Bitch slap in super slo-mo

Ad more than words

Google Adwords has today added video to it's pay per click network.. although I can't replicate it here in the UK.

There have been murmurs about a release for a little while, but apparently today AdVideo (my name) is launched.

This inline video ad from AT&T appeared on the Google search page for the keyword "phone" - the video clip remains hidden until you click the "Watch Commercial" link. You then get to see the video in a neat drop-down video player.

Reported Digital Inspiration

The video ads will appear alongside other PPC ads on Google search results, although the advertiser will pay when users click to see the video, even if they never click through to the advertiser’s site.

With image thumbnails already appearing in Organic search, surely image thumbnails in PPC will be along shortly..



I'm sure there are lots of "purists" out there moaning about cleanliness..

RSS my arsse

RSS is obviously great but I'm still not set on the best reader.

I don't really want a dedicated app, as I want to access feeds on my phone.

I've been re-trying Google reader to keep track of my rss feeds.. but it's still not quite workable for me. It's better than iGoogle as it can display image feeds better, it's quite fast and has good shortcuts but it's a bit boring and less easy to overview lots of feeds. iGoogle can also display my calendar, Gmail and weather which is nice.

My current fav though is netvibes (www.netvibes.co.uk) which seems to have some nice features. It also meets some proposed guidelines from a recent alistapart article - Sign Up Forms Must Die. Have to say I'm not sure I entirely agree with this article .. case by case argument for them I think.

IE8 Flamewars

A great blog post about IE8, web standards,http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/03/17.html
here are some snippets..

A few years pass; you’re still selling Qxyzrhjjjjukltks like crazy; but now there are lots of Qxyzrhjjjjukltk clones on the market, like the open source FireQx, and lots of headphones, and you all keep inventing new features that require changes to the headphone jack and it’s driving the headphone makers crazy because they have to test their new designs out against every Qxyzrhjjjjukltk clone which is costly and time consuming and frankly most of them don’t have time and just get it to work on the most popular Qxyzrhjjjjukltk 5.0, and if that works, they’re happy, but of course when you plug the headphones into FireQx 3.0 lo and behold they explode in your hands because of a slight misunderstanding about some obscure thing in the spec which nobody really understands called hasLayout, and everybody understands that when it’s raining the hasLayout property is true and the voltage is supposed to increase to support the windshield-wiper feature, but there seems to be some debate over whether hail and snow are rain for the purpose of hasLayout, because the spec just doesn’t say. FireQx 3.0 treats snow as rain, because you need windshield wipers in the snow, Qxyzrhjjjjukltk 5.0 does not, because the programmer who worked on that feature lives in a warm part of Mars without snow and doesn’t have a driver’s license anyway. Yes, they have driver’s licenses on Mars.

Those documents are super confusing. The specs are full of statements like “If a sibling block box (that does not float and is not absolutely positioned) follows the run-in box, the run-in box becomes the first inline box of the block box. A run-in cannot run in to a block that already starts with a run-in or that itself is a run-in.” Whenever I read things like that, I wonder how anyone correctly conforms to the spec.

Look at the scenario from the customer’s standpoint. You visit 100 websites a day. You then upgraded to IE 8. On half of them, the page is messed up, and Google Maps doesn’t work at all.You’re going to tell your friends, “Don’t upgrade to IE 8. It messes up every page, and Google Maps doesn’t work at all.” Are you going to View Source to determine that website X is using nonstandard HTML, and Google Maps doesn’t work because it is using non-standard JavaScript objects from old versions of IE that were never accepted by the standards committee? Of course not. You’re going to uninstall IE 8.

The guardian commented on this article :

This is, I think, going to cause hundreds of millions of users, and web designers, a lot of pain. On the other hand, perhaps they should be made to suffer and try to clean up their acts, because in the long term, following standards is definitely the best idea. Alas, if that's where you want to go, you'd rather not be starting from here.

Google Sky

Google Sky is now available in a browser

Bebo sold to AOL for $850m

British internet entrepreneur Michael Birch was celebrating yesterday as Bebo, the social networking website he founded three years ago, was sold for $850m (£417m) to internet company AOL.

Bebo is the world's third-largest social networking website, behind MySpace and Facebook, and claims more than 40 million users.

"This is a tremendous acquisition and one I think is game-changing for AOL," said the company's chairman and chief executive, Randy Falco. "Bebo will be the cornerstone of our strategy."

It is not clear whether the site's users will feel as happy about the change, however, and some experts wondered whether AOL might try to cash in on the site's audience too quickly.

"The smartest thing AOL can do is to leave Bebo well alone in terms of management and day-to-day operation," said Mike Butcher, the editor of technology news website TechCrunch UK. "If they are dumb they'll plaster Bebo in adverts and the users will run for the hills."

Good things come to those who spoof

New from AKQA a spoof of the most expensive ad ever created - Guinness' Tipping Point for Pot Noodle.

Harry Potter Lexicon

A interesting court case is coming up at the end of the month to determine whether a website can be published as a book...

