Google has launched a new online network which is set to simplify and speed up both online display ad publishing and advertising. Google has now officially acknowledged the launch and the new network which is set to shake up the existing display advertising community while promising to improving usability and accessibility.



“today we’re excited to announce the new DoubleClick Ad Exchange, a step towards creating a more open display advertising ecosystem for everyone. The Ad Exchange is a real-time marketplace that helps large online publishers on one side; and ad networks and agency networks on the other, buy and sell display advertising space.” Taken from the official Google Blog.

Google has set up three primary objectives for the DoubleClick Ad Exchange.

1) Make the buying and selling of display advertising easier and simpler to use.
2) Delivering improved performance which can be directly measured by advertising agencies
3) Open up the ecosystem.

“These publishers and ad networks manage and represent large volumes of ads and ad space from lots of advertisers and websites. By bringing them together in an open marketplace in which prices are set in a real-time auction, the Ad Exchange enables display ads and ad space to be allocated much more efficiently. This improves returns for advertisers and enables publishers to get the most value out of their online content.” Taken from the Official Google Blog.

This is not a new idea, there are many existing and established ad exchange networks but what will be different is Google’s approach. The Double Click Ad Exchange will be simple to use and accessible to all levels of advertiser and publisher. Integration into the existing Adwords community is sure to set the foundations for the success of this product. We will have to wait and see how the network is received but it does look set to offer users a valuable alternative to the existing ad exchange networks.

Article by Creative SEO UK

Technorati Tags: banner advertising, blog, display ad, display advertsing, doubleclick, Google, google double click, google double click network, internet, seo, tech, technology

Google has been busy updating its services this week, Google Maps, Adsense, YouTube, Google Reader and Google Books have all been updated as part of Google’s continued development. So the big question is, “What’s New?” Here’s a brief overview.

Google Maps has added Picasa photos to Street view. As long as the image has been Geo-tagged Google will include it in Street View.

“Millions of people already rely on Picasa Web Albums to share their photographs with friends and the internet community. Now, their public geo-tagged photos will help Google Maps users to get a better impression of a geographic place, especially for areas where we may not have any Panoramio photos,” Daniel Cotting, software engineer, Google Zurich, wrote on Google’s Lat Long Blog.


“We’ve selected these photos by looking for geo-tagged public images in Picasa Web Albums. We apply face detection to screen out images with identifiable individuals and image matching so that we’re including the most relevant photographs.”

Google AdSense is conducting email interviews to find out exactly what it’s publishers want. Google are obviously keen to understand more about the needs and requirements of their publishers in light of the new Bing Yahoo search deal. Bing and Yahoo pose a potential threat to Google and customer feedback will help Google to improve the service further. Adsense has also launched a Beta Category Filter system for English Language feed ads.

YouTube recently ran a 1,024 recipe multivariate experiment using Google’s Website Optimizer. The results were fantastic, a 15.7% increase in new account signup based on minor changes to the site layout and text.

Google Reader has introduced a new sharing option allowing you to share content with Twitter and Facebook.

Google books have added a Creative Commons license option for its partners, to protect published content.

Article by Creative SEO

Technorati Tags: adsense, blog, books, Google, google adsense, google books, google maps, google reader, internet, maps, news, reader, tech, technology, YouTube

Digg are to commence rolling out an early beta version of a new advertising platform. The new advertisements will only be available to view by a select number of users as part of an initial trial.

Ads will appear within the submitted content results of Digg and will be very clearly marked as sponsored advertising. What is particularly interesting is the bidding model which has been adopted as part of the trial. Advertisers will be charged a cost for each time an ad is clicked, cpc basis, but unusually ad placement will be dictated by user popularity.

Unpopular ads will appeal lower in the list and will pay more for their position and popular ads will display higher in the list but will cost the advertiser less money. This is quite an unusual approach and we are quite eager to see this working in practise. We will be particularly interested in how a new ad is positioned, within the ad listings, by an existing advertiser and how a new advertiser is positioned, within the ad listings, when first joining the campaign? We would hope that a long term advertising relationship with Digg would also bring a loyalty bonus to the advertiser, but as yet these details are not available.

Article by Matt Blay – Creative SEO UK

Technorati Tags: ad, advertising, blog, cpc, Dig, dig advertising, internet, news, ppc, seo, tech, technology

A Facebook executive has confirmed that the recent downtime issues and Denial of Service Attacks on Facebook, LiveJournal, YouTube, Google and Blogger were all part of the Russia-Georgia crisis and were targeted at silencing one man from reporting.
A blogger, based in the Republic of Georgia, with username Cyxymu, was the victim of a simultaneous attack on the bloggers personal Social Networking accounts, according to Facebook’s chief security officer Max Kelly. The claim reinforces reports that social networking sites are being dragged into the Georgia-Russia crisis for allowing users to report on the issues.

Max Kelly told CNet. “It was a simultaneous attack across a number of properties targeting him to keep his voice from being heard. We’re actively investigating the source of the attacks and we hope to be able to find out the individuals involved in the back end and to take action against them if we can.”

