Meta-search and GDS: Bezurk and Amadeus do a deal

Asian meta-search company Bezurk.com and European GDS giant Amadeus are officially working together. A deal was announced last week for Bezurk to use the Amadeus web services product known as Meta-Pricer. This does not mean that Bezurk will move to doing its own bookings. Rather the deal is to reduce the toll that Bezurk places on the websites of its airline partners. Here is the press release.

It is an unexpected twist for a meta-search partner to seek out a deal with a GDS so I wrote to Bezurk CEO Martin Symes to get the inside scope. Here is our exchange.

BOOT Asks: Why do you need GDS help?

Martin Symes Answers: Using Amadeus MetaPricer to access airline fares and availability does a few things for us:

1. Improves our supplier proposition – offer airlines a no cost solution
2. Streamlines number of places we need to go to get fares/availability
3. Speeds up response times – gets results to users faster

Most important is the first reason. The airlines we work with have a wide variety of approaches to getting their fares on to their websites. Some connect straight to their host systems from their internet booking engine (IBE). Some have a cache sitting between their host and the IBE. Some use the host of one of the GDS's. Many use a third party IBE which accesses their own host. Each of these arrangements has it's own technical constraints and economics associated with giving 3rd parties access to the data on any sort of scale.

Many carriers that embraced search engine marketing some time ago offer travel search engines access to API's, which typically query a cache populated predominantly by natural search traffic. Unfortunately many carriers don't yet offer these direct API's, although some have plans to do so. In some cases, we have been asked to provide advice on the design of these.

This has meant that screenscraping has been the next best means of us getting access to airline data. Screenscraping works perfectly fine for many airlines which have a system with sufficient capacity, are fast enough, can control and track access, have a layout that doesn't require multiple page requests per query and who aren't getting billed per query by a 3rd party company running their IBE or host for them.

So for reasons both technical and economic, screenscraping is not always a viable means of us getting the data we need. In these situations Amadeus MetaPricer is a good solution because there is no cost to the carriers or extra load placed on their websites because we are querying fares and availability via the Amadeus system. The only thing the carrier needs to do is distribute their fares to our Amadeus Office Id's for each point of sale.

BOOT Asks: Why Amadeus?

Martin Symes Answers: We issued a mini-RFP to all the GDS’s; Amadeus’ response was the most appropriate from a functionality and price perspective. We have also found them to be very responsive to deal with.

BOOT Asks: Who's paying?

Martin Answers: We pay a nominal fee per query; which is more than covered by the revenue we generate from the commercial agreements we have with our airline partners.

BOOT Asks: What about the non-GDS participating airlines like Air Asia, Virgin Blue, Jetstar, Tiger?

Martin Answers: We continue to maintain direct connectivity with non-GDS airlines; many of which are able to provide access to their inventory through API’s or via screenscraping their public websites, where they have given us permission to do so.

BOOT Asks Are non-airline sites (ie hotles) concerned about the number of searches you are doing? If so, what's the plan?

Martin Answers: We work closely with our OTA and hotel partners and have developed unique search methodologies for each partner to minimise any impact. The conversion rates and therefore incremental revenue benefit we drive for our partners far outweighs any search cost issues they may have.

I was going to write that this was the first GDS and meta-search deal but after some investigating found that back in 2001 Amadeus did a deal with Sidestep. Am told by an Amadeus spokesperson that this 2001 is very different to the Meta-Pricer deal with Bezurk. The first difference is that the 2001 deal was a lower level of connectivity (an API vs Web Services) and secondly it was not for the full searching capability that is in this deal - this one includes fares.

Will give them the benefit of the doubt and agree for now that this is a first of its kind. UPDATE - Kevin at Travolution points out in the comments that Kayak and Amadeus entered into the first meta-pricer deal.

It raises some interesting questions about the ability of supplier and OTA sites/systems to support the pounding that meta-search companies threaten to deliver and of the GDS' companies continued efforts to re-invent themselves as technology companies. I get the product reason behind Bezurk's decision here as they need to continue to improve the product delivery to their inventory providers. Is further proof that the meta-search model is still in development and I hope that this deal helps Bezurk continue to grow its product range.

Travel industry vs the Appliance Industry: round 2

I ran a post earlier in the week from TRAVELtech about the emerging battle for discretionary dollars between the travel industry and the appliance/consumer products industry. With travel being difficult to do, consumers are considering giving their money to TV makers over Airline companies and hoteliers. Through some tips from insiders and a bit of digging around I have found some evidence to prove this theory.

First some research from Tourism Research Australia (the research arm of Tourism Australia). Their 2007 report "Changing Consumer Behaviour" (pdf) blamed a drop in domestic travel spend in Australia in part on the increasing share of discretionary spend going to consumer goods. Here is how they put it

"the increasing competition for share of wallet and of time, the industry may need to accept that domestic travel is unlikely to return to historically high levels....‘spending patterns and the benefits derived from it vary across the generations, although there are some constants: technology, cars and furniture...Generally those who are younger or more under pressure spend more on compensatory items to make them feel better about life. These tend to deliver instant gratification in a way that travel cannot."

Lots of bureaucratic speak for people a buying bigger and flasher TVs, cutting into their travel spend.

Secondly there is a marketing example. Jetstar (low cost carrier offshoot of Qantas and previous winners of the BOOT "worst marketing idea of the week award"). Have teamed up with a large Australia consumer goods retailer called the Good Guys to give an appliance to one passenger on every flight between now and Nov 5. The hope being to convince customers that they can have their TV and beat it all at the same time.
Prizes range from a blender to a plasma screen though it is unclear from the T&Cs how to know which one is up from grabs in a particular flight.

Either way we have marketing and research evidence of this new battle front for the travel industry.

The BOOT in the press part 2 (kind of)

The Media section of The Australian ran a piece on blogging networks and making money called blogs. Piece is called "Network expects blogging to pay off". Touches on Allure Media which I set up while at Netus and includes a quote from me. Unfortunately the BOOT doesn't get a mention.

Happy Labor Day!

Those of us in the US and Canada are looking forward to a long Labor Day weekend. Whether Labor Day means intense retail therapy in the form of back-to-school sales or simply the end of wearing summer whites, we here at Inside AdWords will be taking a day off to rest in the true spirit of the holiday. We hope you'll find some time to do the same as well.



We'll be back next week!

Posted by Vivian, Inside AdWords crew

daily cleansing routine for glowing skin

The secret to a glowing skin derives from just a two minute daily routine twice a day... washing,cleansing,toning and moisturising... it helps to keep the skin looking fresh and works wonders if you continue to pamper your skin, this way.

you dont need loads and loads of facials or beauty products to rip you skin of its tiredness or to retain its glow... you will only land up hurting your skin! after all what matters is a glowing skin so just take care to drink plenty of water and follow a careful diet


washing:(an option)avoid soaps and always use a face wash that suits your skin type.gently massage the cream/gel on your face in circular movements then splash water continuously til the lathers rinses off

cleansing:it is important to thorough cleanse your face every morning to eliminate any built-up bacteria.work a small amount of cleanser into skin, rinse well, and gently blot dry

toning:this improve the skin’s texture,removes the last traces of cleanser and also closes your pores.if you have dry skin,use an alcohol-free toner.try rosewater

moisturising:just as the rest of you body requires hydration and nutrients, so does your skin.for the day a moisturizer that provides a broad-spectrum sunscreen can be used.at night use a more intense moisturizer which will help to rebalance and normalize your skin as you sleep.


these tips do wonders for me:) try them or simply comment and let me know whats your secret to a healthy and glowing skin...

