Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Googland

Googland

[G] Harvard University And A Geo Analytics App

Posted: 19 Oct 2010 02:14 AM PDT

Google Analytics Blog: Harvard University And A Geo Analytics App

Back in Web Analytics TV episode 8, Cesar Brea asked if there was a way to use Advanced Segments to get performance metrics for a list of target cities. As Cesar Brea pointed out in the post comments, because Google Analytics only returns city names (e.g. "Paris"), you need to request both the city and region names to disambiguate between cities with the same name (e.g. "Paris, Texas" vs. "Paris, California" vs. "Paris, France").

The Advanced Segment builder in Google Analytics allow you to create expressions only in the following form:

(City A OR City B) AND (Region X OR Region Y)

But what Cesar really needed was to build an Advanced Segment of the form:

(City A AND Region X) OR (City B AND Region Y)

One option is to create individual segments through the interface, export to CSV then open all the CSV files, and merge the data into a single file. Lots of work. The other option is more elegant and powerful: automate the task with the API.

An Elegant Solution
So Cesar did exactly that and partnered with Newcircle Consulting to built the free Target Towns Google Analytics API solution. With Target Towns, you simply authorize the tool to access your Google Analytics account. You upload a list of regions and cities, and the tool runs a bunch of API requests for you to get performance data for your top target towns. Simple!


Business Impact
What's really interesting is how analysts are using this tool to get better insight into the geo-breakdown of their marketing campaigns.

One geo-information user is Perry Hewitt, Director of Digital Communications and Communications Services at Harvard University. One of Perry's goals is to increase non-branded search referrals to Harvard's website. Specifically when senior university leaders and faculty speak at events, Perry can start to measure which new keywords people use to learn more about the topics and speakers.

Perry says, "At Harvard University, analytics have become an essential part of our digital communications strategy. Services like the Target Towns report help us understand what resonates where -- and are an interesting new complement to the Google Analytics capabilities we already use."

We're thrilled to see developers overcoming challenges and solving business problems with the API. If you have done some exciting work with the Google Analytics platform, lets us know in the comments. We love to hear your stories.

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics API Team
URL: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2010/10/harvard-university-and-geo-analytics.html

[G] ‘Tis the Season for Placement Targeting: Optimize Your Ad Units

Posted: 19 Oct 2010 01:03 AM PDT

Inside AdSense: 'Tis the Season for Placement Targeting: Optimize Your Ad Units


Last week, we discussed DoubleClick Ad Planner, a media planning tool to help you improve your placement targeting. Now that you've made your website visible to advertisers with Ad Planner and ad placements, we want to help you ensure that your ad units are also visible to advertisers and ready to be targeted. Here's how to take advantage of advertiser spend with your ad units:

1. Implement your ad units above the fold and near your content, where users are already engaging with your site. "Above the fold" refers to the area on a page that a user can see without scrolling down.

2. Where possible, use top-performing ad sizes like the medium rectangle (300x250), large rectangle (336x280), leaderboard (728x90), and wide skyscraper (160x600).

3. Enable your ad units to show text and image ads, so that all relevant, available ad inventory is competing to appear on your site. Many advertiser campaigns are made up of image ads, so we highly recommend activating this feature to take full advantage.

Once you've made the changes, not only will your ad placements be ready for this holiday season, but they'll also be targetable by advertisers in future ad campaigns.

To learn more about these topics, check out our YouTube videos on image ads and high performing ad units, or read more in our Help Center.

Check back next week for more 'Tis the Season for Placement Targeting tips!

Posted by Charise Wong - Inside AdSense team
URL: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2010/10/tis-season-for-placement-targeting_18.html

[G] Q3’10 spam & virus trends from Postini

Posted: 19 Oct 2010 12:16 AM PDT

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Q3'10 spam & virus trends from Postini

Editor's note: The spam data cited in this post is drawn from the network of Google email security and archiving services, powered by Postini, that process more than 3 billion email messages per day. More than 50,000 businesses and 22 million users use Google Postini Services to protect themselves from a range of email and web-borne threats.

