Internet Marketing

Yahoo's line of thinking with regards to the big Microsoft/Yahoo search and advertising deal is that it will benefit both Microsoft and Yahoo's advertisers, as well as consumers and publishers.

It will benefit advertisers because it will increase search volume, with results from both Bing and Yahoo being taken into consideration. It will benefit consumers because by combining advertisers from both properties, there will be a greater pool to deliver sponsored results from, which Yahoo says will mean increased relevance. It will benefit Yahoo, Bing, and their publisher partners with increased liquidity, participation, and relevance. That is basically the sum of it, according to Yahoo Vice President of Search Advertising David Pann.

WebProNews recently sat down with Pann and discussed these things and how the deal will affect advertisers.

According to Pann, the migration across all international markets will occur over the next 24 months or so, but they will not rush it at the expense of quality, they say. "Our focus is really about developing a plan that is smooth, seamless, and with quality. So we anticipate doing the U.S. migration sometime before the holiday season in 2010," says Pann.

In the above interview, Pann goes on to talk about how things will be split between Yahoo and Microsoft. He also addresses some privacy concerns, related to data sharing between the two companies.

WebProNews also interviewed Yahoo Sr. VP of Search Products Shashi Seth and Director of Search Marketing David Roth, both of whom talked about the deal in more detail. You can catch both of those interviews, as well as a recent keynote from SMX West where the deal was also discussed, here.

The Wall Street Journal has the Blogosphere abuzz with rumors of Google testing a new set-top box with Dish Network, which would allow people to search television and online video content like YouTube. Google has given the usual "we don't comment on rumor or speculation" statement on the subject.

According to the WSJ, only a small number of Google employees and their families are testing the box, which runs on Google software (Android is implied), and lets users create personalized lineups of shows. The testing has reportedly been going on since last year. Aside from these things, the details are sketchy at best, which can only mean one thing: let the wild speculation commence.

Assuming that this service ever comes to fruition, it could open up a lot of new opportunities for Google to dominate or at least heavily compete in areas in which it isn't dominating already. Rather than doing too much speculation myself, allow me to just list some questions and open this up for discussion:

- What if Google gets exclusive deals with Dish Network as well as other major satellite and cable providers? Google TV Ads already has deals in place to provide ads on close to a hundred cable networks.

- What if Google makes more deals to boost its movie rental selection on YouTube? How big of a player would that make YouTube in the movie rental space? This will be something to keep an eye on with or without this box as Internet-ready TVs permeate the mainstream.

- Will Yahoo and Bing be looking at opportunities like the Google/Dish Network box? Are they already?

- What would widespread integration of web search and television mean for TV advertising?

In the not-too-distant future, we may start to really see TV advertising getting more targeted, which has long been the medium's biggest downfall. People often record shows simply so they don't have to watch the commercials. What if the ads were targeted at the individuals watching the TV? What if they were relevant? Search advertising paved the way for this kind of relevancy, and may just be a key to the future of TV advertising in a world where viewers want their programming on demand.

There I go off on that speculation. This all sounds good in theory, but a lot of puzzle pieces have to fall in place, and a lot of stars have to align for this to become a reality. Deals must be made, and money must be spent. That's not to say the concept is far-fetched.

Consider that advertisers are finding online to be a better option than even the super bowl in some cases. This past Super Bowl, Pepsi skipped a TV spot for the first time in 23 years. TV is going to have to adapt.

Tell us what you think.

Spending on online advertising and marketing will surpass print in 2010 for the first time, according to a new report from Outsell.

Companies will spend $119.6 billion on online and digital strategies, from search engine keywords to webinars, while committing $111.5 billion to print such as newspapers and magazine ads. Overall, U.S. spending on advertising and marketing will increase in 2010, but only by 1.2 percent to $368 billion.

Outsell forecasts spending, share, and growth for five media categories including online, events, print, TV/radio and PR/other.