Taking a day of rest

On Monday, September 3rd, our U.S. offices will be closed in observance of Labor Day. While this means you can expect slightly longer response times to your emails, please feel free to post your question on the AdSense Help Forum or visit the AdSense Help Center for more immediate answers.

In the meantime, we hope you also take time off to observe this holiday and enjoy BBQs, picnics, and fireworks over the weekend!

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

Funk Roberts Fitness Contest Rules

Contest Rules

OFFICIAL FUNK ROBERTS GIVEAWAY RULES

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN.

Participation constitutes entrant's full and unconditional agreement to and acceptance of these Official Rules. Sweepstakes is sponsored by: Funk Roberts Fitness2 Sheppard Avenue East, 7th Floor,Toronto, ON, M2N 5Y7 ("Sponsor") and Treadmill Factory MARKHAM Head office & Showroom 230 Denison St. Markham, Ont. L3R 1B6 905-944-0090 ("Sponsor")

Eligibility:

Sweepstakes is open only to natural persons who have internet access and a valid e-mail account when the Sweepstakes period commences. Prize winners must have a valid e-mail address at the time he or she is awarded the prize. Participants must correctly answer a time-limited mathematical skill-testing question, if selected as potential winner, in order to claim prize. Persons living in their same household or Emplyees of the Sponsors are not eligible to participate in the Sweepstakes.

How to Enter:

Subscribe

Each new subscriber who completes the subscription process will be entered into the contest. Only one entry per valid e-mail address is permitted in the subscribe category.

Refer a Friend

Each Funk Fitness subscriber referral, who completes the subscription process. The subscriber will get one entry to the monthly contest.

Prize:

The following prize will be awarded:

Prices change on a monthly basis and is donated by Treadmill factory - www.treadmillfactory.ca

Description of Prize:

One (1) selected winner will receive the prize monthly. Prize will be awarded only to winner.

Approximate Retail Value (ARV) of Monthly Prize will change monthly

Total number of winners: 1 winner monthly

Total ARV of all prizes: TBA

Selection of Potential Winner:

Potential Winner will be determined by a random drawing from all entries received, to be held on or about the last day of each month at the Sponsor’s offices. All decisions of the Sponsor are final and binding. Odds of winning depend on the number of eligible entries received. The potential winner will be notified by e-mail or at the discretion of Sponsor, within 15 days of the drawing. Potential winner will have 10 days from notification to accept the prize by e-mail to "funkroberts@gmail.com" or by mail to the address specified in the notification. Sponsor is not responsible for and shall not be liable for any late, lost, or misdirected notification, or for potential winner's unsuccessful efforts to claim any prize.

General Terms and Conditions: By entering, each participant agrees to be bound by these Official Rules and the decisions of Sponsor, which shall be final. Sponsor reserves the right to disqualify any person or email address that Sponsor determines to be in violation of any term contained in these Official Rules. Sponsor, agents and representatives of Sponsor, its parent companies, affiliates, subsidiaries, advertising, promotion, and fulfillment agencies, and legal advisors are not responsible for and shall not be liable for: (i) late, lost, delayed, damaged, misdirected, incomplete, illegible, unintelligible, or postage-due entries, notices, release forms, affidavits or other correspondence; (ii) telephone, electronic, hardware or software program, network, internet, or computer malfunctions, failures, or difficulties of any kind; (iii) failed, incomplete, garbled, or delayed computer transmissions; (iv) any condition caused by events beyond the control of the Sponsor that may cause the Sweepstakes to be disrupted or corrupted; (v) any injuries, losses, or damages of any kind arising in connection with or as a result of the prize, or acceptance, possession, or use of the prize, or from participation in the Sweepstakes; (vi) any printing or typographical errors in any materials associated with the Sweepstakes; (vii) any federal, regional, provincial, or local laws or regulations violated during the creation of the entries by the entrant(s); or (viii) incorrect or inaccurate entry information, whether caused by internet users or by any of the equipment or programming associated with or utilized in the Sweepstakes or by any technical or human error which may occur in the processing of the entries in the Sweepstakes.

Sponsor reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to suspend, cancel or modify the Sweepstakes at any time if fraud or a computer virus, bug, or other technical problem corrupts the administration, security, or proper play of the Sweepstakes.

Shipping of Prizes: Participant is responsible for pick-up or shipping costs of the prize. Prizes can be picked up at Treadmill Factory MARKHAM, Head office & Showroom 230 Denison St. Markham, Ont. L3R 1B6 905-944-0090 info@treadmillfactory.ca

Shipped prizes are subject to Tradmill factory Terms and conditions - see here - http://www.treadmillfactory.ca/?goto=content&page=terms

By participating in the Sweepstakes, each participant agrees to release and hold Sponsor and the employees, officers, directors, shareholders, agents, representatives of Sponsor, its parent companies, affiliates, subsidiaries, advertising, promotion, and fulfillment agencies, and legal advisors, harmless from any and all losses, damages, rights, claims and actions of any kind in connection with the Sweepstakes or resulting from acceptance, possession, or use of any prize, including without limitation, personal injury, death, and property damage, and claims based on intellectual property infringement, publicity rights, defamation, or invasion of privacy. All issues and questions concerning the construction, validity, interpretation, and enforceability of these Official Rules, or the rights and obligations of participants and Sponsor in connection with the Sweepstakes, shall be governed by, and construed in accordance with the laws of the Province of Ontario, without giving effect to any choice of law or conflict of law rules or provisions (whether of the Province of Ontario or any other jurisdiction), that would cause the application of the laws of any jurisdiction other than the Province of Ontario, and the federal laws of Canada applicable therein.

Winners List and Official Rules: A winners list will be posted on this web site every month and at the conclusion of the Sweepstakes until the end of the campaign. To obtain a copy of the winners list or a copy of these Official Rules, send your request along with a stamped, self-addressed envelope to: Sweepstakes, Marc Roberts c/o Funk Roberts Fitness., 2 Sheppard Avenue East, 7th Floor, Toronto, ON, M2N 5Y7, Canada. Requests must be received no later than December 31, 2009.

Exercise of the Week - Seated Cable Rows

Seated Cable Rows

This exercise is a staple in my back workout routine. I usually do this exercise second after a Dumbbell Bent-Over Row or Dead Lifts. The major muscle worked is the Middle Back, but the Biceps, Lower Back and Lats are also hit.

When performing this exercise you’ll need a low sit down at a low-pulley rowing machine with your feet flat against the footrests and your knees slightly bent. Lean forward and grasp the pulley handle in front of you. Your palms should be facing each other. Keep your back FLAT and looking forward, slowly draw the handles back to your stomach while simultaneously leaning back at the waist until your torso is perpendicular to the floor. The handles should reach your stomach just as your upper body reaches the upright position. Stick you chest out and squeeze your back. Return to the starting position by leaning forward from the waist while extending your arms in front of you.

Leaning forward a bit stretches the back, but if you want a little variety, to isolate the Lats only, then do not lean forward at all. Add this exercise to your Back routine and you’ll be surprised at the results

Funk Roberts
Don't Rush the Beat!

