Getting Creative with Google Adsense

While doing some research, I came across this creative approach to displaying Google Adsense ads within your website worthy of a post on the topic. In the graphic above, the ads are displayed with a clear heading as being sponsored, but the approach is very creative. The designer of this law firm website places an attractive female to the right of the sponsored listings, looking into them to draw attention to the ads. Do you think this is a little "over the top"? Perhaps, but I can imagine this is very effective for the site owner.

Google G1 "gPhone" is finally here!

In a post a while back, I poked fun at what was just rumors at the time about Google's gPhone. Now that the actual Google G1 phone has been released on a T-Mobile microsite, I've very excited about getting my hands on one. It seems to combine the best of what the BlackBerry and iPhone have to offer. The G1 seems to offer more of a desktop like experience rather than a whole new interface, which I feel is a plus. The flip out keyboard is also a great feature. I've tried using Apple's iPhone touch screen and I'm not sold on using it for everyday text messaging. I have yet to handle one of these phones, but from the demos, it's clear that this is a good first shot for Google into the mobile phone market.

Google Android Phones Coming this Fall

Google will be releasing phones based on the Android platform as early as this fall. One is on my wish list!!! The Android phones will have an interface similar to the one used by the palm treo or the blackberry. There is even a demo of one interface similar to the iPhone on Google's Android page.

gphone prototype released

Well, here it is. The new gphone prototype everyone has been talking about. But seriously, I'm excited to hear Google's new phone is in the works.

Clicky Web Analytics

Found Clicky, an alternative to Google Analytics with some interesting features you will not find in most analytics tools. One of my favorites is the "Spy" feature. This feature allows you to view activity on your web site in real-time as users click, download or page through your site. Very cool stuff.


Clicky seems like a good solution for small to medium size businesses, web designers or developers getting started in web analytics. I'm also impressed with the data capabilities and easy integration with other technologies such as Google Maps and WordPress.

"Checkout" this button!

I'm starting to gather some information on how effective the new Google Checkout buttons have been in increasing click through rates for SEM (Search Engine Marketing). I have to imagine that the ads are gaining some lift from the rather large buttons that appear just below the paid search results. It's also interesting to see what advantage ads farther down the results gain from using Google Checkout as a payment method. In the game of search engine marketing, every advantage counts.