Ad perfect

From google blog
I really liked this as I liked adsense
read on more

9/12/2008 10:05:00 AM

The Internet has had an enormous impact on people's lives around the world in the ten years since Google's founding. It has changed politics, entertainment, culture, business, health care, the environment and just about every other topic you can think of. Which got us to thinking, what's going to happen in the next ten years? How will this phenomenal technology evolve, how will we adapt, and (more importantly) how will it adapt to us? We asked ten of our top experts this very question, and during September (our 10th anniversary month) we are presenting their responses. As computer scientist Alan Kay has famously observed, the best way to predict the future is to invent it, so we will be doing our best to make good on our experts' words every day. - Karen Wickre and Alan Eagle, series editors

Google's advertising business was founded on the core principle that advertising should deliver the right information to the right person at the right time. This is very similar to our mission in search, and, like our colleagues in search, those of us on the ads team are constantly striving to achieve better results. We have hundreds of thousands of advertisers who collectively have millions of products and services, and out of that vast amount of information our goal is always to show people the best ads, the ones that are the most relevant, timely, and useful (and, from the advertiser perspective, measurable). Achieving this ideal has been difficult since the early days of ads, but now, with the Internet, it is within reach.

What does it take to do this? We need to understand exactly what people are looking for, then give them exactly the information they want. Timing is an important component. For example, when a person is looking for a specific item (like those table lamps I got a couple of weeks ago), the best ads will give more specific information, like where to buy the item online and locally, along with other relevant information such as style, size, availability, and pricing. Regardless of the timing, the best ads might include images, videos, or other formats about products and services to provide the most relevant information to people to make their purchasing decision.

In other cases, ads can help you learn about something you didn’t know you wanted. For instance, a few weeks ago I was researching roller coasters for my son when I saw a great text ad for software that actually lets you design your own roller coaster! It turned out to be the perfect gift (and I now have a budding roller coaster engineer in my house). So in this case, I was doing some basic research, and the ad helped me discover something I didn't know existed.

As we look forward, one way to make ads better would be to customize them based on factors like a person's location or preferences. If you're in a particular neighborhood using your mobile phone to look for a specific type of restaurant or shop, ads from local vendors are likely to be very useful to you.

Finally, it is very important that anyone be able to advertise. People benefit when they see ads from any type of business or organization regardless of its size or geography. The right product for a user might be from a company they had previously never heard of, so it needs to be very easy and quick for anyone to create good ads, to show them only to people for whom they are useful, and to measure how effective they are.

In Marissa's post on Wednesday, she talked about how the science of search is still in its infancy, and how we still have many breakthroughs before us. The same applies to advertising. In coming years, as people find new ways to use the Internet and new devices with which to access it, we have the opportunity to get even smarter about the ads we show. As always, we will use the best and most innovative technologies available so we serve relevant ads for you. We will do so in a way that safeguards user privacy by honoring our commitment to transparency and choice. And most importantly, we will continue to live by the philosophy that has guided our work from the outset: getting the right ad to the right person at the right time matters.

Posted by Susan Wojcicki, VP, Product Management

Haruhi Suzumiya Returns to Wii

By Jean Snow September 11, 2008 | 5:20:00 PMCategories: Console Games, Japan

The otaku sure love anything that has to do with the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya anime series, and that includes games based on the license. They'll love the news, then, that another Haruhi-related Wii game has just been announced.

Sega had previously revealed that it was producing an adventure game based on the animated series for the Nintendo DS. Suzumiya Haruhi no Heiretsu for the Wii will also be an adventure title. Both games feature original storylines.

These releases join Kadokawa Shoten's upcoming Suzumiya Haruhi no Gekido for the Wii. It was announced as a dance title -- based on the now famous Haruhi dance -- but now looks to have morphed into a collection of mini-games, although it could just be an ad gimmick.

Why all the fuss over Haruhi? If you haven't already, you really should seek out the series. Don't let the cutesy anime look fool you, as the anime is actually a sharp parody of everything otaku, and done so in a rather clever way.

Image: Kadokawa Entertainment

So, there are two Haruhi games for the Wii [Siliconera]

Anime erotic subculture goes mainstream

More Americans drawn to the 'moral-free zone' of cute, sexual comics

By Brian Alexander

MSNBC contributor

updated 8:35 a.m. ET Sept. 11, 2008

Brian Alexander • E-mail

Anybody who doubts the rapidly growing influence of Japan's erotic cultural imports in the U.S. only has to spend a little time playing with a Hello Kitty vibrator while reading a fan-created pornographic Pokemon comic — or visit a “maid café” (now available near Los Angeles and Canada) where the waitresses all dress in costume — to realize it's not just a fringe subculture anymore.