"Advertisers are directing dollars toward the channels which generate the most qualified leads and most effective branding," said Chuck Richard, Vice President and Lead Analyst, Outsell.

"As they emerge from the recession, they need more accountability, and they're spreading their spending over a widening set of options."

Print magazine advertising will be up 1.9 percent to $9.4 billion even with the popularity of online channels.

Other key findings include:

*51 percent if B2B marketers rate Facebook as extremely or somewhat effective, followed by LinkedIn (45%), Twitter (35%) and MySpace (25%).

*B2B advertisers see cross-media marketing as most effective; 78% combine three or more major marketing methods.

*Methods creating the highest B2B ROI are topped by advertisers' own websites, followed by conferences, exhibitions and trade shows: direct mail; search engine keywords; and e-marketing/e-newsletters. 
 

Online analytics firm Omniture and Facebook said today they have partnered to offer marketers tools to improve Facebook as a marketing channel.

Initially the two companies will focus on the ability to automate Facebook media buying and access analytics that measure customer engagement on Facebook. The partnership builds on Facebook analytics the companies introduced last year to help marketers join the conversation and have more relevant interactions with their customers.

The partnership is aimed at helping companies more easily integrate Facebook as a marketing channel in an effort to connect and have relevant conversations with Facebook’s more than 400 million users.

“Working with us, Omniture has been able to develop a rich and immersive set of tools that will help our clients better understand the value of their Facebook advertising campaigns,” said Dan Rose, Facebook’s vice president of business development and monetization.

“By creating a single dashboard to plan, deliver and measure campaigns, Omniture can make advertising on Facebook easier and ultimately increase ROI for clients.”

Omniture customers can now use the company’s SearchCenter Plus, a combination of its search engine marketing management application with added functionality for buying Facebook Ads.

In addition, Omniture customers can now generate reports specifically designed to understand ad effectiveness for some of the unique elements of Facebook such as pages and applications.
 

Update: I finally got word back from Facebook, who confirmed that the feature is indeed only a test. "The "Promote" feature is just a test and is unrelated to our Promotions Guidelines," the company says. They  did not give any specifics about a possible full launch.

Original Article: Facebook appears to either be rolling out or testing a feature that lets Facebook Page owners promote specific posts. When you make an update, a link that says, "Promote" can be found by the links for "Comment" and "Like".

Once you click that Promote link, it brings up a dialogue box, which asks you to create an ad, with targeting descriptions, the ad duration, and the maximum price of "Up to $50.00 USD".

Editor's note: Feel free to become our fan on Facebook, by the way.

You can click on "Edit Ad" to go to the standard Facebook Advertising Page, or you can click "Create Ad" to go to this page:

Interestingly enough, this comes after talk last week about how you have to have promotions approved by a Facebook account representative, which would reportedly cost you about $10k. This would appear to eliminate that notion.

The feature appears to only be available for some admins of some pages. We're not sure if they're rolling out the feature or just testing it. I've contacted Facebook to learn more about the feature, and I'll update when I receive a response. Any other Facebook Page admins getting this feature? Let us know.

Twitter is expected to launch an ad platform this month (some have speculated this will happen at SXSW). While this hasn't been confirmed, the industry has been waiting for quite some time to Twitter to launch such a monetization model.

That's not to say the industry has been sitting on its hands as it's waited. Third-parties have taken it upon themselves to offer services for Twitter, that Twitter itself doesn't offer. That includes apps of course, but it also includes Twitter ads. 140 Proof is one such company, and it calls itself the "first scalable ad solution built exclusively for Twitter."

"The Proof network aggregates the Twitter client and application ecosystem (roughly 100+ million Twitters users) and then segments users into a dynamic audience that advertisers can buy the same way they buy keyword advertising," a representative for the company tells WebProNews. "Advertisers are excited to final have a mechanism for extended their conversations on the Twitter social network and the Twitter ecosystem is eager to have a targeted, non-obtrusive advertising solution that allows them to monetize their applications while still respecting  the ethos of the Twitter community."