Yahoo! makes another travel play in Japan

Yahoo has been active in the Japanese online travel market for about seven years through its ownership of 40 some percent of the Japanese online travel site Tavigator (alongside Softbank and JTB). Not they have added a small 16.5 percent stake in content portal 4travel (thank you paidContent). Not sure what to read into the number one portal in Japan buying a non-controlling stake in a travel content company. On its face looks strange as they gain neither control nor distribution. Will need to watch what happens next.

The BOOT in the press

The TravelToday newsletter has picked up some of my comments from TRAVELtech. Here is the quote

Tim Hughes, commercial director of Orbitz Worldwide/HotelClub.com, said internet users were now asking much more of travel retailers. From initially just wanting the cheapest flight, they now want more information, and are asking “where do I go next”, he said. “And the thing we have to do as retailers is try to figure out how to answer this open-ended question with technology,” Hughes said.

here is the link

and here is a summary of my presentation in a post

The Report Center gets a makeover

You may notice some changes to the AdWords Report Center -- this week, we simplified the main Reports page, and also introduced a new format for report graphs. If you've ever used Google Analytics, you'll probably recognize the new graphical layout. The improved Report Center should make your data much easier to process, so we hope you'll enjoy these changes! See the image below for an example report:

(Click the screenshot for a full-size image.)

If you'd like to learn more about the Report Center, you can do so here.

Posted by Heather, Inside AdWords crew

The AdSense API on an e-commerce platform

A few months ago, I mentioned how e-commerce sites could use AdSense to increase their overall revenues without changing their current business models. Today Zlio.com has taken it to the next level by using the AdSense API to allow their users to implement this strategy.

The core service of Zlio is to allow internet users to create and run their own internet shops. After a quick registration process, users can pick from millions of products and earn commission on every item bought from their ZlioShops. Aside from choosing their products, future shopowners can select from a few different templates to give their shops the look and feel they want. Finally, these shopowners can add text to describe the products and highlight their favorites.

Today, as added functionality, Zlio users can also add Google ads to their shops. Very much like what we currently offer via Blogger, users can pick shop templates that already include AdSense ad units without ever having to dig into the HTML code of their shop. We hope that this new API will help bring AdSense to existing Zlio users, and also that current AdSense publishers will try Zlio as a way to increase their current AdSense revenue.

The screenshot above shows an example of a shop offering scuba diving items -- you might notice that two AdSense ad units and one link unit have been placed on the page. From a revenue perspective, 60% of all the revenue generated from AdSense will go to the shopowner.

If you wish to create your own shop and associate it with your current AdSense account, you can visit Zlio.com and follow these steps:

1. Select a general template for your shop.
   
2. Create your own shop by choosing among the available products.
   
3. Once you have selected products, go to My Zlio Shop > Revenue Model > AdSense for my shop.
   
4. If you aren't an AdSense publisher yet, you can apply for an account through Zlio. If you already have an AdSense account, enter your AdSense e-mail address and your current zip code.
   
5. Log into AdSense and grant access to Zlio to use your publisher ID by clicking on My Account > Account Access.
   
6. Go back to your ZlioShop, where you'll be able to view your products and relevant Google Ads.
   

If you wish to learn more about the AdSense API and how you can use it to integrate AdSense sign-up and ad creation into your site, visit the AdSense API website.

Posted by Etienne Jambou - AdSense Optimization Team

Funk Roberts Weekly Fitness Tip

Tip of the Week

Abdominals can take tremendous strain. Regular work with extremely high repetitions is the best way to get them in shape. Abdominals can take an enormous number of repetitions before failing, depending upon fitness level. You may often see a person doing 50 repetitions before form begins to disintegrate and fatigue causes low-back strain. Shoot for a max of 50 reps before you add resistance.

Funk Roberts

Don't Rush the Beat!

Little Known Marketing Resource For International Traders

Most people do not understand how powerful a marketing tool
eBay is for International trade. Not only is it a great
place to test market new products, in addition to the
vast amount of marketing information you can find there.

eBay is an excellent way to learn about operating a business
for yourself with the potential for making a lot of money
while you are learning the basics of what it takes to be
a successful business owner.

In regards to eBay, I have just learned about an exciting
opportunity that you need to act on right away. It involves
eBay, and requires a bit of work on your part, however, the
payoff for you could be very significant.

Let me explain...

Just a day ago I received a message from Derek Gehl of the
Internet Marketing Center, who had some really amazing news...

Derek told me that for the first time ever, he's convinced his
elite team of eBay PowerSellers to allow him to put their
proven success system on paper, so anyone will be able to use
it to achieve a life-changing income with eBay.

(This is the very same teaching system his eBay experts are
using to teach their own students how to build a successful
eBay businesses. Many students are already making $1,000
to $10,000 a month on eBay -- within just a few weeks)

Anyway, here's where the 'opportunity' comes in...

Because this is the first time Derek released this system
to the general public, he needs more people who can "testify"
how this system actually produces results.

If learning whether you have what it takes to be successful
in your own business, gain a real education on marketing and
on what sells and what doesn't and potentially make a lot of
money in your first year while gaining all this knowledge,
then you are invited to check out a "review copy" of his new
eBay profit system and give it a try.

And because he is so certain you are going to achieve a
great deal of success, money and business experience using
this system, he is willing to let you test-drive it risk
free for 30 days for only 99 cents.

Derek is counting on the fact that you will be up, running and
making big profits on eBay in the next month or so, and that
you will be more than happy to write him a nice "testimonial"
that he can put up on their webpage when he rolls out his
full launch of this system.

If not, no big deal, just send it back and it won't have cost
you anything, except the 99 cents, of course.

This system is beneficial to both new entrepreneurs as well as
already established businesses. As I stated in the beginning of
this post, there is a wealth of marketing information that can
be learned from eBay. You can choose to ignore it while your
competition uses it to forge ahead in sales.

And for those who are just getting started in business or just
considering getting started, selling on eBay is by far my most
recommended resource for you.

So if this sounds interesting, you can take part by going to:
http://www.importexporthelp.com/redir/imc-au99.htm

All the best,
Ron Coble

New leadership for Travel.com.au

Adam Johnson said a lot during his interview at TRAVELtech this week but he did not mention that on the 18th of January 2008 he will step down as CEO of Travel.com.au and hand the controls over to current COO Chris Meehan. Here is the news story.

Seems that a changing of the guard flu is running around Australia. Early this week we had the announcement that Graeme Wood will step down from the Wotif CEO role in favour of his COO Robbie Cooke.

The Airline Industry - Pizza Hut style

The Consumerist blog has been on a roll recently with great airline stories. First this week was the Airline boss with a talent for technology and customer service and then the was the airline that was handy with a paint brush but not so handy as to stop a plane blowing up. Now the Consumerist has a story from the New York Times that fits neatly into my not a series series on the airline industry. As you will recall I have a series of posts recently about the American airline market centred around poor customer service, delays on tarmacs, customers rights and more. This story is actually a good news story.

Appears that a number of Delta flights were diverted to Syracuse last week. Instead of the usual horror story of passengers trapped on the plane living off toilet water and pretzels, the pilot not only let everyone wait off the plane and in the terminal but called ahead and ordered pizza for everyone. Simple but brilliant stuff. Round of applause.

If you have not seen the seven hours on the tarmac in seven minutes video - watch it here.

Full story here.

