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Google Businesses The Internet

Google to Distribute Image Ads, Plans Email List Service 333

Posted by michael from the text-is-so-last-year dept.
comforteagle writes "For the next shot in the search engine advertising war Google has launched image ads in addition to their popular text AdSense program. From Google's explanation page: 'Image ads will show in rotation with text ads. On a page by page basis, Google's technology determines whether text ads or image ads are likely to make you more money, and serves the best ads to your page.'" Another reader writes: "eWEEK.com is reporting that Google has begun testing a new mailing list service, Google Groups 2, sure to go head-to-head with Yahoo Groups. It eventually will replace what is today only a Usenet archive. Users of the new beta can start their own mailing lists (public or private) and in typical Google fashion, it is promising to put search front and center (even hinting at postings being included in Web search one day)."
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Google to Distribute Image Ads, Plans Email List Service More

Google to Distribute Image Ads, Plans Email List Service

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  • Ok... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jargoone ( 166102 ) * on Thursday May 13, 2004 @08:16AM (#9138353)
    Sounds fair to me. Unlike the text ones, they're blockable, too, for those who aren't interested.

    • Re:Ok... (Score:3, Informative)

      by zonix ( 592337 )

      Unlike the text ones, they're blockable, too, for those who aren't interested.

      If a page serves the texts ads within an IFRAME or a SCRIPT element, you can easily block it with Firefox's AdBlock extension.

      (Usually this is the case for ads that a fetched from remote sites.)

      z

  • Here we go again? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Liselle ( 684663 ) * <slashdot&liselle,net> on Thursday May 13, 2004 @08:16AM (#9138356) Journal
    There will be plenty of people throwing down the gauntlet, here, because image ads are evil. So this morning, I'll be the one who says: "no, wait, this is a GOOD thing".

    I read the brief write-ups that the the summary linked to (no, I'm not new here). The first thing that came to my mind was: "gee, this is how things should have been done X years ago." It's a fairly brilliant extension of their already successful idea. Snatching words and serving ads isn't perfect (I mentioned earlier that if you did it here, people might think they'd make a killing selling copies of Beowulf), but it's better than the old "cast a huge net and pray" method. I'm curious how they are going to deal with the capability for annoyance when you throw images into the mix (please, please, static images only). I didn't see anything immediately, but I am sure they already have something in mind, given how popular their plain, stripped-down interface has made them.

    Makes me wonder how the Internet community would treat banner ads today if they were targetted then the way Google does AdSense now. Maybe there would have never been a Punch the Monkey campaign, or banners disguised like Windows dialog boxes, seizure-inducing flashes, or irritating popups. More likely, my morning tea has not yet kicked in.

    • From the FAQ: Animated images will not be accepted (Score:5, Informative)

      by cygnusx ( 193092 ) * on Thursday May 13, 2004 @08:44AM (#9138682)
      >(please, please, static images only).

      What are the image ad requirements? [google.com]

      Format: All images you load must be in a .JPEG, .GIF, or .PNG format. Animated images will not be accepted.

      Size: You may choose from four standard ad sizes: Banner (468 x 60), Leaderboard (728 x 90), Inline Rectangle (300 x 250), and Skyscraper (120 x 600) (see examples here). Please note that we may resize your image slightly to accommodate your destination URL and the 'Ads by Google' feedback link, which can alter the proportions of your image. If you'd like to retain your image's original proportions, you may adjust your image sizes before you upload them (learn more.)

      Image content: Your images must be relevant to your advertised concepts and products. For example, an Ad Group containing keywords like 'roses,' 'tulips,' and 'carnations' would call for floral-related images. We strongly recommend that you also include some descriptive text and a call to action to reinforce your ad's message.

      Please note that we will only accept family safe images. For more details about acceptable image ads content, read the Google AdWords Editorial Guidelines.

    • Re:Here we go again? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by skiflyer ( 716312 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @09:34AM (#9139236)
      I couldn't agree more. We've become so used to thinking Internet ad's == bad. But really, for me that's because of a handful of things...

      1) Intrusive ads (pop up/unders)
      2) Ads which take longer to download than the content
      3) Mis-leading ads
      4) Completely random ads.

