Is facebook is being subverted?

Facebook has been doing a lot lately. From its android applications to video chat, they are trying to overshadow the upcoming Google+. Now the Google is ++ing everyday into the social world. It started with Google wave, which sinked into the plethora of failures, now the Google has come up with Google+.

My husband was browsing techrunch and he came across a site where you have to pay to get popular on facebook. So he registered and found out that Subvert and Profit pays upto$.50 for an operation using your social account. Although he's a great fan of PTC sites and keeps track of them, but this amazed him as he was able to accumulate $4.56 in just 4 days. I found that their are more facebook campaigns than anything else. Facebook is being used to gain money. Spammers always find a way.

I don't use PTC sites as they are complete waste of time. I can earn much more if I do a part time but he thinks it is fun.

Adding a Google Wave to Blogger blog

Google wave is out now and people are trying it. I am one of them and I came across a useful robot which help us to publish a wave to blogger. Its name is Madoqua Wave Bot(blog-bot@appspot.com). Add it to your wave account and follow these simple steps:

1. Create a new wave or add Madoqua to an existing wave. It will give you the javascript code which will be in two parts.
2. use the first part as an element or embed that in your blog post by editing HTML, like I have.
3. For the second part, go to layout tab and choose edit HTML, paste that code inside your blogger template. But where to paste it? Search for /body in your template and paste the second part just before that.
4. Looks like all is done

Thanks for reading.

1. 
   
   

Google Wave is down[pic]

check out here at google

Trade Google Wave invites

Now I have got some google wave invites actually 15 of them. I have reserved five for my friends and family and 10 I'm using in this giveaway. If you want to win one all you have to do is to RT this

1. RT @hackaback win google wave invite by trading it at http://bit.ly/1pQ5J5
   
2. Follow me on twitter
3. Comment on this post for why you need a wave invite along with link to the staus where you tweeted it.
   

10 random winners will be chosen on 3rd of november. After I nominate them It'll take a while to get the invite as they say:

Invitations will not be sent immediately. We have a lot of stamps to lick.

Edit your profile in Google Wave

Now you can edit your profile in google wave . Just check your google wave account and click on ALL. the settings. This wave is muted and you can change your profile. Earlier google use to fetch data from your google profile and display it as information in your wave account.
The coolest thing is that you can search images on google in wave and use it as your profile photo.




I hope soon more features will be coming along.

Too large for google

A simple logout request....looks like google is also slimming down :D

How to access twitter from google wave

There's a cool little google wave Twitter client(plugin) I know of is called Tweety the Twitbot. Today, I’ve also seen it called Twave, though the application itself still doesn’t seem to use that name.

I used Tweety in the Google Wave sandbox preview and completely forgot how I added it back then. So I did some searching and came across a tweet from @oplura explaining that getting Tweety going is as easy as adding a contact. So let’s do it, with pictures.

Go to your contacts window and click the + sign at the bottom to add a new contact:

Enter this address:

tweety-wave@appspot.com

Now make a new wave. Click the + symbol to add a new participant to it. Add Tweety:
Next you’ll get an authenticating message:
A new window will open to connect Wave to your Twitter account:
After you sign in successfully, you’ll get a message confirming this, and then the window will close.

Back in your wave, push the “Done” button if you’re still seeing the authentication message.

When to use Google Wave

There are tons of ways to use Google Wave--here are just a few examples to get you thinking and an overview video that shows Google Wave in action.


Organizing events

Keep a single copy of ideas, suggested itinerary, menu and RSVPs, rather than using many different tools. Use gadgets to add weather, maps and more to the event.




Meeting notes

Prepare a meeting agenda together, share the burden of taking notes and record decisions so you all leave on the same page (we call it being on the same wave). Team members can follow the minutes in real time, or review the history using Playback. The conversation can continue in the wave long after the meeting is over.




Group reports and writing projects

Collaboratively work in real time to draft content, discuss and solicit feedback all in one place rather than sending email attachments and creating multiple copies that get out of sync.