The 140 Proof Network features hundreds of advertisers, who the company says are reaching their target markets on Twitter. "Some are large well know brand names that everyone is familiar with and some are small businesses that are trying build their presence on Twitter or advertise in a very local or targeted manner," the rep says.

We asked the company if they think Twitter's ad platform has a chance to damage businesses like theirs and others that have been making a business based on sponsored tweeting (Sponsored Tweets from Izea comes to mind).

"We welcome Twitter to the advertising world," the rep tell us. "Clearly we think that their entrance in the marketplace is a great validation of what we are doing, but we also believe that the market is large enough to support many major players. Further, we feel that our experienced advertising and engineering team, our advantage of being fully operational for months, and our patented, proprietary technology will give us an advantage over all competitors."

Quite a display of confidence from 140 Proof - an advantage over Twitter at Twitter ads? What do you think?

A little more than a month ago, Google introduced click-to-call phone numbers in local ads on smartphones.  Now, the popular program's undergoing an expansion as Google's made it easier for large companies to take advantage of the offering.

A post on the Inside AdWords blog explained today, "[W]e're bringing the same click-to-call benefits to national advertisers through phone extensions.  Phone extensions allow you to add a phone number that will be displayed whenever your ad is triggered, regardless of the user's location."

Here's the upshot, then: "This enables customers to connect with your business by phone directly from the ad and can be especially useful if you have a call center to handle customer inquiries."

Advertisers should profit as a result of this development, considering that phone calls are more likely than clicks to lead to purchases.  Google looks set to make a lot of money, too, since this move will encourage corporations with big advertising budgets to give click-to-call ads a shot.

Perhaps the only losers will be the companies that don't adapt quickly.  They'll risk losing sales to competitors with more eye-catching and actionable ads.

The Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) has asked the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to investigate the online marketing and behavioral targeting practices of pharmaceutical companies.

The CDD says few U.S. health consumers are aware they are being identified, labeled, profiled, and tracked on the Internet while they search or access information on specific conditions or concerns.

"The health and safety of U.S. consumers must be protected from inappropriate and potentially harmful use of digital marketing applications that have been embraced by pharmaceutical and health marketers," said Jeff Chester, Executive Director, CDD.

"It is essential that the FDA craft regulatory safeguards for Internet-related promotion, especially since interactive communications will become the dominant form for the delivery of health information and advertising to both consumers and health professionals."

The CDD asked the FDA to work with the Federal Trade Commission and other agencies to develop a set of policies for regulating the use of behavioral targeting and data collection in the marketing of drugs and health-related products.

The FDA held two days of hearings last November on the role of the Internet and marketing for regulated drugs. Chester said at those hearings, "pharmaceutical marketers purposely painted a sanitized, storybook image of social media marketing."

"Direct-to-Consumer Digital Marketing of pharmaceutical and health-related products requires the FDA to re-evaluate its standards for advertising practices, including what should be considered as truthful and non-misleading," he said.
 

Newspaper websites are the most valued sites for people seeking credible and trustworthy local content, according to a new survey conducted by comScore for the Newspaper Association of America (NAA).

More than half (57%) of the 3,050 respondents cited local newspaper websites as the top online source for local information. That percentage increases for upper income households (63%) and for the college educated (60%).

Newspaper sites ranked first as a source for local information (29%), local sports (27%), local entertainment (26%) and local classifieds (39%), over both local television websites and online portals.

"This important research provides further evidence of newspapers' successful multiplatform transition, with the medium serving as a continuous local resource for consumers," said NAA President and CEO John F. Sturm.

"While newspaper Web sites often face dozens of competitors touting their own local offerings in any given market, they have been able to thrive by leveraging trusted brands and strong local content to appeal to consumers and advertisers alike."