JK Rowling is trying to prevent publication of the Harry Potter Lexicon (www.hp-lexicon.org/), an A-Z guide to all things Hogwarts set up by fan of the books, Steve Vander Ark.

It could be a landmark case, because what is at stake is not just an author's right to control the publication of secondary works but also the right to publish in book form information that has been previously available on the web.

Since 2000, the Lexicon website has been an authority on Harry Potter and has been used by everyone from fans to Rowling herself.

In2005, Cheryl Klein, the editor of Harry Potter 6, sent Vander Ark a note that read, "On behalf of the Scholastic Half-Blood Prince editorial staff, I'd like to say thank you for the wonderful resource your site provides for fans, students and indeed editors and copy editors of the Harry Potter series. We referred to the Lexicon countless times during the editing of HP6, whether to verify a fact, check a timeline or get a chapter and book reference for a particular event."

Apparently everyone seemed very happy with the Lexicon so long as it remained on the internet and didn't make any real money - it has only earned $6,000 in advertising revenue over seven and a half years. Now that a book is planned JK is trying to stop it.

Anthony Falzone, a lecturer in law at Stanford Law School who advises on intellectual property will be representing RDR for free "This is a hugely important case about a third party's right to create a new reference book that is designed to help others better understand the original work," he says. "No one is going to buy, or indeed make sense of, the Lexicon unless they have read the Harry Potter books.

http://books.guardian.co.uk/harrypotter/story/0,,2264180,00.html

Retro Skateboard Stickers

http://www.retroskatestickers.com/

IE8 Beta

I've just downloaded Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 (Developer Preview), I'll let you know how I get on.. I'm not sure if I have high hopes or not.. Download here.

Earlier this week Microsoft changed their original plans..

Ray Ozzie, Microsoft chief software architect states "Our initial plan had been to use IE7-compatible behavior as the default setting for IE8, to minimize potential impact on the world’s existing Web sites. We have now decided to make our most current standards-based mode the default in IE8.

"This is obviously a complex issue, with important considerations on both sides," Ozzie said. "On one hand, there are literally billions of Web pages designed to render on previous browser versions, including many sites that are no longer actively managed. On the other hand, there is a concrete benefit to Web designers if all vendors give priority to interoperability around commonly accepted standards as they evolve. After weighing these very legitimate concerns, we have decided to give top priority to support for these new Web standards. In keeping with the commitment we made in our Interoperability Principles of being even more transparent in how we support standards in our products, we will work with content publishers to ensure they fully understand the steps we are taking and will encourage them to use this beta period to update their sites to transition to the more current Web standards supported by IE8."

Mega Winners

The first MediaGuardian Awards for Innovation, or Megas were presented last night.

Dave, formerly called UKTV G2, won launch of the year following its repositioning as "the home of witty banter", which has seen the digital TV channel boost ratings despite having much the same programming as before.

"Dave did a fantastic job of rebranding an ailing product. The relaunch gave a nondescript channel a strong personality overnight."

Skins won best advertising campaign for the way it used social networking sites alongside more traditional media to build its brand.

Radiohead's Courtyard Management, were named innovators of the year for the online release of the band's In Rainbow album on an honesty-box basis.

"Courtyard were the clear winners. They managed to revolutionise the way music is sold and marketed almost overnight."

PR campaign of the year went to Weber Shandwick's execution of a giant 87,500 square foot KFC logo in the Nevada desert - claimed to be the first brand logo visible from space.

The National Gallery's copies of art works around London's streets won the brand identity award.

The design innovation award went to Sony PlayStation 3's This is Living website.

The digital innovation - technology award went to Livestation, a television and radio online broadcaster. (by Skinkers).

The digital innovation - creative award went to VideoJug - short, free, professionally produced videos covering life questions such as "can you fold a T-shirt in two seconds?".

The community engagement award went to Channel 4's Big Art Mob, Created by Moblog:tech, Carbon Media and Edition Design, it allows users to submit photos online or by mobile phone with each image plotted on an interactive map.

Hidden London

situation 9, 2007

... this is Oxford Street.

These are mad.. Gregor Graf has taken shots of London and then via Photoshop removed all traces of language and signage from the images, including commercials signs, street signs, people and traffic. The hidden language of the cities architecture becomes revealed the shots are oddly sinister. Graf has previously photographed Linz and Warsaw in this style.

situation 12, 2007

... while here are streets in Soho...

situation 11, 2007

... Victoria...

situation 10, 2007

and Paddington.

Google updates

Google as always is in the news, here's a general update.

Google Health

Google Health aims to solve an urgent need that dovetails with our overall mission of organizing patient information and making it accessible and useful. Through our health offering, our users will be empowered to collect, store, and manage their own medical records online.

The service allows the user to add information to his or her Google Health profile, to import health records, to search for doctors or to find online health management tools.

Google Health will also intergrate with appointment and chart viewing applications.

If the health profile is built up by the user, what happens if there is an error?? Is the aim for health professionals to use this as a definate source of reliable information, or is the aim to make sure the patient has their own records of "correct information" for their own peace of mind.