Brainstorming

Bring lots of people into a wave to brainstorm - live concurrent editing makes the quantity of ideas grow quickly! It is easy to add rich content like videos, images, URLs or even links to other waves. Discussion ensues. Etiquettes form. Then work together to distill down to the good ideas.




Photo sharing

Drag and drop photos from your desktop into a wave. Share with others. Use the slideshow viewer. Everyone on the wave can add their photos, too. It is easy to make a group photo album in Google Wave.

5 Ways to get google wave invite

Google wave is a new buzzword and lots of people are looking for an invite. There are couple of ways by which one can get google wave invite. Google Wave is "a personal communication and collaboration tool" announced by Google at the Google I/O conference on May 27, 2009.[ is a web-based service, computing platform, and communications protocol designed to merge e-mail, instant messaging, wikis, and social networking. It has a strong collaborative and real-time[4] focus supported by extensions that can provide, for example, robust spelling/grammar checking, automated translation between 40 languages, and numerous other extensions. Initially released only to developers, a "preview release" of Google Wave has been extended to about 100,000 users on September 30, 2009. I'm going to discuss few of them in my blog:

1. Signup at Google : Yes, they are still open. But, the problem here is that you will get the invite in next slot.And it may take time.
2. Register At googlewaveinvites : They are working as medium to distribute invites evenly. I've signed up there but still I'm waiting for an invite. So I'm not sure how long it takes.
3. Ask someone who has google wave account.I got my wave account by this way.
   
4. Search twitter
5. Kidnap Larry Page and ask an account in ransom :D

If you still want to know more about google wave then here's a video for you

Video

Quick Search Cheatsheet for Google

Google has always been a good friend of us when it comes to information searching. But are we using its search capabilities to its fullest? Here are some quick searches that will help you in the quest.

Scores-The scores can be found of any live match going on. E.g. if you type in “ipl scores” and search you will get scores of the ongoing match. Click here to see it in action.

Time- Time in a particular country can be seen by keyword “Time Countryname”. E.g “time India” will show you the time in India.

Language – Get to know the language in a country by searching “Language Countryname”. E.g. “language Paraguay” will let you know the language spoken in the country.

Currency Conversion- Did you know that Google is a currency convertor? Search the keywords “40 dollar to pound” and you will get to know its capability.

Stock Market- You can track the share market by searching your stock name. e.g “Wipro share” will get you the required information.

Calculator- You can solve a mathematical calculation using google. E.g. 2*(3+5)/7 will give you 2.28571429.

Google Digg from firefox

All of us love Digg for its content, Google for its search capabilities and firefox for extensibility. As we all are aware that digg's search feature sucks, so we use Google to search Digg by preceding search term with "site:www.digg.com"  in Google search bar.

Here's a way that'll make firefox do it for you. It won't take much of your time but will somewhat help your searching activities on Digg.

Open the Firefox search plugins directory [generally C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\searchplugins]. Create a new text file using Notepad and paste the following code:

<search
name="Google Digg"
method="GET"
action="http://www.google.com/search"
queryCharset="utf-8"
>

<input name="q" user>
<input name="sitesearch" value="www.digg.com">
</search>

 

Now save the file with a an .src extension e.g GoogleDigg.src .
Restart firefox and you are done. Now choose "Google Digg" from your search bar and Google Digg from your firefox

Five Powerful Strategies for Getting Maximum Website Traffic

Every webmaster dreams of getting so much traffic from the search engines that it overloads the circuits of their web hosting provider's network. Getting your site listed on page one for several relevant keyword phrases on the major search engines is the key to approaching this level of traffic. Getting there requires creative writing skills, diligent effort and a little knowledge about search engine optimization. Read on for some search optimization instructions including five indispensable elements to help your search engine rankings and resulting traffic.

We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the
complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not
true.

Content is King: - If you have done any research on search engine optimization, you are aware of the need to optimize the content of your web pages. Your content must be optimized for the search engines and have optimal usage of your most important relevant keywords and keyword phrases. As you write user friendly content keep in mind you should be optimizing your pages with phrases that best match your overall theme. This is preferred by the search engine algorithms. You can then focus on link popularity and link quality to help drive traffic. More on those two strategies in a moment.

