Thursday, March 12, 2009

Google launches Interest Based Advertising System
Google has launched a test version of Interest Based Advertising System for its network of websites. Google will use its surveillance of web surfing habits to figure out which ads are best suited to each individual's interests.

Under this program, someone who frequently visits sites about cell phones might see more ads about cell phones even on sites that has nothing to do with cell phones.

The new system is designed to record the interests of users based on the pages they view and Internet searches they conduct, offering tailor-made advertising offers to match which can further be refined by the user.

The ads are set to debut within the next few weeks and will initially appear on Google's YouTube and thousands of other sites that belong to Google's ad network.

The tactic relies on technology that Google got last year in a $3.2 billion acquisition of the Internet ad service DoubleClick Inc.

According to Google, “Keyword advertising has been so successful because it's useful to users, advertisers and publishers - everyone's interests are aligned. We believe that interest based ads will create the same virtuous cycle, by giving users more relevant ads, while generating higher returns for advertisers and publishers”.

Google is following major rivals like Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. that already have been customizing ads based on the past activities of specific Web browsers. Until now, Google had been tying its ads solely to search requests and the general content on Web pages.

More on Interest Based Advertising from Official Google Blog

Monday, March 2, 2009

Google Ads in Google News
Google has introduced ads to the results of search queries on Google News aimed at turning the news aggregation site into a money-making venture. This means that when one a query is entered into the Google News search box, one will see text ads alongside your News search results. These ads would only currently appear on Google News search-results pages in the United States.

Josh Cohen, a business project manager at Google, announced the change on Wednesday. "In recent months we've been experimenting with a variety of different formats. We've always said that we'd unveil these changes when we could offer a good experience for our users, publishers and advertisers alike," Cohen said.

Google News aggregates headlines from more than 4,500 English-language news sources around the world and provides links to articles on their websites. These articles are selected by computers that evaluate how often and on what sites a story appears online.

"I presume that Google gets paid per click for action on those ad offerings. But I doubt that they have any particular plans to share that with the people whose news they're aggregating," said Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst at the Poynter Institute.

Kelly McBride, another Poynter faculty member, said "it's always been obvious that Google didn't develop Google News as a public service - they intended to make money off it. I'm ok with Google News making money," she said.

The introduction of ads to Google News search could prove to be controversial. One has to wait to see its results.

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