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Category Archives: Google

Google out-done

How come, when I type “search” into Google, the number 1 result is this?

Google establishes dominance in web tracking

According to this research Google now has an enormously dominant position in the tracking of which websites we visit every day. They have their Google Analytics tags on millions of websites, including 92 of the top 100. This is important, because it positions them to do extremely targetted advertising when their ad products are used. [...]

Google signs deal with Twitter… still no money for Twitter

According to this article at Adage, marketers can now create ad units for Google Adsense that syndicate their last 5 tweats, with the call to action to follow them on Twitter, rather than to visit their website.  The commitment for a consumer in following someone extra on Twitter is quite low, so this might lead [...]

Google is replacing my desktop

I have a fairly complicated personal IT set-up. We have a Mac at home, I use Vista on my “work” computer, and I carry my Asus eee (running Ubuntu in its eeexubuntu flavour) practically wherever I go. Gradually, little by little, Google is stitching it all together for me, creating a little ecosystem of applications [...]

Google print ads are using QR codes

Google have started selling print ads in the US, which is an interesting venture in its own right, but the most interesting thing in this example is the extent to which they’re using the ads to drive potential customers online.

Aside from the URLs in the ad, we’re also encouraged to search Google for specific search [...]

It must be Google-day

No sooner did I discover that Google allow one to target ads on race & ethnicity (as do MySpace, it seems) than I read that they’re introducing contextual advertising for mobile. Aside from the obvious discussion about whether display advertising works on mobile yet (I don’t think so) it was interesting to see the list [...]

Is it just me, or does this seem a bit wrong?

I was just reading through the Google Adwords help when I came across this screengrab from their targetting application. It seems that you can target Google ads by racial or ethnic background.
I’m very interested in whether other people are surprised by this information. I’ve never heard of advertising being targetted like this, as explicitly as [...]