There is a good argument to be made, based on those characters alone, that we are all “turning Japanese” as the '80s song goes — especially sexually.

These cartoony, sexualized characters are all part of otaku culture. Otaku is a Japanese word that has evolved from meaning "techno-geek" to describing devoted fans who pore over Japanese animation (anime), manga (graphic books), hentai (erotic comics) and other comics-derived media. As the recent fashion collaboration of designer Marc Jacobs and Japanese artist Takashi Murakami illustrates, otaku culture has become entrenched in the hip American mainstream.

When anime conventions started in the U.S. back in the mid-1990s, the main demographic was mostly Asian college-age male students, says 32-year-old otaku expert Lawrence Eng. “Now, at least 50 percent are female," he says. "Fandom itself is more diverse than ever.”

Within the adult realm of otaku culture, cuteness is fetishized (hence the Hello Kitty sex toys) and gender is often bent or dissolves altogether. Women are penetrated by octopi and young women in short school-girl skirts save the world. Men, on the other hand, are often passive worshipers of small figurines depicting sexy characters.

Of course, not all anime and manga is overtly sexual — a lot of it is meant for children. Even some adult anime isn’t sexualized any more than, say, Wonder Woman (who was created as a dominatrix bondage fantasy.)

But sexually-suggestive and explicit anime like "Gurren Lagann" and "Legend of the Overfiend," is finding an eager audience of adult Americans who are drawn to the post-modern, almost post-human mash-up of playful, blurry morality found in the genre.

“The appeal of Japanese pop culture [to Americans] is that it is a moral-free zone,” explains Patrick Macias, editor in chief of Otaku USA, a bi-monthly magazine with a circulation of approximately 60,000. “The ideas of good/bad, right/wrong, that duality is not present.”

Lolita-complex culture
Yet while adult anime may be fascinating because it pushes the edges of normal reality, there is enormous potential to be misunderstood. Because some of the edgier elements such as “Lolicon” (or Lolicom, a combination of “Lolita” and “comic”) involve very young anime girls in erotic situations, adult otaku media is a “really sensitive topic,” in the U.S., says Macias.

“When we hit those images, we are really kind of on an abyss,” Macias says.

Koichi Kamoshida / Getty Images file Women dressed in maid costumes pose as part of a promotion for shops in Tokyo, Japan. The Japanese-style Maid Cafe, which evolved from video games, is now open in Los Angeles and Canada.

In fact, trying to explain the appeal of Lolicon has become a serious field for a few sociologists.

The appeal may rest in blooming eroticism, some theorize. Or, as British sociologist Sharon Kinsella suggests, the Lolita-complex anime culture appeals because it's rebellious. “Depictions of sexual deviance and uncontained energy projected onto girls in stories in boy’s comics ... contain an antiauthoritarian impulse that gains intense vicarious pleasure from viewing scenes of social chaos, misbehaviour and sensual liberation,” she has written.

Whatever it is, for a true otaku, Eng says, it is not pedophilia. “Fans abhor young looking [real-life] models,” he said. “They abhor real child porn. They do not want to be associated with that stuff.”

For example, on a Lolicon chat board recently, someone posted a Japanese DVD cover showing real schoolgirls, around 8 years old, dressed in uniforms, showing their panties, smiling, giggling. The community was outraged and urged harsh punishment for the makers of the DVD, arguing that there is a vast and important difference between “2-D” and “3-D.”

More satisfying than real life
Some otaku do try to transform the cartoon objects of their affection into 3-D by buying figurines of sexy anime characters, or of “Japanese idols,” often female pop stars or bikini models.

That may be the biggest Japanese influence on American sex. In otaku culture, gender is increasingly fluid and interchangeable. Play and fantasy are more important than actually having sex with a real person. Among some otaku, love and sex in the anime realm become vicarious experiences, more satisfying than real life, Macias says.

“Among Japanese fans — the guys — it is a badge of honor to say, ‘We do not need real women; [these] figures are better, they do not talk back’” said Macias. “Americans are not there yet, but at the rate things are going, we are going to be seeing that.”

American fans may not go that far — at U.S. conventions, for example, otaku men and women socialize, date and sometimes actually fall in love, unlike their loner Japanese counterparts. But in both cultures, Eng believes, the expanding popularity of otaku is a positive reaction to the problems of global alienation, mass culture’s assault on individual identity, changed gender roles, and “the lack of satisfactory grand narratives.”

Macias agrees and has little doubt that otaku will influence attitudes about sexual expression here. “When you see a kid sitting in Borders reading a manga, he’s not just reading a comic book,” Macias said. “There is something really powerful going on there.”