Off Ice Conditioning

Off Ice Hockey Conditioning

As Summer comes to a close, hockey season soon approacheth. Not just the NHL, but high level leagues, adult recreational leagues and kids leagues amongst others. Some of the best hockey players, both men and women engage in Off Ice Conditioning to prepare themselves for the grueling season.

Carlos is an aspiring NHL candidate. This is his final season before the OHL draft and he wants to be in top shape for the campaign. Not only does he take part in our weekly Sgt Shanahan's Boot Camp, but he also trains to become the best that he can be.

Check this out!



Funk Roberts
Don't Rush the Beat

Training is fun!

Posted by Salim Parak, Google Enterprise Training Team

While it is simple and easy to configure your Google Search Appliance or Google Mini to crawl content and serve search results, our engineers are hard at work adding more and more functionality. Why not learn about how to take advantage of these features?

Everyone has a different learning style, whether it be self-exploration or in the classroom. You can select the content delivery option that fits your need best:

Browse our library of self-paced training videos (current customers only)
Explore the online tutorials
Take an instructor led class from our certified training partner

Also note, Google partner Fig Leaf Software will be delivering courses in San Francisco this September. For our Mini customers, they are offering an introductory special on their new Google Mini 1 day course.

Stay tuned, we are working on offering more instructor led content in locations closer to you.

Referrals reluctant to appear?

We've heard that many publishers are having trouble viewing referral 2.0 ads on their pages, and we'd like to explain some of the most common reasons why this might be.

First, keep in mind that not all referral ads are available in all sizes. For instance, most horizontal referral ad units smaller than 180x60, square referral ad units smaller than 125x125, and text links are only available at this time for Google products such as AdSense or AdWords. This means that if you generate code for referral ads in an unsupported size, you won't see any referrals shown on your webpages. To avoid this issue, we recommend first selecting categories or products for your referrals before selecting a size at this time.

Similarly, you may not see the referral ads you've selected on your pages if you've grouped a number of referral ads into your Ad Shopping Cart which are each available in different sizes. If this is the case, you may wish to try regenerating your referral code with a particular ad format in mind -- this way, you can be sure to select products available in that format.

Here are several other reasons your chosen referral ads may not show:

1. The particular referral ad you've chosen is not available in your country. When generating your code, you can view the ads available for specific countries by clicking the 'change' link above the referrals wizard.
   
   
2. You've unselected the 'Pick best performing ads' checkbox for a referral where the advertiser has run out of budget or ended the campaign. To take advantage of the available inventory of related products, we recommend leaving this box checked.
   
   
3. You've added more than three referral units to your page. Our current policy allows a maximum of three referral ad units on any policy-compliant page.
   
   
4. Our system has determined that your pages contain potentially mature or sensitive content. However, as your content changes, you may begin to see referral ads appearing.
   
   
5. The referral ad code may have been modified. Be sure to copy the code exactly as it appears in your account and paste it directly onto your pages.
   

Please know that we're working as quickly as we can to fine-tune the process of generating referral code. Also, we appreciate all of your feedback on referrals 2.0 so far, and we encourage you to let us know how we can keep improving AdSense.

Posted by Rajiv Sud - AdSense Publisher Support

TRAVELtech: the travel industry against the applicance industry

TRAVELtech continues. Rod Cuthbert the CEO of Viator gave a great presentation earlier this morning. He have very few slides, instead relying on pictures of destinations and activities to tell his story.

A number of these photographs showed the tough side of consumer travel from the extremes of pictures of terrorism and panic to images of the drudgery of never ending lines at airports filled with despondent people wishing they were on holiday rather than going on holiday. From this he talked about how hard it is becoming for a consumer to travel. The uncertainty of arrival times, the challenges of travel in economy class, the need to varying degree to limit what you can carry on board etc.

When travel becomes hard, he argues, people start to look at their discretionary spend and think of alternatives outside of travel such as LCD screens, new generation games consoles and home cinema sound systems. Have no data to back this up but I agree with him. Travel used to look only to other forms of travel for competition (international versus domestic, retailer vs retailer, supplier vs supplier). Not sure what the solution is or how we open up our marketing to fight the Harvey Norman, Best Buy or Dixons of the world but it reinforces the need to keep the purchase and consumption process simple for consumers.

TRAVELtech: Hotelscombined - bringing meta-search and affiliate marketing together

TRAVELtech continued. Yury Shar gave a little more insight into meta-search and his company Hotelscombined. My earlier profile of them is here.

The interesting point from his speech today is not that he is generating good traffic - though he is with 450,000 visits per month. The interesting story is that his number one source of traffic is affiliate program. He shared that 38% of traffic is coming from a network of 1,500 affiliates (here is an example bellhop.com.au). Search is still critical with SEM ranking number two at 34% and SEO third at 20%.

I was working on the assumption that paid search and to a lesser extent SEO would dominate the traffic feed for meta-search. With no data backing it up was assuming that these would be responsible for 80% of traffic for a meta-search provider, not the less than 65% that Hotelscombined generates. Congrats to Yury of building this great affiliate network.

Yury also passed on this four tips for search engine optimisation marketing efforts:

1. Give yourself time - it takes 18-24 months for a start up to "prove" itself to Google as a legitimate content provider;
2. Design the site - design the site for both consumers and search engines. The site needs to be specifically designed to be shopped and indexed by Google. As he puts it - it is easy to design a site with great content that Google cannot be "seen" by Google;
3. Register and open a Google Webmaster account; and
   
4. Design a long term link strategy - Does not mean building fake links or becoming a hard core "black hatter" but working on links and traffic generation through content optimisation has to be part of marketing plans. For example making sharing of and imbedding of links by customers and easy thing to do.

TRAVELtech: Interview with Travel.com.au CEO Adam Johnson

TRAVELtech continued. Interview on stage with Adam Johnson the CEO of Travel.com.au the operator of both Travel.com.au and now the sole owner of Lastminute.com.au.

Couple of interesting metrics and number from the interview:

• The are now profitable (measured on monthly numbers). Recent full year financial results showed a loss but now profitable on a monthly basis;
• Expecting 30-35% topline and bottom line growth for FY08 - TTV of $130-140mm;
• Marketing spend will stay around 2.5% of TTV. All of this online, 80% of it likely to be on SEM;
  
• 15,000 hotel bookings per month; and
  
• 500k subscribers to newsletters on both brands.

He is very conscious that the area they need to work on is less around brand and traffic but conversion. Would not share numbers but admitted to be behind competitors on converting traffic into booking. As he says "need to focus on utility" around pricing, functionality and product.

Travel.com.au are celebrating their 10th year this year. They were one of the first in the world to do international flights online. Not that this is much to brag about. As Adam joked, "In the early days we had 100% of the online international fares market. All two of the bookings made were made with us."

TRAVELtech: the fourth phase of online travel - "too much information"

More from TRAVELtech. I talked some months back about my theory about how the short history of online travel can be broken up into three phases. For a quick recap here is what I said

Phase 1 (1995-2003) – I know where I want to go, find me the cheapest price.

Consumers treated online as a price based flight business. They knew exactly where they wanted to go from and to. All they wanted help on from an OTA was price. Not information, not help, not recommendations, just price.

Phase (2000-2006) – I want to find a deal on where to stay, can you help me with rates, availability and advice.

Consumers gain in confidence and cheap hotel deals flood the Internet. Consumers now begin asking OTAs for limited advice on finding and booking of accommodation.

Phase 3 (2005 – now) – what do I do next, where should I go next.