Local newspaper websites ranked first among all sources for trustworthiness, credibility and being the most informative place to find local content of all types, including news, information, entertainment, sports and classified advertising. When respondents were asked what sources were most trustworthy or reliable, local newspaper websites beat out local television sites (34% vs. 22%), local sports (30% vs. 24%), local entertainment (30% vs. 20%) and local classifieds (42% vs. 13 %).

The survey also found that people consider local newspaper websites to be the most trusted source of online advertising, with ads that are seen to be more current, credible and relevant to them.

Forty percent of adults agreed their opinion of online advertising is influenced by the type of website on which the ad appears. More than one third (36%) selected local newspaper websites for trustworthy advertising compared to 23 percent for local television websites and 12 percent for online portals. This was true across all demographics.

"This survey reinforces the notion that consumers value and trust the premium-quality content found at newspaper Web sites as well as the advertising on those sites," said Randy Bennett, NAA's senior vice president of Business Development.

"It also provides further evidence that newspapers, which attracted a record 75 million visitors in January, offer advertisers a high-value audience that no other medium can match."


 

 

Twitter is testing an ad platform, which is expected to be released next month, possibly at the South By Southwest event in Austin. Though the timing of the release has not been confirmed, Twitter's head of product management and monetization, Anamitra Banerji, told MediaPost that they "are working on an ad platform, but it's only in the test phase."

According to Banerji, when Twitter does launch the product, it will make it clear when sponsors have paid for ads, and the ads themselves will be "relevant and useful, so the user doesn't think of it as an ad." This strategy seems to have been working well for Digg, which launched Digg Ads last year, to generally positive feedback from users (users can participate by voting ads up and down, which makes the more interesting ones more likely to be seen).

Twitter doesn't exactly operate like Digg though, but Twitterers do contribute to trending topics. On a recent panel, Banerji showed off a chart that looked at peaks and total tweets throughout the Super Bowl, with one line representing tweets about the actual game, and another representing tweets about specific advertisers.

It is possible that Twitter's ad platform would tie into this "what people are already talking about" kind of thing, but that would seemingly make it much more difficult for a lesser-known brand to have any kind of advertising success.

The truth is, nobody knows exactly how Twitter is going to present its ads yet. The question is, how can they do it in a way that users won't think of it as an ad? It's probably going to involve some real-time engagement on the part of the advertiser, which leads one to wonder how they will be different than any other unpaid, branded tweet.

"People are constantly talking and engaging with brands, sharing their feedback," MediaPost quotes Banerji as saying. "What if brands start to participate? What would the chart look like then?" I thought brands already did that.

It's going to be about how Twitter presents it. That could be a difficult problem to address, given that Twitter users use the service through many different third-party apps and devices, and often not the site itself. This is not a concept Twitter is likely to have ignored though, so if they're planning on launch next month, they must have a pretty good solution.

How would you like to see ads displayed on Twitter? Discuss here.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said today starting April 1, advertising for "free credit reports" online will require new disclosures to help consumers avoid confusing "free" offers which often require them to spend money on credit monitoring or other products and services.

The FTC's Free Credit Reports Rule will require new prominent disclosures in ads for "free credit reports." Any website offering free credit reports must include a disclosure, across the top of each page that mentions free credit reports, which reads:

THIS NOTICE IS REQUIRED BY LAW. Read more at FTC.GOV.
You have the right to a free credit report from AnnualCreditReport.com
or 877-322-8228, the ONLY authorized source under federal law.

The website disclosure must include a link to "Take me to the authorized source" and links to AnnualCreditReport.com and FTC.GOV.

The amended Rule also restricts practices that might confuse or mislead consumers as they try to get their federally mandated free annual credit reports. The new Rule requires consumer reporting agencies including Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion to delay any advertising for products or services on AnnualCreditReport.com until after consumers receive their free credit reports.

 The wording of the disclosures for television and radio ads goes into effect on September 1, 2010. The FTC said it will monitor the effectiveness of the amended Rule, and will consider additional changes if necessary.
 