Q3'10 spam and virus trends confirm that spammers are still hard at work distributing malicious content in new and creative ways. August saw a massive 241% increase in virus volume over July, representing the greatest recorded surge in viral activity since 2008. Overall, payload virus volume increased 42% over Q2'10 and 10% over Q3'09, while spam levels decreased 16% and 24% over the same periods, respectively. The spike in malware attacks during August suggests that we might see higher levels of spam moving forward into Q4 as botnet "seeds" planted during this time begin to take action.

By the numbers
Overall, spam volume stayed relatively constant throughout Q3, with a slight dip in August and September. In comparison to the same time in 2009, spam levels are down 24%. This may be attributed to some recent botnet takedowns, such as the partial Pushdo shut down, or point to a generally slower summer season for spam.


However, payload virus levels shot up to record-high levels in August. In comparison to August of 2009, we saw a 111% percent increase in volume overall. What is more remarkable, though, is that this August saw the highest registered number of viruses blocked in a single day: 188 million. This virus surge is even more pronounced than last October's, when Mega-D, a top-ten botnet, infected over 250,000 computers worldwide before being shut down by a carefully orchestrated campaign by security professionals. This recent increase in viral activity could indicate a "gearing up" as spammers attempt to construct botnets in time for the holiday season and increased consumer spending. With the commercialization of spam in 2006, we've often seen a correlation between spam, malware campaigns, and seasonal consumer patterns.

The actual content of this virus wave consisted mainly of traditional spoofing of major brands, along with a new tactic involving recycling previously sent emails taken from the hard drives of infected computers. This new method is more difficult to detect as the wording and content is familiar to the recipient. As always, be on the lookout for suspicious email language and exercise extreme caution when clicking on links. Features in Gmail such as authentication icons can go a long way in protecting your computer, but it's important to be aware and mindful of these new viral activities when managing your inbox.


An interesting and unusual trend has been in the sizes of the individual viruses being transmitted. Particularly, we've seen some irregularly sharp peaks in size throughout September, following the surge in total numbers during August. This could be due in part to increased use of .zip and .html attachments containing malicious JavaScripts. Overall, virus traffic continues to be strong and users need to be on high alert when handling suspicious messages. Postini Services customers are strongly encouraged to enable the Early Detection Filtering functionality in order to ensure maximum protection from zero day virus threats.


Shortened URLs can mask suspicious links
This quarter we detected an increased volume of emails containing shortened URLs linking to suspicious websites. Spammers are increasingly making use of services that shorten URLs as a way of masking the destination website to the user. With the widespread proliferation of shortened URLs, particularly among blogging sites and social networks, it has become increasingly important to remain vigilant and skeptical when evaluating URLs. A shortened URL sent from a "friend" might seem innocuous enough, but, as always, links and emails sent from unknown senders should be scrutinized before further action is taken.

Beware false financial transaction messages
We continue to see false notifications claiming to be sent by various financial authorities. Spammers will frequently send their targets a simple yet authoritative message alerting them of a rejected or unauthorized transaction, then provide a false link directing them to a website. The format of these emails is often simple and innocuous, making it difficult to ascertain the malicious content from a quick glance.

Continued use of NDRs
Non-Delivery Report/Receipt (NDR) are legitimate messages used to alert users that a sent email has not been delivered correctly. Back in July we noticed an upswing in false NDRs bearing malicious JavaScript. As a hybrid between virus and spam messages, these messages were in reality obfuscated JavaScript attacks, directing users to a particular website or initiating an unexpected download. The user is often unaware of the attacks, making these messages particularly dangerous and difficult to detect. However, Google's vast network and patented filtering technology was able to detect these messages early on and respond quickly. The Postini-Anti-Spam-Engine (PASE) was immediately updated in response and has been protecting users throughout Q3 from the continued use of false NDRs.

