Google has quietly rolled out feed placements in AdWords, allowing advertisers to purchase ads within specific RSS feeds. To purchase the ads, advertisers need to first choose to advertise on the Google Content Network (as opposed to within the Google search engine).

From there, utilizing Google’s tool for identifying placements, the advertiser can select the specific RSS feeds where they would like to place ads and proceed to place bids either on a cost per click or cost per thousand basis. Ads can be either text, graphical banners, or video.

The move follows the rollout of AdSense for RSS to publishers earlier this year, allowing blogs (including this one) to monetize their feeds. To-date, those ads have either been sold direct by Google’s salesforce or contextually based, meaning that if a story in the RSS feed is about the World Series, you might see ads for tickets. Well, in theory. Some of the ads showing up in RSS feeds were way off – some even to a point of being offensive. Additionally, some bloggers have reported sharp declines in earnings with AdSense for RSS, especially compared to the direct ad sales previously offered by Feedburner before the company was acquired by Google.

With feed placements, AdWords takes a step in addressing both of these concerns. By enabling all advertisers to select the sites on which they would like to place their ads, the matching is likely to be more accurate. Meanwhile, the more precise targeting should also drive up ad rates, since the ads should perform better since they are being targeted at the proper audience. AdWords also of course has the largest base of advertisers on the Web to which it can sell the inventory, and by making feed placements self-service, all of these advertisers can now buy inventory, regardless of budget.

Will all of these factors suddenly make RSS advertising extremely lucrative for publishers? That all depends on users actually clicking the ads. That hasn’t been an easy proposition in the brief history of RSS advertising, but at least Google now seems to offer all of the tools to give the medium its fair shot.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:New Google Campaign Consolidates Targeted AdWordsAd Network Turn Raises $8 MillionFeedburner Adds Self-Publishing AdsTarget Google AdWords Based on DemographicsGoogle Checkout Isn’t a Paypal KillerMonetizing WordPress: 11 Sources For Ad-Ready WordPress ThemesSpotMixer Lets You Distribute Your DIY TV Commercials via AdWords

Last Friday was International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and per usual, multi-billion dollar Internet companies and their users alike participated in the general tomfoolery of talking like a pirate. The two places on the net I noticed the frivolity most prevalently was Facebook and Friendfeed.  

It seems for some on Facebook, though, the piratey goodness turns bad, and is continuing on through today. We just got a tip and some screenshots from Mashable Reader Bradley Wint that the pirate translation function on Facebook is producing some rather vulgar results.

I had to look up in a pirate translation program not on the Facebook domain to ensure I could say this right without using a bucket-load of expletives, but “I be nay sure exactly what th’ problem be but somethin’ smells rotten in th’ state o’ Denmark.”

All we’ve had is the single report, and I haven’t been able to duplicate it on my own account, but that doesn’t rule out that the problem be existin’… er, is still there.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Everyone Talks Like a Pirate TodayOodle Talks Like A PiratePirates Had Photo-Sharing?Pirate Bay Takes Over Anti-Piracy Domain. A Major Hack?Warner: OK, We Admit, Pirate Bay Cop Was A Little CompromisedPirate Bay To IFPI: Pay Up For DamagesThe Pirate Bay Gets Buried In Legal Papers

Source:Mashable!

During the last presidential election in the United States a new term came into being. The term was swiftboating which according to Wikipedia means “is American political jargon that is used as a strong pejorative description of some kind of attack that the speaker considers unfair or untrue—for example, an ad hominem attack or a smear campaign.” While it was used in the 2004 campaign against Sen. John Kerry with some success it was never a term or method used against the incumbent George Bush.

As popular as swiftboating was in the 2004 election cycle many thought that it would also be used to an even larger degree in this 2008 election. However this has turned out not to be the case as a much more effective way to torpedo you opponents has been discovered with a lot of money being spent by both sides in order to scuttle the opposition. The new method of attack is as simple as buying Google AdWords and Facebook SocialAds for your opponents name or ideas and then have them point to web pages that cast the person or ideas in a negative light.

To give you an idea of the kind of money being spent on this new form of attack the Obama campaign spent more money on paid search in February than both President Bush and Sen. John Kerry did for the entire 2004 election cycle. Now the McCain campaign have been no slouches either in this having hired the political marketing firm of Connell Donatelli to handle the dirty work.

As Sarah Lai Stirland from Threat Level pointed out in a post recently:

In August, the campaign bought the Democratic vice presidential nominee’s name “Joe Biden.” Some searches for the term on Google yielded a Google ad from the McCain campaign that took people who clicked through to a video of Biden criticizing Obama during the primaries.

It is not surprising either that Sarah Palin is the hot ticket search item since the McCain camp announced she was their pick for Vice President. Again from Sarah Lai Stirland’s post

A search on the name “Palin” yielded “Unsure About Sarah Palin?” That page led users to an Obama campaign web page informing readers that McCain’s vice presidential pick Sarah Palin “is no maverick,” and also to “McCainPalinVictory2008.com,” a McCain fund-raising page.