      Personally I've never cared or complained about the Slashdot banner ads, or a myriad of other well executed ads. But I won't even consider browsing to MSN.com anymore because of the intrusiveness ... especially the ads they try to disguise as articles.

      Personally, I like to buy things, I don't always know everything I want to buy upfront, advertising targetted to my demographic is not something I see any reason to shun... especially seeing as it's revenue is what allows for alot of content.

  • "only" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 13, 2004 @08:17AM (#9138372)

    sure to go head-to-head with Yahoo Groups. It eventually will replace what is today only a Usenet archive

    "only" a Usenet archive? Yeah, those are a dime-a-dozen.
    • "only" a USENET archive? Yeah, those are a dime-a-dozen.

      Okay, I'm of mixed emotions here. On the one hand, I agree that a USENET archive is an important thing in and of itself, but on the other hand, I've been desperately waiting for someone to come up with an alternative to Yahoo Groups ever since they bought out Egroups and screwed everything up. I hate Yahoo Groups, but am forced to use it a lot of the time to keep up with various hobbies and organizations that I'm involved with. Every third message

    • I'm always hearing from trolls about how BSD is dying, always with a follup from several happy BSD users.

      Well, the idea that Google is planning to replace it's USENET archive with a web groups engine. So, is USENET dying? Or, more appropriately perhaps, will Google's dropping of USENET archiving contribute to a USENET death?

      In reality, I don't believe that they are actually going to drop the USENET archiving -- I just think they are likely to make it slightly harder to find. Either way, USENET use has d

  • I don't mind (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 13, 2004 @08:17AM (#9138374)
    I use Lynx to surf.

  • Good (Score:5, Informative)

    by Elvisisdead ( 450946 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @08:17AM (#9138376) Homepage Journal
    Now I'll get more usage from Firebird's "block images from..." feature.

    • Re:Good (Score:2, Informative)

      by zonem ( 13184 )
      After reading this post, I searched for a couple of Firefox plugins, one of which is called Adblock [mozdev.org]. It is extremely useful. Why isn't this plugin integrated into the default install of Firefox? It should be a base feature of any real web browser.

      Adblock is extremely convenient to use. Just click on the Adblock button on the status bar and a window pops up allowing you to select image URLs within the current page to block, allowing wildcards. As you scroll through images, it highlights the image you'v
      • Because it's a browser designed against bloat.

        The point is, it's standalone and extensible, allowing you to put on what you want. Just because the developers are psychotic porn fiends doesn't mean you should have standard features that allow for quick porn searching, even though it should be a base feature according to them (okay, I made that up, but, get the point?).

        But, yeah, adblock is supar useful. bannerblind is also very useful. grab that from mozdev.
    • Yea, its good, but try this: http://adblock.mozdev.org

      What is it?
      Adblock is a content filtering plug-in for the Mozilla and Firebird browsers. It is both more robust and more precise than the built-in image blocker.

      Adblock allows the user to specify filters, which remove unwanted content based on the source-address. If this sounds complicated, don't worry: it's not.

      Just add a few filters. Every time a webpage loads, Adblock will intercept and disable the elements matching your filters. See?- nothing to i
    • Try right-clicking an image. You should then see "Block images from this server." It works for my in Firefox 0.8, no extensions required. Best of all, Google doesn't require graphics to navigate effectively, so the site functiosn as it did before. Nice! I do wish you could configure which servers to block in the settings, though, like you can for popups. Then I could specify *.doubleclick.com instead of just m3.doubleclick.com or whatever.

      AdBlock puts that stupid "AdBlock" tab on blocked ads.

  • Click more text ads ... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by kabz ( 770151 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @08:19AM (#9138407) Homepage Journal
    If they have some kind of algorithm for selecting whether to show text or graphics ads (as the summary implies) ... maybe clicking a few text ads once in a while will let the system know that you aren't interested in the graphic ads.

    Lets hope they don't correlate this with search history. (X10 ads aplenty, here I come :-( )

  • Well (Score:4, Informative)

    by krymsin01 ( 700838 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @08:19AM (#9138408) Homepage Journal
    At least they are giving you the option of NOT having the graphic ads placed on your site. I'm sure a lot of people just like the elegance of the text based ads a lot more since they are less obtrusive. However, how long do you think it will take them to not give you the option of not displaying banner ads? I'm sure they are going to be charging more for the graphics since they'll be using more bandwidth.