Keyword Optimization - By optimizing your pages with the phrases that best match the overall theme of your site, it will improve the likelihood that users will find your site when searching for content like yours. You should seek out short multi-word phrases unless your keywords are unique. First, find your optimum keywords and determine their popularity. Also, use your top keyword phrases within your meta tags including your title, description, keyword and h1 through h6 meta tags.

Link Popularity - To increase your traffic, you must increase your link popularity. Link popularity is the number of links on the internet that reference to your website. If you are on a budget, link popularity can generally be increased primarily in two ways. The first method is by exchanging links with other web sites with similar content. The second method is publishing articles online that relate to your site, including a link to your site in the article and then publishing the article on as many article directory sites as possible. Employing both methods is the most effective; however, the latter is extremely effective because it creates multiple one-way links back to your site.

Article Publishing - Most webmasters frequently seek out good site content - remember content is king. They either lack the writing skills or lack the innovation or initiative to develop the content themselves. Webmasters with a budget often hire ghost writers. Those without money look to article directories to obtain some of their content. This demand for content by other webmasters creates an opportunity for you to socialize your site. Writing articles that relate to your content and publishing those articles within article directories ultimately disseminates your link onto other webmaster's sites. Think of the potential here. You are getting a one-way link from every site that posts your article. Top search engine optimization gurus exploit this little known strategy to drive their client web sites to top rankings

Link Quality - Remember, link popularity is important, but link quality may be even more crucial. There are two facets to link quality. First, sites that are pointing to your website ideally must have related content. Search engines will give links from sites with related content more credibility. The second component to link quality is the actual words the other webmaster uses in your link. The goal is to ensure the links pointing back to your website include your most relevant keywords in the link title.

Search engine optimization requires a combination of these five elements. Highly optimizing your website content and obtaining high link popularity from quality links will absolutely strengthen your search engine rankings over time. Of course, as with many things, your level of effort at implementing these elements is directly proportional with the results you can expect to get out.

How to optimize your's blog for better ranking.

Now, you should have a blog full with content you have passionately written. It should be a very interesting grapevine for the community of your chosen niche, as opposed to a lifeless factsheet.
However, no matter how delicious your content is, if there is nobody to read it you can’t generate profit from it. Traffic is the lifeblood of your blog. In order to attract people, you must offer attractive information. Simple enough.
However, to get traffic onto your site, you have to think backwards. Where do people look when they need information? Yes, they search using search engines like www.google.com, www.yahoo.com and www.msn.com, to name a few more popular ones. So, to get these people on your blog, your blog needs to rank high on search result pages of these search engines. When these people search for information through the search engines and see your site among the top results, they will naturally click through to your blog! The art of getting your blog or website onto high rankings on search result pages is called search engine optimization. It is a very complex and hard subject to master, but that doesn’t stop us from learning simple yet effective techniques to conquer the search results for certain keywords. The more complex techniques are usually needed to fight for very competitive and general keywords such as “fat loss”, but I’ll teach you how to overcome that later. For now, let’s determine the keywords that you want to optimize your site for. For example, your blog talks about tech gadgets. Now, you’d want to check in Google whether it is a very competetive keyword. At this time of writing, there are 29, 000 ,000 search results. Think you can beat 29, 000, 000 sites at your first attempt? I don’t think so.

Now, let’s try to narrow down our scope. Let’s look for “technological gadgets” instead. At this time of writing, Google lists 792, 000 results. That’s more manageable, but you’d like to search for more focused keywords. However, let’s optimize your blog for “technological gadget” just for the sake of learning.
First, you have to pay attention to the title of your blog. Since you’re optimizing for technological gadgets, you need to have that exact phrase in your blog title. For example, a line like “Your Best Technological Gadget Blog!” would work great. You can change the title of your blog in the Blogger control panel or the Wordpress blog when you’re creating it. If you’re proficient with HTML, you can even do that on other blog engines like Moveable Type. Bottom line? Learn a little HTML!
Other than that, your page heading should also contain the term you’re optimizing for. The page heading is the bit of text in your code that is enclosed within the and tags. This is important as it tells the search engines what your page is about (in this case, “technological gadgets”). Since we’re posting a blog, the tags are usually the post titles, so remember to include the term there whenever relevant.
One last bit, you should also sprinkle the words “technological gadgets” in your posts whenever possible. The frequent occurrence of that phrase in your blog will hint the search engines that your blog is really relevant to that topic.