 

A Facebook Page can be a great way to build your fan-base, inspire engagement with customers/readers, and generally build upon your brand. However, if you want to do a promo on one, that'll cost you.

Facebook's policy dictates that one must get written approval from a Facebook account representative. In order to get one of those, you have to spend about ten grand advertising with the company, according to Eric Eldon at Inside Facebook.

>>Become a fan of WebProNews on Facebook <<

So basically, if you don't want to violate Facebook's promotions guidelines, you can't really do any advertising or run any sweepstakes without actually paying for Facebook ads too. "You may not administer any promotion through Facebook, except that you may administer a promotion through the Facebook Platform with our prior written approval," that particular section of the guidelines states.

"The business model, with pages, is to try to get as many people using them as possible, then make a little money from each person if they want to do paid advertising — the preview fee goes against this model to try to keep Facebook legally safe," writes Eldon. "The problem, as many people trying to build promotions for Facebook have been discovering on their own, is that the fee requirement is never clearly spelled out. And, neither is the rationale for the fee. The result is confusion among marketers and developers trying to build promotions for Facebook, especially for small-business clients."

Well, if you stick to the classic advice handed down from a great many Internet marketing consultants, you'll want to use Facebook for engagement, and participating in the conversation. Using your Facebook Page to deliver a sales pitch has pretty much always been ill-advised anyhow.

That said, the lines can get blurry from time to time, and as Eldon notes, many businesses are still trying to figure Facebook out. Guidelines like this may not be particularly encouraging for them. They also raise questions about Facebook's future with regards to e-commerce, as Facebook continues to head in that direction (they're even taking PayPal more).

Facebook told Eldon that it doesn't have the resources to approve all possible promotions, and they all must be approved, so Facebook isn't held liable for illegal promotions.

comScore said today it has launched comScore Audience Advantage, described as a "digital audience optimization platform" that allows publishers to provide advertisers and media planners with the ability to reach their most valuable audiences.

comScore Audience Advantage uses proprietary audience scoring algorithms to determine optimal audiences for advertisers using predictive variables as inputs. These variables come from a variety of observable behaviors online as measured via comScore's opt-in research panel, including site visitation, search activity, video views, advertising engagements, online purchases or any other number of behaviors that may relevant to an advertiser.

The Audience Advantage platform does use cookies to create it s predictive algorithms. Instead, they are butyl using the actual observed behavior and characteristics of the opt-in comScore panelists. comScore says its platform can also use third-party databases that are integrated with its research panel to provide anonymous offline purchase behavior as another important predictive input to these algorithms.

"Audience Advantage offers significant value creation for the online advertising ecosystem that benefits all stakeholders," said Erin Hunter, comScore executive vice president.

"Publishers will be able to demonstrate higher value in the campaigns they deliver, thereby justifying higher CPMs, while advertisers will be able to minimize wasted impressions and reduce the total cost of advertising outlays. It is truly a win-win for the digital advertising industry."

Using all available behaviors as inputs, Audience Advantage determines a predictive score for various audience segments. Participating publishers use this score to anonymously identify and deliver to advertisers "lookalike" audiences from the behavior they observe among their own site visitors.

Campaigns can be planned to target only 5 or 10 percent of consumers most likely to a purchase a particular brand with the goal of reinforcing loyalty, or they can be planned against a larger segment of consumers who are dual brand buyers with the objective of switching to the advertiser's brand.
 

Google has announced a new release of DoubleClick for publishers, available in two versions (for large and small publishers). Along with the new release, Google has given the DoubleClick logo a makeover.

"To reflect our continued investment in DoubleClick's products, as well as the central role of DoubleClick's technology products within Google's display advertising business, we're also today unveiling some changes to the DoubleClick logos — including typeset changes, incorporating a new 'by Google' theme and retiring the 'DART' brand," explains Vice President of Product Management Neal Mohan.

