Googlified

Google has tons of pranks for this year’s April Fool’s Day, including Gmail Custom Time, Virgle: The Adventure of Many Lifetimes, Google Wake Up Kit, and more!

• Gmail Custom Time: It enables you to send email back until April 1, 2004.
• Google Human Search (Chinese): searches 250 million volunteers by their personal characteristics.
• Virgle: Virgin and Google team up together to create Project Virgle to build a second Earth on Mars - just in case Earth gives up on us - in the next 100 years.
• Google Wake Up Kit - The kit from Google Calendar is designed to wake you up by whatever means possible - including “a bed-flipping device … for forceful removal from your sleeping quarters.” Google Calendar also added a “I’m Feeling Lucky” button that sets you up for dates with celebrities.
• gDay - Brought to you by the Google Australia team, it let’s you to search contents on the Internet even before it’s created! - “Hi guys, I am from the future.”
• Scratch-and-sniff books - Google Books is “now able to capture some of the smells during the scanning process” and you can smell them in the preview pages!
• Greener Google Talk: To reduce the amount carbon dioxide produced by instant messaging, Google Talk will now shorten the number of characters used in a IM message by “abbreviating words and dropping vowels” - the so-called IM-speak.
• Google Dajare (Japanese): The mission of this project is “to organize the world’s laughter, (allow) people around the world (to) have access to what(ever) they want.”
• YTRickRollsYou - “We’re no strangers to love, You know the rules and so do I … Never gonna give you up, Never gonna let you down … We’ve know each other for so long” - click on any feature videos on YouTube (no, this is not rickroll).
• Google Cash (Russian) - Now you can install the Google Cash portable right from your office or home and make payments for advertising cash roubles - designed exclusively for Russian AdWords users. (I thought the machine is designed to print money to pay for the users’ online advertising campaigns…)
• Yogurt: the new Orkut!
• Google Docs Airplane: Stop typing the boring documents, fold an airplane instead! Go to Google Docs and create a “New airlane!“
• Google Weblogs - New service from Blogger that “Publish text to the web in reverse chronological order.” OMG, this is going to be SO COOL!
• AdSense for Conversation: AdSense will display ads that are relevant to the conversations that you engage in on a headgear that Google provides for you to wear. Also AdSense for Phone Calls (Portuguese).
• FrankRank: a new AdWords ranking algorithm inspired by Frank the hand turkey.

Happy April Fool’s Day everyone! :)

Google is experimenting a new way to display OneBox results - placing them in the right hand side of the AdWords section. No, Google won’t remove the ads entirely - unless they want to go out of business - the ads will still be there, only that the OneBox results will be placed under the ads when the ads are present.

For instance, no ads return for “George Bush”, so the OneBox results on placed high on the page, but when searching for keywords like “Christmas”, AdWords ads related to the query will placed before the OneBox results (News, Images, and Books).

Google has been testing something similar with SearchMash for about a year.

You can try out this experiment by copy & pasting this link into the Google homepage’s address bar, hit Enter and refresh the page (you will probably need to clear your cookies before hitting Enter though).

Every year this time, Google sends gifts to some of its selected AdSense and AdWords users. Last year they sent digital photo frames and iPod shuffles, and the gift this year is a 2GB USB memory card, inside a “pretty envelop”.

The memory card is so small that blogger Amit Agarwal already lost it (read: stolen). Perhaps next year they will send something bigger, like phones loaded with Android?

[photo by Barry Schwartz]

Google will be holding a competition during March and May next year called to “Google Online Marketing Challenge“, opened to students of higher education institutions from anywhere in the world (I bet that they won’t accept applications from North Korea, Iran, Cuba, etc…).

Students will work with local businesses to devise effective online marketing campaigns. They will outline a strategy, run their campaign (using AdWords), assess their results and provide the business with recommendations to further develop their online marketing.