  • Too much, too quickly? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by andrew_j_w ( 630799 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @08:20AM (#9138409) Homepage
    I hope the people at Google know what they're doing... it would seem to me that for a company that has been so focused on providing an excellent search engine they're suddenly branching out very quickly (Mailing lists, Gmail...).

    I wonder if this has anything to do with their impending IPO?
  • They have us all well and truely hooked, now its time to start reeling us in.

    In a few years there will be flashy distracting images all over the place, just like yahoo.
    • No such thing as reeling us in. If people do not like it, they will swiftly switch to something else. And just like Yahoo used to be the big boy before Google came along, I am sure something else will come along that will offer fast loading pages that do one thing right: search.

  • Standard Procedure (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MSittig ( 246604 ) * on Thursday May 13, 2004 @08:20AM (#9138421) Homepage Journal
    Here goes...
    nano .mozilla/default/chrome/userContent.css

    IMG[SRC =*"/adsense/"] { display: none ! important }

    C-x y
    At least on Slashdot I can subscribe to scrub the ads.

  • Google Groups (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kanoswrx ( 658398 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @08:22AM (#9138443)
    I hope they don't get rid of the usenet archive, that thing is a life saver for me and fellow IT workers. I don't think their is a better collection of help anywhere on the internet. If Google Groups goes it will be a sad day in Internet histroy and Google will loose a lot of my respect.

  • Google: I hope you don't screw this up. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by His name cannot be s ( 16831 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @08:23AM (#9138455) Journal
    I'm cautious about what google is doing these days.

    I mean, yeah, Profitability is somewhat of a mandatory thing (duh!) and there isn't alot of "paying" to google for it's services outside of advertising.

    To Me, text ads have been far more successful, with the exception of the ThinkGeek ads sometimes shown here. I've clicked on more Text Ads than anything else.

    I sure as heck don't click on Flash ads, or ones that do funky groovy DHTML overlay crap. Even if I was interested, I sure ain't now.

    Somehow, I'm sure that Google will find a balance that doesn't piss people off.

    • Even with some images on the side, Google still won't be anywhere near as intrusive as all the fancy stuff on yahoo msn or any of the other leading search engine's pages.

      The stats will speak for themselves. Plus, I'm guessing that image ads will have higher bids than text, which should mean more money in the pockets of webmasters using adsense. This could also be great for graphic designers, as many of the people who are using adwords today are small businesses who would need to outsource that kind of work

    • "I mean, yeah, Profitability is somewhat of a mandatory thing (duh!) and there isn't alot of "paying" to google for it's services outside of advertising."

      This is what happens to companies when they go public.

      Profitability is indeed a mandatory thing for any business. As we know from Google's IPO filing, though, the text-only ads were already quite profitable.

      So why change? Because for a public company, just being "profitable" isn't enough -- they now have an obligation to maximize profit.

      In a private business, you can make the decision that "we could probably make more money in the short term by accepting graphical ads, but that's just not our style." In a public company you don't get to make those decisions any more -- if you try to, the shareholders throw you out and replace you with a clueless Haaaahvahd MBA with Executive-Style Hair who is more than happy to run the business into the ground to hit a quarterly revenue target.

      Google's founders have attempted to mitigate this somewhat in their filing by giving themselves, essentially, super-shareholder status -- their shares carry ten times the voting weight of an average shareholder's. But that's a defensive measure; it doesn't change the fact that the underlying dynamics of the company have changed. The founders are reacting to direction from outside, now. It will be interesting to see what other "great ideas" the outsiders have up their sleeves...

  • What about the unsenet archive? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by oohp ( 657224 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @08:24AM (#9138468) Homepage
    I find the usenet archieve pretty cool as you can read and especially search usenet newsgroups without subscribing.

    On the other hand I haven't found a way to read newsgroups with mozilla. Maybe that;s because I don't know what to fill the server field with and if a group I'm interested in is on that server.
    • "Maybe that;s because I don't know what to fill the server field with and if a group I'm interested in is on that server."

