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.

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.

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.

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

Yahoo! Web Analytics - First time visitors vs. Returning

Yahoo! Web Analytics - Custom Report Wizard

Some Features of Yahoo Web Analytics

• Customizable dashboard with the metrics, benchmarks and gauges that meet your specific needs and preferences.
• Allows you to quickly set goals, track progress and identify danger points.
• Each person and role within your company can have their own dashboard.
• Allows you to tailor your reports with the Custom Report Wizard.
• Allows you to measure cost-per-click (CPC), cost-per-impression (CPM), cost-per-acquisition (CPA) and return-on-investment (ROI)-and adjust your budget if necessary.
• You can find out how visitors react to different campaign landing pages, page layouts, calls to action, and more - then optimize your pages and offers.
• Allows you to advantage of Advanced Live Cost Analysis that collects data from Yahoo!, Google and MSN, and integrates it with the revenue earned on your website
• Ability to measure the ROI of your paid search campaigns, keyword by keyword.
• Track the products - and product combinations - your customers purchase, add to their carts, and preview.
• Track visitor behavior through multi-step processes, like purchases or form submissions, and troubleshoot popular paths to improve task completions.
• You can learn how your website performance develops from month to month.
• Helps you to identify popular paths through your site - viewing user paths as branched, hierarchical maps.
• Ability to monitor events that affect your website, such as site changes, holidays or system outages.

See the complete list of Yahoo Web Analytics Features

My Two Cents

I must say that Yahoo Analytics is looking very promising with all the new features. I’m really looking forward in trying it out myself. So what do you think of Yahoo Analytics do you think it can beat Google Analytics? Reply in comments…

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.

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.

What others are saying about Google Adsense for Games:

TechMeme: http://www.techmeme.com/081008/p9#a081008p9

Game On! Google Adsense for Online Gaming: ReadWriteWeb

Advertise in Games with Google Adsense: Web Analytics World

Google Entered the Game Advertising Space: The Inquisitr

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.

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 )

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.

Until now, YouTube has mainly focused upon advertising sales as its main source of income. It is still experimenting with a range of different formats to take full advantage of the massive popularity of the site, which has nearly 13 hours of video uploaded every minute. (reports Reuters)

YouTube had 330 million visitors in August 2008,the site served up about 5 billion videos in the United States, according to the latest data from comScore Inc.

“There’ll be lots of different solutions for lots of different problems,” Shishir Mehrotra, YouTube director of product management, said in an interview. “We’ve tested a lot of things already, and we’re going to be testing more in the future. Some will work, some won’t.

Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt has pledged to investors that YouTube will make money once it hits on the right formula. Last month he said Google was being patient. “We are where we should be,” he said.

My Two Cents

Well certainly its a very good move. I am surprised why Google hasn’t thought of this before! Youtube has became a platform for many young upcoming artists/performers who has become ‘famous’ after 1-2 years of heavy Vblogging in YouTube. And since they are famous now they are getting deals with big record companies, but all these are not really making Google any money.

I think they should also limit how YouTube can be used in a corporate level. For instance, if a big corporation like Apple uses Youtube for Promotion they should be charged. Because I think its just not fair at the moment for Google.