Now ads may soon be found in your video games as well. Google has been quietly testing AdSense for Games Products for months and has developed a new technology that will allow beta publishers to Display video, Image or Text ads, as well as customize their placement via the flash SDK into games with the option to show ads before the game, after the game or between levels as well as the ad could be exposed during loading.  If the new technology is proven successful within online gaming, Google is certain to move the service to mobile games and eventually Console. Google has had Playfish, Zynga, Demand Media, Mochi Media, and Konami as active participating publishers from the start, since then they have signed up Beta Publishers such as: Sprint, Sony Pictures and Online Insurance Firm Esurance.

Although “AdSense for Games”could be considered a excellent way to advertise and bring in revenue, online users may be turned off to the idea completely. We already have pop-ups and ads in our web browsers, Now they are going to put ads into Video games with messages like “And now, a word from our sponsors.” Its doubtful that gamers will stand for ads in games which take up their gaming time. Integrating ads such as billboards in the backgrounds of games add to the realism of games, but adding a 30 second time slot for an ad to play is definitely a turn off.In-Game Advertising is nothing new, but with a Google spin on the scenario it could either prove to be a big hit or a big miss.

Google is well aware that there are going to be serveral significant competitors  such as Double Fusion, IGA, And Microsoft’s Massive, but still thinks that it can set itself apart from the others. AdSense For Games has the potential to increase brand awareness as well as serve as a direct-response tool.  Google’s Bernie Stolar, A Video Game Veteran, believes that this is an area that will have tremendous growth over the next number of years involving several different media. Even thought it may not be a home-run in the immediate future, Google is trying to build the foundational building blocks for many environments that could be very attractive to marketers and ad agencies.

For those who are interested in becoming a AdSense for Games Beta Publisher, there is an application with a list of requirements available at: http://adsense.blogspot.com

After living on Firefox for the last several years Google hit’s a Home Run with their release of Google Chrome, a free, open source web browser with some serious improvements over IE and Firefox.  The first thing you notice is the clean lines and expanded viewing area with tabs at the top from the moment you open it .  So the first things we noticed were the larger viewing area, and the tabs leaving us to believe that the team’s primary goals were in line with what users are looking for.

 Install Multiple Browsers

 We are asked at least once a day about installing multiple browsers on one computer, and the answer is not only yes you can, but you should have at least one or two other than Internet Explorer so that you have choices if you can not load a site in IE or it has errors.  So with that in mind we at Zenn Media have compiled a list of browser for you to download and check out.

1.Google Chrome

2.Mozilla Firefox

3.Opera

4.Safari 

We also found this review with a screen cast you may be interested in - Google Chrome a Killer Browser Already (screencast)

Google values a being major presence in Czechoslovakia so much they are rumored to be looking at purchasing the countries largest search engine Seznam for a BILLION dollars. As google looks at it global ability to dominate the search industries they are strategically choosing to purchase establish companies rather than building from the ground up. So this brings me to today’s big idea, find a under serviced country and start building and marketing a national search engine for that country, looks to us like you have a pretty good chance of being purchased… The most interesting part of this particular deal is the time it will take to generate any kind of income at all from the deal, showing Google is careful to ensure their dominance and survival as the biggest and best.

Read more on this subject at:

Google Won’t Let Search Startups Grow Too Large

Czech search engine Seznam on the block for $1 billion or more?

It seems that what was billed as the biggest thing in search since the famous launch of Google is not much more than the Paris Hilton of search, lot’s of publicity, not a lot of relevant content. We have had a few weeks to compare Cuil’s search results with that of Google, and the difference is staggering! Google beat the heck out of Cuil in every head to head challenge, especially in local search results. So bigger is not better, and on that note there is very little reason to suggest that Cuil is indexing more sites than Google as Google has stopped announcing it’s total number of sites they index a few years ago. For more on this subject read How to Create a Viable Search Competitor.

