I feel like I’ve been neglecting this blog lately - thanks for sticking around - I’ll try to catch up and start posting more regularly (hopefully better stuff, too).

Google just announced the launch of Ad Manager, leveraging their previous acquisition of Double Click. It’s kind of a big deal and it will only further strengthen Google’s grip on the internet ad market. That’s unless of course people eventually become weary of Google’s “house of candies” (think Hansel and Gretel), but I doubt that.

There’s some talk of Google reaching 90% market share (Skrenta, Graywolf , JC) and that’s not an unlikely scenario (think that’s crazy? gas is $4.00, gold is $1,000 / ounce. We live in crazy times.) Now that Ask has thrown in the towel and Yahoo and MSN are heading toward an awkward bureaucratic marriage, there’s little to stop Google.

» Continue reading “Google Ads Unstoppable”

If you run a Wordpress blog, you know how tedious it is to find and add images to your posts. You can either buy stock photos from sites like istockphoto or you can search Flickr Creative Commons. If you go with Creative Commons, you still have to find the right photo, download it, upload it to your site, add the right attribution links, etc. - it’s fairly time consuming.

Enter Photo Dropper.

» Continue reading “Add Photos to Your Blog with Photo Dropper”

I just received an email from Microsoft’s affiliate program with the following:

adCenter Affiliate Program to Close February 29, 2008

Thank you for your participation in the adCenter Affiliate program. Unfortunately, the adCenter offer will no longer be available after February 29th, 2008.

» Continue reading “Microsoft Adcenter Affiliate Program Shuts Down”

In October of 2007 I decided to test Facebook Ads to see if the hype was substantiated. The prospect of being able to advertise to a large group of people by leveraging specific social profile data seemed like a gold mine.

Based on my experiences in the past few months I can say that Google has nothing to worry about. Facebook Ads are not even close to being an Adwords killer.

Let me take you through an example comparing Facebook Ads and Google Adwords for something that was inspired by Sugarrae - a microsite advertising Stephen Colbert’s new book I Am America and So Can You.

» Continue reading “Facebook Ads Don’t Work. Here’s Proof”

I’ve been sitting on this post for a while now, but since Amazon just bought Audible, I figured it was a good time to bring up my newfound love for audio books.

For years I’ve been meaning to read more books. Someone will mention a really great book and I put it on my imaginary wish list, but I never end up buying it. Worse yet, I’ll find myself at a bookstore and buy a book, which makes me feel good about myself but a year later the book is still sitting on the shelf (or has a bookmark through about a fifth of it).

» Continue reading “Hate Reading? Get Audio Books”