Archive for November, 2006

• Good Google - Accessibility Technologies and CAPTCHA

  Nice article on accessibility and usability improvements to “CAPTCHA” technologies.
  Generally, I’m not personally in favour of CAPTCHA - it’s essentially an exercise in security through obscurity. That means it won’t be long before those who find it a problem (spiders and bots) get better software that removes the obscurity. Long in this context means weeks […]

  November 30th, 2006

• AdWords QS is BS

  Google has just announced a number of the factors that affect Landing Page Quality Score in the Inside AdWords Blog. This article needs heavy revision in the light of Google’s new information. The main thrust - that QS is composed of several different factors, some of which affecting initial MinCPC and others affecting longer term […]

  November 24th, 2006

• Google AdWords Editorial Review - Hazards and Workrounds

  Google doesn’t document their editorial review process clearly, but many of the problems that I see over on the AdWords Help Forum are derived from this poorly documented subsystem. Editorial Review affects the Quality Score, Google’s aggregated description of many internal processes. The Quality Score determines how much you pay, when and where your adverts […]

  November 21st, 2006

• Google indirectly promotes click fraud

  Oh, this is witty. Here’s your invite to join Google’s Orkut without needing to be invited by a member. I’m interested in social networking software, so I gleefully joined up. I went looking for communities about AdWords and AdSense. What do you think I’ll find? Something that equals the quality of the Google AdWords Help […]

  November 18th, 2006

• Merjis AdWords Toolkit 2.7.0

  Yet again we beat everyone else with an update to support version 7 of the API. This is largely because the OCaml programming language makes things easy — comprehensive strong type checking picks out all the places where you need to change the code, and it’s just a matter of making a few quick […]

  November 14th, 2006

• Windows, now and then

  Now: 9 Nov 2006
  [Jim] Allchin [Microsoft VP] Suggests Vista Won’t Need Antivirus

  During a telephone conference with reporters yesterday, outgoing Microsoft co-president Jim Allchin, while touting the new security features of Windows Vista, which was released to manufacturing yesterday, told a reporter that the system’s new lockdown features are so capable and thorough that he was […]

  November 10th, 2006

• Practical OCaml

  A number of reviews have already appeared for Practical OCaml, and they have been uniformly negative.
  I was involved in production as a technical reviewer. I can now say what I think about the book in as honest a way as possible. This information might be useful for people tempted to become technical […]

  November 8th, 2006

• Misleading advertising by Precision Marketing, perhaps.

  What does “Updated database offers DIY lovers” mean for you? A list of inflatable adult toys you can make at home, or a mailing list of home improvement enthusiasts? You have to be so careful with language to avoid double meanings or unintended interpretations. This example came in some email offering us mailing lists… but […]

  November 7th, 2006

• Google Blog for Advertisers and Agencies

  New Google blog for consumer packaged goods agencies and advertisers.
  Their main mission, at present, seems to be to encourage and promote brand advertising videos. I wonder if this has anything to do with the YouTube acquisition by Google? Duh.

  November 7th, 2006

• WSJ, Google, Content Match, Advertisers and Abuse

  A social comment article about Gmail advertising in the WSJ a few days ago was interesting. It blamed Google for irrelevant adverts. Now, I’d take this problem and turn it on its’ head. What can advertisers and agencies learn from the article?

  Lily
  The first item to attract derision was the confusion of “Lily” and “Lily Allen”. […]

  November 3rd, 2006