I honestly thought he would have won this case, I mean where in the world does Life mean Life, Under BOA rules, Chambers was banned from future Olympic Games after testing positive for the steroid THG in 2003

full story on BBC : here 

DaveN

In the darker belly of the Internet world there are rumours that Phorm may replace ad’s by Google with it own ad’s… worried no of course you aren’t, after all Phorm is just the rebrand of 121media ( I think that was malware )

so what’s with the title of this post, well 70% or the UK internet users will have to opt out yes opt out, you see that Phorm as signed deals with BT, Talk Talk and Virgin, so now are you scared. if you thought that Zuckerberg’s Beacon was bad.. this is worse ..

well what could Phorm do

from the webwise site :

Advertising that’s relevant to your interests
Webwise assigns a unique, randomly-generated number in a cookie to a customer’s browser to preserve anonymity, then matches the categories of browsing activity with advertising. When there is a match the customer sees the more-relevant ad.

What if you where running adsense, they could just block that and replace it with a more relevant ad.

What if you where reading the FT and they mentioned Expedia and hotels in Paris, and phorm could add a link to lastminute if they wanted to or even a Banner ad.

What if the profile they built on you was leaked, I’m sure the UK are pretty good at not leaking Data ..

and what if when you searched Google you got Phorm ads and Not adwords, has and adwords advertiser that would piss me off ..

at the moment I can’t tell if the Webwise add on will deactivate the Phorm ads or not time will tell I guess.

btw BT just testing this on 10,000 people …

Bad peoples sites
http://www.phorm.com/
http://www.webwise.com/

related articles
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/mar/06/internet.privacy
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7280791.stm

DaveN

Inline with ContextWeb’s expansion  ADSDAQ Ad Exchange to the UK, Ross Caveille has just been announced as the new UK general manager. I welcomed the opportunity to interview him:

1) What are your immediate thoughts about the newly created position ?

 My thoughts are it’s great, it’s an opportunity for ContextWeb’s ADSDAQ Exchange to launch into a new market and hopefully use this as a stepping stone into additional European markets in the future. I am excited about being a part of this and hope to replicate the success over here that ContextWeb has enjoyed in the US.

2) With a mission of  reaching  the exchange’s audiences of UK visitors, what is your main strategy for achieving this?

 As in the US we will work with large and small UK publishers alike and promote the use of the ADSDAQ Exchange’s self-serve portal.   With over 5,000 publishers already in the exchange to date, we look forward to continued momentum in the UK. Also, strategic partnerships will be formed with key publishers in the UK market in order to generate sufficient reach across content rich web pages.  

3) What do you hope to bring to the new role ?

Having been involved with the UK digital market for over six years I hope to be able to bring experience and knowledge of this environment plus and instant introduction to ContextWeb and the ADSDAQ Exchange with key industry figures. I am also extremely excited about establishing the Company within the UK and will be channeling this energy into growing the business.

4) With such a global audience how will you focus in your mission ?

 Initially, we will be establishing the ADSDAQ Exchange in the UK and campaigns will be UK-focused so we will be working closely with advertisers targeting UK IPs. The UK marketplace is predominantly London oriented but does have a strong presence in Manchester and Leeds so these three areas will be key.

5) Your experience at Microsoft must have some influence in the business decisions that you make. What are your thoughts about their current plans to acquire Yahoo and indeed develop their market within search ?

 There is a lot of consolidation happening in the market right now and this is not just specific to Microsoft or Google. However, as these two big players size one another up it is imperative that Microsoft make some inroads into Google’s dominance of search as it is clear that Google will be aggressively expanding into display. There are probably additional attractions to the acquisition for Microsoft, with mobile being a likely consideration, but I am happy for this power struggle to continue and let us focus on providing our clients with cutting edge technology and superior service levels.

6)  How do you foresee the technology market evolving within the next five years ?

 The UK market is a little behind the US, however, not as much as it used to be. Exchanges are a relatively new addition to the online marketing mix and I foresee that this will eventually be the platform of choice for the majority of advertisers and publishers alike. Previously and - to a great extent - currently, technology platforms are quite stand-alone and tend to not work well or at all with other technologies of a similar offering e.g. adserving tends to be Atlas or DoubleClick but rarely an amalgamation of the two. I wish I could predict the future but I would hope new technologies will be about control and mutual benefit, for all sides of the equation rather than the proprietor. 

7) Currently, advertisers and publishers have complete control. Is this an area you feel will change in the near future ?

 I would actually suggest that currently, advertisers and publishers do not have complete control. Often an advertiser will not have control over which page they appear on, the format that appears or the frequency in which this happens. Similarly, a publisher can stipulate which advertisers they would like or exclude certain brands but will rarely be in full control of volumes to advertiser. In both instances I am talking about advertisers and publishers that have enough scale to be represented by a third party, whether this be an advertising agency or sales house. The shift to an exchange platform does increase the control that an advertiser and publisher has in particularly if this is at the page-level which is what is so appealing about ADSDAQ by ContextWeb. I hope this trend increases in the future and control is given to both publishers and advertisers alike. Technology has a key role to play in this.