      [insert huffy sounds here]

      [omit obligatory "Search Google for general usenet FAQ" recommendation]

      Unless you pay for a subscription service (Newscene, Easynews, etc.), most likely you're going to want to use your ISP's news server. The address for that server(s) will be in the form of "news.myISP.com" and can be obtained by calling your ISP. The concept of "subscribing" to a newsgrou

  • Fear and loathing. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by FreeLinux ( 555387 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @08:25AM (#9138476)
    I don't like the way the article is worded regarding Google Groups 2. I have no issue with Google starting another Groups service but, I am concerned with the concept of "replacing" the usenet archive.

    The Usenet archive is tremendously useful and, I feel, should be protected at all costs. The thought of the Usenet archive being abandoned or terminated scares me quite a bit. I hope that my concerns are unfounded.

    • It really sounds more like the "Google Groups 2" service is intended to replace the "Google Groups" service -- the new one will probably still have access to the usenet archives. Given how much time and money google has put into acquiring and making those archives available, it seems rather unlikely that they're going to dump them.

      • Re:Fear and loathing. (Score:4, Informative)

        by persaud ( 304710 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @12:46PM (#9141701)
        Look at the new interface [google.com] for searching Usenet.
        1. Search by date seems to be gone
        2. 'View thread' has been separated into a default nested view and a 'tree' option that is a tree+single-message. Not as usable.
        3. Usenet Message-ID [google.com] for addressing has been replaced by X-Google-Thread [google.com]. This is a Walled Garden: it breaks all existing URLs that link to Usenet threads on Google and divorces Usenet GUIDs from Google GUIDs. Likely purpose is unification with Google Email UIDs. Fair enough, but they should still include Usenet Message-ID in the raw source and allow backwards-compatible addressing via Message-ID. There is a 1-1 mapping, so there is no technical reason to destroy all current URLs.
        #1 is a big loss of functionality. It must be there somewhere, but I couldn't find it.
    • I was just about to comment on the terrible wording too. I presume what they mean is currently google groups is "only" a usenet archive and will become a usenet archive plus the new Google Groups 2.

      The word "replace" makes it all horribly ambiguous.

    • Re:Fear and loathing. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by isopossu ( 681431 )
      Usenet was born to the Internet culturally completely different from the Net today. Practically everybody wrote with their own names. There were practically no non-academic readers.

      The point is: those who wrote the usenet messages years ago thought they were read by only a few people, quite friendly and civilized ones, and that the messages were forgotten in weeks when the news server washed the old messages.

      Now these often rather intimate and open discussions can be browsed by anybody anywhere. Just type

  • Not on the main Google site, though ... (Score:5, Informative)

    by SimplyCosmic ( 15296 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @08:25AM (#9138481) Homepage
    I worry that a number of people are going to only read the summary listed above and not realize that this if for their "Adsense" program which allows you to place Google ads on your website. Nothing has been said about putting image ads on Google's own search engine site.

    • Definitely not. (Score:2, Funny)

      by dj245 ( 732906 )
      Not on the main Google site, though ...

      Nope. If the keywords "debt", "penis enlargement", or "porn" don't bring up an image ad, nothing will.

  • No way. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by alexatrit ( 689331 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @08:30AM (#9138530) Homepage
    I've been an AdSense "web publisher" for only a few months now, and I must say that the image based ads go against one of the reasons why I choose Google's program to begin with. Image based ads are gaudy, for one. They don't necessarily fit in with the color scheme of my pages. With the text-based ads I maintain aesthetic control, and can assure that the ads displayed don't draw too much attention away from my content. So - I won't be enabling image based ads. Simple.