FunnyOrDie.com hit a grad slam with their timely production of a comedic rebuttal from Paris Hilton of all people. I swore I would never support Paris’s pathetic career in anyway, and I am now eating those words as she truly made me laugh with the video response written and produced by the comic genius of Adam McKay. The reason we bring up the subject is to highlight how the internet oftens drives the content of traditional media thesedays, making the internet the most powerful communication tool in history. Now if only some of the more important world news made it to the traditional media outlets. Be sure to watch the above full video from FunnyOrDie.com as it is not being shown in it’s entirety on T.V.

here are a few funny links to browse:

Another Reason to Be Like Paris Hilton:

Will Ferrell and the End of Media as We Know It

Google Maps Street View can change the world for people who are challenged with finding locations and address they have not been to before. Basically Google has loaded up several vans with tonnes of camera’s and have set them off to map and photograph the world from the street view level so they can add the data to their Google Maps application allowing users to print a picture of the front of the building they are going to with a detailed map and directions all from Google Maps. The result is spectacular and fun to play with.A few internet geeks have compiled some great candid camera shots accidentally taken by the Google vans while mapping. here are a few that will make you chuckle:1. Top 15 Google Street View Sightings

2. GStreetSightings.com

3. StreetViewGallery

4. Valleywag strangest Google street view sights

OK so Cuil is pretty cool with it’s columns of search results with thumbs inserted into their regular search results. How ever in our research on it’s content and ability to serve relevant results for global and local searches, it did not do well. Though it may have a whopping 1.2 billion websites in it’s system, it how it chooses to deliver them for searches that make it not as good as good ‘ol Google.

Cuil is Greek for Knowledge, a well picked name for the new kid on the block, though they do not quite live up their press release. We look forward to seeing what new developments they will bring to everyday searching on the internet, helping raise the bar for the industry and injecting new ideas into the oldest game on the internet.

According to the Webmaster Page on the Cuil site you need to email them in order to request inclusion in their search engine. We will be sure to post some updates on this article as time goes on, so check back often.

Google’s philanthropy organization Google.org is investing in an electric car company Aptera Motors. The significance of this will remain to be seen, but for now it’s nice to see a light on in the electric car office. The Aptera is about $30,000 in the US and will be available by 2009 the company says, but how easy will it be to by one? The kewl thing about the whole approach Google.org is taking is these cars which can be charged in a few hours by solar panels, could be used to store electricity that is then sold back to the power company. So let’s get that straight, right now we are all going broke trying to maintain our consumerism, but we could have technology that sees me making money with out even driving my car? And we choose to spend all our money on band aid solutions when we should be looking to change the game completely? Well we are keeping an eye on Aptera and Google.org to see what they think of next.

Though I am a self professed gear head, and I love to put the pedal down, but the current gas prices have me competing with myself to see how good I can drive to get the most distance out of my tank. Not that it’s entirely a bad thing, but I want to go back to being able to enjoy driving, and not wondering what harm I am actually causing. There is little question about how to solve this “Energy Crisis” and I will remember 2008 as the year I changed my views on being active in providing as much help to the solution as I can.

Google Webmaster Tools is a great tool to get inside information on how Google views your website. Webmasters looking to learn more about the largest search engine on the internet can use the tools for free with a Google account. We thought we would share the first six things we do for every website we webmaster.

1. Verify your site - choose a verification method and verify your site, the instructions are basic and easy to follow. This will prove ownership of the domain as only one account can set up Google Webmaster Tools for that one domain.

2. Upload a robots.txt file to the root - This ensures indexing robots will feel free to index your website.

3. Upload a XML Sitemap - A sitemap ensures robots will have a complete list of pages to index as well as the a priority rating to gauge which is the most important page of your website. You can generate a sitemap with a free online tool, but you should check the priority settings and make sure regular pages are .5 with your home page or most important page being a 1.0

4. Set your preferred domain - You can ensure you are getting all the data for your website by letting Google know that both the www.MyDomainName.com and MyDomainName.com are the same website.

5. Set your geographic region - This lets Google know you are most relevant to a specific geographic region.

6. Enable enhanced image search - enhanced image search brings plenty of traffic to website that fill out all the alt tags for images on their website.

Watch the YouTube video above for a more in depth webinar on the Google Trifecta - Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics, Google Website Optimizer

Have you been looking for a benchmarking tool to compare your website traffic to other websites?  Google Trends will help, though it is not perfect. It seems that Google is not willing to share any data on it’s website like Youtube, Google.com or any others.  Though you can find some interesting data on Facebook, Yahoo and many others.  So what’s the big deal your asking?  It is a useful tool for webmasters like us planning new website developments for clients, allowing me to see exactly what the relative popularity of certain websites and search terms really are, instead of guessing…  For example we are currently building a new site for Richmond Hill Wines here in Calgary and we are in the process of writing the new content around keywords that are sure to bring them the right kind of traffic, exposing their business to new potential clients.  Allowing us to ensure a positive ROI for each and every client.  Check out Google Trends and share some of your findings with us!