For the first time ever the consumer starts to ask an open ended question of the Internet. Instead of the specific questions of phases one and two where the consumer knew most of what they wanted to know - consumers gained the confidence, tools and networks to ask for advice from OTAs, "the crowd" and the Internet at large. "What do I do next?" Content started to drive traffic and sales like never before. Best available rates and set pricing from suppliers made it harder for the OTA to offer deal advantages.

In my presentation today at TRAVELtech I talked about my thoughts on the future of online travel - phase 4 going by my timeline. Here is what I said.

Phase 4 (2009 and beyond) - Too much information

Consumers begin to feel overwhelmed. They are searching sites with 50k, 100k and maybe 200k hotels (though a comment here says that the sites like HRS claiming 200k hotels are exaggerating a little). There are review sites with 20 million or more reviews. Social networks are producing hundreds of friends with thousands of recommendations. Emails, RSS feeds, SMS suggestions and more are flooding into consumer inboxes. Too much information!!

The challenge as we head into this phase is to take all this information and build a coherent story for consumers. My expectation (and hope) is that this will produce a return to the need for customer loyalty. For online retailers making a connection with customers that they keep through the development of loyalty programs - be they actual rewards, good deals, community building and other marketing and product activities.

The reason to care about this history is that it helps us in planning our products and marketing plans for the future. One of the downsides of a maturing industry is that growth in the traditional markets (US and EU) takes more work and greater innovation. One of the upsides is that we now have a history to look to in preparing of the next trend.

UPDATE - you can find a copy of the presentation here.

TRAVELtech: The true cost of booking an airline ticket

First of my posts from the conference TRAVELtech. Have been listening to Tim Russell (MD of Amadeus Australia).

Tim made a very good point when looking at the costs of booking an airline ticket online. He presented research indicating that at a dollar charging level the cheapest place to book a flight is usually the airline’s own website where there is normally only a small credit card fee but no booking fee. Call it $0-$15 per booking. In the middle of the cost spectrum there is the online and offline agent where there are fees and charges ranging from $10-$30 per ticket. Finally At the end of the spectrum there is the full service Travel Management Company (TMC – corporate travel agent). These providers can charge upwards of $50-$60 per ticket.

On the crude measure of dollars per ticket, the airline direct site is the cheapest. However, Tim brings in the great point that when assessing the cost of booking we should really also be considering the time cost is searching and completing the transaction. When this is taken into account the cost spectrum is turned on its head. The TMC booking takes the least amount of time – say 15 minutes, the time it tkes to make a phone call to a dedicated agent. Next comes the online agent who can display multiple carriers in one place making searching faster. Finally the airlines direct site takes the longest – more than an hour because of the need to search more than one supplier before taking a booking.

Including these measures it becomes a neck and neck race between the cost of TMCs and online agents with airlines coming third.

If you are booking a leisure flight for the family and have all the time you need then time does not come into account but certainly in the corporate area there is a huge time difference between the different travel booking channels. Goes part of the way to explain the success of Webjet in Australia despite the huge fees they are charging.

Providing the Ultimate Search Experience - Part I

Posted by Cyrus Mistry, Enterprise Product Manager

So, for those of you that have unwrapped your blue or yellow box with excitement and are wearing the Google T-shirt proudly, the fun is just beginning... As promised in my 'How to take your Enterprise Search to the next level' blog post from a few weeks ago, I plan to continue this series of posts by introducing best practices that will provide your searchers with the ultimate search experience.

First, the Google Mini and the Google Search Appliance make it very easy to stay current on our software. As part of your support agreement, you can download all software updates and releases right from our support site.

Unlike more bulky enterprise search solutions, staying current on Google software is a built-in feature of the version manager within the appliance so there's no reason not to do it!

Here are the top 10 reasons to make sure you are running the latest release (4.6.4 G70) today!

1. Integration with Google Analytics
2. Google Sitemaps export
3. Enhanced security - support for NTLMv2
4. Query expansion in multiple languages
5. New crawl reporting
6. New reboot and shutdown buttons
7. Source Biasing - you can let the appliance know which URL patterns are more authoritative (GSA only)
   
8. Preview of Dynamic Result Clustering (GSA only)
   
9. Google products are always fast - but we've made this release even faster!
10. So you can follow along with these blogs and get the most out of your search appliance!
    

The newest releases can always be found at http://support.google.com/enterprise and you can always find more information on the new features in our release notes located at: https://support.google.com/enterprise/doc/gsa/relnotes/relnotes_464G70_O.html#NewFeatures.

Upgrading couldn't be easier:

1. Download the system update file from the support site
2. Log in to Version Manager and Install the file you just downloaded by following the easy wizard prompts
   
3. Repeat the above steps for the software update file
4. Generate and test a new index
5. Once everything is working fine, accept the new update

The best thing about upgrading is, before you decide to switch over, you can have both versions of the software running in parallel! Your users will continue to see the older version, but you and your team can test out the newer version. Once you're satisfied that everything is working great, you can make the switch over. Google has provided a built-in QA environment right on your appliance!

To see detailed step-by-step instructions, Mini customers can visit https://support.google.com/enterprise/doc/mini/00/update_index_page.html and GSA customers can visit https://support.google.com/enterprise/doc/gsa/00/update_index_page.html .

Stay tuned for examples of how you can leverage some of these great new features!

AdWords Optimization Tips: More on Ad Text

A few weeks ago, we asked you which optimization topics you wanted to learn more about. Many of the questions we received were on creating effective ad text, which is the subject of today's post.

If you aren't familiar with our six-part series on optimization tips, you may want to check out our previous post on ad text tips. You can read up on the importance of describing your offering clearly, using proper grammar and punctuation, having clear call-to-actions, and other basic tips when writing ad text. Today, our optimization team is back to cover more tips like including prices and discounts in your ad text, ideas for testing different messages in your ad text, and tracking overall performance of ad text.

Should I mention prices or discounts in ad text?
It depends. While the most important component of ad text is a good description of your offering, you may also want to mention a price. If you consider your prices to very competitive, it may be to your advantage to advertise them. Conversely, if you sell a high quality product and charge a premium price, you may also mention price to set the right expectations and discourage bargain hunters. And if you are only promoting a discount on one of your products, do not give the impression that there is a general discount. In summary, your best strategy is to be straightforward with your potential customers, so the right ones are clicking through to an offer they were expecting to find.

What should I be testing in my ad text?
You can test different descriptions, call to action phrases, promotions, and special offers. Here are a few different points you may want to test:

• Different emphasis: product description, call-to-action, or promotional offer
• Including the brand name versus simply describing the offering
• Including the price in ad text versus including a discount or other special offer to differentiate your business
• Including an audience-specific message such as 'Perfect for Couples'
• Placement of certain messages in your ad text: headline, line 2, or line 3
  

You can also find good ideas for messages to include in your ad text by taking a look at what visitors are searching for on your site. If your site has a search bar, try looking at the search queries to see what they are interested in. Similarly, if you have web analytics tracking on your site, you can also look through the search queries that are bringing people to your site to see which features of your business resonate most with your potential customers. For example, if you offer vacation rentals, you may find that visitors are interested in certain amenities -- you can then include descriptions like 'pet friendly', 'hot tub', or 'concierge service' in your ad text.

