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Stories Discussed In The Show

• Google AdSense Updates Program Policies & Competitive Ads Policy
  Google AdSense updated their program policies today. While most of it was simply clarifying or officially making changes to policies (such as images next to ad units) they also made one major change to publishers who also use ad networks or in-house advertising with ad units that resemble AdSense ad units, or those who do ad rotation with AdSense and another ad network such as the Yahoo Publisher Network. And this could result in some unhappy webmasters who will need to make changes to their sites running AdSense as a result....
• Google Billboard & Google Kiosk Coming?
  Clickz columnist Ryan Naraine wrote up some of his thoughts about a Google patent application (Allocating advertising space in a network of displays) that would enable advertising upon electronic displays and billboards in shopping centers and other places, in his article Google Patent Filing Hints at Digital Billboard Ad Network. While New Scientist wrote about the patent filing last week, and I had a writeup on it the day it was published, Ryan does a nice job of providing some context to how this electronic display network might work......
• JP Morgan Report Shows PayPal Dominating Google Checkout
  Via Search Engine Journal, JP Morgan released a report named Google Checkout vs. PayPal. The report shows that Google Checkout has potential but PayPal is still dominating the field. Here are the key points, as per the report: Surveyed about 1,100 online buyers in 2006 Google Checkout Adoption hits 6% in first year Google Checkout Users Skew Male, Affluent, and Young But Google Checkout Needs to Work Out Some Kinks PayPal Maintains Its Leadership Position. PayPal’s 42% penetration rate in 2006 was 7x that of Google checkout....
• Google Onebox Museum (View this in 10 Years), Google Blogoscoped
• Will Paid Search Conquer the Mobile Internet?
  To say there's a lot going on with mobile right now is to state something more than obvious. The carriers, the handset makers and the mobile content providers are in what amounts to a frenzy of competition and business development as they try and position themselves for what they see as the next really big opportunity: the mobile Internet....
• 2007 Guide To Linkbaiting: The Year Of Widgetbait?
  Way back in 2005 we started talking about linkbait, a term that was coined on Threadwatch which I owned and ran at the time. Linkbait was used to describe viral, linkable content designed to attract thousands of links. Shortly after that, I wrote The Art of Linkbaiting. It has been much cited over the last year or so. Today, though a few laggards are still blinking and looking confused whenever they hear the term, linkbaiting is recognized as the most effective way to build links for a site. As linkbaiting enters its third year, it makes sense to revisit the...
• Linkbait Articles & Is It Linkbait Or Link Bait?
  Eric Ward mentioned link baiting in his Link Week column this week, which first got me thinking, is it better to say linkbait or link bait? To answer, I did some searches, which in turn brought up some good articles on the topic. And now another good one has come out from Todd Malicoat. So here's a rundown on a few linkbait articles and the "to linkbait" or "to link bait" decision I had to make....
• Some Bling for Your Blog, New York Times
• Why too many little icons can easily distract your visitors, Pronet Advertising
• Three Reasons Why Sites Get Banned From Digg, The Mu Life
• Welcome to the Librarian Central blog!, Google Librarian Central
• Boxxet Offers "Best Of" Collections On Popular Topics
  Boxxet is a new service which combines aspects of computer automation with community and social commentary and ranking systems to create "box sets" of web based content for specific topics. It's an interesting idea—sort of a multimedia directory of links to web, news and blog content, photos, forums, online bookmarks and "stuff," products available for online purchase that relate to a particular subject. The idea is to filter the mass of information available online, presenting only the best or freshest content. While the resulting "box sets" are generally on topic, ironically, I found myself a bit overwhelmed more often than...
• First Google, Then Microsoft, Now Belgian Newspapers Take On Yahoo
  TheAge reports that Copiepresse, Belgium's French-speaking newspapers, are now threatening to sue Yahoo for violating copyright laws. The group does not want Yahoo giving web users archived access to newspaper articles, that the newspapers would otherwise charge for. It will be interesting to watch how Yahoo handles this....
• Google's Carolina Moves: $100 Million Tax Breaks In North, Server Farm Coming To South?
  Caldwell tries to land Google at the Citizen Times and Bidding War for Google: It's Expensive, But What Is the Alternative? by the Local Tech Wire document how North Carolina is offering major tax breaks to Google in order to encourage Google to build a massive data center in their state. The Google data center is expected to require 210 new jobs and take up possibly 150 acres of land. In exchange for this, North Carolina is offering a $100 million tax break over the next 30 years. But it is not just North Carolina that wants Google's name, South...
• Star Your Favorite Questions at Yahoo Answers
  Yahoo is now allowing users to vote for their favorite questions at Yahoo Answers by adding a star next to interesting or high-quality questions. Similar to Flickr’s “Interestingness” and the del.icio.us “Hotlist,” a starred question is nominated to appear in the new “Popular” list on the front page of Answers. More on the new feature over at this post on the Yahoo Answers Team blog....
• French news search site Wikio is now available in an English language version, Pandia
• Change in Outlook Image Rendering Could Mess with Marketers, ClickZ
• Two- and Three-Word Queries Rule, Search Engine Watch Blog
• SEM’s Seven-Year Itch, Part Two, MediaPost
• Find toxic wastelands via Google Earth, News.com
• Mapshark: A Search Engine For Mashups
  Since the advent of the Google and Yahoo (and more recently Virtual Earth) mapping APIs there are hundreds of developers and entrepreneurs who have built interesting and useful mashups. But how does one find them? Of course you could search on Google, Yahoo or Microsoft Live or look at some of the worthy blogs devoted to mapping such as Google Maps Mania or The Map Room. But you could also search Mapshark, pointed out to us by Philipp Lenssen. According to Philipp's post the site was created by Alaska attorney Andrew Mitton, who says he's only spent $100 on the...
• World Explorer, Explore Your Town With Flickr, O'Reilly Radar
• Yahoo Research Berkeley unveils The World Explorer, ResourceShelf