Google does no evil, except when there's lots of money involved
One of Google's biggest goals seems to have little to do with dollars and cents. It's a simple one: 'do no evil' and it has been widely promoted for the simple fact that few billion-dollar corporations set such a goal.
Obviously, aiming to do no evil and actually doing no evil are two different things and Google has been criticized over a number of issues.
Q&A: Steve Gardam on the National Museums Online Learning Project
Nine of the UK's biggest museums have recently launched an online project which aims to make greater use of their websites, as well as providing educational and social resources for students and the general public.
The £1.5m government funded project also involves the British Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, National Portrait Gallery, the Tate, Natural History Museum, the Wallace Collection, Royal Armouries, Sir John Soane's Museum and Imperial War Museum.
Webquests is an online educational tool for students and teachers which pulls together content from the various museums to create projects and teach research skills, while Creative Spaces is a social application that enables users to search across the museums' content and create groups around their interests.
Google bows behavioral targeting as a two-way street
They're calling it "interest-based targeting" rather than behavioral, but Google's finally allowing advertisers to target users based on what they've been surfing on the Web. With a twist. The company is handing over both tools and power to consumers who can find out why they're being served the ads they see, and also opt-out of the targeting by segment (if not entirely).
The program's still in beta (and beta at Google can last a long, long time). But once publishers get on board, consumers will have the option of viewing the categories they've been placed in: expectant mother, say, or travel. While they have the option of opting out of the program entirely, they can also opt out on a bucket-by-bucket basis, which may provide incentive for them to stick with the overall program.
UK public sector websites have room for improvement
Paying council tax can hardly ever be a pleasant experience. Are UK council websites doing their part to make this process as smooth as possible?
In order to find out, Realeyes ran a test with 54 tax-payers, asking them to pay their council tax online on 6 different council sites. All participants were eye-tracked to gain objective measures about the user experience during the tax payment process. The study identified both good and poor design elements, wide ranging performance differences between councils and 'banner blindness' on some navigational items.
David Beats Goliath - Google slapped down in small claims court
Lowly AdSense publisher Aaron Greenspan had his day in court with Google...and won. Goliath was slapped with a $721 judgement, plus an extra $40 in court fees.
Almost exactly a year ago, Mr. Greenspan added his site, Think Computer Corporation to the AdSense roster of publishers. Nine months later his account was cancelled and the $721 he was owed by Google was never paid.
Google never gave Greenspan a reason for the cancellation, and claimed it didn't have to. According to the AdSense T&Cs, as well as the Google paralegal who represented the search behemouth in Santa Clara county small claims curt in Pala Alto, "Google can terminate your account for any reason."
Tell it to the judge - well, actually, that's what Google did. His response: "But you couldn't terminate my account because of the color of my eyes, could you? I have brown eyes. You couldn't terminate my account because of that."
FCC nominee holds key to net neutrality
He's bright, well-connected, has a lot of money to spend and the political capital do it. Meet the new nominee for FCC chairman Julius Genachowski. While his confirmation is virtually a lock, his stance on "net neutrality" has content providers on edge.
Genachowski comes from a solid Internet background. He worked in several different positions at IAC, co-founded technology investment firm Rock Creek Ventures and was part of the team at LaunchBox Digital.
Obama picks the devil we know for FTC
Reading the blogosphere today it would be reasonable to think that Barack Obama has nominated Satan to lead the Federal Trade Commission. His name is actually Jon Leibowitz and all the talk about a "day of reckoning" for the online ad business will not be at the top of his agenda.
Leibowitz is a known anti-piracy advocate (good) and an aggressive proponent of regulating online advertising (maybe not so good). He made a speech on Feb. 12 while he was deeply into his job as one of the FTC commissioners and investigating behavioral targeting. In that speech he used the phrase "day of reckoning" about online ad regulation and although it certainly has a promise of biblical wrath, he will not smite this business.
Q&A: Greg Jackson on promoting Labour online
Greg Jackson is Executive director and responsible for online strategy for Tangent PLC, whose recent clients have included Borders and the Labour Party.
Tangent has recently been working with the Labour Party, revamping its website, and developing LabourList, a blog / social media site, as well as promoting the party via sites like Facebook and Twitter.
I have been talking to Greg about Labour's use of social media, as well as the company's work launching Borders' first e-commerce site in the UK...
President Obama ditches YouTube embedding
As we've discussed here at Econsultancy before, United States President Barack Obama loves social media. He used it with remarkable success during his campaign and he's using it as president.
But the popular website he used to serve his weekly video address on WhiteHouse.gov has unceremoniously been ditched.
Ads on Google News
It's the last thing newspapers need. You can almost hear the gnashing of teeth, the hair-pulling, and the calls in to legal.
Not now! Not Google!
But it's true - Google's longstanding policy of no advertising on the Google News site is becoming less policy than loose guideline. As John Battelle so aptly puts it, "sh*tstorm to follow."
Google is now running contextual ads against Google News search results in the United States. Search for "Barack Obama" right about now and you'll see ads for a Barack Obama watch, and a Barack Obama wall plaque. Search "recession" and you get pretty much what you'd expect -- work-at-homes schemes and continuing education programs.
Social media: the best and worst of 2009
Email marketing: six steps to improving customer engagement in 2010
Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
