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Google must know something that we don’t. Why else would they be SO open in their new move toward transparency as to allow for extensions on Chrome that, gulp, block the very lifeblood of their money printing operation? Well, considering the market share that Chrome currently has (around 40 million users) and the mindset of someone likely to use (or even know about) this extension the thought of this kind of ‘allowance’ is probably bigger than the reality. The New York Times reports In a manifesto-like e-mail message sent last month to all Google employees, Jonathan Rosenberg, a senior vice president for product management, told them to commit to greater transparency and open industry standards. Rather than hoard knowledge to exploit it, he wrote in “ The Meaning of Open ,” share it and watch Google and the entire Internet prosper. The resulting openness is allowing for ad blockers as extensions but this decision did not happen without a Mountain View trip to the revenue mountaintop for advice. Speaking at a conference on Dec. 11 in Mountain View, Calif., Linus Upson, engineering director at Google, said there were many discussions before allowing ad-blocking programs “because Google makes all of its money from advertising.” But he explained that the prevailing thinking was that “it’s unlikely ad blockers are going to get to the level where they imperil the advertising market, because if advertising is so annoying that a large segment of the population wants to block it, then advertising should get less annoying.” “So I think the market will sort this out,” he said. “At least that is the bet we made when we opened the extension gallery and didn’t have any policy against ad-blockers.” That was a long quote but it’s the last sentence that was uttered by a company that is both loved and scorned at the same time. This is uttered by a company that some would think anti-trust is in their future in the same way it was for Microsoft and IBM. Letting the market sort it out is the only way to go in the long run. Sure there will be hiccups but the alternative (some form of regulation that reads real well but in practical use is just plain stupid) is not going to work. I think that there is enough evidence from 2009 for that one. Similar extensions are currently available on Firefox, which has a much larger market share but has not exactly stopped Google in its tracks so that may be the evidence needed. Oh and if you want to gain access to these blockers here’s their stories and a link or two for you. As it happens, two 28-year-olds, Michael Gundlach, an independent programmer from outside Athens, Ga., and Tom Joseph, an M.D.-Ph.D. student at Mount Sinai Medical School, separately went through the exact same experience. In telephone interviews, each told of excitedly looking to see if he could install a Chrome extension of his favorite Firefox add-on, Adblock Plus, which prevents ads from appearing on Web sites, whether bright flashing animation or the text ads that Google serves up after a search. They did not find one. So, naturally, each spent a day or so creating a rough version of such an extension, with much more work to come. AdThwart from Mr. Joseph is now No. 2 in popularity among the more than 1,200 Chrome extensions; AdBlock from Mr. Gundlach is No. 8. Together, they already have more than 120,000 users. Happy ad blocking!

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Chrome Extensions Include Ad Blockers

New data from Chitika indicate that Microsoft users—both browser and operating system— click on online advertisements more often than other users. And considering what a significant portion of the market those segments constitute, that’s pretty dang good news. From a sample of over 130 million impressions, Chitika saw a click-through rate of 1.05% from Internet Explorer users, versus 0.66% from Firefox users, 0.50% from Safari users and 0.21% from Chrome users. Similarly, Windows users outclick their Mac and Linux counterparts, 0.92% to 0.52% to 0.46%, respectively. According to TechCrunch, even Bing has higher click-through rates than other search engines. So why is this large audience clicking so much? Are they “gullible,” as TechCrunch asks, not savvy enough to switch browsers or recognize an ad, or simply more engaged? For whatever reason, this large group of the market certainly constitutes a valuable segment for marketers. What do you think? Why do Microsoft users click more?

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There’s Something about Microsoft Users?

It’s been a long time doming, but now it’s officially, truly, official: AOL is part of Time Warner no more. (Technically, actually, AOL bought Time Warner—isn’t that weird?—and now they’re the ones being spun off.) And with its newly-single status, AOL is eyeing every woman in the room—especially old flame Yahoo. They were flirting (or at least rumors have been flying) heavily last year , with reports resurfacing periodically . But now the love has turned to rivalry, with AOL and Yahoo both focusing on their Internet display advertising businesses . AOL is also looking to take on other Internet behemoths like Citysearch, Yelp and Google in a local effort : The initiative — which he characterized as “digitizing towns” — will grow to 100 municipalities in 2010, [AOL CEO and ex-Googler Tim] Armstrong said. Providing a turn-key platform where schools, government departments, local businesses, and classified listings firms can create or update Web sites will be at the heart of the effort. AOL is also focusing on an API-intensive ad platform to allow users to interface directly with their data. That’s cool. But the heart of their plan is their content. AOL will be heavily focusing its advertising sales upon its own properties, where 80% of the content is original. Yahoo, by contrast, has about 20% original content. What do you think? Can AOL be turned around, or is it too late?

