Recently Google Inc. Launched ‘Google Ad Manager’ , which is a bi product of Google’s previous accusation of Double Click for 3.1 billion. Google Ad Manager though currently in a beta phase and for invitation only is quite simple technology that enables publishers to have more options to deploy & manage there Ad’s. Recently Many publishers were not satisfied with the Adsense and revenue generated with Adsense. For more interactive Ad’s they used to either sign up with companies like Double Click & Federated Media to deliver more Ads targeted directly to there web, or they used to directly deal with advertisers for ad deployment on there website. Keeping this industry problem Google presented the world with Google Ad Manager which will definitely centralize the control of Advertisement on the web. So lets see what exactly Google Ad Manager is.
What is Google Ad Manager ?
Google Ad Manager provides an easy to use tool for Publishers to define Ad spots on there web properties where they can place ads by either directly dealing with there Advertisers. As the Google Ad Manager comes pack with statistics for the Ad i.e is Impressions, click through rate hence publishers would be able to bring there direct advertisers to those rates as well. Apart from that incase the publisher does not have ads for there spot on the web, then the Google Ad Manager will display Google Adsense Ads or other Ad Network Ads. Some of the key features

• Inventory management
• Yield optimization
• Ad targeting
• Trafficking, ad delivery, and order booking
• Creatives and rich media management
• Reporting
• User interface navigation
• Account administration

Keeping the launch of Google Ad Manager, Microsoft could not let this portion of net un avaided and today Microsoft Annouced the accusation of RAPT.

Rapt is yet another powerful Ad Management application. Though these accusations & launch clearly indicate the growth of Online Advertisement, where the power of Ad selection has been provided to publishers and Advertisers using the strong foundation of Statistics & Impression based stats & charging to further increase & enhance the Ad revenue.

AOL Today announced the accusation of Bebo an online photo sharing website for $850 million.

Bebo, a backronym for “Blog early, blog often”, is an online social media network similar in format to MySpace, Xanga, Facebook, and Yahoo! 360. The site was founded in January 2005 by husband and wife team Michael and Xochi Birch. It was given a major relaunch in July 2005.[2] Bebo can be used in many countries around the world including Ireland, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Kazakhstan and Australia. Bebo have recently launched a Polish[3] version of the site which uses a different user database. There are also plans for French[4] and German[5] versions among others.

Somehow this accusation hardly makes a difference to the US market, AOL which stands for America Online have a major standing and user base from people who are outside USA, that could be UK, Ireland etc… And as far as Bebo is concerned same is the case with Bebo there major user base is from Ireland, and in 2007 claimed to be the most popular site in Ireland.

Once i heard this news i wondered whats with AOL & Yahoo are the twin sisters or somethings, if i look even at the Main page of AOL which they launched last year was a replica of Yahoo’s main page, and keeping in view of Yahoo strategy Yahoo acquired Flickr and few years later AOL acquires Bebo a photo sharing site. I wonder if AOL is dreaming of getting a bid from Microsoft someday ….

After 18 weeks of beta testing Hulu today announced that they are now open for all, no need for invites, all you need is to sign up to Hulu and start enjoying the videos. In post made on there blog :

” In these short 18 weeks since we began private beta testing, we’ve been working hard to kick the tires and check under the hood in preparation of opening the doors to our site. With well over 10,000 pieces of user feedback, we’ve heard your suggestions, comments, criticisms and praise. Today we are excited to leave our private beta and open Hulu.com to everyone in the U.S.. Our streaming video service is free – anyone in the U.S. with a broadband internet connection and a computer can just press play to enjoy. “

Today i reviewed the famous Yahoo Buzz, the new service launched by Yahoo which in some people’s word is a close replica of Digg. Just like all the services of Yahoo, Yahoo buzz requires you to log in using a Yahoo account. Once logged in all you can do is review a story and place your vote on it. Thats it !

Unfortunately like all the new launches by Yahoo i think the Yahoo buzz also sucks, if you are a user at digg you probably would not prefer to even visit Yahoo Buzz so let me sum up why Yahoo buzz sucks: (more…)

A Google Talk chatback badge will let visitors to your web page chat with you. They’ll be able to chat with you whenever you’re signed in to Google Talk

Initially this concept was started up by skype who introduced the badge or buttons to be placed on your webpage, or myspace page and people can click to either call you or add you to there skype account, now gtalk have started the gtalk chatback badge.

Pro’s of Google gTalk Chat back Badge

• Any one can simple click on it and have chat with you if you are online
• No need for any software like gtalk etc for the end user the chat starts in a pop up window
• Easy to implement on your website, mySpace page or your blog, you can chit chat with people visiting your site or profile at mySpace
• Can open up a new channel of communication something like MyBlogLogs
• Difficult to customize to the style of your site…

Con’s of Google gTalk Chat back Badge

• You don’t know who you are talking to cause there is no option for end user to add his information like e-mail or even name
• Its a bit slow for end user, and in my experience people click on it and wait and then close it and leave
• There is no record or history maintained for the chat …

How it can be improved

• Add customization of the widget so as we can design to our requirements
• Add Ajax kind of a window for a quick chat rather then a pop up
• Allow end user to add his Name at least and optional e-mail address
• If widgets owner is off line make it an off line leave message center

To get your badge for gTalk visit : Create Google Chat back Badge

In the January 2008 analysis of the Top 50 properties worldwide where search activity is observed, Google Sites led with 7.7 billion searches. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with nearly 2.5 billion searches, followed by Microsoft Sites (1.1 billion), and AOL LLC (903 million).

