I don’t know whether you’ve been following the Yahoo! soap opera of late, but I bet you’ve seen the latest installment of the on-off-on again bizarre love triangle played out between Microsoft, Yahoo! and Google. (Well, in this particular instance between Yahoo! and Google.)
Yesterday saw Google and Yahoo! break up again over their Internet advertising partnership. In a nutshell, Google was to display their AdWords advertising across Yahoo!’s entire Web network with Yahoo Inc. receiving an $800 million yearly boost in revenue for the privilege.
AP has the story in full here if you want more details before obliging us by answering the poll below.
You’ll be pleased to know I’ve just passed the longest period of uninterrupted home Internet access with the illustrious Comcast. More or less ever since I moved into my apartment last June I’d lose service for unconscionably long periods. Various Comcast ‘techs’ had run so many wires through the place that the audible hum was on the verge of drowning out the sound of the traffic. Continue reading →
I call my lawyer today (about B&O taxes, not for that impending insider trading lawsuit). During our small talk that I hope I won’t be billed for, he says something about Christmas would have been better if he could have found a Wii somewhere. I had heard they were sold out of all the stores in our area for at least 2 weeks, so I asked if he had tried the internet.
“I don’t trust buying over the internet.”
Are you kidding? I could have strangled him. Not because fear of buying over the internet is irrational - it is not. But because he has always impressed me as a man of reasonable intelligence and logic, yet he asked told his internet marketing client that he doesn’t trust buying over the internet. Know your audience! Lie to me for pete’s sake!
The dictionary lists News Year’s Eve somewhere in between underwhelming and overstated. Never in the history of the night out has one evening promised so much yet delivered so little (to paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill).
New Year’s Eve revelers fall into two categories: creatures of habit who do the same thing every year and creatures like rabbits in headlights startled by the possibility of partying like it’s 1999. Continue reading →
I have two young children, the oldest 2 1/2. She’s a little afraid of the big guy in the red suit, but she likes the Christmas tree and holiday specials, especially the Grinch (the classic one). So we weren’t really sure if she’d ‘get’ Christmas this year or not.
So when we had to wake her at 7:30 we figured this wouldn’t be the year. And when we asked her if she wanted to go open presents, she replied, “no.” Definitely not 2007. Continue reading →
While we’re still making sure that everything is screwed down nice and tight before everything gets switched, it might be an idea to actually post something. If truth be told we’ve been raring to go since last week but there appears to be a problem or three regarding some of the redirection from this blog to the new one. But panic ye not - we have a back-up plan that we can implement once we’ve got Thanksgiving out of the way.
While we’re on the subject of blogging, or at least while I’m on the subject of blogging, there’s been an almighty brouhaha going on of late relating to Google’s steely cyber stare to various site owners and bloggers engaging in paid linking and now they’re fixing their gaze on pay per posters.
As somebody once pointed out in some ditty on some long player, “I’m working hard for the weekend.”
Or lyrics to that effect.
It seems to go without saying that every waking hour is taken up by somebody or other wishing to pay either us or Wheeling a visit. The memory of languid weekends with my feet out-stretched waiting for the back of my knees to seize up just prior to the onset of pins and needles is a distant one. Continue reading →
I have a buddy back in Blighty who is married to the daughter of the former chief clerk of our local council. Now the chief clerk of the council holds all the purse strings when it comes to whys and what for’s of local public spending. For example, they get to decide who gets to do the work once a project is decided upon. Whether these are ongoing concerns such as parks, pavements and other related civic expenditure or one-offs they tend to give the nod.
You may recall a certain Mrs. Thatcher during the eighties - I know I do. Well under her leadership, we in Britain were given the opportunity to become more acquainted with the concept of public/private partnership. In a nutshell, everything that could be deregulated and decentralized was and opened up to competitive tender. Continue reading →
I just received a notice from Yahoo! that I thought was worth sharing. They are changing their policy so that “short ads” (70 characters maximum) will be required on all ad sets. You can still write long descriptions for ads, but they must be accompanied by short ad counterparts. Beginning this June, Yahoo.com’s search results will only display the short, 70 character ad descriptions.
Allowing advertisers to add both short and long descriptions was a new feature for Yahoo!’s massive Panama update that began in the 4th quarter of last year and finished up only recently. In the old system, advertisers could only list short ads and had to have individual ads for each keyword. Continue reading →
I have two young children, the oldest 2 1/2. She’s a little afraid of the big guy in the red suit, but she likes the Christmas tree and holiday specials, especially the Grinch (the classic one). So we weren’t really sure if she’d ‘get’ Christmas this year or not.