  • Load times (Score:2, Insightful)

    by bendelo ( 737558 )
    Google image ads are limited to 50KB in size, and should have a minimal effect on load time for most sites. (FAQ) [google.com]

    I know Image adverts are not going to appear on Google itself, but 50KB is still 13 seconds for most modem users!
  • How many google ads are we going to see? Didn't they just announce there own blogs? :)
  • I know I can block them through various means, but I worry about the impact that all of the people who will not be blocking them (due to disinterest, lack of knowledge, or whatever) will have on google. One of the best things about google is that it's so simple and low bandwidth relatively speaking

    Of course, I actually didn't mind the text ads. I even used them on occasion. Now, I'm going to have people putting in goddamn obnoxious animated gifs and the like. The FAQ says they are limited to 50KB size. Tha

  • Welcome to the world of ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JSkills ( 69686 ) <.jskills. .at. .goofball.com.> on Thursday May 13, 2004 @08:35AM (#9138587) Homepage Journal
    Welcome to the world of becoming a public company.

    It's no longer easy to make the decisions solely on the behalf of your users.

  • Detecting when a text ad works better? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Andy_R ( 114137 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @08:35AM (#9138592) Homepage Journal
    When will they detect that I will NEVER click an ad, and I actively avoid companies that intrusively advertise (and I have a very tight definition of intrusive!).

    I was fairly neutral to eBay until I saw userfriendly.org on someone else's manchine and saw it looks like a big flashing eBay advert with a tiny comic in the middle, and I was mildly impressed with Honda until they interrupted the Formula 1 coverage of their own car doing well to show me an advert.

    It's in advertisers interests not to lose potential customers by annoying them.

    Google would have a real market advantage if they could show that their adverts were going to people who do not block every ad they can, or they targetted less intrusive versions of adverts at people like me who do.

  • I wish Google would fix the bugs first (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I wish Google would fix the bugs first. Phrase searches frequently turn up bogus results. For example, "to be or not to be" typically turns up from 1 to 3 resulting pages that do not contain the phrase. Right now, there is only one error result.

    Before someone posts an incorrect reply:

    Google themselves told me this was a bug, and they knew about it snd would fix it some time. However, this was 4 years ago.

    A page containing the word "tobornottobe" is NOT a correct match for a search for "to be or not to b

  • Google providing description about images (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kyoko21 ( 198413 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @08:37AM (#9138606)
    Well, google may be rolling out a new form of ad delivery, but at least they are allowing people to know what to look for. The following is taken from their Adsense Beta page describing the sizes of the images:

    "Google image ads are currently in beta and are available in 4 major formats: 468x60, 728x90, 120x600, and 300x250"

    The good things now you can put these sizes into your content blocker. Unless you are like me, who is blocking every 2x2, 2x3, 3x2, 3x3 length integer names in the file names of jpgs and gifs, then you wouldn't have anything to worry about.

    Oh yeah, don't forget about the 1x1, and the clear, and transparent gifs and jpegs, too.
  • I work at a company that hosts a huge number of websites for newspapers around the US. Enough of them already have become a PITA because the publishers think Google AdSense will bring good money to their site, and have inundated us with requests to add the damn javascript to their pages. (God forbit someone at the papers learn how to edit a friggin HTML file and insert a in it!!!) The funny thing is, these ads often compete against the newspapers themselves! I've seen ads show up that say "Why bother adv
  • so i hope they maintain the clean style of it.

    i must admit that i like the current method of them suggesting relevant links, as they normally ARE relevant - so they get more click throughs from me than any other site.

    do people really mind Google suggesting relevant sponsered links, as long as it doesn't get in the way of the others?

  • Uh... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by faust2097 ( 137829 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @08:48AM (#9138720)
    Hey, does anyone else keep getting a little frustrated with the fact that Google seems hell-bent on introducing new services [orkut, gmail, etc.] but they haven't really done anything about the fact that 'optimizers' have basically cracked PageRank?

    I worked at AltaVista in 1999, when I started there they were the dominant search engine and the #4 site on the internet. They made the same mistake of taking their search engine business for granted and pursuing a bunch of other non-related features. Guess what happened? A tiny little company came out of nowhere that had clearly superior search results and completely ate AV's lunch. That company? Google.

    Now Google doesn't have Rod Schrock and his Harvard B-School crew of useless cronies at the helm so they do have a chance at being successful but they'd be best off focusing their efforts on their core business.

    • Re:Uh... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by yoshi_mon ( 172895 )
      Hey, does anyone else keep getting a little frustrated with the fact that Google seems hell-bent on introducing new services [orkut, gmail, etc.] but they haven't really done anything about the fact that 'optimizers' have basically cracked PageRank?