There are two tabs to be seen in Google Health: Profiles and Medical Contacts. The profiles tab has several sub-sections, including “Services and health guide,” “Conditions & symptoms,” “Medications,” “Age, sex, height...” and “Family history.”
A privacy policy at the bottom disclaims that “Any information you enter will remain private. Google will not share it with anyone without your permission.”

This “Conditions & symptoms” dialog includes an auto-completion feature, just like other input boxes in Google Health. You enter “head”, and Google suggests “Head and Neck Angioedema”, “Head Injury”, “Head Pain” and more.

The “Services and health guide” section reads: “Get the most out of Google Health - If your medical providers or pharmacy offer secure downloading of medical records, you can find and add your records to a profile. You can also browse for websites that connect securely to Google Health and provide services for managing your health care.”
Under the headline “Google health guide” this explanation follows: “When you add some information to your profile, Google Health will search trusted medical sources and create a health guide targeted for you. ... Google Health will check for relevant updates to your guide whenever you add new information to the profile.” You can use the health guide, Google writes, to learn about drug interactions, treatments, tests and preventive measures.
A side box warns, “Be sure to discuss questions about your medical care with your doctor or medical provider before making changes,” and a footnote reads, “Built in collaboration with www.safe-med.com”.

The “Allergies” tab. The “Add an Allergy” box suggests “e.g. penicillin.”

You can add a procedure or surgery on this page. As an example, Google provides “appendectomy.”

The “Test results” section. You can add e.g. “cholesterol LDL”.

The “Add an immunication” interface does not allow free-style text input, but restricts you to a selection box instead. Available entries include “Diphtheria, tetanus toxoids, acellular pertussis vaccine (DTaP)” or “Hepatitis A vaccine.”

The “Age, sex, height...” page collects various personal information such as date of birth, gender, ethnicity, blood type, weight, or smoking habits. One of the questions asked is, “Do you drink alcoholic beverages?” Another question is, “Have you smoked more than 20 cigarettes in your lifetime?” Google explains that they ask for your date of birth to “keep your age up to date and show the most relevant guidance.”

The “Family history” dialog lets you add a relative and their respective conditions. The selection box includes entries like “Husband”, “Wife”, “Mother”, “Father”, “Son”, and Google provides the condition example “diabetes.”

On this page, you can “add a doctor”. Our current unnamed sample patient has no medical contacts. You can search the “Google Doctor Directory” to find contacts.

Google Sites

Google has also released Google Sites, a new site publishing service. Based on a scaled back version of JotSpot that Google had acquired 16 months ago for undisclosed terms.

The new service, allows non-technical users to organise and share digital information such as Web links, calendars, photos, videos, presentations, attachments and other documents in an easy-to-maintain site.

"Creating a team website has always been too complicated, requiring dedicated hardware and software as well as programming skills," said Dave Girouard, general manager of Google's Enterprise unit, which is aimed at office workers.

The features include

Single-click page creation Creating a new page for your Google Site just takes the click of a button.

No HTML required Creating a Google Site is as easy as editing a document, which means there's no markup language for you to learn -- just get started.

Make it your own Our customization options let you give your Google Site your own look and feel

Get started with templates We offer a growing list of page types -- web page, announcements, file cabinet, dashboard and list -- to help you get started with your Google Sites pages.

Upload files and attachments Use the file cabinet to upload files up to 10MB in size. Each Google Apps account receives at least 10GB of storage in Google Sites. Google Apps Premier and Education editions get an additional 500MB for each user account.

Embed rich content Google Sites is integrated with other Google products, so you can insert videos, docs, spreadsheets, presentations, photo slide shows, and calendars directly onto your Google Sites pages.

Work together and share Our permission settings let you designate owners, viewers and collaborators (meaning they can edit pages) for your site. And you can make your Google Sites available to just a few people, your entire organization, or the world.

Google Hacking

Infamous hacking group the Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc) has published a tool that searches for vulnerabilities and private data using carefully-selected Google search queries.

The process of so-called Google hacking is already well known, largely due to the efforts of Johnny "I Hack Stuff" Long.

We call them 'googledorks': Inept or foolish people as revealed by Google. (Johnny "I Hack Stuff" Long)

http://johnny.ihackstuff.com/ghdb.php

cDc's Goolag Scan allows unskilled hackers or the simply curious to use the same techniques.

http://www.goolag.org/

cDc is most famous for creating Back Orifice remote administration/back door package for Windows ten years ago. It describes Goolag Scanner as a web auditing tool, allowing users to check their own website for vulnerabilities. Searches can be restricted to an individual domain or extended to an entire top-level domain as desired.

Google click rates down



Google click-through rates on its paid search ads are decelerating. As the chart above from Bear Stearns shows, the year-over-year growth of paid clicks on Google in the U.S. went from 37 percent in October to 0.3 percent in January.

Since these are year-over-year numbers, seasonality is accounted for (there are more clicks in the months leading up to Christmas than after, but this January should not be flat with last January).