Click Fraud Keeps Rising, Up 15 percent in 2007

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/239496869/

Click Forensics has some data out on click fraud (clicks on Internet ads that are not real) in the fourth quarter of 2007 and for the full year. The industry-wide average click fraud rate for the entire year went up 15 percent, ending the year with 16.6 percent of all clicks on Web ads being fraudulent. The click fraud rate for search engine ad networks alone, including Google AdSense and Yahoo Publisher Network, grew even more. That was up 47 percent in the fourth quarter, ending the year with a 28.3 percent click fraud rate. According to this data, nearly one out of every three clicks on a Google or Yahoo ad is fraudulent.

While the year-over-year growth is cause for concern, the click fraud rates remained pretty steady compared to the third quarter of 2007, when the overall click fraud rate was 16.2 percent and the search-engine click fraud rate was 28.1 percent (see charts above). One quarter does not make a trend, but could the click fraud rate be leveling off? One can hope. If Google can ever get that rate to actually go down, maybe its stock will shoot up again.

Click Forensics also published the handy heat map below showing the countries where the most click fraud is originating. (Red is bad, green is benign). The biggest sources of click fraud are India (4.3 percent), Germany (3.9 percent), and South Korea (3.7 percent). Mexico is also in the red.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Read More...

Summary only...

Facebook Fatigue? Visitors Level Off In the U.S.

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/239540820/

The number of people who visit Facebook has been leveling off over the past few months in the U.S., and even dipped by about 800,000 individuals in January. According to the latest stats from comScore, Facebook attracted 33.9 million unique visitors in January, 2008, down 2 percent from 34.7 million in December, 2007. Maybe all that friend spam has something to do with the decline. Will the Facebook fatigue get worse, or is this just a temporary dip?

Worldwide, Facebook is still doing fine. It grew 3 percent in January over December, attracting 100.7 million unique visitors. (MySpace had 109.3 million visitors worldwide, up 2 percent month-over-month. And in the U.S., it was slightly down as well from 68.9 million visitors in December, 2007 to 68.6 million in January, 2008. Despite its larger size, though, MySpace lost fewer visitors in the U.S. than Facebook did).

CrunchBase Information

Facebook

MySpace

Information provided by CrunchBase

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Read More...

Summary only...

Yahoo Buzz Launching Soon

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/239726881/

Half of the country’s tech bloggers and journalists, it seems, are under embargo around next week’s launch of Yahoo Buzz. Word has still leaked, likely from recently layed off Yahoo employees. We’re under embargo, too, so I can’t say much. But the posters up all over Yahoo give a taste of what is.

“We’re re-launching Yahoo! Buzz as a destination site where users determine the best stories & videos” - sounds a lot like Digg to me. The URL given in the poster - alpha.buzz.yahoo.com - can only be accessed by Yahoo employees. The launch URL will be buzz.yahoo.com. If you happen to be online, check out TechCrunch at 9 pm on Monday.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Read More...

Summary only...

Microsoft SkyDrive Offers 5 GB of Online Storage Space, Out of Beta

Source: http://www.labnol.org/internet/tools/microsoft-windows-live-skydrive-5-gb-storage-space/2348/

Windows Live SkyDrive, a free online storage service from Microsoft, just got better and bigger. They now provide 5 GB of storage space which is the same as offered by AOL XDrive.

SkyDrive was earlier available only for users in US, UK and India but now they have expanded the service to included many new countries including Australia, France, Switzerland and Canada among others.

Windows SkyDrive provides RSS feeds for their folders so your subscribers will know the moment you upload new files. You can also embed files / folders in web pages for your readers to download files directly from your website.

skydrive.live.com | SkyDrive Team Blog

---

Microsoft SkyDrive Offers 5 GB of Online Storage Space, Out of Beta - Digital Inspiration

Read More...

Summary only...

Embed Images from Google Maps In Emails & Blogs Without Using Screen Capture Software

Source: http://www.labnol.org/internet/tools/embed-google-maps-still-images-email-blogs/2349/

It is now possible to embed live images of Google Maps in emails and other websites (like MySpace, Facebook or WordPress.com) that do not allow JavaScript.

Earlier you had to take a screenshot of the Google Maps and save that as an image file but that’s no longer necessary as this Static Maps Wizard will let you create a still but dynamic image of any location on Google Maps.

For instance, the map of Hyderabad above is not a screenshot but a live image served from Google Maps using this URL.

You can place the Google Maps image in any web page using the standard <img> tag. For embedding maps in web emails (like Gmail), simply compose a new message and drag the Google Map on to the email body. Thanks Tom Manshreck.

---

Embed Images from Google Maps In Emails & Blogs Without Using Screen Capture Software - Digital Inspiration

Read More...

Summary only...