Google has recently announced the release of their new version of Google Adwords Editor 6.5.  This brand new version introduces a cool new tool called Keyword Opportunities which will help you generate ideas for search keywords to target.

What is Adwords Editor?

AdWords Editor is simply a FREE downloadable software from Google that you can use to manage your AdWords campaigns instead of going to the adwords website to make your changes. Its biggest advantage over the Web based version adwords page is that it’s a lot faster. That’s a must have software for people who needs to manage large campaigns with a ton of keywords and lots of ads, landing pages, etc.

If you’re an existing Adwords editor user, you will be prompted to with an auto-update (all your campaigns, ad groups, settings, etc will be retained). If you are user of Google AdWords but never used AdWords Editor before, you can download the AdWords Editor 6.5 here (17 Mb).

Major Highlight of The Adwords Editor 6.5 - Keyword Opportunities tool

Keyword Opportunities tool basically helps you generate ideas for search keywords that you can target in your PPC campaign.

You can use the simply use expansion feature to generate keyword ideas.You’ll get a list of potentially related keywords with a 0-5 score for search volume and advertiser competition. You can also use the multiplier feature to combine 2-3 sets of lists to create new key phrases.

My Two Cents

I personally use Google Adwords Editor and find it pretty useful. However there so called new feature “Keyword Opportunities” isn’t really something new. It works exactly like the Google Keyword Tool (Web based), and in fact the web based tool is more detailed and should be used for extensive research. The only thing new in keyword opportunities tool is probably the multiplier feature; currently they don’t have it in the web based version. But overall i think its a good software to have, so if you haven’t tried it yet - Download Google Adwords Editor 6.5 now! Remember, its a 100% Free software from Google to manage your Adwords Account. Let me know how you find the software in the comments.

Google has always tried to bring the world closer to people. For instance because of services like Google Maps, Google Street View, people now get help with any address, street directions and even traffic information.

Thats not all! ….People now even use Google Maps to find the best route that is faster to reach and has moderately less traffic.

ReadWriteWeb today blogged about Google Maps being able to providing very high resolution images using their GeoEye-1 satellite. Wired Writes:

The 4,300-pound satellite collected the image at noon EDT on October 7 while moving from the north pole to the south pole in a 423-mile-high orbit at 17,000 miles per hour, or 4.5 miles per second. The spacecraft can take photos at a resolution of up to 41 centimeters — close enough to zoom in on the home plate of a baseball diamond, according to Mark Brender, GeoEye’s vice president of communications and marketing.

And I must say, I am very surprised to see the image quality that Google maps has produced using this new toy. The pictures are very high resolution and extremely crisp.

Here’s a comparison between the new satellite image and the current resolution (Photo Credit: ReadWriteWeb & Wired):

Google can now begin providing images for Google Maps and Google Earth which will will boast a resolution of 50 cm.

If you are looking for even higher resolution than what is being provided you will need to get a security clearance because the US Federal Government restricts distribution of higher-resolution imagery.

So finally its happening - Google has decided that its going to provide RSS feed of it’s search results! When it happens, the RSS feeds will be an additional feature of Google Alerts, which currently only allow notification by email.

Matt McGee at Search Engine Land has pointed out that Google is the only major search provider that is not offering their search results via RSS.

Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb wrote that once this feature is implemented Google web search feeds should include “site:” searches for new mentions of keywords inside particular domains so that they can deliver nice clean direct URLs - which Live.com feed is already doing well.

My Two Cents

I think its an excellent addition to Google Alerts. I personally use it to keep track of my blog - like who is linking to me, where my name gets mentioned etc. But currently I only can receive the alerts via email which sometimes gets really hectic because I have many such ‘alerts’ in place (in both Google + Yahoo) and my inbox often gets jam packed. So if google provides a RSS feed of their results page, it would be very easier to just subscribe to the feed and track it on a daily basis.

Yahoo has just announced that they have launched their Yahoo Web Analytics (Beta) on Limited Basis starting from this week. The tool is currently offered as a limited beta to customers of Yahoo Small Business, select Yahoo advertisers and some third-party application developers.

Last year back in April, Yahoo acquired IndexTools, who was a major provider of analytics software based in Hungary. So basically Yahoo has bought over the business and technology that IndexTools had and repackaged it with Yahoo’s own technology as - Yahoo Web Analytics.

Yahoo! Web Analytics (beta) will provide powerful data and insights reporting that will help webmasters to evaluate their marketing performance and tweak their website designs. They’ll get custom real-time reports and graphs that will help them to slice and dice metrics like sales, page views, and sources of traffic and ultimately identify ways to boost up their visitor’s satisfaction.

And as you might expect, Yahoo Web Analytics also includes full integration with other Yahoo products. For instance, you can easily analyze the effectiveness of Yahoo search marketing campaigns and track how well each of your products within your e-commerce shop are selling. This analytics product can easily be compared to Google Analytics, the free analytics service from Google that has similar integration with its own products such as - Google AdWords.

Some Screen shots of Yahoo Web Analytics: (Credit: Visual Revenue)

Yahoo! Web Analytics - Dashboard

A Look at Yahoo Web Analytics Sales Summary Page

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Darren just blogged about Aweber adding Twitter updates for their publishers. So this service will automatically send an update to Publisher’s Twitter account when they send a new broadcast or newsletter. The tweet will then link to an online version of the newsletter (hosted by aweber) so that your twitter followers will get to see what you’re sending out to newsletter subscribers.