Google, whose infrastructure protect its sites from being taken down by the recent activity are quoted as saying:
“We are aware that a handful of non-Google sites were impacted by a DOS attack this morning, and are in contact with some affected companies to help investigate this attack. Google systems prevented substantive impact to our services.”

The internet is a portal for free speech and allows bloggers to share their opinions without restriction of content. Political propaganda and crisis information is freely available to view and publish on the internet without political censorship, but this obviously poses a threat to political activists. Are we seeing the start of a new wave of Cyber Warfare and will social networking sites need to offer more hardened security to protect against such attacks?

Article by Creative SEO – Search engine consultant

Technorati Tags: blog, blogger, crisis, denial of service attack, dos, facebook, Georgia, Google, livejournal, news, Russia, tech, technology, Twitter, YouTube

Twitter has now been down for nearly 3 hours, a denial of service attack has been blamed for the downtime and the Twitter team are still battling to bring the site back online. Twitter services appear to be running again, so if you use an API or desktop Twitter application you should be able to start Tweeting again. We are currently using Tweet Deck with no downtime.

The issue has caused waves all over the internet, Facebook reportedly slowed right down with some users receiving error messages when trying to view there profiles. Other social network displayed error messages as social user’s flooded servers. One report even acknowledged that work productivity was up as a result of the downtime.

The Twitter website is still down and we will keep you informed of the issue as we find out more details.

Technorati Tags: blog, news, tech, technology, Twitter, twitter down

Google Maps changed the way we search for location information, directions and mapping data. Google are continuing to evolve and develop the product by adding more and more new layers of data and functionality. Images, Articles, Video content, user lists and itineraries are all currently available to view. The latest new additions to Google Maps include attraction information and points of interest.



Users can now discover businesses, attractions and other key points of interest on the maps but only at a high level of zoom. New icons show key points of interest and each of these icons can be clicked to reveal detailed information about the location.



These new functions yet again improve the user experience and offer greater levels of information to the end user. The only worry is that will there eventually be too much data to view at any one time. We are convinced that Google has plans to implement a new and improved filter menu system to combat this very issue. Possibly utilising existing filtering technology, maybe even using a similar interface to Google Earth, we will have to wait and see.

Article by Creative SEO News

Technorati Tags: blog, features, Google, google maps, internet, maps, news, search, seo, tech, technology

Google have today announced a new deal to acquire On2 Technologies, a leading video compression company that provides high quality video at high compression rates.

Google are committed to offering high quality, streaming video to both its Google Video users and its YouTube users. Google have talked about improving the quality of streaming video and adding further value to the user experience by providing more HD quality content.

High Quality streaming video is one of the many holy grails of the internet. Large file sizes and download rates restrict the existing technology from being available to every household, causing long and slow downloads and buffering. The higher the quality of the service, the faster the streaming and download times, the more likely web based video will integrate into consumer households.

If streaming web based video could potentially match High Definition quality television, with low file download sizes, let’s say HD at a minimum of 720p, more households would use the internet to watch and download content. This could potentially open a massive new market to Google for paid download and subscription based video and content through YouTube. The opportunity to provide advertising including video commercials at the beginning and end of content would potentially offer Google a very lucrative channel to resell advertising. Google have already signed a deal to provide Disney content on the YouTube network. As a user can you imagine being able to choose any film or video content and instantly watch and stream the content in real time at an HD quality directly to your home TV. No download time, no waiting, just click and watch. This same technology would help to improve mobile and handheld video content, providing mobile users with a greater array of streaming content without the need to download or buffer large files.

The deal with On2 outlines the importance of the technology and shows Google’s resolve to investigate the video compression further. The deal is subject to approval by On2 Technologies stockholders and the regulatory authorities.

The acquisition marks a clear commitment by Google to develop their existing video content, what Google have up there sleeves at this point in time no one knows, but as always it looks very exciting.

Visit Creative SEO for more fantastic articles

Technorati Tags: blog, Google, google video, internet, news, on2, on2 technology, seo, social networking, tech, YouTube

Google blog search has grown in popularity since its launch; users have been requesting new features and functionality and finally Google has announced some major upgrades and improvements to the service.

The Google blog search home page has had a minor facelift with the integration of a new Latest Posts section and Hot Queries section. Hot Queries displays the latest and most popular search queries within Google blog search, allowing the user to look at new trends and find out exactly what is being searched for at any one time. Latest Posts displays new stories and posts from popular blogs, as soon as they are added to blog search and even before users are actively searching for them.

By popular demand Google have also added RSS and Atom feeds to the blog search. This can be easily accessed via the Subscribe link in the left hand column on the front page of the site.

One final feature which we believe will be extremely popular is the new Google blog search iGoogle gadget. The new gadget allows you to embed blog search directly into your iGoogle home page allowing you to browse topics and drill into stories from within the widget. You can also customise the gadget to display specific topics or information.

The new features have been added to allow more users to search more deeply into the database allowing a larger number of blogs to be found be users. Although only minor changes they do have a big impact on improving the usability of the service.

Article by Creative SEO UK

Technorati Tags: blog, blog search, blog search gadget, blog search igoogle, blog search widget, Google, google blog, google blog search