Fake celebrity gossip
Although August was a slower month in terms of overall spam volume, we saw a substantial spike in messages claiming to break the news of untimely and sudden deaths of various high-profile celebrities. The messages referenced a zip file that in turn contained a virus. These messages, similar to various classic phishing scams involving "friends" in need, attempt to pique a user's interest with an alarming subject line and content. This has proven to be a successful tactic – hence its continued popularity – as users will often open an email instinctively in response to a particularly emotional or compelling subject line. In response to these attacks, our engineers have developed and released filters designed to combat new spam waves.

Stay safe with a cloud-based security solution
Postini's hosted email security solutions provide comprehensive spam and virus filtering in the cloud – before they reach the network level. Google's vast network filters billions of messages a day from all over the globe, creating a "network effect" that allows Google to identify emerging threats and respond early.

For more information on how Google Postini Services can help your organization remain safe, compliant, and spam-free, please visit www.google.com/postini.

Posted by Adrian Soghoian and Adam Hollman, Google Postini Services Team
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/10/q310-spam-virus-trends-from-postini.html

[G] The new Google Search Appliance - a bridge to the cloud

Posted: 19 Oct 2010 12:16 AM PDT

Official Google Enterprise Blog: The new Google Search Appliance - a bridge to the cloud

In the last year, businesses have started using cloud-based applications from Google and other technology providers at an accelerated rate. While many organizations still have information that resides in on-premise systems, more and more important business information today is living in the cloud, in collaborative tools like Google Apps—now used by more than 3 million businesses — and services like Twitter. Starting today, Cloud Connect for the Google Search Appliance lets workers search across both on-premise and cloud-based content from a single search box, delivering more comprehensive results and improving productivity. We've also added a few other handy features that make it easier to collaborate and find information faster.

Cloud Connect for the Google Search Appliance
Cloud Connect displays relevant, personalized results from Google Docs and Google Sites alongside results from more traditional repositories, like file shares and content management systems. Easier access to collaborative documents, spreadsheets, presentations and sites with Cloud Connect speeds up how quickly coworkers can complete projects. Cloud Connect also lets users search content from Twitter, as well as blogs and industry websites via Google Site Search.

For organizations such as Delta Hotels and Avago that have already deployed both Google Apps and the Google Search Appliance, the new Cloud Connect feature brings "universal search" to another level, with more accessible business systems and content now spanning from cloud to ground.

People Search
This new version also helps foster faster collaboration between employees with the addition of People Search, which makes it easy to find experts and contact coworkers who are related to a search query, right from the search results page. For example, a search for "field marketing" would return a list of field marketing team members alongside other relevant content. Organizations can index personnel information like department, interests, expertise and location, and there's an LDAP connector to help get People Search up and running quickly.

Dynamic Navigation and more
Our new Dynamic Navigation feature allows users to drill down into search results based on search modifiers for their queries, and Active-Active Mirroring improves reliability by spreading search traffic across multiple boxes. Dynamic Navigation was a top user request and we're glad to be able to add it. In addition, the Search Appliance now supports Microsoft Sharepoint 2010 content out of the box without the need for additional connectors.

As you move your business to the cloud, the Google Search Appliance's new features can be an important bridge between on-premise and cloud-based systems, while enhancing employee collaboration. You can learn more about this latest release at www.google.com/gsa.

Posted by Rajat Mukherjee, Group Product Manager, Enterprise Search
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/10/new-google-search-appliance-bridge-to.html

[G] Join us for a live webcast with Baird & Warner to learn why they chose Google Apps for mobility and real time communication

Posted: 19 Oct 2010 12:16 AM PDT

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Join us for a live webcast with Baird & Warner to learn why they chose Google Apps for mobility and real time communication

Join us tomorrow for a live webcast with Mark Steward, IT Director at Baird & Warner, the oldest residential real estate brokerage in the nation. With 26 branch offices servicing more than 300 communities throughout northeastern Illinois, Baird & Warner provides a full range of services for consumers including residential sales, financial services, title services and home services.

Earlier this year Baird & Warner began looking at improving their messaging system to help their 1,600 mobile and independent agents stay connected and access information in real time. They decided to use Google Apps because of how much money it saved them over Microsoft Exchange and its ability to scale as they company grew.