How to Activate Twitter in Aweber

In order to activate this option you will need go to the ‘Syndicate’ section in the admin area of sending out new newsletters. This is cool little feature that will definitely help publishers to extend their audiereach.

Mid of Last year, Andy Beal reported that Google plans to bring AdWords to video games via “AdSense for Games.”

That plan has turned into a reality as Google today announced the official launch of Google Adsense for Games via Google Adsense Blog.

Google has already partnered with some of the major game developers and publishers including Konami, Playfish, Zynga, Demand Media and Mochi Media. They have also got a hand full of on beta advertisers to test their system such as Esurance, Sprint, and Sony Pictures. Basically this new program - Adsense for Games will allow social games and flash-based web games to integrate video, text and image ads into the games.

Official Google Blog writes:

As a beta user of AdSense for Games, you can display video ads, image ads, or text ads within your online games to earn revenue. You’ll be able to show these ads in placements you define, such as interstitial frames before a game, after a level change, or when a game is over.

Here’s a quick video that will give everyone a good idea of what kind of games are part of the adsense network and how advertisers can use this medium to reach their target audience:

Publisher’s Eligibility for Google Adsense for Games

• must have a minimum of 500,000 game plays
• 80% of site’s traffic must be from the U.S. or the U.K
• Only Web-Based Flash Games are allowed
• The Publisher must be technically capable of SDK integration
• The Content of the publisher’s site has to be family safe and targeted at users age 13 and up
• Must be able to report embed destination and have control over where games are distributed

Apply for AdSense for Games Beta Publisher

To apply for Google Adsense for Games, simply make sure you meet the above requirements and then submit an online application. You can also find more information on Google games Ad site.

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If you are heavy desktop email client user (e.g. Outlook or Thunderbird), you must love the convince of the built email function in many windows applications like Microsoft Word, Windows Explorer, etc to attach files with ease. Sadly this functions doesn’t work for web-based email clients like Gmail. (Which I use as my Primary Email Client). Even though you make Gmail as your default email client inside your browser (e.g. Firefox), your Windows desktop applications still considers your desktop email clients (e.g. Outlook) as the default.

But recently I stumbled upon this cool Windows Application for Gmail called - gAttach which solves this problem!

What is gAttach?

gAttach is a tiny Windows application that lets you email using Gmail with or without attachments from almost any Windows application. Below are a list of gAttach features:

• gAttach Handles email - mailto links from all browsers and not just Firefox
• gAttach can send email from any Windows application via Gmail
• It works like a charm with Google Apps
• It uses HTTPS for added security
• gAttach can remember your Gmail username/password for convenience or you can just login yourself anytime
• Choose to launch Gmail after creating a draft message
• Availablity of both basic HTML version and Rich Text version
• Option Load Gmail when you click on an email link
• You can setup proxy server details inside gAttach
• Absolutely Free for personal use

Once you have installed gAttach, you can simply use the Send to ‘Mail recipient’ function in your Windows Explorer right-click menu to attach files. Just keep in mind that Gmail current only allows 20MB of attachment.

Let me know if you run into any problem with gAttach via the comments.

It looks like Microsoft just got lucky, as Facebook has got into a partnership with them to add Microsoft’s Live Search inside Facebook’s Friend Search.

Now Facebook users in the U.S. have the option to “Search Facebook” or “Search the Web.” In addition, Microsoft adCenter is delivering search ads alongside those results.

Microsoft Live Team has also launched a Facebook Page for their product. Check it out and become a fan (If you are a Microsoft Lover )

As TechCrunch reports, AOL-Yahoo Merger can take place as early as this month!

AOL’s Parent company Time Warner definitely wants this deal to go all the way but it still isn’t very clear whether AOL’s assets will fix any of Yahoo’s current problems.

The deal structure that is currently being discussed is Yahoo’s acquisition of AOL (content, services and advertising), minus their subscription dial up business. That plus a couple of billion dollars in cash from Time Warner gets them approximately a third of the combined entity. Time Warner’s AOL headache is gone, and they have a stake in the world’s most valuable chess piece in the Google/Microsoft search and advertising war.

Points favoring this Deal:

• Both the companies believe Yahoo’s advertising platform would monetize AOL assets far beyond what they’re generating today (a little over $2.4 billion annually).
• Yahoo & AOL has a combined dominance in e-mail market would be substantial (they’d have a combined market share of 48% wordwide according to Comscore, where microsoft in the 2nd position with 42% market share)
• In Instant messaging (Yahoo-AOL has 39% worldwide combined market share, compared to 55% for Microsoft).

But in reality, this might turn into a problem if Microsoft then comes in and buys the combined entity. (Which might actually happen!!~). Will update you if anything actually happens…so stay tuned.

Have you ever came across a song on Youtube and wanted to buy it? (Just like how you can in Myspace …) Well YouTube is actually counting on it! YouTube, which is now the world’s most popular online video blogging and sharing community, will start to sell music and video games via their website to grow revenue from its massive audience and eventually hope to justify the massive amount of money ($1.65 billion) they spent to acquire YouTube back in 2006.

The “click to buy” buttons has already started to appear in the U.S. today and it simply connect viewers to the product page on Amazon.com or Apple’s iTunes.

As a start, YouTube initially will receive a commission for each sale of songs from two major labels, EMI Music and Universal Music Group, and video games from Electronic Arts. But I think eventually YouTube will expand its horizon by promoting sales of other products such as movies, television shows and concert tickets.

Google usually does not disclose YouTube’s financials, but analysts at Piper Jaffray Research estimated that YouTube would earn about $200 million in revenue in 2009, compared with estimates of around $27 billion for Google.

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