When testing different ad texts, be sure to control for some portions of the ad text, while experimenting with the other portions so you'll be able to assess how effective the message you are testing really is. For example, if you are trying to figure out whether the call-to-action 'Buy today' or 'Learn more' is more effective, be sure to keep the description of your offering the same. You can also learn more tips on effective ad text by reading our Editorial Guidelines.

How can I better track the overall performance of my different ad texts?
One easy way to look at the overall performance of your ad texts is to run an Ad Performance report. You can run an Ad Performance report from the Report Center and then use the results from this report to identify low- and high-performing ad texts. For high performing ads, you can try testing a small variation of that ad with a different messaging or a different landing page.

Depending on your goals for your account, you may use different metrics to measure your success. (If you have conversion tracking, don't forget to use the 'Add/Remove Columns' feature in order to include conversion data.) Remember that your ad text with the highest CTR may not have the highest ROI. And don't just pay attention to the conversion rate, but the cost per conversion as well.

For even more sophisticated tracking capabilities, you may want to try A/B testing on text ads with Google Analytics. To read on this topic, check out this article from the Google Analytics Conversion University.

We hope you've found these tips on ad text to be helpful. We'll be back soon with other topics that you emailed us. And in the meantime, please continue to send us your questions on optimization.

Posted by Feng, Inside AdWords crew

Auto Industry Knowledge Center - Rev up your skills

In the spirit of back to school, we’ve launched the Auto Industry Knowledge Center to provide automotive advertisers with the most up-do-date information and learning tools. The Auto Industry Knowledge Center has industry-specific resources to help you get the most out of AdWords. Whether you sell parts online, own a dealership, or host an auto website, you'll find customized tips for success, case studies featuring other auto advertisers, and Google product solutions to help your business.

Another great resource is our new quarterly AdWords Auto Industry Newsletter, which features industry trends and best practices for promoting summer sales. We want to hear and learn from you as well, so please send us feedback by dropping us a line at auto-knowledge@google.com.

Posted by Christina, Inside AdWords crew

Expanded capacity for Custom Search Business Edition

Posted by Ryan Pollock, Product Marketing

It's been more than a month since we launched Custom Search Business Edition, and already thousands of websites have adopted it for site search. When we launched, businesses could use our online checkout process to buy site search up to 50,000 web pages. A number of businesses asked us about searching more than 50,000 pages, so today we added two more options to the online Custom Search Business Edition offering. We've introduced two new plans that businesses can purchase online:

• Search up to 100,000 web pages: $850 per year
  
• Search up to 300,000 web pages: $2,250 per year

If you want to search more than 300,000 pages, contact us.

Businesses can sign up for Custom Search Business Edition in just a few minutes. If you want to learn more about Google's site search solutions, we'd also recommend you attend a webinar.

So you own an airline and a plane crashes - what is the first thing you should do?

If you are China Airlines the answer is paint over the company logo on the side of your plane to hide your identity and hope no-one notices.

Here is the before shot

Here is the after shot

Thanks to the Consumerist and MSN News/Mainichi Interactive

The BOOT at TRAVELtech in Sydney

Quick reminder that I will be speaking at TRAVELtech tomorrow. I think you can still get a ticket. UPDATE- now sold out. I am on in the morning speaking with:

• Peter Smith, General Manager, Zuji;
• Tim Russell, Managing Director, Amadeus Australia; and
• Rod Cuthbert, Chief Executive Officer, Viator.

Here is a little taste of what I am going to talk about tomorrow:

• my view on the history of online travel (teaser here);
• the likely outcome of the battles between meta-search/content providers and retailers for customer loyalty (teaser here); and
  
• my thoughts on Australia finally embracing the air intermediary model (teaser here)
  

If you are already attending then I look forward to meeting you during a break.

funny celeb pictures

Britney Spears has been pretty spaced out lately, so I was wondering what Britney might look like as a Space Alien on Star Wars…


This is what Catherine Zeta Jones would look like if she was fat…

Did you know Jennifer Aniston thinks she has a good side and a bad side? And she doesn’t like it when photographers take pictures of her from her bad side.

I wonder what she’d have to say about this picture…


If Marilyn Monroe and John F Kennedy had a daughter, this is what she would look like…

step by step guide to baby and child massage

Babies And Children usually enjoy being massaged as much as adults, but will often only keep still for a short space of time.The strokes you have learned can be used on babies and children - just adapt them to allow for their size and the fact that their little bodies will not have built up the same chronic tensions that adults can suffer from.Just explore and discover what your child likes best.

Front Of The Body:

Massage Steps:
1.Starting with the child on their back, gently stroke their face, starting in the middle of the forehead and working out to the temples.
2.Stroke across the cheeks from nose to the ears and then from the cheeks down to the chin.Gently stroke across the eyebrows, and back around under the eye.Make gentle circles around the temples.
3.Stroke up the front of the body and out along the arms.
4.Make clockwise circles around the navel using both hands.Do gentle wringing strokes across the abdomen and up the body.
5.Lift arms one at a time and stroke the length of the arm from shoulder to the hand.Use one hand to squeeze the arm, starting from the shoulder and moving down the arm.
6.Massage the hand and squeeze and rotate each of the fingers in turn.
7.Repeat for the other arm.Gently drain up the leg.Wring or squeeze up the leg.
8.Stroke down the leg using a light, feathering stroke.

Back Of The Body:
Massage Steps:
1.Turn the child on their front and gently stroke their back.Stroke up and over the back and along the arms.
2.Gently knead the child's shoulders.
3.Make a gentle wringing stroke up over the body.If your child is a baby, massage their rear using a gentle kneading or pinching strokes.
4.Smooth down the spine using alternating hands, starting at the base of the neck and working down to the base of the spine.Use gliding strokes down the legs.Bend the knee up and work on the foot.
5.Work around the anklebone with your fingertips.Sandwich foot between heels of hand and massage, moving both hands in a circular motion.
6.Gently squeeze the heel with one hand and massage up the sole of the child's foot using the thumbs of your other hand.
7.Massage the toes, gently squeezing, rotating and pulling each one in turn.Sandwich the foot between your hands and hold it firmly for a few seconds.Turn the baby over.
8.Stroke from one foot up the leg, across the sacrum(base of the spine), and back down the other leg.Use light strokes down the body, starting from the top of head right down to the feet.

Massage Caution:

Be very gentle when working with babies and children.Do not pursue the session if the child begins to fidget.

Massage Tip:

As a general rule, the strokes you use will need to be much lighter on children.The younger the child, the smaller and more delicate the strokes will need to be.If the child you are working on is very young, then you can sit on the floor and massage him or her on your lap.Otherwise spread a towel on the floor or any safe, raised surface.

List for FREE on eBay!

If you've never sold anything on eBay before, I'd like to invite you to start now and get your first three listings free!

All you have to do is contact me with your e-mail address by leaving a comment below and I will have eBay send you an invitation to list your first three items, including a gallery photo, for free on eBay.com.

This is an eBay promotion and the details and requirements will be contained in the link inside the e-mail. I just need your e-mail address in order to have eBay send the invitation. Your e-mail address will be safe with me. I promise to never use your address for anything else, ever again, and won't sell or rent it to anyone.

You know you'd love to make some extra money and eBay is a great way to do that, so if you've been putting it off, now's the time to make the decision to get started selling on eBay - and save from 55 cents up to $5.15 in fees for each of your first three listings!

Again, just contact me through the comment form below this post, include your e-mail address and let me know you'd like to receive the invitation. HURRY! The promotion ends September 15, 2007!