"This is the next generation of Google Ad Manager, bringing many requested features such as a new web services API, an improved user interface, and new reporting capabilities," says Google Ad Manager Product Manager Alex Vogenthaler. "We will be upgrading all Google Ad Manager accounts to DFP Small Business automatically. GAM users will see the new DFP Small Business name and logo within the product and related resources upon completion of the upgrade. Usernames, passwords, ad delivery data and account data will be unaffected by this change. New customers signing up for Google Ad Manager today will automatically be upgraded on the same schedule as current Ad Manager publishers."

The new DoubleClick for Publishers can be found here, complete with FAQs, support information, etc. Google has also set up a series of videos to give users a quick overview of the upcoming changes. In addition, Google offering webinars discussing the changes.

Super Bowl 2010 will be forever remembered for a few things: New Orleans winning their first championship, Peyton Manning’s locker room walk-of-shame and Google running their first Super Bowl commercial.

Editors Note: WebProNews interviewed CEA, the first company featured in Google's commercial (there were 15+ featured). Even though they were only seen for a split second, you’ll be shocked by how much their traffic increased and it's impact on their marketing plans.

While doing the interview Gina Lind, CEA‘s Director of Marketing Communications, summed up their appearance in Google's Parisian Love commercial, "To be featured in the first couple seconds of an ad for a top brand like Google during the Super Bowl... is a marketer’s dream!"

Be sure to read the full in-depth interview below.

Would you believe being barely seen in a Super Bowl commercial would greatly increase your site traffic? Tell us what you think.

Google’s "Parisian Love" commercial ran during the 3rd quarter of the game and instantly became one of the game’s most discussed commercials. Overall, it was fairly simplistic; it featured a series of Google searches that told a cutesy little love story (just in time for Valentines Day).

The brilliance behind it’s simplicity was that each search showcased a different Google search feature: query suggestions, did you mean, Maps, language translation, web definitions, flight tracking and Google’s overall ease of use. Google managed to show off all these features without making the commercial feel cluttered… quite the achievement.

It’s common knowledge that advertising during the Super Bowl isn’t cheap. This year a 30 second spot would set you back around $3.01 million. So for around $3 million Google was seen by the largest audience in the history of television, was able to show off a ton of features and even gave some ‘collateral’ publicity to some lucky companies.

We contacted the study abroad company featured in the commercial, CEA Global Education -  GoWithCEA.com, and asked them some questions about their Super Bowl experience.

WebProNews: The Google ad, Parisian Love, was uploaded to YouTube on November 19, 2009, were you aware of its existence?

CEA: No, prior to Super Bowl Sunday, we were not aware the Google ad existed or uploaded to YouTube.

WPN: So, Google never contacted CEA and asked permission?

CEA: Google did not contact CEA to request permission; however, we are not surprised that CEA appeared at the top of the page listing, as SEO is an integral part of our marketing strategy.

WPN: Did CEA see a spike of traffic after the Super Bowl commercial aired?

CEA: CEA experienced a spike in traffic almost immediately.  As you know, the spot aired late Sunday afternoon and by Monday morning, our number of page views had increased sharply. By the end of the day, we saw nearly a five-fold increase in site traffic, especially our Paris program page, which was featured in the ad.

WPN: We saw that CEA created a video response to the Parisian Love ad... tell us about that.

CEA: Our Graphic Designer and Web Specialist had the idea Monday morning to create a response video to the Google ad. Director of Marketing Communications, Gina Lind, quickly pulled the staff together to help, not an easy feat as CEA is at the height of its application season for Summer and Fall 2010 study abroad programs.

WPN: CEA has also uploaded "A Study Abroad Love Story", was this inspired by the Google commercial? Tell us about it.

CEA: Our Project Manager remembered we had featured a true love story in a 2006 CEA Newsletter and helped to track the couple down today in Oshkosh, Wisc. Our content manager called the couple and they graciously agreed to share their story for our blog and video. Imagine our amazement when we discovered the couple’s happy announcement that, like the couple in the Google ad, they were expecting their first child!