Yoshikazu Tsuno / Getty Images file

Cartoony, sexualized characters, such as Japanese contemporary artist Takashi Murakami's figure "Miss Ko2," are all part of otaku, a Japanese word that has evolved from meaning "techno-geek" to describing devoted fans who pore over Japanese animation and comics.

Brian Alexander is the author of the new book “America Unzipped: In Search of Sex and Satisfaction."

© 2008 MSNBC Interactive

Apple boring? Get over it

from CNN

After Apple’s iPod announcement this week, pundits groused that the whole event was predictable and utterly lacking in surprises. Well, yes. Yes it was. And for investors, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

To recap: On Tuesday CEO Steve Jobs took the stage as he always does in September, and instead of unveiling shockingly innovative products, he delivered pretty much what bloggers had predicted: thinner, multicolored nanos with bigger screens and high-def video in the iTunes Store. About an hour later, dejected reporters filed out of the auditorium and blinked in the sunlight, looking as though they’d just suffered through an over-hyped summer action movie.

Apple (AAPL) stock dropped 3 percent. Wall Street analyst Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray said the event was “overall negative” for the stock because observers had hoped for more cool gear.

Calm down, everyone. Jobs did what he needed to do: unwrap iPods with enough new features to send the shopping hordes back to the electronics aisle this holiday season. And besides, all of this predictability stuff is really beside the point.

The lack of surprise wasn’t exactly Apple’s fault; there was plenty of interesting news, and the company tried to keep things quiet. But as Apple stock has soared and the company has become a bigger, more disciplined and more powerful operation, it inevitably has become easier to figure out, too. In other words, this is the price of success.

Take Apple’s Mac computers for example. Back when its market share wasn’t growing and Apple relied on IBM (IBM) for chips, you never knew when faster machines would come out. Creative professionals, some of whom relied on Apple’s upgrades to help them do work faster, would get especially impatient. But since Apple switched to Intel (INTC), the guesswork is mostly gone; when Intel has new chips available, Apple usually builds them into its computers.

Apple’s success has also made it more vulnerable to leaks. It’s not hard to see why. Given the fact that the company plans to ship well over 20 million iPods during the holiday quarter alone (it sold 22 million during the period last year), it has to share information with manufacturing partners well ahead of time – and they can’t always keep a secret. What’s more, companies that make iPod accessories also get inside info on future iPods so they can design cases and other gear to fit the new products’ dimensions.

With all those people in the know, tidbits inevitably find their way onto blogs – a fact that Jobs lamented during his keynote. (Not only were spy photos of the new nanos online days ago, but blueprints too.)

While that spoils a good surprise, I’ll argue that it’s better than the alternative. Just seven or eight years ago, no one cared enough about Apple to sniff out so many of its secrets, and the company made some wild moves.

I recall one visit to Apple’s Cupertino headquarters in 2001 when senior marketing VP Phil Schiller invited me to check out the latest iMac lineup. When he whipped the covers off of them, they were an odd couple – the case of one, dubbed “Blue Dalmatian,” sported a translucent blue background with white spots; another, “Flower Power,” had a multicolored floral motif, like a bad ’60s sundress. I genuinely hoped it was a joke, and asked Schiller if Apple had focus-grouped them. “We don’t do focus groups,” he told me.

Let’s just say Blue Dalmatian and Flower Power aren’t the kinds of surprises Apple fans want to see more of.

How to Follow your Favourite Blog

from google blog

Some people dream of being a rock star, while others just want a few discerning souls to become avid readers of their blogs. Both are noble pursuits, but with some good pictures, and a witty turn of phrase or two, building a Blogger fan-base may be a more attainable dream.

At Blogger we're passionate about helping communities form around blogs. To further that goal, we've introduced a new feature that lets you easily follow your favorite blogs and tell the world that you’re a fan. To follow a blog with the Followers' Gadget, simply click the “Follow This Blog” link. You can show your support for the blog by following it right from your Blogger Dashboard or in Google Reader.

Following isn't just for bloggers, it's also designed to make it easier for readers to keep tabs on their favorite blogs. Maybe you're following a wedding blog for tips, have a thing for plush toys, or perhaps you want to keep track of Google's university bus tour.

In addition, you can easily check out what blogs other fans are writing and following - you might even find another blog you’ll want to add to your reading list. And by the way, you can follow any blog, even if it isn't hosted on Blogger or doesn't have the Followers gadget. Just go to your Reading List in your Blogger Dashboard, click the “Add” button, and type in the blog’s URL. And you can even import existing subscriptions from Google Reader.

This feature is currently only available in English, but we plan to make it available in more languages soon. We’re also in the process of integrating with Google Friend Connect to add even more engaging social features to Blogger.

So start following. We hope you become a fan.

Posted by Mendel Chuang, Product Marketing Manager
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