Google's AdSense
Microsoft is unleashing its Content Ads program on August 26, opening up what has until now been a small beta test of a system that targets ads to the content of Web pages. Now all U.S.-based advertisers will be able to place ads via Microsoft's Content Ads, which hopes to do for Microsoft's MSN websites what AdSense has done for websites partnering with Google: Blanket them in context-sensitive, keyword-based advertising. While many speculate the Content Ads program will put Google and Microsoft in close ad-selling competition, and foster advertiser-friendly price and technology wars, Microsoft still has a lot of catching up to do in market share. AdSense is already widely deployed across the blogosphere, and has become the default business model for unimaginative startups everywhere.
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Comment by GhostSites: I have always believed that the best way for Microsoft to attack Google is through a direct assault on its... more » | Other threads
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online video
"Family Guy" creator hooks up with Google
Seth McFarlane, creator of the hilarious animated series "Family Guy" has just hooked up with Google, using its AdSense network to distribute original video shorts. The show, which will be paid for, McFarlane and Google hope, by embedded ads, will appear in banners Google serves on both its own and independent sites. The notion is that as ads, the videos will reach a larger audience than a website dedicated to the clips. For Google, it's a way to fill unsold ad inventory and prove the notion of AdSense as a distribution vehicle, after a similar deal with Viacom's MTV Networks collapsed. And it could also have a long-run benefit for Google. By inserting content into ad banners, Google could be, in essence, retraining users to pay attention to the Web commercials they've long learned to ignore. -
conflicts of interest
How Tim Armstrong's startup profits from Google
Associated Content, the startup backed by top Google sales executive Tim Armstrong, is controversial because of accusations — hardly denied by CEO Geoff Reiss — that the company is gaming AdSense, Google's system for placing advertisements on other websites. Specifically, Associated Content pays bloggers to write articles on niche topics designed to attract lucrative ads. The problem with the scheme, of course, is that Google's advertisers are interested in placing ads on relevant, high-quality websites, not pages ginned up solely to make a buck. But what's most suspicious about AC is how well, and how quickly, it pays people to gin up those articles. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by pseudonym: I've never looked past a press release about AC before today, but their website says they pay upfront for "some... more » | Other threads
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conflicts of interest
Google executive's startup admits to "gaming AdSense"
We're starting a countdown: How long before Google ad-sales executive Tim Armstrong either leaves the search engine, or leaves the board of Associated Content, the startup he's helping to launch? In his day job, Armstrong sells ads which appear on Google's own websites, as well as sites in its AdSense ad-distribution network. Associated Content, meanwhile, pays bloggers to write lightweight articles on niche topics, in what most observers believe is a cynical attempt to reap profits from Google's AdSense advertisers. AC CEO Geoff Reiss, whom Armstrong hired, admits as much to News.com. Read on for the damning quote which may end Armstrong's cozy arrangement for good. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by t.a.m.s.y.: It's not your boredom I'd be worried about. more » | Other threads
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mahalo
Jason Calacanis has no friends at Google
Mahalo, Jason Calacanis's new search-engine venture, uses Google's AdSense system to target ads to its content. But in placing the ads, Calacanis got a bit too chummy for Google's comfort. Mahalo's website cheerily informs users that the ads that appear are placed by "Our Friends at Google." Oh, really? We asked Google if the search engine was really best-friends-forever with Calacanis, or what. Here's what we heard back from Jason's supposed friends. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Carlos: I choose A so that I'll know if I need to reevaluate my opinion of any of my friends at... more » | Other threads
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vandalism
Another Google ripoff in Santa Monica
Someone has apparently ripped the Google logo off the wall of its Santa Monica office. Much like Google ripped off the idea of AdSense, the system for targeting ads to websites' content, from the Santa Monica-based startup Applied Semantics, which it later bought. (For the record, Valleywag deplores any and all ripoffs.) (Photo by coneee) -
google
Susan Wojcicki's big lie
Susan Wojcicki, an early Google employee and sister-in-law to founder Sergey Brin, is a liar. In a puff-piece profile of Wojcicki and her Menlo Park house, whose garage served as Google's first office, a USA Today reporter lazily transcribes the claim that Wojcicki invented AdSense. AdSense, of course, is the system that places Google ads on other websites, and generates billions of dollars in revenue for Google. But Wojcicki didn't invent it. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Philipp Lenssen: > By the same logic, Philipp, wouldn't Applied Semantics > had AdSense under development and testing > long before its formal launch? Absolutely!... more » | Other threads
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google
Korean website tangles with Google over self-esteem issues
Last month, a South Korean joke/entertainment site called Humor University (certainly not to be confused with College Humor!) engaged in a tiny sideshow of legal threats versus Google over the search giant terminating their Adsense account. Google claimed there was some clickfraud chicanery going on with the Humor University account, which HU disputed. Unfortunately for Google, the issue got much larger, irritating, and potentially costly. More »
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