Mark says that, "improved mobile access to email is a big win for us. From a cost perspective, with Google Apps there is nothing additional that we need to do, buy or maintain, to enable mobile devices. It just works straight out of the box on virtually any mobile device that our employees care to use.

Beyond better mobile email access, faster performance and infrastructure cost savings, we're also pretty happy about not having to spend any time maintaining and upgrading our messaging systems. What's equally important, however, is that our employees like using Google Apps. Our Realtors® drive our business, and we need to give them the tools that allow them to be more productive on behalf of their clients."

Join us for a live webcast with Mark Steward, CIO of Baird & Warner tomorrow, October 19, 2010 12:00 p.m. EDT / 9:00 a.m. PDT / 6:00 p.m. GMT. Register now.



Posted by Ashley Chandler, Google Apps team
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/10/join-us-for-live-webcast-with-baird.html

[G] More transparency and control over location

Posted: 18 Oct 2010 11:41 PM PDT

Google Public Policy Blog: More transparency and control over location

Posted By Mack Lu, Associate Product Manager
(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog)

We've always focused on offering people the most relevant results. Location is one important factor we've used for many years to customize the information that you find. For example, if you're searching for great restaurants, you probably want to find ones near you, so we use location information to show you places nearby.

Today we're moving your location setting to the left-hand panel of the results page to make it easier for you to see and control your preferences. With this new display you're still getting the same locally relevant results as before, but now it's much easier for you to see your location setting and make changes to it.

Your location setting is now always visible on the left side of the search results page.


We do our best to automatically detect the most useful location, but we don't always get it right—so in some cases you'll want to change the setting. At other times, you may want to change your location to explore information relevant to another area. For example, let's say you're at work in Mountain View and you're making plans to see a movie in San Francisco (a common occurrence here at Google). You can change your location to "San Francisco" and search for [showtimes] to find movie listings in San Francisco or search for [restaurants] to find places to eat before the show. Similarly, if you're planning a trip to Hawaii, you can change the location to "Honolulu" and start exploring the [weather], [hotels] and of course the [beaches]. The location you set can be as specific as a particular zip code or as general as an entire country, but more specific settings generally lead to better search results.

Click "Change location" to specify your location preference.


You used to be able to see and control your location settings, but it was a little clunky. To see your settings, you could click "View customizations" on the results page and to modify them you could click "Change location" next to a variety of search results, such as maps and movie listings. As time has gone by, more and more locally relevant information has come online, whether it's local business listings or a blog from your hometown. Meanwhile, Google has become much better at presenting this locally relevant content—so it felt like the right time to make this setting easier to find.

The new interface is rolling out now and will be available in more than 40 languages soon. We're not changing anything about how we use location information to improve search, so it doesn't change our existing privacy policies. To learn more about our new interface and how we use location in search, check out our help center.
URL: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/10/more-transparency-and-control-over.html

[G] Google at the Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP '10)

Posted: 18 Oct 2010 11:18 PM PDT

Official Google Research Blog: Google at the Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP '10)

Posted by Slav Petrov, Research Scientist

The Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP '10) was recently held at the MIT Stata Center in Massachusetts. Natural Language Processing is at the core of many of the things that we do here at Google. Googlers have therefore been traditionally part of this research community, participating as program committee members, paper authors and attendees.

At this year's EMNLP conference Google Fellow, Amit Singhal gave an invited keynote talk on "Challenges in running a commercial search engine" where he highlighted some of the exciting opportunities, as well as challenges, that Google is currently facing. Furthermore, Terry Koo (who recently joined Google), David Sontag (former Google PhD Fellowship recipient) and their collaborators from MIT received the Fred Jelinek Best Paper Award for their innovative work on syntactic parsing with the title "Dual Decomposition for Parsing with Non-Projective Head Automata".