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AOL vs Yahoo–Again

Yahoo’s taking ad targeting to a whole new level with its new Ad Interest Manager . Now advertisers aren’t the only ones who can target you—you can target yourself, too! The new AIM system enables users to select their interests and block ads outside of those interest areas. According to the press release , the tool: Provides a central point where Yahoo! visitors can assert even greater control over their online experience. Gives visitors an unparalleled view into the information used to deliver interest-based advertising. Shows the visitor both Yahoo!’s educated guesses about their interests and a summary of observations, along with other information they have provided. Provides a list of specific interest categories that Yahoo! has placed a user into and lets people turn those categories off. Allows people who don’t want to see interest-based ads to turn them off entirely. As the quote indicates, the system gives you a list of ad categories Yahoo believes you’re interested in, based on your activity on the site, including search history, and properties including Yahoo Answers, Flickr and Yahoo Groups. You can then switch off each individual category. Switch off seven categories, and the system prompts you, asking if you want to switch off all behavioral targeting. Overall, this is a smart move—allowing users to target ads to themselves insures greater value for advertisers. But the system will only work as well as its implementation—both the targeting and the promotion of the system must be good enough for the system to gain widespread use. Yahoo will have to use fairly prominent, probably front-page, promotion to not only show that are they behind this system, but to make their every day users aware of the improvements. What do you think? Will you use the AIM targeting system? As a user or an advertiser, are you excited about this?

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Yahoo Lets Users Customize Ads

Can you tell the difference between these two ads? Look closely: Well the one on the bottom just made the founders of Teracent, very, very rich! OK, that’s not quite the same example that Google just gave over at the official blog, but it did announce that it plans to acquire Teracent . What does Teracent do? Teracent’s technology can pick and choose from literally thousands of creative elements of a display ad in real-time — tweaking images, products, messages or colors. These elements can be optimized depending on factors like geographic location, language, the content of the website, the time of day or the past performance of different ads. This technology can help advertisers get better results from their display ad campaigns. In turn, this enables publishers to make more money from their ad space and delivers web users better ads and more ad-funded web content. Think of it as multi-variate testing for your banner ads. No news yet on the price paid and the deal is subject to final closing conditions.

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Smart Move! Google Acquiring “Intelligent Display Advertising” Company Teracent

According to a recent survey by email marketing company VerticalResponse , small and medium businesses are wising up to online marketing. For their 2010 plans, they’re big into SEM, social media and email marketing—but interest in banner ads is quickly waning. 54.2% of SMBs do not plan to use banner ads online next year. Of those that are currently using banner ads, less than 20% of businesses with 11-100 employees reported increasing their banner spend this year (and about 7% of businesses with

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SMBs Abandoning Banners

It’s been two and a half years since Google acquired digital marketplace DoubleClick for $3.1B. Over that time, they’ve gotten approval for the deal, made it official and merged their technologies more and more closely. This week they’re announcing another step to that integration —new analytics for its ad manager and better integration with its Ad Planner. Right now, advertisers must plan their campaigns in one tool and execute them in another, according to Ari Paparo, group product manager at Google. The new tools would integrate the ad platform better to bring planning, execution and measurement to one place. The new analytics will be very similar to Google Analytics in layout and function: Paparo says the new product will streamline reporting on display ad campaigns: Think of it as something you do when drinking your morning coffee and reading the news. You come in and try to find out what happened yesterday. What performed and what didn’t perform, and where did it perform. It should be intuitive, fast and easy to use. Once these changes are implemented, Google could build on its progress. For example, Ad Planner could add predictive algorithms to help advertisers find new audiences tailored to their offerings, with traffic estimates, demographic data and more. What do you think? Will this help display advertisers using Google? What’s in the future for Ad Planner?

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Google To Premiere New Ad Analytics