Google plans for higher quality Gmail ads; more targeted, useful, and tailored towards desires.
Although Gmail is said to be implementing changes in the ad’s already, the personalization-based ads could still be a month out.
Gmail hasn’t always displayed the most intuitive ads. They do not always get it right. Remember, they are serving ads largely based on the context in emails. Funnily enough, Boing Boing & Lifehacker both posted about how to trick Gmail to not display ads by using tragedy-saturated-trigger-keywords, keywords Gmail feels would be uncouth to profit from. Currently the ads being served are not tied heavily into regions.
Google is making use of its virtual tour abilities in Maps to provide Oscar fans with a walk through of the Kodak Theatre where the event is held and 3D models of “the Red Carpet, Hollywood and Highland Center, and the Kodak Theatre.”
The Academy Awards show is one of those major events that cross over many demographics and have an international following – like the Superbowl that took place just two weeks ago. YouTube already has some of the ads that will be playing – including the Ozzy Osbourne and Justin Beiber one from the Superbowl with an alternative ending chosen by Facebook voters.
Santa is almost halfway round the world and just passed one of the coolest parts of his journey, according to NORAD Tracks Santa, a high tech aerospace project created 55 years ago.
He recently passed Mount Everest, and at time of writing is currently in Sri Lanka and is headed to the Indian capital, Mumbai. In fact, he’s travelling so fast that you’ll need to go here to find his current location or follow him on Google Earth.
Santa was spotted on Google Maps and many videos have been uploaded to YouTube by air defense command personnel.
Yesterday Google released 3D Maps for Android phones equipped with Google Maps 5.0.
Rather than stitching images together, Google Maps 5.0 uses scaleable vector graphics – a much touted feature of the next generation of web services.
Here are some of the features that the new maps app will offer, taken from their blog
- Tilting: Drag down with two fingers to tilt the map. Tilt while zoomed in on one of the 100+ cities around the world with 3D buildings to see a skyline spring to life.
After receiving reports from marketers and businesses stretching from the U.K. to Hawaii, Google says they have fixed a technical issue that caused some business listings to vanish from Google Maps.
According to a post in Google Places Help last night from a Google employee: “We’re aware some of the business listings were not appearing on Google Maps earlier today. This was a technical issue that’s now been resolved.”
Since Monday, the Help forum began filling up with reports of various types of errors, including duplicates, merge problems, lost reviews, lost stats, lost categories, lost changes, lost rankings, and numerous reports of “We do not currently support this location.”
Here’s a shortcut to interesting news that you might have missed this weekend: Google App Inventor, Google China, Facebook closing down its gift store, Yahoo and Zillow and more…
Big news: Google is launching its App Inventor, allowing everyone (you, me, them, everybody) to build their own Android app. The move is totally innovative and opens the Android doors to non tech-savvy people. It might well (or maybe not, let’s see what the future holds) stall the iPhone… Saga to be continued, undoubtedly.
The rumor launched by Kevin Rose about Google working on a social platform to be called Google Me is taking on a new twist as former Facebook CTO, Adam D’Angelo, steps into the dance by saying that it’s “a real project.”
“This Is A Real Project”
D’Angelo made the statement on his own platform, Quora. The four main elements worth taking note of are 1) Google Me apparently is a “real project,” 2) Google is “modelling it off Facebook” as the search behemoth is fully aware of Buzz’s weakness, 3) Google people are “really scared” when seeing Facebook’s astronomical growth and figures, and last, but not least, 4) Google Me is a “high priority project.”
So many Google updates. So little time.
It was another overachieving week for Google. In addition to launching their own quasi-social network and acquiring Aardvark, they were busy pushing out a bunch of updates to existing products and sharing new data. And yes, even Buzz has received its first round of updates.
Without further ado….
AdWords is now offering up Bid Ideas in the Opportunities Tab. Bid ideas are based on bid simulator data.
Google AdSense explains how they treat keywords from referral search engines as content on publisher websites in order to serve up relevant ads.
Only 2 out of 300 events will stream live on the Internet.
It’s no secret that people are increasingly multi-tasking their entertainment, firing up the laptop to access the Internet while watching TV. This is not lost on search engines and who would very much like your split attention to be spent with them.
Bing and Google in particular are going head to head when it comes to mapping Vancouver and nearby Whistler, where many events will be held. Both Bing and Google have already announced enhanced mapping elements for both cities. Now, Google stepped it up a notch by grabbing “Street View” images of ski slopes via snowmobile.
Suggestions run the gamut from competitors to simply next-door establishments.
If you’re browsing Google Maps and click through to Place Pages, you might notice a new feature. “Nearby places you may like” is a recommendation feature designed to help users explore cities and neighborhoods.
Some suggestions seem to be related to proximity of the business whose Place Page you’re browsing. Other suggestions seem to be competitors of said business.
Google says that the recommendations are not based on any single criteria. Rather, they use a set of broad signals, which they continue to refine.