Here is a complete list of the papers presented by Googlers at the conference:
URL: http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2010/10/google-at-conference-on-empirical.html

[G] More transparency and control over location

Posted: 18 Oct 2010 09:52 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: More transparency and control over location

We've always focused on offering people the most relevant results. Location is one important factor we've used for many years to customize the information that you find. For example, if you're searching for great restaurants, you probably want to find ones near you, so we use location information to show you places nearby.

Today we're moving your location setting to the left-hand panel of the results page to make it easier for you to see and control your preferences. With this new display you're still getting the same locally relevant results as before, but now it's much easier for you to see your location setting and make changes to it.

Your location setting is now always visible on the left side of the search results page.

We do our best to automatically detect the most useful location, but we don't always get it right—so in some cases you'll want to change the setting. At other times, you may want to change your location to explore information relevant to another area. For example, let's say you're at work in Mountain View and you're making plans to see a movie in San Francisco (a common occurrence here at Google). You can change your location to "San Francisco" and search for [showtimes] to find movie listings in San Francisco or search for [restaurants] to find places to eat before the show. Similarly, if you're planning a trip to Hawaii, you can change the location to "Honolulu" and start exploring the [weather], [hotels] and of course the [beaches]. The location you set can be as specific as a particular zip code or as general as an entire country, but more specific settings generally lead to better search results.

Click "Change location" to specify your location preference.

You used to be able to see and control your location settings, but it was a little clunky. To see your settings, you could click "View customizations" on the results page and to modify them you could click "Change location" next to a variety of search results, such as maps and movie listings. As time has gone by, more and more locally relevant information has come online, whether it's local business listings or a blog from your hometown. Meanwhile, Google has become much better at presenting this locally relevant content—so it felt like the right time to make this setting easier to find.

The new interface is rolling out now and will be available in more than 40 languages soon. We're not changing anything about how we use location information to improve search, so it doesn't change our existing privacy policies. To learn more about our new interface and how we use location in search, check out our help center.

Posted by Mack Lu, Associate Product Manager
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/more-transparency-and-control-over.html

[G] The new Google Search Appliance—a bridge to the cloud

Posted: 18 Oct 2010 09:52 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: The new Google Search Appliance—a bridge to the cloud

(Cross-posted from the Enterprise Blog)

In the last year, businesses have started using cloud-based applications from Google and other technology providers at an accelerated rate. While many organizations still have information that resides in on-premise systems, more and more important business information today is living in the cloud, in collaborative tools like Google Apps—now used by more than 3 million businesses—and services like Twitter. Starting today, Cloud Connect for the Google Search Appliance lets workers search across both on-premise and cloud-based content from a single search box, delivering more comprehensive results and improving productivity. We've also added a few other handy features that make it easier to collaborate and find information faster.

Cloud Connect for the Google Search Appliance
Cloud Connect displays relevant, personalized results from Google Docs and Google Sites alongside results from more traditional repositories, like file shares and content management systems. Easier access to collaborative documents, spreadsheets, presentations and sites with Cloud Connect speeds up how quickly coworkers can complete projects. Cloud Connect also lets users search content from Twitter, as well as blogs and industry websites via Google Site Search.

For organizations such as Delta Hotels and Avago that have already deployed both Google Apps and the Google Search Appliance, the Cloud Connect feature brings "universal search" to a new level, with more accessible business systems and content now spanning from cloud to ground.


People Search
This new version also helps foster faster collaboration between employees with the addition of People Search, which makes it easy to find experts and contact coworkers who are related to a search query, right from the search results page. For example, a search for "field marketing" would return a list of field marketing team members alongside other relevant content. Organizations can index personnel information like department, interests, expertise and location, and there's an LDAP connector to help get People Search up and running quickly.

Dynamic Navigation and more
Our new Dynamic Navigation feature allows users to drill down into search results based on search modifiers for their queries, and Active-Active Mirroring improves reliability by spreading search traffic across multiple boxes. Dynamic Navigation was a top user request and we're glad to be able to add it. In addition, the Search Appliance now supports Microsoft Sharepoint 2010 content without the need for additional connectors.

