TechCrunch Partners With WashingPost.com
Micheal Arrington, the owner and co-editor of TechCrunch, has revealed a new partnership between TechCrunch and WashingtonPost.com whereby TechCrunch posts will be syndicated and added to the Technology section of the WashingtonPost.com site.
The move is going to help TechCrunch extend its readership to that of WashingtonPost.com and will join other popular blogs such as Brian Krebs’s Security Fix and Rob Pegoraro’s Faster Forward in the technology section.
In a press release Michael Arrington said:
“We are excited to work with washingtonpost.com and to include our content in their Technology section,… Journalism is evolving, and washingtonpost.com is maintaining their leading position by embracing the community.”
After all Arrington’s vision of Dream Team to take on the CNET machine might well be in motion. Right now TechCruch is on course to having 1 million subscribers.
AdSense for Search Now Souped up by Custom Search
Don’t know why it has taken Google AdSense so long, but now AdSense for Search is now powered by Custom Search. Publishers who have used AdSense for Search know how frustrating it was to make it work well with your site or blog because of its limitations on customization. Instead publishers opted for the non-paid Custom Search that is rich with advanced customization options to help improve the accuracy of your search results and tailor them to what users of your site might be looking for.
Now that Custom Search has been integrated into AdSense for Search, all the features of Custom Search Engine will now entice publishers to use again AdSense for search on their sites again whilst getting paid.
New features:
- Site wide search: options to provide just site search and results shown on your own site pages. Thus users wont unnecessarily be leaving the site.
- Improved indexing of your pages: more pages of your site indexed so that to show more search results from the site.
- Vertical search: the ability to have users to search across multiple sites of your chosing or the ones that fit with site’s content
- Tuning search results and ads with keywords to fit and blend with your site content
- Selecting ad location in the search results to improve monetization of site
- Quick and easy update or modify settings within your AdSense account
AdSense Add a Known Issues Page
Google AdSense have added a new Known Issues page, where AdSense publishers can track and check the status of reported and known problems and issues with their accounts and the programme itself. The Known issues pages will thus provide updates on just reported issues and other existing ones. The aim is to provide more transparency and not keep publishers in the dark, like the recent issue with reports showing lower stats than usual. So make sure you regularly keep an eye on the Known Issues page on issues that might affect you directly or not.
iTunes Will Have New Movies Same Day as DVD Releases
Now you can get new movies on iTunes on the same day they get released on DVD. Apple have made a deal with major film studios and some independent movie studios to make movies available electronically for purchase or rent from the iTunes Store as soon as they are released on DVD.
For now the iTunes movies service is only available in the US and you can get a movie for $9.99 for catalog titles and $14.99 for new releases. And also you can rent one from as low as $2.99 per title. The iTunes catalog is increasingly growing with new movie titles every week and prime time TV shows also in HD. With this trend one can see the death of DVD as iminent as we move to online downloads and streaming.
Movies from iTunes can watched on various versions of the iPod, iPhone, PC or Mac and on a widescreen TV using Apple TV.
“We’re thrilled to bring iTunes Store customers new films for purchase day-and-date with the DVD release,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “We think movie fans will love being able to buy their favorites from major and independent studios.”
Alexa’s Ranking System Given an Overhaul
As most of you must have noticed some bizzare changes in your Alexa rankings and most probably your site or blog’s ranking have gone south. Well dont panic, it is not because you are no longer getting visitors you used to get but Alexa have done a complete overhaul of their ranking system.
Alexa have stopped using and relying on the Alexa toolbar as the their only source for traffic data and now it will be gathering data from diffrent multiple sources and compiled into Alexa standard statistics and web rankings. One of the reasons of the change is that Alexa’s rankings have been heavily questioned by analysts of how accurate it is considering it only came from a few people who have downloaded and using their toolbar.
Part of why most rankings have dropped is that data older than 9 months is no longer available as they are trying to adjust it into the new ranking system. But still if you do get alot of visitor watch your ranking change up again, well at least thats what I think.
Your ranking wasn’t wrong before, but it was different. Alexa toolbar users’ interests and surfing habits could differ from those of the general population in a number of ways, and we described some of those possible differences on our website. While the vast majority of sites’ rankings were unaffected by such differences, we’ve worked hard on our new ranking system to adjust for situations in which they could matter. The new rankings should better reflect the interests and surfing habits of the broader population of Web users.
AOL Groups Sites to form AOL Technology Network
AOL have grouped together their existing technology blogs and sites to launch the AOL Technology Network. The tech network now includes Engadget, Switched, TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog), DownloadSquad, Engadget Mobile and Engadget HD which will make it the second largest tech network on the web after CNET as stated by AOL.
The AOL Technology Network is designed to now make it easier to market the sites to advertisers giving them a variety of sites to choose from or spread their ads across the network. Secondly it will make users more engaged with a complete technology news, tools, tips and gadgets information resources with ease of reach. Thus users can access network sites directly, through a inter-site linking or from AOL.com.
“By creating the AOL Technology Network, we’re bringing together some of the Web’s most powerful and fastest-growing tech blogs to create a technology publishing powerhouse,” said Marty Moe, Senior Vice President, AOL Money & Finance and Weblogs. “The new network, coupled with the redesign of Switched and Engadget, reflects our ongoing commitment to creating the most compelling destinations for consumers on the Web.”
Rumour
Well in some news from Silicon Alley Insider there has been a rumour that Michael Arrington’s TechCrunch might merge with SAI in a bid to form a power network like the one Arrington dreamt of weeks ago.
Microsoft Comments on Yahoo! and Google’s Adsense Deal
Here is a response from Microsoft on the Yahoo! and Google ad arrangement whereby Yahoo! is trying out Adsense on its search results for a limited two week period and on less than 3% of the search queries in the U.S.
“Any definitive agreement between Yahoo! and Google would consolidate over 90% of the search advertising market in Google’s hands. This would make the market far less competitive, in sharp contrast to our own proposal to acquire Yahoo! We will assess closely all of our options. Our proposal remains the only alternative put forward that offers Yahoo! shareholders full and fair value for their shares, gives every shareholder a vote on the future of the company, and enhances choice for content creators, advertisers, and consumers.”