      I wonder if that mindset has anything to do with this [slashdot.org].

  • I tried browsing the interweb without any ad blocking yesterday for the first time in ages.

    Apart from a few sites it was almost unbearable. How do people put up with all that crap?

    Game related sites seem to be the worst offenders (not including "specialist adult interest sites") of course.

  • Instructions to get rid of most annoying ads (Score:5, Informative)

    by SmilingBoy ( 686281 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @08:49AM (#9138740)
    Install AdBlock [mozdev.org] on your Mozilla browser.

    Save the following in a text file:

    [Adblock]
    googlesyndication
    us.yimg.com/a/
    /\/b uy_assets\//
    /[\W\d_](top|bottom|left|right|)?ban ner(s|id=|\d|_)[\W\d]/
    /[\W\d](double|fast)click[ \W\d]/
    /[\W\d]click(stream|thrutraffic|thru|xchan ge)[\W\d]/
    /[\W\d]value(stream|xchange|click)[\W\ d]/
    /[\W\d]dime(xchange|click)[\W\d]/
    /[\W\d](on lineads?|ad(banner|click|-?flow|frame|ima?g(es?)?| _id|js|log|serv(er|e)?|stream|_string|s|trix|type| vertisements?|v|vert|xchange)?)[\W\d]/
    /(hot|spy) log/
    /[\W_](b(an|nr)s?|jump|redir(ect|s)?|stat)[\ W_]/
    /\W(cy|r)?c(ou)?nt(er|ed)?\W/
    /p(artner|ing \.cgi|romotion)/
    reklama
    /sp(onsor|ymagic)/
    /to p(100|cto)/

    Import the file into your AdBlock: Tools -> AdBlock -> Preferences -> AdBlock Options -> Import Filters

    Blocks most annoying ads. The power of regular expressions!

  • Groups (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ignatzMouse ( 447031 )
    My big concern with the direction that they are going in is the fragmentation of their product.

    Yahoo is very good at having a unified service. Mail gets you into groups gets you into their customized maps. The core Yahoo ID is used by everything. (Their use of USERNAME@yahoo.com for their email was a brilliant marketing idea giving you a stake in the company.)

    Blogger, orkut, groups2, all have components with similar datasets. Users, email, profiles. Each of these products is growing and the longer that th

  • Screenshots of new Google homepage revealed! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Plutor ( 2994 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @08:58AM (#9138840) Homepage
    Check this out, a screenshot of a Beta version of the post-IPO google.com page has been leaked!
    Leaked screenshot [outer-court.com].

    (Note: Yes, I am trolling and flamebaiting. Take that, Karma.)

  • Goning the way of ICQ (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jacklinux ( 705655 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @08:58AM (#9138844)
    It seems that Google is going the way of ICQ and trying to be everything to everyone. I understand the need to be competetive and inovate. And again, I understand the pressure from everyone else jumping into the search engine game but it's starting to look like they just won't rely on the thing that's made them so successful. I, and I believe a lot of slashdot readers, use google because it doesn't have all the other fodder. When I go to Yahoo or MSN I have another agenda than when I go to google- and I go to google much more often.

  • Only on content pages (Score:3, Informative)

    by IAmTheDave ( 746256 ) * <basenamedave-sd@ ... m minus math_god> on Thursday May 13, 2004 @09:08AM (#9138984) Homepage Journal
    Being an AdWords subscriber, I recieved the image AdWords posting email today in my inbox. From the email:

    "We're excited to introduce image ads, an additional ad format that combines the appeal of pictures with proven AdWords targeting technology. Now you can show your product images, company branding or other creative elements on relevant content sites throughout the Google Network."

    "Content" pages do not include search pages. Content pages are Google advertising subscriber pages like, say... Slashdot.

    So don't fret, they won't clutter the Google search engine interface.

  • Washington Post article with more info (Score:5, Informative)

    by Isaac-Lew ( 623 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @09:10AM (#9139005)
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A224 35-2004May12.html [washingtonpost.com]

    I don't see why people are complaining...the ads aren't going on Google's page, they are small, and they will be relevant to the page content. I don't see what the problem is with Google doing it, if they make a *really* bad move then people will simply stop using it & they'll go under.