As you move your business to the cloud, the Google Search Appliance's new features can be an important bridge between on-premise and cloud-based systems, while enhancing employee collaboration. You can learn more about this latest release at www.google.com/gsa.

Posted by Rajat Mukherjee, Group Product Manager, Enterprise Search
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/new-google-search-appliancea-bridge-to.html

[G] Learn about using Remarketing in a new course in the AdWords Online Classroom

Posted: 18 Oct 2010 09:26 PM PDT

Inside AdWords: Learn about using Remarketing in a new course in the AdWords Online Classroom

This Wednesday, October 20th, we'll be hosting a live online course on remarketing. This interactive presentation will be delivered by an Online Media Specialist and will take approximately one hour, including time for Q&A.

Remarketing is a simple way to connect with your website visitors. After driving traffic to your site with search ads, you can then remarket to those people who reach your site by showing them tailored ads as they browse through sites on the Google Display Network.

During this session we'll take you through the benefits of using remarketing and how to set it up in your account. If you advertise with AdWords then we encourage you to attend.

If you're interested, be sure to sign up now!

Posted by Gordon Zhu, Inside AdWords crew
URL: http://adwords.blogspot.com/2010/10/learn-about-using-remarketing-in-new.html

[G] YouTube Leanback officially launches -- on Google TV

Posted: 18 Oct 2010 08:50 PM PDT

YouTube Blog: YouTube Leanback officially launches -- on Google TV

Back in July, we announced the launch of YouTube Leanback in beta. If you didn't get a chance to check it out, Leanback is a new way to experience YouTube on a big screen. We named it "Leanback" so you could do just that: kick back and, with as little effort as possible, enjoy hours upon hours of YouTube videos. When you go to www.youtube.com/leanback, you'll note that videos start playing immediately, are always presented in full screen and HD (when available), and you can easily browse using just the arrow keys on your keyboard.

Today, YouTube Leanback moves forward into a new role at the center of the YouTube experience on Google TV, which you'll start seeing in U.S. stores this week. When you view Leanback on Google TV (or online), videos based on your subscriptions and viewing history will begin playing immediately. If those don't pique your interest, Leanback offers 10 channels, updated daily, featuring popular and interesting videos in genres like Comedy, Entertainment, News, Science & Technology, How To & Style, and more. You can also watch full-length movies and TV shows rented from youtube.com in the highest quality.

Learn more about YouTube Leanback or visit www.youtube.com/leanback to try it out.

Camille Hearst, Product Marketing Manager, recently watched the "Best of YouTube" channel at www.youtube.com/leanback.


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/8m-0xQQ_jO8/youtube-leanback-officially-launches-on.html

[G] Use your video-making skills to make sanitation sexy

Posted: 18 Oct 2010 03:38 PM PDT

YouTube Blog: Use your video-making skills to make sanitation sexy

Eyeglasses, the bicycle, the latex condom...What everyday products or services have changed the world as we know it and solved some of the world's biggest problems?



For the past month, this question has been posed through a website called Search for the Obvious. From the Internet to the ironing board, users from around the world have flocked to Search for the Obvious to add the products and services that are their ideal of elegant, problem-solving design. A panel of judges from media and design has been evaluating the contributions, and a few of their favorites have been featured on the site. Search for the Obvious is run by Acumen Fund, a nonprofit venture fund investing in entrepreneurial solutions to global poverty.



Today, Search for the Obvious launched a challenge that dares videographers, designers and creatives of all kinds to come up with the craftiest campaign to promote one of the judges' favorite picks: sewers. Succinctly put: "Sanitation is sexy: make it obvious" – through a video, advertisement, catchy tagline or other form of media, participants are being asked to demonstrate why sanitation is the most important issue currently facing the developing world. (For some inspiration on creative video campaigns, view this video for "The Girl Effect"). Submissions are due by Sunday, November 21, at 11:59 p.m. PT.



The winning video(s) will be featured on our homepage in early December. Winners will also be featured through major media sources, such as Design Observer, and will be recognized by Acumen Fund as champion marketers of the world's problems and most useful solutions.



So, do you have what it takes to search for the obvious? Challenge yourself and find out.



