Google Is Banning AdWords Advertisers

As you know, Google promised to ban AdWords advertisers at a higher rate and began doing so in late September and throughout November but promised to really step it up later last month.

I spotted a new thread at Google AdWords Help which has what appears to be dozens of advertisers who started getting banned yesterday, December 3rd, at the stroke of midnight. So when it turned into December 3rd, it seems like a bunch of automatic bans just went out and impacted tons of advertisers. There are also ongoing discussion about these bans at WebmasterWorld.

So it looks like a new Google strike on AdWords advertisers has come down.

Here is a copy of a ban email from Google these days:

Dear advertiser,We are writing to let you know that your Google AdWords account has been disabled due to one or more serious violations of our advertising policies related to Landing Page and Site Quality. As a result, your ads will no longer run through the Google AdWords system and we are unable to accept advertising from you in the future. Please note that future accounts you open will also be disabled.
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Posted in business
Tags: Adsense, AdWords, facebook, freindfeed, Google, PyraBang, twitter

Open Letter to Facebook Users

In a rare open letter, Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced a series of privacy changes, starting with the removal of regional networks.

Since its inception, Facebook has been based on networks. First, it was your college and university, then it was your city or region, and now it’s a combination of those plus companies and institutions. However, Zuckerberg has announced that Facebook will be removing regional networks in the next few weeks, but will ask all users to review their privacy settings before the change occurs.

Facebook has been unloading a wave of new privacy features. In fact, Facebook already started removing regional networks several months ago. But now those changes will affect privacy settings, and it seems that Zuckerberg and co. want to be sure that nobody is taken by surprise.

Here’s the entire letter, in its entirety,

Zuckerberg’s Open Letter to Facebook’s Users

“It has been a great year for making the world more open and connected. Thanks to your help, more than 350 million people around the world are using Facebook to share their lives online.
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Posted in business
Tags: blackberry, facebook, freindfeed, Google, twitter

Facebook Home Page Redesign Details

It has been leaked that Facebook was testing a new homepage design. Screenshots revealed a few interesting changes, such as a decrease in size for the Facebook Publisher box and a new, Friendfeed-like “Top News” filter for the news feed.

Here we have an exclusive inside look into the new home page, engagement ads, and more. Below, we provide a detailed explanation of the new Facebook home page.

Changes to the Home Page

In this four page document, Facebook outlines the benefits of the redesign to advertisers who will clearly be affected. First, Facebook states its goal for the new homepage: “simplifying the user experience on the home page by introducing Top News and Recent Activity streams.”

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Facebook Claims that it has 65 Million Mobile Users

Facebook said more than 65 million people are actively using the social network on their mobile devices.

The social network said it had just 20 million active mobile users at the beginning of the year. The site has seen explosive growth in the mobile department thanks to Facebook placing a stronger emphasis on applications, and expanding its Facebook Connect feature to the mobile Web.

The Facebook app is routinely among the most-downloaded programs from over-the-air content stores like Apple’s App Store for the iPhone, and Research In Motion’s App World for its BlackBerry smartphones. The social network also updates these programs often to ensure it is optimized for each individual mobile platform.

The social network has also struck deals to get its app preloaded on multiple handsets such as INQ Mobile’s phones. It recently collaborated with Nokia to provide a “lifecasting” app for the N97 mini. This program enables users to include their location with their status updates.

The company has also been pushing its Facebook Connect feature to the mobile Web, and this enables users to take their Facebook identity all over the Internet. For instance, mobile surfers could use this to comment on other Web sites without having to sign up for a separate account.

Mobile access is becoming increasingly important for Facebook because most of its users are outside of the United States, and may be in markets where the cell phone is the primary computer. The company also recently began testing a mobile payment platform that could eventually be a critical component of Facebook’s future revenue plans.

Other social networks are also attentive to the mobile space, and rival HelloHello expects nearly half of its members will access the site through a phone within five years.

Of Course, Twitter was intended to be used on mobile phones.

I personally use facebook mostly from my BlackBerry Curve.

How do you access your facebook account?

Facebook Lite

Facebook has begun tests on a new service tailored for mobiles and narrowband internet connections.

Facebook Lite appears to be a cut-down version of Facebook and is aimed at countries where broadband is limited.

The site is currently on trial in India and it is thought there are plans to extend this to China and Russia.

In a statement Facebook said the new service would be a “faster, simpler version similar to the Facebook experience you get on a mobile phone”.

“Facebook Lite is a fast-loading, simplified version of Facebook that enables people to make comments, accept friend requests, write on people’s walls, and look at photos and status updates,” the statement continued.

“We are currently testing Facebook Lite in countries where we are seeing lots of new users coming to Facebook for the first time and are looking to start off with a more simple experience.”

Facebook claims to have more than 250 million active users, although more than 72% of these are in Europe and North America, where fast broadband internet connections are common.
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Facebook acquires FriendFeed

Facebook has acquired FriendFeed!

No details yet on the acquisition price, but we are guessing somewhere in the $50M range. It’s not quite what Facebook wanted (they original tried to nab Twitter last month for a reported $500M only to be turned down). FriendFeed had been showing steady growth over the last year up until Twitter ‘really took off’ in the past quarter, continuing to grow at an impressive 20% a month.

I think this combo, may halt Twitter in it’s tracks.

It’s clearly a good match. Over the last year or so, Facebook has “borrowed” quite a few of features that FriendFeed popularized, including the ‘Like’ feature and an emphasis on real-time news updates. Facebook has already built out some of FriendFeed’s functionality so there is some overlap, but there are still numerous ways FriendFeed beats out Facebook’s News Feed setup. FriendFeed works a little bit more like a forum, where people can comment on status updates (can’t do this on Twitter), and new activity pushes items back to the top (can’t do this on FB or Twitter).

Facebook really scored by retaining the founding team which consists of an all-star cast of ex-Googlers such as Paul Buchheit, who is responsible for creating Gmail.

I actually like FriendFeed better than Twitter.