However, this is the most important bit of all. Always keep in mind that you’re writing for real life people who read your blog to obtain information, so it is very stupid to spam your blog with keywords! In fact, if you do that, the search engines will end up thinking you’re spamming and drop your ranking further down into oblivion… So keep in mind! Write for humans, not search engines!

Google Logo On Earth Day

Isn't that cool and chilly??

Google is going the MSN way

Google is removing all the backlinks to sites from its database. I
think they are going the msn way or they are 'revolutionising' the
search AGAIN!! They might have come up with an AWESOME new algorithm
which's impossible to tweak.
We all tend to blame google for being so strict on its policies, but
the fact is, since google has become popular, every tom, dick and
harry wanted to screw google's ass. People are having complex about
google's success. They always try to find a way so that they can screw
google.
But, the reality is that, all these things are leading google to
perfection. Now google is dominating the internet market through its
adsense campaign. Larry and Sergey are reaping gold from their
ingenious ideas.
Everyone else is jealous. Why?
Just think....

What Google has got installed on its computers?

This is an extract from the belarc associates, They scan your computer through web browser itself. This is an extract of their report on google computers..........Now you might be wondering that how come I'm able to know the configuration on google's computers. Its easy.......Just look for the cached version of it at

http://googleconf.notlong.com/

ACDualClient - WhereAC Version 3.0.1.0 * ActiveState, a division of Sophos - ActivePerl Build 811 * Adobe Acrobat Reader Version 5.1.0.0 * AdpBrowser Application Version 1, 0, 0, 49 * Ahead software - NeroMIX Version 1, 3, 1, 6 * Ahead Software AG Karlsbad Germany Phone: ++49-7248-911-800 Fax: ++49-7248-911-888 e-mail: info@nero.com - LANGUAGE_English2 Version 5, 5, 10, 13 * Ahead Software AG - InfoTool Application Version 1, 0, 3, 3 * Ahead Software AG - Nero CD Speed Application Version 1, 0, 2, 0 * ahead software gmbh, karlsbad - Cover Designer Version 2, 2, 1, 11 * America Online - AOL Connectivity Service Version 3.0.0.1 * America Online Inc. - System Information Application Version 1, 0, 0, 0 * America Online Version 9, 0, 0, 0 * America Online Version 9.00.000 * America Online Version 9.02.000 * America Online, Inc - AOL TopSpeed(TM) Monitor Version 2, 0, 0, 0 * America Online, Inc. - AOL Service Libraries Version 1.0.0.6 * AOLSP Scheduler Version 1, 5, 0, 0 * Apple Computer, Inc. - iTunes Version 4.7.1.30 * Apple Computer, Inc. - QuickTime QuickTime 6.5.2 * Asheron's Call Version 1, 0, 1, 22 * Belarc, Inc. - Advisor Version 7.0t * Canon BJ Raster Printer Driver Installer Version 1.71.2.0 * CANON INC. - BJEZPRN.EXE Version 3, 0, 0, 0 * Canon Information Systems Research Australia Pty Ltd. - PhotoRecord Version 2, 2, 0, 13 * Cinematronics - 3D Pinball Version 5.1.2600.2180 * Creative Product Registration Version 2.3.11.0 * Creative Technology Ltd - PC-CAM Center Version 2.00 * Creative Technology Ltd. - WebCam Monitor Version 3.1 * Crimson Editor Version 3.70 Release * DenAgent Application Version 2, 6, 1, 3 * DivX Player * DivXNetworks Inc. - Config App. Version 1, 0, 0, 1 * DivXNetworks, Inc. - DivX® Codec for Windows Version 5, 1, 0, 0 * Drakier Dominaeus - ACDualClient Version 7.2.0.0 * Erik Deppe - DriveSpeed Version 1, 6, 1, 0 * Final Reality * GPSMRUU Application Version 1, 0, 0, 1 * GTek Technologies Ltd. - GTCoach Version 3, 0, 0, 1 * GTek Technologies Ltd. - TrainerCabLauncher Application Version 1, 0, 0, 1 * Guide * Helios Software Solutions - TextPad Version 4.7.3 * ICQ ICQRun Version 1, 0, 0, 1 * ICQLite Version 20, 34, 2321, 0 * ICQLiteUninstall Application Version 20, 34, 2321, 0 * Intel(R) Common User Interface Version 7,0,0,2104 * Ipswitch Inc, 81 Hartwel Ave, Lexington, MA - schedule Application Version 7,6,1,0 * Ipswitch, Inc. 81 Hartwell Ave. Lexington MA - UpWiz Application Version 7, 5, 0, 1 * Ipswitch, Inc. 81 Hartwell Ave. Lexington MA - WS_FTP Pro FTP Find Version 7,6,1,0 * Ipswitch, Inc. 81 Hartwell Ave. Lexington MA - WS_FTP Pro Version 7,6,1,0 * Ipswitch, Inc. 81 Hartwell Ave. Lexington MA - WS_FTP Synchronize Utility Version 7, 6, 1, 0 * Ipswitch, Inc. 81 Hartwell Ave. Lexington, MA - ftpscrpt Version 7,6,1,0 * Ipswitch, Inc. 81 Hartwell Ave. Lexington, MA - WS_FTP Pro FireScript Editor Version 7,6,1,0 * Jasc Software Inc. - Animation Shop 3 Version 3.04 * Jasc Software, Inc. - Media Center Plus 3 Version 3.10 * Jasc Software, Inc. - Paint Shop Pro 7 Version 7.04 * Jasc Software, Inc. - Paint Shop Pro Version 7,0,0,0 * LiveUpdate Version 1.0.0.0 * Logitech Inc. - iTouch Version 2.15.264 * Logitech Inc. - LRC Version 1.03.0001 *
Microsoft (R) .NET Framework Version 1.1.4322.2032 * Microsoft (r) Windows Script Host Version 5.6.0.8820 * Microsoft AntiSpyware (Beta 1) Version 1.00.0501 * Microsoft Application Error Reporting Version 11.0.5515 * Microsoft Clip Organizer Version 11.0.6361 * Microsoft Code Named Acrylic Version 4, 0, 0, 684 * Microsoft Corporation - Internet Explorer Version 6.00.2900.2180 * Microsoft Corporation - Messenger Version 4.7.3001 * Microsoft Corporation - Office Source Engine Version 11.0.5525 * Microsoft Corporation - SelfCert Version 11.0.5510 * Microsoft Corporation - User Profile Hive Cleanup Service Version 1.5e * Microsoft Corporation - Windows Installer - Unicode Version 3.1.4000.1823 * Microsoft Corporation - Windows Journal Viewer Version 1.5.2315.3 * Microsoft Corporation - Windows Movie Maker Version 2.1.4026.0 * Microsoft Corporation - Windows® NetMeeting® Version 3.01 * Microsoft Corporation - Zone.com Version 1.2.626.1 * Microsoft Data Access Components Version 3.525.1117.0 * Microsoft Games Setup Version 1.0.0.0 * Microsoft Office 2003 Version 11.0.6502 * Microsoft Office Document Imaging Version 11.0.1897.0 * Microsoft Office InfoPath Version 11.0.5510 * Microsoft Office Outlook Version 11.0.6353 * Microsoft Office Picture Manager Version 11.0.5510 * Microsoft Office Save My Settings/Profile Wizard Version 11.0.5510 * Microsoft(R) MSN (R) Communications System Version 7.02.0005.2202 * Microsoft(R) Windows Media Player Version 10.00.00.3646 * Microsoft® Schedule+ for Windows 95(TM) Version 7.5 * Microsoft® Visual Studio .NET Version 7.00.9466 * MindVision - Installer VISE 2.8.3 Version 2.8.3 * Mischel Internet Security - TrojanHunter Guard Version 1.0.0.0 * Mischel Internet Security - TrojanHunter Version 4.1.0.0 * Mozilla - Firefox Version 1.7.7: 2005041417 * Multithread Benchmark * Netscape - Browser Personal * Network Associates, Inc. - McAfee On-Access Scanner Version 6.0.0 * Networks Associates Technology, Inc - McAfee Application Installer Version 4, 3, 0, 0 * Networks Associates Technology, Inc - McAfee SecurityCenter Update Manager Version 4, 3, 0, 0 * Networks Associates Technology, Inc - McAfee SecurityCenter Version 4, 3, 0, 0 * Networks Associates Technology, Inc - McAfee VirusScan Version 8, 0, 0, 0 * NVIDIA Driver Helper Service, Version 52.16 Version 6.14.10.5216 * Peter A. Gebhard Software - Dr. Hardware 2004 Version 5.0.0 * Port Reporter * PR-Parser Version 1.0.1671.16735 * RealNetworks, Inc. - RealPlayer (32-bit) Version 6.0.9.584 * RealVNC Ltd. - VNC Config 4.0 Version 4.0 * RealVNC Ltd. - VNC Server 4.0 Version 4.0 * RealVNC Ltd. - VNC Viewer 4.0 Version 4.0 * Remove the DivX Bundle * Remove the DivX Codec * Remove the DivX Player * Salty Brine Software - FolderMatch Version 3.03.0007 * Shortcut to ACTool.exe * Sun Microsystems, Inc. - Java(TM) 2 Platform Standard Edition 5.0 Update 4 Version 5.0.40.5 * ViAir Desktop Assistant Version 4.6.5145.0 * Virtos GmbH - WaveEdit DLL Version 1, 0, 5, 0 * WinZip Version 9.0 SR-1 (6224) * Wizards to adjust .NET Framework security, assign trust to assemblies, and fix broken .NET applications. Version 1.0.5000.0 * Yahoo! Messenger Version 6,0,0,1750 *