Taylor Ray, Business Development Fellow at Acumen Fund, recently watched "Baby Stucke behind couch!"


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/kNcxscuyvqQ/use-your-video-making-skills-to-make.html

[G] Introducing the DoubleClick Ad Planner Marketplace

Posted: 18 Oct 2010 01:52 PM PDT

DoubleClick Publisher Blog: Introducing the DoubleClick Ad Planner Marketplace

We know that as a publisher it can be challenging to get noticed by advertisers - let alone find and contact all the potential advertisers who may be trying to reach your site's demographic or content areas.

Today we're excited to announce the beta launch of the DoubleClick Ad Planner Marketplace, our solution to help connect buyers and sellers of online advertising.

The Ad Planner Marketplace simplifies the traditional ad buying process, enabling Ad Planner advertisers to view, and request to purchase, reserved ad space directly from publishers.

As a publisher, you can:
  • Market your available placements directly in Ad Planner, which attracts tens of thousands of media planners every day.
  • Review and accept (or reject) buying requests from multiple advertisers directly in your Ad Planner account.
  • Set up your placements quickly. Because it's integrated with DFP Small Business, Ad Planner automatically recognizes and imports your DFP placements.
  • Set the price of the inventory you've made available for sale.


The Ad Planner Marketplace is now available to English publishers with a DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) Small Business account operating in USD currency.

If you're a growing publisher and don't currently have a DFP Small Business account, DFP Small Business allows you to manage your directly sold ads, such as those from the Ad Planner Marketplace, as well as your AdSense and ad network inventory. Sign up for free today.

Then, in your DFP Small Business account, follow these instructions to expose your ad inventory to appear in Ad Planner and to promote your inventory to advertisers.


Posted by Stephen Kliff, DoubleClick Marketing
URL: http://doubleclickpublishers.blogspot.com/2010/10/introducing-doubleclick-ad-planner.html

[G] Watch country duo Sugarland LIVE from New York City!

Posted: 18 Oct 2010 11:16 AM PDT

YouTube Blog: Watch country duo Sugarland LIVE from New York City!

Tonight the award-winning country act Sugarland performs in Times Square, marking one of the final stops in their 2010 tour. The show will be live streamed at 9 p.m. (ET) at www.youtube.com/sugarlandvevo and will be directed by Kenny Ortega, whose notable work includes High School Musical, This Is It, and Dirty Dancing.

Lead singer Jennifer Nettles and guitarist/vocalist Kristian Bush extend a personal invitation to you:


Expect to hear all their platinum hits, as well as a sneak peek from new release The Incredible Machine which comes out later this week. Also keep an eye out for special guest appearances from Ronnie Dunn (of Brooks and Dunn) and country vocal quartet Little Big Town.

Sugarland spent some time with director Kenny Ortega this week in preparation for the live stream. The man who directed Michael Jackson (This Is It) also offered up some suggestions for Jennifer and Kristian's choreography:


This is the third installment of the "Unstaged" series brought to you by YouTube, American Express and Vevo. The online experience kicks off with a pre-show that includes a special interview during which the band answers questions that were tweeted earlier this week. At showtime, fans can also participate by picking from three camera angles (including a new "Front Row" cam) or by voting on what song the duo should play as an encore.

If you miss the stream this evening, tune in for highlights from the show on Sugarland's channel shortly thereafter.

Dana Vetter, Music Manager, Marketing Programs, recently watched "Stuck Like Glue"


URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/youtube/PKJx/~3/zznA027Uktc/watch-country-duo-sugarland-live-from.html

[G] Madvertisements

Posted: 18 Oct 2010 10:00 AM PDT

Inside Google Books: Madvertisements

Posted by Daniel Hirsch, Google Books Online Team

When we're not out scanning and subsequently trying to read all the world's books, some of us on the Google Books team actually like to watch television. So it is with some remorse that we watched Sunday's season finale of Mad Men, AMC's hit drama about a 1960s advertising agency--which, if you live in the US and you haven't already heard of it or had someone in your life gush about it, you really should get out more.

