Thursday Links: Well, That’s Settled
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Written By Reprise Media | July 27, 2006 | Share This
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Finally, there’s a done deal in the Lane’s Gifts vs. Google click fraud case. Over the objections of 51 advertisers, Judge Joe Griffin approved the $90 million class action settlement - that’s 30 million in cash to the lawyers, 60 million in advertising credit to divvy up amongst the defrauded advertisers. The ruling is here (in .pdf), and more information is available for affected parties (and curious onlookers) in this FAQ. And now…the links:
iPod to be bored to death Ever since Microsoft confirmed rumors of its portable music player, it’s been hyped as an “iPod killer.” Memories of the Google’s-going-down-in-six-months prediction danced in our heads, but Microsoft is taking the long view with this one, says BetaNews, setting a “three-, four-, five-year” time line to dismantle Apple’s iTunes/iPod 1-2 punch. We’ll reportedly see Microsoft’s first effort, called Zune - a play on the word ‘tune’ and, uh…zephyr…zebra…can we have a hint? Anyway, it’ll street within a matter of months, followed by a second device next year.
“Turn up the power all NIGHT-Night-night-night…” Google’s AdSense ads are now playing on radios, portable and otherwise, in Detroit, says Cnet. Radio AdSense uses technology from dMarc (bought by Google in January), that “automates the process of buying ads, placing them in time slots and tracking them, which is usually done by ad agencies over the phone,” according to experts. It could lead to lower ad prices, higher sales, cats and dogs living together…or it could lead to, er, a rerun of the Google Print ads misadventure.
Parking foul! Call it a peeve. BoingBoing spotted the Flickr account of one ‘ycantpark,’ who highlights the discourteous - and sometimes dangerous - parking habits evidenced in Yahoo!’s company lot (and an anonymous reader points out many more). We realize picking on one company isn’t exactly fair, as every place we’ve ever worked had this exact same problem, so we welcome the chance for equal opportunity scolding. If you’ve got photos of Google’s, Microsoft’s or Ask’s parking lot transgressions, we’d love to see those, too.
Speaking of transgressions… Come on, we’ve all had that feeling, right? Sitting there at the computer, entering a query into Google’s search box, we’ve all at some point or another thought, “I wish there was a musical play about this activity.” No? Well, you got one anyway, and it’s playing at the Minnesota fringe festival this August. Look out for “Librarians, DJs and zombies” singing about “dangers of information ubiguity.” Don’t miss the showstopper, “Did You Mean: Ubiquity,” which is what we got when we Googled “ubiguity” (via Philipp Lenssen).
Topics: Advertising: Contextual, Advertising: Offline, Click Fraud, Google, Legal Issues, Search: News, Yahoo! |