From the joint-horse’s mouth:

“Microsoft and Yahoo! have now received regulatory clearance to form the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance in the United States and European Union. This milestone is an exciting step in our effort to give your business a time-saving and cost-efficient way to connect with a larger combined audience of potential customers.”

Let’s face it, Google could use a little competition.

Our blog post New AdWords Ads Increasingly Getting Stuck in the ‘Under Review’ Black Hole now has 50 comments – the majority of which express extreme frustration. Many AdWords account holders are eager for alternatives.

This could be the start of something interesting.

I guarantee that your Google AdWords account is wasting money.

I guarantee that tomorrow’s webinar will help you recover some of that money.

And I guarantee that you have never come across some of the ideas before.

100% original.

45 minutes.

15 ways to cut your AdWords costs.

And no, that isn’t a typo.

Register for the free webinar and find out why!

Remember Pirate Bay?

Peter Sunde was one of the ‘innovators’ behind Pirate Bay – a venture that resulted in his one year prison sentence and a fine of over three million US dollars.

Mr. Sunde and his other pirate friends are requesting a retrial, and it appears that his sentence may be affecting his outlook of the world.

Flattr is Sunde’s latest venture:

“We aim to revolutionize how people pay and get paid for content on the internet. Come, join and show the world that good content is worth some coins out of your pocket.”

To go from assisting theft to assisting revenue is an interesting U-turn, to put it mildly.

But will it work? The system will involve users setting up an account, entering credit card details and deciding an amount to be paid each month. When they don’t have to.

At risk of sounding cynical, it doesn’t have a hope of success.

I’m all for helping content providers make money, but I don’t think this will be the answer. And coming from an individual charged with assisting copyright infringement, the irony is bewildering.

What’s next – identity thieves pushing online security? Mercenaries for peace?

Google have announced the launch of Google Buzz: “a new way to start conversations about the things you find interesting.”

I know what you’re thinking. Google Wave?

No. “Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration.”

And Google Talk, in case you’re wondering, is a tool to “Chat with friends and family on the internet“.

So Buzz is about conversations. Wave is about real-time communication. Talk is about chatting.

Got it?

Next stop: Google Hype. “A newer, even-more real-time tool to convey thoughts“.

The pictures say it all. Note that today’s Google logo is commemorating Norman Rockwell’s birthday.

And I don’t know whether to be amused or scared by this one:

Hype is a powerful thing, but behind all great marketing has to be (at the very least) a good product. Otherwise it’s little more than noise.

Google Wave set out to be a solution to a problem that most people don’t have.

Which is why, according to Business Insider, web visits to Google Wave have dropped sharply.

Having used it myself, I can understand why. It’s confusing, buggy, and as good as pointless.

Next stop: the iPad.

Google AdWords is a wonderful sales tool. But  the system is complex, and Google’s defaults are a far better fit for Google than their advertisers.

As a Qualified AdWords Professional, Dave Collins has worked with hundreds of AdWords accounts for more than nine years. Two facts emerge time after time:

Fact 1: Most accounts lose money without the account holder realising it.

Fact 2: The main culprits can often be fixed in minutes.

On Wednesday February 17th at 11.00 AM US Central, 5:00 PM GMT, Dave will be holding a 45 minute webinar to show you 14 ways to reduce your AdWords costs:

Beat the AdWords System: 14 ways to cut your Google AdWords costs.

No abstract theories. No complex analysis. Just 14 techniques that work.

This webinar will save you money. We expect it to be popular, and availability is limited. So register now.

REGISTER FOR THE WEBINAR NOW!

Google Reader is one of those tools that I like, understand, but don’t really use. At least not until now.

I’ve been using FeedDemon longer than I can remember; certainly long before most normal people had ever heard of RSS feeds. And that’s the root of the problem with RSS: Most people have never heard of it, many of those who have don’t want to use it, and many of those who do find it more than a little frustrating.