Funk and Mojo at Beach Nationals

See Funk Roberts and Mojo (Chuck Bastie) at the Canadian Beach Volleyball National Championships. The two will work together on Centre Court Sunday to entertain the fans, giveaway prizes and help bring fun to the centre court atmosphere. Join them at Ashbridges Bay.

Funk Roberts

Don't Rush the Beat!

SMS from out of the blue. What should I do?

A friend of the BOOT and industry insider (not called Tim) received a text message yesterday from a phone number that neither or us recognise that said "Tim have made an offer to buy out ????.com" where ???.com is a city specific destination site owned by a private equity firm. I am keeping the actually URL a bit quiet as there is some sort genuine secret mistake that occurred and this SMS was meant for me. The carefree blogger in me wants to shout about this and add it to my mini deal list but the corporate professional in me is hesitant to tell the world (or my 200 or so readers) in case there is something more here that I should know about. So - dear reader- what should I do? Tell you all about this mini-deal or wait to see if this is an important miss-sent work SMS?

Doing Business In China

For any business owner or CEO who has been considering
doing business in China, a new section of an international
trade web portal has opened to help you.

The lead page is titled "Doing Business In China" and
details some of the complexities of importing from China
and trying to do business there in general.

There are Nine (9) web pages that currently make up this
new Chinese business mini-web site, rather than listing
all nine here, you are better served by visiting each of
them from the "Doing Business In china" anchor page.

To give you a little hint the valuable information you
will find here, we have listed a few of the pages so you
may visit them direct, if you like:

Manufacturing In China - if you or your business has ever given
consideration to moving some (or all) of your production to
China, this page provides some vital details you need to know.

China Export Manufacturing

Wholesale Direct From China - but without the hassle of
importing from China yourself.

China Trade Shows - trade and sourcing shows for Chinese made
products are one of the best ways of locating new products to
import and this page details how to find the best China trade
and sourcing shows in the world.

There are 5 other web pages (with more to come), so be sure
to visit Doing Business In China and bookmark it as one of
your favorites so you may easily return because this new mini-
web site is expected to grow with more valuable Chinese
business and trading information.

Ronald Coble
Coble International B2B Marketing Services

Sanjay dutt released from jail

Sporting a several-day-old stubble and his hair close cropped, Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt walked into his Pali Hill home here Thursday to an emotional welcome from his family and friends, after spending 23 nights in Mumbai and Pune prisons.

The actor, who stepped out of Pune's Yerawada Jail at 7.15 a.m. and took a chartered flight to Mumbai soon after, took most of his fans off guard with his early homecoming.

A large number of fans had been gathering outside his home every day ever since the Supreme Court granted him interim bail Monday. Only a few were present Thursday.

Wearing a white striped shirt and blue jeans, Dutt, 48, drove into his home in a black sedan at around 8.30 a.m. - just over an hour after gaining freedom.

As the car entered the sprawling residence in the Imperial Heights building in the upmarket Pali Hill neighbourhood, family members and friends from the film fraternity rushed out to welcome him home.

After a traditional homecoming puja and breaking of a coconut, Dutt first kissed nephew Siddharth, sister and Congress MP Priya's son, and then hugged both sisters Priya and Namrata.

Brother-in-law Kumar Gaurav had flown with him from Pune where too Dutt's fans failed to see their hero walk of the prison because jail authorities decided to release him early in the morning so as to avoid huge crowds.

There, after stepping outside Yerawada Jail, a beaming Dutt shook hands with policemen and, overcome with emotion, even hugged a constable.

He then waved to the small media contingent camping outside the prison gates since overnight before speeding off in a car to the airport.

Producer and close family friend Bunty Wallia told IANS from Pali Hill: "He needs to spend time with his family and rest. He may speak to the media who have extended tremendous support throughout his ordeal."

Dutt's senior counsel Satish Mane Shinde declined to comment on the future legal steps the actor is contemplating. "Whether Sanju will start working on his unfinished projects will be decided later.

"For now, the most important thing for him is to spend time with his family, which he is doing now."

Clearly eager to get into his home, the actor told journalists outside his residence that he would speak to them after making a few telephone calls and after catching up with family and friends.

Dutt was sent to jail July 31 after the special TADA (Terrorist and Disruptive Activities) court sentenced him to six years rigorous imprisonment for illegal possession of arms given to him by the accused in the 1993 Mumbai bombings. He was moved to Yerawada Jail in Pune Aug 2.

In Pune, the actor had taken up carpentry as jail labour and even earned a few hundred rupees. He was paid about Rs.20 a day.

Dutt's release may, however, be shortlived because once the TADA court hands over the copy of the judgment of his conviction passed Nov 28, 2006 under the Arms Act, he will have to go back to jail.

But that has not dampened the sprits of his die-hard fans.

"Today's homecoming is a Rakhsha Bandhan (a celebration of brother-sister relationship) gift for his sisters. We are really happy for the family," said Sampat Bhosle, a fan from Nagpur outside the Dutt residence.

"Whatever little time he has he will want to spend every minute with his family and friends, and I am very happy for our Munnabhai. I have faith in god that he will get through the next (legal) fight," Bhosle told IANS.

Dutt's interim bail will also bring a relief, temporary though, to the producers he had been working for before being jailed.

He has three films on the floors and is expected to be back on the sets soon.

Dutt had started "Dhamaal" a month before the verdict and had been shooting double shifts to complete the film before going to prison.

Other unfinished projects include Sanjay Gadhvi's "Kidnap", which has Dutt in the main lead. Shooting for Sanjay Gupta's "Alibaug", in which Dutt is also co-producer, had to be cancelled after he went to jail.

XML is a Markup Language

Duh John... Why waste your time blogging the obvious?
XML is a wonderful tool, but tools are designed for specific purposes. You may be able to use them for other tasks (I've been know to use a cordless drill to pound in a nail), but tools are most useful when applied to the tasks for which they were designed (Don't get me started on Swiss Army Knives).

What Markup Languages are good at:

Markup languages were originally created to add formatting information to raw text.

Markup languages let you take a raw text string such as:

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

and render it as something much more pleasing to the eye such as:

The quick brown fox ^{jumped over} the _{lazy dog}.

Markup languages are really quite simple to understand. They let you delineate sections of text and specify the attributes that should be applied to each section of text. That's pretty much all there is to it.

HTML and XML are two of the best known markup languages. In HTML and XML sections of text are delineated by start tags <> and end tags </>. In HTML the set of tags is pre-defined (although they seem to add new tags on occasion). In XML you define your own tags. In both HTML and XML most tags can have multiple attributes... for example a <FONT> tag can specify the font style, weight, color, etc.

Programs that render text that is marked up with HTML, such as your favorite Web Browser, generally ignore markup tags and attributes that they don't "know". This behavior goes back to the original purpose for markup languages: Use markup to change the way a string of text is displayed (or printed).

The raw text in an HTML document generally makes sense by itself. Markup changes the way that text is presented... but it does not change the words. Better to display the words without formatting them properly than to alter the words.

Programs that deal with XML do not have a hard and fast rule on how to deal with markup tags and attributes that they don't "know". The raw text in an XML document does not necessarilly make sense by itself. XML is often used to add meaning to a section of text... For example, a tag called <ADDRESS> probably has nothing to do with formatting text... it probably defines a block of text that should be "used" as an address by the reader of the document.

