CNN’s Version of Contextual Ads Gone Wrong

Contextual advertising is a form of advertising where ads are displayed on a website based on its content. These ads are served by automated systems which try to display them on relevant pages.

Google AdSense is one example, where ads are related to the words found within the content of a page. This type of advertisement is praised by publishers because having relevant ads placed next to a piece of content, the click-through rate is high. But this also attracted controversy, just like how people thought that the placement of ads related to messages in Gmail is a breach of privacy. The issue has been settled already but it’s not the only one related to contextual ads. When publishing news content, ads served by automated systems instead of humans can become subject of controversy. The recent death of Dennis Hopper on the news was an example.

Can Someone Remind Large.com Gmail Offers Gigabytes Free Mail?

Random sweep of the Internet brought me to Large.com, an email service provider that I thought was closer to a business idea frozen in time rather than a premium email it claims to be. I thought with the introduction of Gmail’s 7.3 Gigabytes free email storage or Yahoo! Mail’s virtually unlimited storage shut down paid email account addresses for good. Whether large.com is grossly abandoned by its caretakers or still makes business by accommodating people who don’t want to be associated with the Internet giants (and prefer to be with something synonymously enormous), such type of email service apparently still makes money.

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Funny Google Search Questions

How to get pregnant? When will I die? Should I call him? What should I have for dinner? How to kiss?

Google Suggest suggestions never fail to make me smile. By looking at the following popular question related search queries, you can safely conclude that we live in a diverse world, where Google seems to find the right answers to even the most puzzling questions.

With such type of questions thrown at Google to provide accurate if not sensible answers, Google be better at providing search results. No wonder it has always pledged to improve its relatively superior search result quality.

How to…
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Why is…
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When will…
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What should…
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Go To Search Engine Forums Than Pay For Incompetent SEOs

If you think the title is an apparent swipe at certain search engine optimization professionals who make money by charging fees yet resort to online forums and ask SEO questions, then you got it right buddy. There’s a story about one SEO guy named Gary from Manchester going to Google Webmaster forums and asked questions about ranking issues for a website. I believe there is nothing wrong with that, as forums avenues to seek opinions and answers.

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Photo credit: ajsteppenwolf

Facebook and Twitter Friend Profiles

The complex human behavior was put on display with the new Facebook layout. The new interface that emulates microblogging tool Twitter, Facebook’s homepage now highlights an individual’s whereabouts or the lack of it. Now it’s not hard to notice how each and every Facebook friend behaves within the popular social networking site. Different personalities show up and I can’t help but poke fun at this observation. So here are the types of Facebook and Twitter friends meant just for fun.

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