Global winners will receive a trip to the Googleplex in Mountain View and meet the AdWords developers, and regional winners are invited to their local Google office.

Search Engine Roundtable reports that Google AdWords now have an option to let you chat with one of their “specialists” online, in real time.

Google explains, “Google Live Support allows you to receive immediate response to your questions via a free online chat session with a Google AdWords representative. […] If we’re available, simply click the button labeled [Chat with a specialist now] to initiate a chat.”

According to Google Blogoscoped, “AdWords Specialists are available Monday - Thursday, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. PST (U.S.), or on Friday, from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. PST (U.S.).”

It would be nice to see live support chat for other services as well, but we have to keep in mind that AdWords is their money-printing machine. :)

[screenshot by Philipp Lenssen, used under a CC-license]

Looks like Google is still experimenting with AdWords ads on Images Search that I spotted last month. It’s probably a good thing if those ads “lead you to photo-related sites”, rather than ads for Paris hotel when search for “Paris, France“, as Ionut suggested.

I don’t think “Buy Paris on eBay” would be a good ad either. Well, nobody like She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named anyways. :)

To organize more of the world’s information, Google is looking for people to be part of the Local Business Referrals program to collect local businesses information for Google Maps/Local/AdWords. (Human 1, Robots 0)

To be part of the program, you will need to apply using this form, and once your application is approved by Google, you will get a fancy title, “Google Business Referral Representative”. Well, that doesn’t make you a Googler though, only as an independent contractor to Google.

As stated in the Business Representative Referral FAQ, you can earn up to $10 for each verified referral you submit and all you need to do is to collect information about the business, such as hours of operation, types of payment accepted, and take a couple of digital photos.

Note: “To be eligible for consideration as a Google Business Referral Representative, you must be authorized to work as a contractor in the U.S., be at least 18 years of age, and be able to complete an IRS Form W-9. You must also have access to a computer and a digital camera.” Too bad, I am underage.

[via Keith at gSpy]

YouTube now shows video ads in a new way…

[via InsideGoogle->Mashable]

The Inside AdWords Blog announced that the Google Audio Ads program’s beta stage comes to an end and will be “rolling out to all advertisers this month“. Google created a Beginner’s Guide for new advertisers that are new to radio advertising, which cover tips of how to launch a successful radio campaign.

For advertisers that launched one or more 30-second radio ads by June 30, 2007 using the Google Ad Creation Marketplace, Google will reward them $400 Audio Ads credit. You can learn more about the offer here.

Introducing AdWords Editor 3.5 - Inside AdWords

AdWords Editor is our free, downloadable application for managing your AdWords campaigns. Today, we’ve released version 3.5 which includes support for image ads, campaign targeting by region and city, and a drag-and-drop feature that makes it easier to move items from one location to another. [Available for Windows and Mac version in coming weeks]

AdWords Systems Maintenance - May 12 - AdWords API Blog

We will be performing routine AdWords system maintenance from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT on Saturday, May 12, 2007.

REMINDER: Version 7 Shutdown on May 21 - AdWords API Blog

Just a reminder… per our announcement on January 18, we will shutdown Version 7 of the API on May 21. [API Version 10 Now Available]

The Inside AdWords Blog today introduced a new bidding option - “preferred cost bidding“.

Preferred cost bidding — a feature designed to help you save time while achieving your advertising cost goals more consistently. Instead of setting a maximum cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-impression (CPM) bid, you can set a preferred CPC or CPM bid that represents the average price you want to pay.

Also, the Inside AdSense Blog announced that AdSense is now available for contents that are in Greek and Romanian.

Google today announced that they have signed a multi-year agreement with Clear Channel Radio, the largest radio station group owner in the United States with more than 1,200 stations, which 675 of them will be broadcasting ads bid by advertisers on Google Adwords.

Hisssssssy. (static noise from the radio)

also read: Google AdSense for Audio Now Compatible with Industry Leading Station System Providers - Google Press Center