For this reason, if the meaning of an XML markup tag or attribute is not "known", then the entire section of text should often be ignored.

XML has a "standard" mechanism for defining the rules that a specific XML document should follow (XSD: XML Schema Definition). For example, some tags should only be used in sections of text that are delineated by another tag. This feature is very helpful if the format of the XML document is very important to your application.

That's pretty much all there is to say about markup languages in general, and XML in specific.

If you need to add formatting information or meaning to raw text, then a markup language is a great tool. If the markup tags are likely to change over time, then XML is a great tool.

What Markup Languages are not good at:

Markup languages are not particularly good programming languages. Markup languages are great when you need a lot of adjectives. Unfortunately, when writing a program you need a lot of verbs:

If Bob Is Late Then Fire Bob.

<IF> <PERSON> Bob <ARRIVAL> Late </ARRIVAL> </PERSON> <THEN> <PERSON> Bob <ACTION> Fire </ACTION> </PERSON> </THEN> </IF>

Yuck!

People do insist on designing XML-ish programming languages (like BPEL ), but it's really not a good fit.

Markup languages are also not a particularly good choice if you need to efficiently transmit or parse documents that are highly structured and the structure never (almost never) changes. In many cases, the tags in a marked-up document can take up more space than the raw text in the document. If the structure of the text never (almost never) changes, then it's much more efficient (from a programming standpoint) to have a "map" or "index" for the document rather than to embed markup tags in the document.

It's very efficient for a program to parse a document where you "know" that an "address" is a;ways 40 characters long and always starts at character number 5:

Name starts a character 1

Address starts at character 5

Phone starts at character 46

Bob,4001 First Street Culver City California,5124655567

It's less efficient for a program to scan through a document looking for an <ADDRESS> tag:

<NAME>Bob</NAME><ADDRESS>4001 First Street Culver City California</ADDRESS><PHONE>5124655567</PHONE>

If the format of your data never (almost never) changes, and you really, really need to be able to efficiently transmit and parse the data, then a markup language is not your friend.

XML is a Markup Language:

If a Markup Language makes sense in your application, then XML is a great tool.

'Nuff said.

Cancelled: August 25 system maintenance

Last night, our engineers were able to implement the upgrades that were originally scheduled for this Saturday's maintenance period. Therefore, we've cancelled this weekend's system maintenance and your accounts will be accessible without interruption.

Posted by Judy, Inside AdWords crew

Check up on it

After counting the days till your AdSense check arrives in the mail, you might plan to sprint straight to the bank. But before you try to achieve a land speed record getting to your local financial institution, here are a few things to keep in mind.

Bank on it?

Because bank policies vary throughout the world, we can't say whether a specific bank will be able to accept your AdSense checks. Since all AdSense checks are issued by Citibank, a correspondent relationship between your bank and Citibank is required to process our US Dollar checks. We recommend that you check with your bank to find out if this relationship exists.

Patience is a virtue.

Banks take varying amounts of time to clear checks. The exact length of time before funds will be available to you is a question best answered by your bank.

A penny saved...

Checks from AdSense are for deposit only; they are not able to be cashed.

Now that you have all the information, we wish you happy spending (or saving) your revenue!

Posted by Vineesha Malkani - AdSense Publisher Support

Spirit Airlines CEO crowned technology and customer service superstar

The CEO of Spirit Airlines - Ben Baldanza - is the lead candidate for our tech loser of the year award. If the Consumerist and other blogs are right Mr Baldanza pressed reply all to a email instead of regular reply. The person on the other end of the email who was not supposed to receive the reply was a customer with a complaint. Mr Baldanza's reply to the customer service agent who was supposed to receive the email was

Please respond, Pasquale, but we owe him nothing as far as I'm concerned. Let him tell the world how bad we are. He's never flown us before anyway and will be back when we save him a penny

Not sure what displays more genius - bashing the wrong key on outlook or being so dismissive of annoyed customers.

Full text of email is here

baby alisha invented a new make up!

my baby, Alisha, turned 10 months on the 18Th.. shes begun to throw tantrums like anything.i snatch away something shes not supposed to have.. my cutie throws herself back flat on the mattress and lies waiting for us to take her up!

shes still crawling ans sitting for the whole of this month and getting too inquisitive about everything around.wants to know whats cooking and what we eat,for eg.. pulls at the vessels and the food stuffs.

her sleep timing are opposite to mine..she sleeps, i work! i sleep.. she works on bullying her elder brother and digging and poking her little finger into our eyes!

her diet is the same as last month but added some veggies like carrots etc and she loves to eat her food which is made of dal,rice,potatoes and carrots all boiled and pureed for her to be able to swallow.indroducing egg yolk soon..

i was applying lipstick and i didn't realize my sweetie was applying eye liner on her lips too!! i screamed my lungs out and cleaned her up.shes invented a new make up.. eye liner for lips! hehehe...

come back for more updates of alisha.. shes gods blessing to me and am proud and happy to share her growth and innoncent doings with my readers..

love is patient!

Love is patient with a life
That brings its share of pain.
We know sometime there is an end
To the most stubborn rain.
We know the sun comes out again
On a world that's fresh and new,
And all the gifts we freely give
Somewhere, sometime accrue.

We know sometimes we have to wait
For life to come around,
And sometimes that it won't, but still
There's some good to be found.

And even when things happen that
Your soul can hardly bear,
Know that I'll be next to you;
My love is always there.

Improved top ad placement formula now in effect

Two weeks ago, we posted about an upcoming improvement to the formula used to determine which ads are placed in the top spots above Google search results. The change offers advertisers more control over when their ads achieve top placement, while also increasing the quality of our ad results for users. Today, we wanted to let you know that the improved formula is now in effect.

To recap, the key change to the formula is how we consider price. Like the formula used for ranking ads alongside Google search results, the top ad placement formula now considers an ad's maximum CPC. Previously, the formula for top placement considered an ad's actual CPC. Since actual CPC is determined, in part, by the bidding behavior of the advertisers below you, your ad’s chance of being promoted to a top spot could have been constrained by a factor you couldn't influence.

As always, the top ad placement formula will weight Quality Score much more heavily in comparison to maximum CPC, which means that the quality of an ad remains the greatest factor in determining an ad's eligibility for top placement. In other words, an ad with a low quality score but high maximum CPC still cannot achieve top placement.

Beginning today, the actual CPC you pay for an ad in a top spot will continue to be determined by the auction, but subject to a minimum price. The minimum price is based on the quality of your ad and is the minimum amount required for your ad to achieve top placement above Google search results. As always, your actual CPC will be discounted and the higher your ad’s quality, the less you will pay.

Since announcing this improvement to the top ad placement formula, we've received lots of questions from advertisers who are curious about how their accounts may be affected. Advertisers with ads in or near a top spot may begin to see a change in the average number of clicks these ads receive, and also in their CPCs. The degree to which your clicks and CPCs may be impacted will depend on a number of factors, so it's difficult to say today how much of a difference you can expect to see. Therefore, rather than making adjustments now based on assumptions, you may want to monitor your account as-is for the next few days or weeks to see how much of a true impact the improved formula will have.

If, on the other hand, you are thinking about making adjustments now, keep the following in mind:

• Review your account for maximum CPCs that are higher than the maximum amount you're willing to pay.
  
• Optimize your accounts to keep your costs down and your performance high. You can request a free campaign optimization from our support team here.
  

Posted by Judy, Inside AdWords crew