This election cycle has been said to be the the one that has seen the most use of technology in all its forms. Whether it be from pages on Facebook to interns being the face of the leaders on places like Twitter and FriendFeed technology has taken the front row seat.

I guess it is surprise that we have moved from boats being used in smear campaigns to Google AdWords being used as a principal ingredient of electioneering fear, uncertainty and doubt. Not to mention that google is laughing all the way to the bank in the process.

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A slew of companies rely on Google’s AdWords system to bring users to their sites. But in an attempt to improve the quality of AdWords, Google will unveil a new judging system in the next few days that could have a major impact on current AdWords users.

The most important change the company announced Monday has to do with how it calculates the AdWords Quality Score, which helps determine the order of each ad for a given keyword. Google said that it will now calculate quality in real-time as a Google user performs a search, along with its current practice of analyzing click-through rates. Google also said that it will less frequently analyze landing page quality than previously.

The fine folks at Web monitoring service Pingdom are out with their latest list. This time it’s Goole AdWords ads that have gone contextually wrong. From a new brain on eBay to visiting Hell with Kayak, these ads are a hoot.

Here are a couple of my favorites from the list:

Here we find that selling on eBay is like selling your soul - with all of the fees they charge and the PayPal fees, I guess it makes sense.

We already know that the Germans make the best knives (see latenight tv), now we know they make the best AdWords ads. I just love these ascii ads — too bad Google has banned them. I’ve watched that second car for hours and it never gets any closer to the car in front of it.

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AOL already owns Advertising.com and is looking to acquire another ad networks similar to text-links broker Quigo, according to a source. And it’s rolling up its motley collection of ad plays into a new unit, Platform A. Today announced a new system to allow users to opt out of ads targeted to their online behavior, like the websites they visit. Some users are creeped out by the thought, so AOL’s letting them decline the ads. Here’s how the news affects others.

That AOL feels it needs to back down on behavioral targeting exposes one potential flaw in Facebook’s SocialAds master plan, for example.

One reason users might want to opt out of behavioral-targeted advertising is that it can make you feel as though someone or something is watching your every move on the Internet. This an accurate feeling, of course. Especially if you’re a Facebook member.

But not everyone knows that yet. Behavioral targeting makes it clear. Imagine if you were sending a friend an email on AOL about Saw IV with a friend, and then saw an ad for the DVD on CNNMoney — like AOL, a Time Warner property and an Advertising.com customer.

The Saw IV ad is possibly a better match for your declared consumer desires than an ad from Barclays Capital, which would be targeted based on demographics and CNNMoney’s financial content. But would the Saw IV ad’s appearance on a completely unrelated site creep you out? Publishers might worry it would. And if publishers don’t buy the idea, the ads won’t run. That’s why when Facebook launches its network, it should make clear it’s following AOL’s lead.

(Photo by Marxchivist)

Source:Valleywag

Google’s share price cross $700 this morning. Of course analysts at Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, AmTech Securities and Pacific Crest have all already raised their price targets to $800 or above. [Seeking Alpha]

Source:Valleywag

Google’s ads are paid for; its search results, supposedly, are untainted by commercial concerns. But French blog Zorgloob landed itself a screenshot that calls Google’s purity into question. It shows what Google search results look like to a member of Google’s AdWords sales team. The picture raises more questions than it answers. For example, why are there dollar signs among so-called “natural” search results? And why does Google note whether a website in its search results belongs to an advertiser? Here’s the image.

The most charitable interpretation? Google’s salespeople uses these results to identify potential customers. An AdWords sales rep probably looks up a product and these results indicate if each site turned up by Google’s algorithmic search is also advertising with AdWords. If a site owner is not, the GG Score indicates how much that site owner would have to pay to get a sponsored link to appear near the top for that search term.

But there’s a darker possibility — that this data factors into Google’s website-ranking algorithms. Small website owners have long groused that their Google rankings seem to change arbitrarily, and that buying AdWords seems to be the only way to get back in Google’s good graces. Until now, it’s been easy to dismiss their complaints as mere whining. But if Google is actively tracking the revenue potential of websites that appear in its search results, who’s to say it can’t quietly tweak those results to help its salespeople meet their quotas?

Last week, Google removed an AdWords ad criticizing MoveOn.org spending habits in Maine because of a standing “trademark” order. Now, after lots of criticism, MoveOn has dropped their opposition to the ads stating “we don’t want to support a policy that denies people freedom of expression.” [Wired]

Source:Valleywag

Don’t own a shiny, new iPhone, but you still need to put up with the cramped, slow, “fake” Web delivered to your mobile phone? Well, it’s about to get a little more cramped as Google begins introducing Adwords ads to Google Mobile Search. Ads will be truncated if they are more than half a twitter (70 characters or less) and will only be used if the site linked in the ads is suitably adapted for mobile browsing, but that does little to mitigate the unwanted intrusion. And with the mobile advertising market about to take off, Google isn’t going to heed user concerns over millions in revenue. Bring on the mobile ad blockers! [Image: Google]