The result of this is that until yesterday, the ‘average person’ had little or no use of Google Reader, but their new killer feature will most likely start to change that:

“Feeds make it easy to follow updates to all kinds of webpages, from blogs to news sites to Craigslist queries, but unfortunately not all pages on the web have feeds. Today we’re rolling out a change in Google Reader that lets you create a custom feed to track changes on pages that don’t have their own feed.”

In other words you can receive alerts when any web page has been updated. So whether you’re interested in new drivers for your graphics card, whether your local Pizza Hut will finally deliver to your address, what your competition might be up to or even want to make sure that your website hasn’t been tampered with, Google Reader might prove to be a very useful tool.

And the more you use it, the more you’ll rely on it. The more you rely on it, the more you’ll use it. It’s an inspired move by the Goooooogle folk.

Follow changes to any website

Google appear to be getting increasingly serious about the prospect of mobile search.

Last week they added the option for AdWords advertisers to target (some) specific devices, and they’ve now added the ability to target by phone service provider too.

The question is who will use this? Who needs to target their ad delivery by phone carrier?

It’s 2010. The internet is neither new nor revolutionary anymore. Given this, why is it that so many of the website mistakes that were around in 1997 are still plaguing us today? Should we not know better by now?

1. “Welcome to our web site. We are a company who pride ourselves on our meticulous attention to detail, hard work ethic, and speedy response times.“

Yes. Great. But what can you do for me? What do you sell? How can your product solve my problems or improve my life?

Think about the last time you walked into a supermarket, or any other shop. Were you met at the door by a group of suited people who wanted to talk to you about their company ethos? Or were you perhaps instead greeted by colourful displays of tempting items, special offers, and seasonal goods? I’m betting it was the latter. Your website is a shop, too – if you want to sell your product, you’d do well to treat it like one.

2. “NEWS!  Our software is now Windows 2000 compatible!“

Okay, maybe that is a slightly extreme example. Seriously, though, how often do you visit a website, discover it’s not been updated in a year or two, and leave? It’s a scenario that’s all too common.  Maybe you have been working hard on your software and neglecting your website. Perhaps there have even been a couple of new releases, which a site visitor might discover if they venture deeper into the site. But if your index page has a cheerful little “New for 2008!” graphic and your latest blog post was in March last year, it does not look good.

3. “Contact us at sneakynsuspicious@hotmail.com or PO BOX 123 12.“

You expect people to hand over their money without knowing who you are, and without any real means of contacting you? Honestly?

Online shopping might well be deemed mainstream and safe these days, but that doesn’t mean that your visitors have turned stupid. Far from it – they’re probably savvier than ever.  If they discover that you’re unwilling to provide them with a phone number or a real address, they’re likely to be just as unwilling to provide you with their credit card details.

4. “Yes, I will tell you how much this product costs if you are willing to click your way to the seventh level of hell my website.“

Why are so many people scared of making their product price easy to find? Do they believe that by forcing their visitors to read umpteen pages of empty buzz words, they will then be too exhausted to realize that the $99 you’re asking is actually quite a bad deal?

If it was up to me, the starting price would always be prominently displayed on the index page. Chances are that your visitors are working within a budget, and don’t want to waste their time looking at a $5000 application when they can’t afford to spend more than $50. If pricing is complicated and depends on a variety of factors, fine – but please make sure your pricing structure is clearly displayed and no more than a click away from any given page.

5. “The graphics? Oh yes, I had a lot of help from my cousin, my neighbour’s wife and my pet hamster, but most of them I did myself.”

Of all the places to save money, I am constantly amazed by how many people choose their website graphics. If you use your site to keep a log of petrol costs for your radio-controlled boat, or to share the latest rail-related news with other trainspotting enthusiasts, fine.  Use any old jpegs you find lying around. If, however, you’re hoping to make a serious impression and make some money from your software: use a graphic designer. Today.