Google Sites marginally extended its share of core searches to 58.5 percent. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 22.2 percent, followed by Microsoft Sites (9.8 percent), AOL LLC (4.9 percent), and Ask Network (4.5 percent).

Have you ever received a file and want to open it but unable to find what extension it is ? Which tool to use to open the file, well i have and it usually happens, you try to use the option search the internet to find out and still the information provided by the internet is no good as you really dont want to know what the extension is about rather you want to know which software should i use to open the file.

So now make your life easier try FilExt.com :

What is FilExt ?
FILExt is a database of file extensions and the various programs that use them. If you know the file extension you want to learn about simply enter it into the search box on the left and click on the Search button. If it’s in any of the FILExt databases the data we have on that file extension will be shown on a results page. If it’s not in any of the databases you will be given a link to a page with hints on how to do further research. Don’t search on terms; just file extensions and only one at a time please. There will be another search box on the results page if you have multiple searches to do.

comScore (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, released December 2007 data from the comScore Video Metrix service. The December 2007 report revealed that U.S. Internet users watched more than 10 billion videos online during the month, representing the single heaviest month for online video consumption since comScore initiated its tracking service.

Here is the list of Top5 Video Sites for the Month of Dec 2007

1. Google – 32%
2. Fox Interactive Media – 3.5%
3. Yahoo – 3.5%
4. Viacom Digital – 2.3%
5. Microsoft – 1.8%

Other notable findings from December 2007 include:

• 77.6 million viewers watched 3.2 billion videos on YouTube.com (41.6 videos per viewer).
• 40.5 million viewers watched 334 million videos on MySpace.com (8.2 videos per viewer).
• Online viewers watched an average of 3.4 hours (203 minutes) of online video during the month, representing a 34-percent gain since the beginning of 2007
• The average online video duration was 2.8 minutes.
• The average online video viewer consumed 72 videos.

Source: comScore

Adobe on Monday released its Air Technology previously known as Apollo, for creating cross-platform hybrid Web & desktop applications.

The AIR runtime lets developers run applications on the desktop that they’ve built for the Web using standard Web languages like HTML, AJAX, and Flash. AIR is available for Windows and Mac OS now, with Linux to follow. Adobe also announced several AIR-based applications. Most notable among these for consumers are eBay Desktop, which allows eBay buyers and sellers to keep track of their auctions and get notified of activity; and AOL’s Xdrive Desktop Lite, an installed interface for accessing online-stored files without a browser.

“This is a major step forward for the Adobe RIA technology platform,” said Phil Costa, Adobe’s Director of Product Management for the Platform Business Unit, in an interview with PC Magazine last Friday. “We have been investing in rich Internet application technology for many, many years, but it’s really in the last 18 months that the market demand has recognized its value to improving the user experience.”

Top 5 Adobe Air Applications

1. Snitter for Air
   Snitter is “Snook’s Twitter”: an Adobe AIR-powered application for twittering. Twitter let’s you post small 140 character messages letting people know what you’re up to.
   http://snook.ca/snitter/
2. Digg Top Adobe Air
   DiggTop is an application for Windows and MacOSX that lets you view a blended list of your favourite Digg topic or keyword feeds. In addition to the full Digg submission information, it will also display a slideshow of images it can scrape from the linked articles
   http://www.gskinner.com/DiggTop/
3. AOL Top 100 videos Adobe Air
   Download the latest desktop widget from AOL Music featuring the top 100 hottest music videos, related artist videos and special features. This widget is available for free and currently works on both MAC and PC computers.
   http://music.aol.com/help/syndication/desktop-widgets
4. Google Analytics on Adobe AIR:
   This application helps you track your site traffic from the desktop. Currently it does not provide all the information and reports Google Analytics shows but does a good job of showing pretty basic ones.
   http://www.aboutnico.be/index.php/analytics-widget/
5. Flickr Dump on Adobe Air:
   (Flickr dump) is an AIR application that allows you to download all the public images from a Flickr Account to your desktop. Quite useful when you want to quickly download all the shared photos from your friends and save it to your desktop.
   http://onair.adobe.com/blogs/tour/2007/08/09/new-air-app-flump-flickr-dump/

Digg the famous social network which shares quality of content is an essential playground for many web owners, so far digg has made two very strong foundations, one is quality / quantity of content it provides and second is SEO of every story published on digg.

Digg works in a very simple way, you submit your story linked to the source of the story which could be your blog or any other web and send a shout of your story to your friends in the digg community, if your friends like the story they digg the story and every dugg received by the story increases its value in the digg community. If in a limited time your story receives more then 150 dugg’s your story becomes popular and if digg staff think its a good story they make it popular and bring it to the front page. Now this is where the fun starts.

Within minutes your story source which could be your website starts receiving more then +50000 unique visitors your traffic grows at a very rapid speed, apart from digg your story’s URL get picked up by many other web sites which you have never heard of and it adds more traffic to your blog / site. But the bad part is this all is temporary, for 1-2 week your receive traffic which steadily declines and goes down and down and eventually your traffic returns to normal. (more…)