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Google TV Ads to get Nielsen data

Google is partnering with Nielsen so that companies that buy its Google TV Ads can find out how many people actually watch the ads.

Nielsen's metering devices are installed in a large number of households across the U.S., enabling the company to keep track of which TV programs are the most popular.

Now, Google will have access to Nielsen's demographic data from aggregated set-top boxes so advertisers can see what ads are effective and get additional aggregate information about the viewers, such as age and gender, according to Nielsen.

"This is the first time that advertisers … Read more

Yang: Being Yahoo CEO is a 'lonely job'

HALF MOON BAY, Calif.--Being chief executive of Yahoo is "a lonely job," says Jerry Yang, who co-founded the company in 1994 and was promoted to the top job in June in a management shakeup.

"It is a lonely job in the sense that you have to make some of the tough calls," he said in a "fireside chat" session at a conference here. "It feels like I've been in training for the past 13 years." The conference was put on by the Right Media Exchange, the advertising marketplace of Right … Read more

Does new iPhone ad pass the sniff test?

Life is good at Apple these days. Around 1.39 million iPhones sold. Soaring earnings. A new OS on the way. The Mac is gaining ground on the rest of the PC industry. The company can do no wrong. But that hasn't stopped a handful of critics from getting upset over one of the new iPhone ads currently running on a TV screen near you.

The ad in question is "Delay," which depicts an alleged airline pilot, Bryce, talking about how he used his iPhone's weather.com app to help avoid a major delay. The ads have gotten some of the folks over at FlyerTalk's forums pretty riled up.

Marathon Man, a poster from Massachusetts, started it all off by saying: "So I just saw for the first time this Apple iPhone commercial where a pilot (or some crew member that could be one) is standing there telling us that his iPhone was able to… Read more

Five must-have security/privacy extensions for Firefox

Do you consider yourself to be a privacy aware Internet user? Are you concerned about your security online?

You've installed antivirus and spyware software, which you also keep updated. You regularly update your operating system for any security patches. You have a firewall on your home computer and have locked down your home wireless network with a WPA2 password. Most importantly, you've ditched Internet Explorer and jumped on the Firefox bandwagon.

Your job is done, right? Think again.

While installing Firefox (and not using IE) is one of the most important steps users can take towards a safe online experience, Firefox is (alas) not totally safe out of the box. Luckily, Firefox provides a very flexible framework for open-source programmers and commercial vendors to create their own software add-ons for the browser. A number of these software extensions fix critical design flaws in Firefox--or simply improve transparency so that users have a better idea of where they are and which sites they're interacting with. I've selected a few of the best ones, which I highlight below.

… Read more

OpenAds and the role of community in commercial open source

OpenAds is one of my favorite open-source companies. It's disrupting a market that is, itself, disrupting other markets. A match made in heaven.

But Scott Switzer, founder of the company and erstwhile CEO, is not taking its future for granted, and has left many key decisions to the OpenAds community, as noted in Linux.com. This is what separates a successful open-source project from a project with an open-source license and proprietary mindset.

Switzer says listening to the community is the most important aspect of commercializing an open source project.… Read more

Browser bad boy

Silent and invisible, some malware sneaks up on you to quietly wreak havoc on your system resources and possibly mine your files for personal, bank account-cracking information. Shudder.

Other types of Trojans more helpfully announce their presence by lobbing pop-ups, disabling your Start menu, or in Matthew's case, playing puppet master with your browser.

Matthew has a few ideas for wresting back control. Find out which he tried, which he should he have tried, and which ultimately worked in this week's Spyware Horror Story, "Browsers behaving badly".

Cartfly turns widget ads into online stores

Cartfly has a new service for selling goods from a personal Web site or profile. In a twist on the advertising widget, users can customize and embed an online store from Cartfly.com into any site or profile that accepts HTML embed code. MySpace, Blogger, and Typepad are examples.

Visitors can browse offered goods, read information about your company, check your reputation in satisfaction ratings similar to those found on eBay and Amazon, and initiate PayPal purchases directly from your widget. Cartfly takes a 3 percent cut on each transaction you make in exchange for providing your store's building … Read more

Yuwie: Social networking gone very wrong

I came across a very disturbing social networking site last week called Yuwie. It's another site that's decided that for some reason, using a free, and highly functional social service populated by your friends (like Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, etc.) is worth ditching for something built with very little ease of use or original design, but created to help you make ludicrous amounts of money by selling out your friends.

It works like this: you get a share of money for every page view on the service (the site makes its money by selling ads). Also, the more people visit your page, the more page views you get a percentage of. Yuwie then takes it a step further with referrals, letting you get a percentage of money from the activity of any friends you've invited to the service, along with their friends, and people who their friends have invited. This goes on for 10 "levels," so you could theoretically have close to 100,000 referrals if your friends and their invitees continue to invite others who use the service beyond the one-month probation period.

Does this idea sound familiar? It's a pyramid scheme. The problem with this, economically, is that it's unsustainable. The people at the top can't possibly pay out the promised amount, and the people stuck at the bottom aren't getting the same benefits as those who have spammed referrals to their friends higher up in the chain. Speaking of spam, even if you're on there with your friends, you're bound to get an intolerable amount of spam from people you don't know as the service grows. The second most popular group on the service at the moment has been specifically designed as a place to add random groups of other folks to beef up your bonus money. Is this the kind of network you want to be a part of? At least the site isn't asking for a sign-up fee--if it did, it'd be illegal. And it ought to be.

The worst part is that Yuwie is pretty much a carbon copy of MySpace, circa two years ago, with nearly identical profile features--meaning you're not really getting anything more than you would with a mainstream social network.… Read more

Google taps YouTube videos for ads

Google is expanding its AdSense program so that Web site publishers can display and make money off embedded video clips from YouTube content partners that have targeted banner or text ads, in addition to the traditional text ads that Google offers.

Pretty soon Web sites will be able to get any kind of content they want on their sites and get a cut of the revenue from accompanying ads. This will boost Google's already successful online ad business and give publishers a way to earn more money on their sites. Soon, we'll see Google distributing all of the … Read more