interest

In early April, Google clarified some misconceptions about AdSense after they changed AdSense URLs to DoubleClick URLs. In an extension of that clarification, Google has posted to the AdSense for Feeds Blog regarding AdSense for feeds tags.

Today [Google is] launching "interest-based" advertising as a beta test on our partner sites and on YouTube. These ads will associate categories of interest…so if you visit an online sports store, you may later be shown ads on other websites offering you a discount on running shoes during that store’s upcoming sale.

Yes, the headline isn't really breaking news to many of us. However, I received an interesting report this week that ties numbers to the tumultuous newspaper industry and its struggle to remain relevant, today and tomorrow. I wanted to share the numbers with you...

If the importance of this presidential election has you feeling anxious, fresh stats from Hitwise may not help much.  Essentially, they act as a reminder that the world's watching, and UK residents in particular seem to be interested in a couple of political figures.There's been a high volume of searches for Barack Obama since (at least) late last year.  Only on a few occasions have searches for the UK's own prime minister, Gordon Brown, become more common.  Meanwhile, interest in Joe Biden has remained quite low even after his nomination.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has been on the campaign trail stumping for Barack Obama, virtually formalizing his “informal campaign advisor” role, a suddenly very public endorsement that fueled speculation about a possible cabinet position, specifically Obama’s proposed tech czar.

The U.S. House of Representatives Web site was shut down yesterday along with a number of related sites including the Web sites of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank of Massachusetts as millions of people went online searching for news about the $700 billion bailout of the financial industry.

Cuil, the search engine launched at the beginning of the week with brassy fanfare and progressive decrescendo on Monday, still looks about the same on Friday. It's faster, at least, without 50 million—seriously—queries hitting its categorized servers. The images are still a bit out of whack, the categories still odd, the results certainly alternative.

Microsoft washed its hands of pursuing Yahoo, and the executive responsible for chasing and failing to catch Yahoo has a new job. There is a sense that Microsoft could be back.