Google Search integrates with google notebook

Check it out. Sign in using your google id register yourself for google notebook and search for anything apart from cached and similar pages you will get a new button called 'Note this'. Using this button you will be able to save the current search and its text to your google notebook






This can be very useful tool in research work.





This looks really cool. Take a look at it. I found it accidentally. Its really cool

http://www.google.com/

Quick Tryout: Google Voice Local Search

I couldn't resist testing Google's new Google Voice Local Search (GVLS), although it doesn't involve either booting up my PC or connecting to the Internet. As a result, it feels a bit strange, since Google is a name one normally associates with bits and bytes.
GVLS is a new free phone information service, currently only for business listings, that offers an alternative to the phone companies' not-free 411 services. You call 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) and according to Google, if the business is part of the Google Maps database, you should be able to get connected.
It's an interesting experience. When you call, you get a cheery male voice that announces "GOOG-411 Experimental," and asks you for your city and state. Once, that's been established, you're invited to tell it either a business name or category. If there's only a single listing available, it offers to connect you; if more than one, you get a numbered list to choose from.
For at least one of my searches, GVLS worked fine. I was able to find a local pizza shop almost immediately -- I only had to "Go back" one time. ("Go back" is what you say to correct mistakes, or stop it from calling the wrong business. In the end, I used that phrase a lot.) Once the service gets it right, you can either have it connect you immediately, or ask for "Details," which will give you the address and phone number (or, at least, whatever info Google Maps has about the company).
I had less success trying to get connected to my local doctor. I gave the name of his medical center, the cheerful male voice repeated it correctly, and then told me it was going to connect me to a business in the next state over. (Which turned out to exactly coincide with the first listing I got doing the same search in Google Maps.) I tried various methods, including stating my doctor's name and a more generalized request for "doctor" (which I didn't expect to work, since I was calling from New York City, and we're got a lot of doctors). In the end, Google gave up before I did; at one point, I was told to "hold please," but instead of being connected, I was disconnected.
All that being said, even though I find many of today's voice-activated services highly frustrating (especially when I'm trying to get through to a real person), I was pretty forgiving of Google's brand-new service -- even when the mechanized guy at the other end insisted on pronouncing the word "pizza" as though it was a term from some obscure, ancient dialect. Perhaps because this is, after all, Google, and I've become used to dealing with Google's beta glitches.
Or perhaps it's simply because I'm cheap when it comes to phone services -- I have fits of deep resentment over all the extra fees that appear on my bills every month -- and so I'm very willing to give this new, and currently free, service a shot.

