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Google Moon? Brin to go Where No Bot Has Gone Before.

posted on June 12, 2008

Check ‘em out, y’all! Lunar shuttle tickets. I got smokin’, non-smokin’, first class, coach, by the window, by the aisle. Lunar shuttte tickets.

Anticipating its pursuit of world domination will be complete sometime during the second quarter of 2010, Google co-founder Sergey Brin has booked a round trip ticket to outer space, with a launch date set for  2011.

Bucking that crazy trend set by NASA in the early 60’s whereby actual qualified astronauts were sent to outer space, Brin, the 34-year-old president of technology for the search-engine company, shelled out a $5 million deposit for a seat aboard a Russian spacecraft, according to tourism company Space Adventures. Brin is scheduled to carry out missions that may include pharmaceutical testing and experiments on computer circuit boards. No word on the specific “pharmaceutical” Brin might be testing.

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Google Takes a Run at YourTube

posted on June 10, 2008

Andy’s Update: AdWords TV Ads is not the announcement, as a Google spokesperson clarifies to us: “What we announced last week was an integration between Google Analytics and Google TV Ads (an offering within Google AdWords). Google Analytics has added a TV Ads report for AdWords advertisers who use both TV Ads and Google Analytics.”

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Surely you didn’t think Google would stop at YouTube when it comes to organizing for world domination the world’s information?

Last week, Google Analytics announced “AdWords TV Ads,” an all-digital system that distributes advertisers’ TV ads to participating channels nationwide.

The service allows you to upload your TV ad as a video file to your AdWords account and, with a few clicks, start a campaign by choosing from more than 90 nationwide TV stations to air the ad.

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Plurking From The Shadow Of Twitter

posted on June 9, 2008

The folks over at Plurk must have some really good Karma. How else can you explain the incredible luck associated with rolling out your new micro-messaging (I can’t bring myself to call it blogging) platform, at the same time your chief competitor (Twitter), has hit the application scaling wall and is experiencing severe service outages?

Any others getting tired of seeing a bunch of tweety birds lifting a whale? It was cute the first couple of times. Now? Not so much. Next time I see that thing, there’s gonna be a harpoon flying through my display!

Adding insult to injury, when Twitter is up and running (yes, it still happens occasionally), it is being consistently used to pimp broadcast and promote Plurk. The irony is striking.

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Google Leads the Top 10 U.K. Search Sites

posted on June 6, 2008

No surprise here. Google continued its dominance in the number one position of the top 10 search sites in the UK, with just over 74% share, according to comScore. eBay ranked second with 6 percent, followed by Yahoo! Sites (4.3 percent) and Microsoft Sites (3.4 percent). Rounding out the top 10, U.K. properties, Rightmove Sites and Bebo.com claimed .8 and .7 percent respectively.

Month over month, there was nominal movement in the stats. The only notable is the presence of Social Media sites in the top 10. Facebook.com, claimed a 1.8-percent market share in April. We’ll watch how that develops over the next few quarters.

UK Share of Search (according to comScore)

April 2008 vs. March 2008

Property

Mar-08

Apr-08

% Change

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searchme; the “Apple” of your Search Eye?

posted on June 5, 2008

Google is to the PC (utilitarian) as searchme is to the MAC (elegant).

At least, that’s what an impressive group of VC’s that just plunked down another $12.6 Million on searchme are hoping you’ll think.

Including previous investment, this brings the total capital they have netted to date, to $43.6 Million (or about $28.25 Million Euros *sigh*). Investors include Sequoia Capital, DAG Ventures, Deepfork Capital and Lehvan Brothers Venture Capital.

So, who are these cats anyway? You may remember the now defunct WikiSeek, who focused on providing results based solely on content referred to within the pages of Wikipedia. Without going into details, let’s just say – they sucked at it. Fortunately for the dev team, CEO Randy Adams remembered that old nursery rhyme – “If at first you don’t succeed….”, which brings us to searchme.

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Google Pimping Big Ad Spender Trademarks

posted on June 3, 2008

Several major Google advertisers seem to have adopted a common war cry – “Get these pigs off of our backs!”

The tactic is called “piggybacking” and major corporations are tired of Google pimping out their valuable trademarks to smaller companies.

With piggybacking, smaller and lesser known advertisers use a large corporation’s well branded and recognized trademarks in an effort to enhance their ability to draw more qualified traffic from Google Adsense listings. The problem is not a new one. In fact, it has been occurring for several years despite Google’s written policy against the practice.

The question is “If Google has a policy against the practice, why does it continue to occur with such frequency?” Can you say – Moolah? Yes, the “do no evilers” at Google seem to be turning a blind eye, lest they disrupt that free flowing revenue stream called Adsense.

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Hell Hath No Fury Like a Vlogger Scorned

posted on May 19, 2008

“They say the women treat you fine on Broadway But lookin’ at them just gives me the blues”.

“On Broadway”, George Benson

I can’t help but think that Philip J. Smith, President of The Shubert Organization must be singing those words from jazz legend George Benson’s hit song – On Broadway.

Imagine this. Over a period of 100 years (since 1900), generations put their heart and soul into building the oldest, largest and most well-respected theatre company on Broadway. As President, you are well known throughout the theatre industry as a man of integrity and class.

Suddenly, in one fell swoop, you go from “toast of the town”, to just plain – toast.

Such was the case when Smith’s scorned, soon-to-be ex-wife, Tricia-Walsh Smith decided to take her divorce case to the people’s court (aka YouTube).