WPN: We saw where both CEA and StudyAbroad.com shared some congratulatory tweets (1, 2). How big was this for both companies?

CEA: The study abroad community is a small, but passionate field of higher education professionals who are committed to helping students explore the world and connect with other cultures. Congratulations from any of our peers and colleagues is both heart-warming and rewarding for our staff and faculty, who work so hard both in the U.S. and abroad. At CEA, we really are a family, so we can’t help but feel proud of colleagues and the good fortune the couple and former CEA students, Kate and Allan, have had.

WebProNews would like to thank CEA for taking the time to answer our questions.

Another interesting thing about the commercial we ran across while watching the commercial (for about the 50th time) was how much Google had cleaned up their results page for the commercial. Take a look at the screenshots below; you’ll notice what we’re talking about.





It looks as though Google has removed the advanced search link, AdWords ads, and the grouped results for the top result, more than likely just to clean up the page for the commercial. But take a closer look at results page numbers, located at the top right corner; we’ve circled them above. There is a discrepancy with the two SERP numbers, to the tune of around 99,000,000 but numerous factors could be at play. What do you think could've caused this?

Google’s Parisian Love commercial will slowly start to fade into commercial oblivion, only returning for those annual “best commercials” shows. However, I doubt CEA will be forgetting the power of SEO, Google, the Super Bowl and a little luck anytime soon. What more could any marketer ask for?

Facebook said today it will allow advertisers to pay for ads on its network using PayPal.

The two companies have entered into a strategic relationship that will allow advertisers worldwide to use PayPal to pay for Facebook Ads through the company's online advertising tool.

The option to use PayPal makes it easier for advertisers, particularly small international companies, to run campaigns on Facebook. Facebook reaches 400 million people globally, with 70 percent of those living outside the United States.

"Put simply, PayPal's business is payments. We make it easier for customers to send and receive money online in 24 currencies and 190 markets around the world," said Osama Bedier, PayPal's vice president of platform and emerging technology.

"We've always been an important part of the developer ecosystem on Facebook, and we're excited to expand our relationship directly with Facebook to help grow advertisers' and developers' businesses."

PayPal will also become a payment option for Facebook Credits, which is currently being tested in a handful of games and applications. Facebook says the goal is to give users a fast and easy way to buy virtual goods on the site.

In December PayPal launched a "send money" application on Facebook that allowed users to send money to anyone with an email address.
 

Now that Yahoo and Microsoft have received DoJ and EU approval on their search and advertising deal, Yahoo is doing plenty of talking about what the deal will mean for its search engine and its advertisers.

The two companies have a Search Alliance page set up that gives some insight about what to expect, such as:

When the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance is implemented, both companies will continue to have differentiated consumer search experiences. However, Microsoft will manage the technology platforms that deliver the algorithmic (powered by Bing) and paid (powered by adCenter) search results.

Yahoo! and Microsoft will each provide customer support to different advertiser segments: Yahoo!’s sales team will exclusively support high volume advertisers, SEO and SEM agencies, and resellers and their clients. Microsoft will support self-service advertisers. In addition, Microsoft adCenter will be the platform for all search campaigns.

For advertisers, Yahoo says they will be able to reach more customers, save time and effort, and benefit from "rapid innovation." According to Yahoo, the "alliance" will help advertisers reach up to 150 million searchers and get about 62% more search volume.

There have been many questions about what would happen to Yahoo Search BOSS and SearchMonkey after the Microsoft-Yahoo deal took effect. There are still questions, but Yahoo has at least addressed the situation again now that the deal has received approval. 