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/04/quick_tryout_go.html

Google Settle lawsuits over Google news

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Agence France-Presse and Google Inc. have settled a copyright lawsuit, clearing the way for Google to post snippets of the French news agency's news and photos online, the two companies said on Friday.In a joint statement, the two companies said the accord allows the Internet giant to post AFP content on Google News and other services. Terms of the pact were not disclosed.The AFP lawsuit, closely watched in the media industry, was filed in the United States and France. It sought damages and interest as well as to bar the use of AFP text and photos without prior permission. AFP agreed to withdraw the action.Agence France-Presse filed the suit two years ago accusing the Web search company of copyright infringement for posting AFP headlines, news summaries and photos, without the news agency's permission, on its automated Google News site."The most significant copyright case against Google News, that filed by Agence France-Presse back in March 2005, has now ended," Danny Sullivan, a top analyst of the Web search industry, said of the deal on his Search Engine Land blog.Google News allows consumers to search by keywords for news summaries and links to news stories, grouping together related stories based on a computer analysis of the material's underlying thematic relationships. The service is available internationally in 40 languages or regionalized versions.The new agreement "will enable the use of AFP's newswire content in innovative, new ways that will dramatically improve the way users experience newswire content on the Internet," the companies' statement said.The settlement comes eight months after Google struck a licensing deal with AFP-rival Associated Press, or AP, in which Google agreed to pay AP for use of its news. Reuters also has a variety of deals to supply news and photos to Google services.AFP's lawsuit filed two years ago against Google was followed by a similar challenge to Google News by Copiepresse, which manages copyrights for a variety of Belgian papers.In February, a Belgian court ruled that Google must stop reproducing headlines from Belgian newspapers or face fines. At the time, a Copiepresse executive said she would consider allowing Google to display extracts from its papers for a fee.Under the agreement reached, AFP headlines and photographs will again be available on Google News, Google Actualites, the French-language version of Google News, and other Google services, driving traffic to Web sites displaying AFP news content, the news agency said."The agreement will allow uses of AFP's content in ways that go beyond its typical use of content in Google's services, which features just headlines and snippets of text to provide just a taste of what an article offers," AFP Chairman and Chief Executive Pierre Louette said in the statement.AFP has existing licensing agreements with Google rivals Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. MSN, Time Warner Inc.'s AOL and other Internet services.

Google Starts Selling TV Ads

NEW YORK -- E*Trade, Intel and 1-800 Flowers are among the first advertisers on board for Google’s move into national TV ad sales, which was made possible by a deal with satellite provider EchoStar।Under the agreement, announced today, potential advertisers can use Google’s ad-purchasing system to bid for TV ads on a cost-per-thousand viewers basis on EchoStar’s DISH network. Advertisers can also narrow their query by bidding by daypart and even by demographic. Afterwards, they will get data on the number of impressions they bought and about how many people skipped the ad within 10 seconds. If advertisers don’t already have a completed TV ad, Google will also match them up with producers of ads.Google’s foray into TV ad sales has long been expected in the industry since it began adding print and radio as additional options to online ad sales over the past couple of years. Google has also tested TV ad sales with Astound Communications, a Concord, Calif., cable operator, but the EchoStar deal is its first with a national reach.Keval Desai, director of product management at Google, said TV is becoming like the Web. “In the mid to late 90s there were lots of Web sites and audience fragmentation. The same thing is happening in TV.” Desai said he believes that advertisers will benefit from TV channels with smaller, but more targeted audiences.Peter Kim, an analyst with Forrester Research, Cambridge, Mass., said Google’s going to have to deal with the same problems as other TV advertisers, namely ad-skipping devices like TiVo. “It’s still a huge market, but they’ve got to start figuring out a market where people are avoiding ads. [Google is] already in the market that everyone wants to be in, online.”

source: brandweek.com