Besides providing ample display of period costumes and vices (smoking, boozing, adultery) the show is satisfying for its novel examination of the world of advertising. In depicting the creative process of the fictional advertising agency Sterling Cooper Draper Price, Mad Men argues that the catchphrases and images used to sell us beer and cereal reveal deeper truths about who we are as a culture.

For some Ad Analysis 101, we harnessed the power of Google Magazine Search to look at some actual ads from 1964, the initial setting for the current season of Mad Men. These cultural artifacts hint at an American society on the brink of historical social change.

Lucky Strike



On the show, Don Draper and company struggle to market Lucky Strike cigarettes to a public increasingly aware of the hazards of smoking cigarettes. In this 1964 ad for the brand, one can see the transition away from previous means of marketing cigarettes. For example, compare the 1964 ad to this 1955 from LIFE:


In 1955, smoking Lucky Strike is for lovers. In 1964, smoking Lucky Strikes is for the well-versed cigarette connoisseurs. The 1964 ad emphasizes taste above all else with the word underlined and repeated four times. Rather than a couple enjoying the romantic ritual of lighting up, this later campaign includes just the image of an anonymous set of lips ready for tasting this "fine tobacco at its best."

By focusing in on the taste of cigarettes, perhaps the architects of the 1964 ad were speaking to a population already hooked on cigarettes. Whereas the earlier ad uses romantic imagery to attract new smokers, the later ad highlights the physical and gustatory sensation to an audience that is already craves them--even if scientists are starting to say they shouldn't.

Samsonite



In a Mad Men episode that some critics called the best of series, Don Draper and his ambitious protégé Peggy Olsen bicker over how best to compose a campaign for the the suitcase maker Samsonite. At one point Peggy presents an idea involving the celebrity endorsement of Joe Namath and cites the quarterback's good looks as an obvious selling point for women. Don rebuffs Peggy, saying, "Women don't buy suitcases." As the above two-page ad from LIFE clearly shows, the real ad men behind Samsonite's 1964 campaigns weren't so sure about that.

While the Samsonite Silhouette is "handsome, rugged and trim" for him, it's also
"an elegant summer traveler" for her. This split page ad suggests that advertisers were wary of alienating their male audience by focusing their energies on woman. But they were also growing increasingly aware of the power of marketing to female consumers.

Pepsi Generation



While the guys and gals of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce didn't pen any copy for Pepsi-Cola, this campaign from the soda giant justly belongs in this blog post in that it is part to the larger canon of 1960s iconic advertising. It was named by Advertising Age as one of the top ad campaigns of the century (#21 on the list of 100). This particular spot from a July 1964 issue of LIFE illustrates where advertisers were increasingly aiming their attentions: the young.

The copy reads: "The horizons of thinking young stretch across the land from sea to sea. The mood is healthy; the drink is Pepsi." The reference to the horizon and the literal one stretching out behind this contented, attractive California couple, echo the "New Frontier" of Kennedy's 1960 Inauguration. The ad capitalizes on the lingering hopefulness of a country about to be mired in a protracted war and a divisive national discussion that pitted old against young.

Pepsi's 1964 advertising also reveals the extent to which advertisers were awakening to the growing market of African Americans. This ad from an October 1964 Ebony provides an African American corollary to the otherwise white campaign found in most other magazines.


LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act into law only a few months before the publication of this particular ad, and the inclusive tone of "Come Alive! You're in the Pepsi Generation" links drinking Pepsi with integration. In this ad, they're not just selling soda, they're also selling promises of equality.

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We'll have to wait awhile for a return to the 1960s via the exploits of Don, Peggy and the rest, but the 60s--and many other historical periods--are alive and swinging in Google Magazine Search. To do your own investigation of historic advertising, you can search Google Magazine through the Advanced Search option. With fully searchable text, including the ads, you too can probe such weighty questions about meaning and identity--also, less weighty ones like this.
URL: http://booksearch.blogspot.com/2010/10/madvertisements.html
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