China vs. Google
Google announced it would seek negotiations with the Chinese government, otherwise threatening to remove itself from the country with the most internet users.
Further review of business operations in China will come after recent discoveries of intelligent cyber hacking, not only on Google, but other major companies such as Adobe and Yahoo!. Said cyber attacks were found to be “highly sophisticated and targeted,” resulting in the “theft of intellectual property.” The Gmail accounts in question belonged to users who are advocates of human rights in China.
Ongoing censorship issues and Google’s announcement could also be a challenge to Baidu. Baidu is China’s largest search engine, and controls about two-thirds of the search market.
Google To Sell Ad Space Within Street View
Google has been offered a patent (entitled “Claiming Real Estate in Panoramic or 3D Mapping Environments for Advertising”) for technology which will enable the identification of posters, billboards, and buildings in street view for online maps, and then sell that space to advertisers, who can update images with new ads. A good example is a movie theater updating their marquee to promote current listings and show times, versus just having the advertisement that was featured on their billboard 6 months ago, when the image was taken.
This virtual real estate could eventually turn into a bidding system similar to AdWords. As Google selects the interest points of an image, they will add a hyperlink or totally replace a previously recorded Street View image with a new one, purchased by the highest bidder.
Yahoo Will Release Two New Search Tools
Yahoo is releasing Network Distribution and Import Campaigns as continued advertising and consumer search efforts before the company reports earnings on Jan. 26.
Network Distribution will have three settings: Entire Network, Yahoo Search and Yahoo Partners. The added control, through bid adjustment, for example, will allow advertisers to better-meet performance goals, as well as applying custom pricing and discounts to specific areas in the network.
The Import Campaigns tool will make for an easier transition from a Google AdWords campaign into Yahoo, an evident weakness. Also keep in mind if a broad or phrase keyword needs to be mapped to Yahoo’s advanced match feature, as well as setting bids on keywords, or Yahoo will automatically place them. The feature also provides a summary of the converted information.
Some Extra Tidbits
- In other news, Facebook is featuring micro payments (one cent) for articles and information, taking on the “wallet idea.”
- The Google Search Event was a platform for various new technologies, such as search by voice, real-time language translation, and location-based search.
- Google is to introduce “Click to Call” (Billing) in ads on mobile devices. Currently this feature was only on WAP devices, and now it’s available to all HTML devices.
By Amanda Witucki
Paid Search Staff
Sources:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=120666