8) With such success of the business within the US market. How do you think this will compare to the UK market ?

 Seeing as though we are three days old in the UK I will be in a better position to answer this further down the line. But, the minds that made ContextWeb a success in the US are fully supportive of the UK launch and I hope to be able to work as closely as possible with these people to replicate this.

9) Who do you see as the main competition in reaching the exchange’s audiences of UK visitors ?

 You could argue that any vendor wishing to acquire advertising budget or publisher inventory is a competitor and indeed at some point they all probably will be. There are exchanges and contextual targeting tools available for advertisers in the UK now however each has its own platform, degree of targeting that it can achieve and USP. The general lack of understanding of what an exchange is and how to best make use of it is also something that will take time to overcome so as much as it is about gaining a foothold in the marketplace it is also important that vendors of all walks take the care and attention to educate as they grow. 

Thanks very much for your time Ross.

 Dan Horton SEO           

reports are starting to spread amongst UK webmasters that 123reg had a some major outages with their DNS servers, even thou 123Reg had promised to keep their clients in informed, it seems that they didn’t.. lot’s of pissed off UK Webmasters.

DaveN

So it’s just been reported on the UK news that foot and mouth may well be back in the UK.

Surely you would have thought lessons would have been learnt last time around?

Movement of livestock will doubtless be prevented and the usual scenario of disinfectant with farms being affected in no place near the event or perhaps the blaming of air borne bacteria?

How will google deal with the reporting this time I wonder ?

Last bit of news from them on the subject was that foot and mouth was easing here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk/2001/foot_and_mouth/default.stm

I hope that the government has both the physical resources and financial plans in place to help those who are bound to be affected.

September 14/15th

Hotel : Britannia Hotel Manchester city centre -
Friday £69 for b&b single, Sat £89 for b&b single
Friday £70 for b&b double, Sat £105 for b&b double.

I was chatting with Peter over at search engine serious about the fact we hadn’t had a piss up for awhile, he suggested that we should have a get together, maybe in Manchester, and so if you want to meet like minded Seo type people, then come along, I travel all over the world speaking at conferences and I get a great deal from that, but I get more personally from sitting in a bar and chatting, and good example was a few years back, I sat in a bar and we chatted about adsense and best place to place the ads, coloured links etc, someone made a joke some data they had, in an hour a plan was made and in 2 months I made 28,000 usd in adsense lol… you can’t knock that ..

so if you fancy a pint with ME, I will see you in Manchester.. Peter has posted up room rates and the like.

If you are coming just leaving a comment .. Peter’s Blog

DaveN

So I’m looking at taking on more staff, and I popped over to jobs in search an saw this,, Fuckme I will have to send a email to him .. lol

DaveN

saw this on Linkshares homepage

Earn 3% More in Q3
Beginning in July, many of our UK advertisers are offering up to an extra 3% commission on top of their baseline commissions. Commissions during this promotion range from 8% up to 15%. This promotion is running through the end of September. Below are a few examples of advertisers that are offering publishers this special bonus commission.

DaveN

Hmmm tough one if you just won an Ebay Auction for a Playstation 2, for £95, and instead of the games console and games turning up you get a box full of 65,400 Euros..

The £44,000 question is, what would you do ?, and rememeber under UK law if the money isn’t claimed within 6 months you can potentially apply for it to be returned to you under the Police Property Act.

So do you go to the Police with the money and wait 6 months or go buy a brand new Playstation 3 ;)

DaveN

full story on BBC

There are so many UK business directories out there on the web its difficult to know where to start. Most people think of Yell or Thompson, pretty much like when you think of search engines you think Google.

When I’m looking for a UK business I want something fast and efficient and I also look for more than a few results.

I guess with a UK Business finder it’s only as efficient as the data that feeds it. I do think its quite surprising then that Infoserve really does come up trumps in the UK Business search field.

For starters infoserve looks sleek and to be honest both Thompson and Yell look a bit dated, but does it deliver…?

Well yes it does and rather swiftly too, with an extensive range of information delivered in the results and somewhat more up-to date than it’s rivals.

For eg. I looked up Tesco for the area in which I live (Ripon) it came back with enough results to throw a stick at and then some, but more importantly the most relevant ones nearest the top. Ok there isn’t a Tesco in Ripon, I know that but there are stores local to Ripon and sure enough Infoserve delivers giving me a range of stores NEAR my geographic area.

To get my loaf of bread according to Thomson id have to bake my own as there are no stores in Ripon or near so it seems, Yell on the other hand lists a store not even close to Ripon so once again im left lusting for my tasty warm loaf.

Well, I also happen to like the rather cool drop down boxes for What? and Where? so even if you forget what you started looking for or need a better idea it will give you it, even better if you can’t quite remember where you are or the exact name of the place even via postcode the information is all there.

Dan Horton