Adsense for Search

Adsense for search now allows users to place a custom search field on their site. By custom I mean they can completely adjust the look and feel of the search box; but more importantly, they can also control what sites are searched. This goes one step further, as all PPC results shown are also targeted to the results shown, users should be more likely to find what they are looking for and clickthrough. This of course directly increases potential earnings!

So there you have it, or at least that’s as Google would have you have it. I haven’t had a chance to give the system a full run through so I’m reluctant to give it a positive or negative, but I would be concerned that those not knowledgeable about the facility wouldn’t be aware of the ‘hidden’ constraints being placed on their search.

As I said – more investigation is required. For now check out the Google Video explaining it all. At the very least their Software Engineer reminds me of the kid in Superbad and I had a chuckle.

Google Attempts to Patent Ad Consumption Behavior

A number of threads this weekend picked up on a Google patent application recently busmitted. Apparently Google is patenting targeted video advertising behaviors so that you would have to watch a set amount of commercials to be able to view an entire show.

The "Targeted Video Advertising" patent sets out the following clauses:

1. 'Users may be allowed to skip particular commercials, but required to watch or accept a set number of commercials in order to watch a program'
2. 'The system…may also require the user to fully watch at least four promotions before the program will continue.'
3. 'The profile includes some demographic information of the user, such as income, age, and gender. This information may be obtained when the user registers for the video service.'
   

None of this sounds too evil or insidious but at the same time, there are now so many other options that allow commercial free viewing, why would you go down this route?

Enter the Nexus

There are many tools out there to visualise networks; I’ve looked at various programs that can visualise dynamic interactions between individuals. However, so far, nothing has come close to Nexus in terms of usability, ease of interpretation or automated profile build, for Social Networks.
Nexus automatically retrieves your profile information from your account. Representing friends as dots, each person who is a friend is connected by a line, with thicker lines for people who also share interests.

What I think is most interesting is that as soon as I ran Nexus on my own profile, the result was exactly as I imagined it would be. My groups of friends appeared in their own clusters when they have no contact except me, and the individuals that span several groups became focal points of contact between groups.

This is how my circle of friends looks:

The Planet Is A Pretty Great Place, Pity We’re Destroying It

This is one of the best ads I’ve seen in ages. Forget for a moment though that it is an ad. It’s not hard to think of future generations seeing this and wondering what it was like to have a planet like this, and then wonder how stupid we were not to preserve it. TheDiscovery Channel’s in-house team has put together this smart little piece.

Discovery Channel: I Love The World

Innovative Search Engine

I Stumbled Upon SearchMe and had to share - it's similar interface to Apple's Cover Flow.