What impact will these little “plus signs” have on your advertising strategy?

Google’s Marissa Mayer, VP of search products and user experience, informed the NY Times last month about Google’s latest SERP feature and testing began the same day. Andy Beal (MarketingPilgrim.com ) and others at SERoundtable were among the first to spot the new video ads today.

The NY Times article also quoted Mayer as saying that…

…text ads are not as effective on pages with search results that include images and video. The eyes of users automatically gravitate to the images more than the text, she said. Now that Google’s main search results pages include more images, video links and other elements, it is more appropriate, she argued, to have corresponding advertising formats.

Rather than “appropriate”, Andy Beal described Google’s latest move of implementing video ads into search results as “Google Getting Greedy…There’s really no other way to dress this up.” Beal suggested that Google’s implementation strategy of “taking a delicate approach” is indeed mandatory.

…walking the fine line between “monetizing its success” and “getting too greedy and alienating its users.” It’s a very fine line - one that the likes of Alta Vista and Excite over-stepped and ended up withering in the shadow of a search engine that had a clean interface.

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Early signs of new things to come from Google. Videos showing up in the search results have a way yet to evolve, but now that it has started, it should be interesting to see how things progress and how far they take it.
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AOL has acquired social networking site Bebo for $850 million in cash. AOL CEO Randy Falco (left in picture) sent an email to all AOL employees this morning. Allen Stern’s press call notes are here. (TechCrunch) read more

Apparently, the unresolved question of AOL’s ability to effectively monetize Bebo’s audience via customized ads (based on behavioral data) centers around patented technology purportedly owned by Modavox Inc.  With over a billion dollars spent on their new business model, AOL seems to still not be in control of this vital element. Stay tuned.

… is one of the many responses to Yahoo’s “Most Emailed Photos” taken 2/27/08 by Reuters’ Shannon Stapleton at a St. Clairsville, OH campaign rally.  No doubt, Republicans are having a field day with this one and will be added to The Ultimate Online Archive of Unflattering Hillary Clinton Photos. as just another reason “…Why Hillary is Losing“. Taking a slightly different slant on the value of a picture…this one is “priceless”.

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