"With the implementation of the search alliance, the BOSS team is excited to examine the Microsoft web, image, and video search technologies in more detail," says Yahoo's Ashim Chhabra. "Yahoo! may continue to offer the BOSS service, which would integrate some Yahoo! services and content with algorithmic results provided by Microsoft. The team is exploring what a future offering could consist of, with some services powered by Microsoft and unique content provided by Yahoo!. As we finalize details for any changes to the BOSS service, we will give developers plenty of notice." 

"Also, prior to the announcement of the Yahoo! and Microsoft search alliance, we shared our intention to explore a fee-based structure for BOSS," Chhabra adds. "We continue to explore an appropriate revenue model as we work to define the future of BOSS in the context of our new search alliance. We know BOSS is important to your business, and any conclusions on strategic direction and roadmap for the service will be shared with developers as soon as possible."

Yahoo and Microsoft are also sharing ideas about how to "advance" SearchMonkey. The fact that they say "advance" seems to indicate that it will still have a place in Yahoo's search strategy.

Google has made some adjustments to how it uses referral URLs for contextual matching of AdSense ads. Google has started expanding the use of query words in referral URLs to a few hours.

Basically what this means is that Google is using user's search history to determine what ads to show on sites using AdSense. If a user arrives at one AdSense site via a search results page, and then goes to another AdSense site within a few hours, they might see ads based on the referral data from the first one.

"The technical way that we're doing this is by associating the relevant query words in the referral URL with the existing advertising cookie on the user's browser," says AdSense Associate Product Manager Rebecca Illowsky. "After a short period of time (a few hours) the query words are no longer used for the purposes of matching ads. Of course, users can continue to opt out of our advertising cookie at any time here."

"This allows us to deliver more relevant ads on a wider range of AdSense partner sites that a user may browse over the course of a few hours," she adds. "Using signals from the referral URL is just one part of our teams' continuing efforts to deliver even better contextually matched ads on your website."

Some people claim to have already seen a rise in clickthrough rate since Google made these changes. Commenting on Google's explanation, one reader says, "I saw a rise in CTR and was wondering [if] something was cooking so I guess this was it."

Have you seen a rise in AdSense CTR recently? Let us know.

For most people, listening to music online is terribly convenient, and the occasional audio ad shouldn't represent a deal breaker.  MySpace may be making a smart move, then, as it's begun testing 30-second ads with help from an Internet radio advertising company called TargetSpot.

The end result isn't too different from what fans of Yahoo Music or Pandora - or even regular radio listeners - are already used to.  MySpace members just have to tolerate a short ad, and then they're free to continue on their figurative way, listening to a number of songs before getting stuck with another commercial.

That number of songs is quite large, too, with MySpace allowing people to progress through a playlist of 100 tunes between ads.  So even if MySpace becomes less generous in the future (and it probably will), the social network should have plenty of wiggle room before people begin to grow resentful.

A MySpace representative confirmed to David Kaplan, "We're testing some new ad products and the response from our users has been positive."

The representative then encouraged more folks to weigh in, continuing, "As always, we're interested in hearing feedback from our community and the advertising community as we roll out new functionality that creates the right balance between user experience and commerce."

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Google users in the UK may be unusually well-informed with regards to their government's healthcare policies.  The Department of Health revealed this week that it spent about 2.72 million (or $4.25 million at the current exchange rate) on AdWords over the past year.

To be exact: the department spent 2,720,457.11 between February 1 of last year and January 31 of this one, according to official records.  And a whopping 21,939 keywords (including ones like "health information" and "stop smoking") were covered by its campaign.

As reported in a Smart Healthcare article, a Department of Health spokesperson explained this huge endeavor by stating, "The Department of Health's campaigns are designed to deliver better health, whether they be to help people change their behaviours to protect their long term health, to signpost people to NHS services, or to encourage healthier lifestyles."

The spokesperson then further justified the AdWords campaign by adding, "The campaigns are evaluated using a combination of robust techniques that help us identify exactly what works, so we know that these campaigns are saving lives."

That acts as a nice sort of pat on the back for Google.  The search giant no doubt appreciates the UK government's money, too.

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