  • Don't know about anyone else, but the reason I moved to Google (from Mamma.com) was the fact that they do not have image ads, just text ones. And they certainly don't flash! That's the main reason! Also, I use Google Groups because they ONLY have Usenet, I don't want all mailing list crap in there as well! At the moment, Google provide a good service, if they expand as they outline here, it's going to push away people! They'll become the next Yahoo (have you SEEN there website lately? Talk about bloat!)

  • Obnoxious Google Groups terms (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @10:50AM (#9140233) Homepage
    The terms and conditions sound like something AOL would dream up.
    • Google owns your words.
      • Rights Google gets: By posting communications on or through the Service, you automatically grant Google a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive license to use, reproduce, modify, publish, edit, translate, distribute, perform, and display the communication alone or as part of other works in any form, media, or technology whether now known or hereafter developed, and to sublicense such rights through multiple tiers of sublicensees.

        Rights users get: Google authorizes you to view and download a single copy of the Materials solely for your personal, non-commercial use. You may not sell or modify the Materials or reproduce, display, publicly perform, distribute, or otherwise use the Materials in any way for any public or commercial purpose without the written permission of Google.

    • Google can censor, but does not have to.
      • Google does not control the information delivered to the Groups, and Google has no obligation to monitor the Groups. However, Google reserves the right at all times to disclose any information as necessary to satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request, or to edit, refuse to post or to remove any information or materials, in whole or in part, for any reason whatsoever, in Google's sole discretion.
    • Google can change the rules at any time, including retroactively.
      • Google may, in its sole discretion, modify or revise these terms and conditions at any time by updating this web page, and you agree to be bound by these modifications or revisions.

    Stick with Netnews. Nobody owns it. The protocols are open. The source is open. And it works.

    • Google may, in its sole discretion, modify or revise these terms and conditions at any time by updating this web page, and you agree to be bound by these modifications or revisions.

      Isn't that illegal? You can't agree to something you haven't seen. So they could retroactively charge 10 USD per article viewed? That's ridiculous.

  • Sounds cool, but (Score:3, Insightful)

    by beforewisdom ( 729725 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @10:55AM (#9140285)
    I still have a problem with them/their software reading your email so they can find what your interestes are.

    Some people think I am being too fussy about privacy concerns.

    I think those people are biased.

    If MS had done this rather then Google ( geek hero ) the ranting would still be going on.

    I say this and I hate M$, am a Java programmer, and I am a GNU/Linux user.

    Put THAT in your coke can and drink it! :)

    Steve

  • google groups good (Score:3, Interesting)

    by muckdog ( 607284 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @12:45PM (#9141692) Homepage
    yahoo recently ticked me off by changing the search in yahoo groups. You can no longer search all the old group message (for one group) at once via the web interface. It will only search like 50 at one time and then you have to run the search again. This is worthless on any high volume groups. It a good thing I keep my mail archived so I can still do the search on my computer.

  • Family safe? By which standard? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rduke15 ( 721841 ) <(rduke15) (at) (gmail.com)> on Thursday May 13, 2004 @03:20PM (#9143613)
    "Please note that we will only accept family safe images."

    This raises interesting questions for a global Internet company. "Family safe" by which standard? US? European? Tunisian? South-African? ...

    All regions in the world have very different standards for morality in general (at least in various details), and particularly for sexually or simply nudity-related images.

    Europeans in general could not quite understand the fuss in the US about Janet Jackson's nipple on TV, and were quite amused by the uproar. For the fuss about Clinton's private life, some Europeans were shocked like a part of the American public seemed to be, while others felt that his sex-life was nobody's business.

    Some "family safe" content in the US would be quite shocking for many Muslims (as it might also have been for many Christians just a few decades ago).

    etc.

    So, which standard will they apply? The US standard because Google is a US company? The standard of the country of the web site? The standard of the country of the advertizer?

    Feel free to post a few links for an interesting comparative study... :-)

    You can leave out goatse.cx and it's variants; we all know these already. But I really wonder what is considered "osé" (or even "sexy") but still acceptable on an Iranian web site.

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