In 2006 Google added an interesting tool named Google Reader that allows you to view stats on your RSS reading trends. At the beginning of 2007, this tool was redesigned and its use has spread widely. I thought it was a useful tool when it first came out but lately I have been able to use it more frequently.

With Google Reader, keeping up with your favorite websites is as easy as checking your email. Google states “It’s like your inbox, for the web”. You are informed as soon as new content is added to a specific site. I can see how often people in my circle of friends and family go into a specific blog, allowing me to see what day of the week they tend to read more and what topics are most popular.

People share their reading habits with you if you are a subscriber. Use Google Reader’s built-in public page to easily share interesting items with your friends and family. Google Reader has a “Share” button and a public page to go along with it. Once you start sharing, others can subscribe to your shared items and see what you see.

The Google reader is a customizable aggregator for feeds from news sites, blogs, and other sites with a sharing facility. If you are into blogging, this is a tool you should use. Millions of sites publish feeds with their latest updates, and the built in feed search makes it easy to find new content that you’ve previously determined interests you.

Have you checked it out?

As many have already witnessed, Google Analytics has updated their interface to create a more user-friendly environment. One of the biggest changes is the new dashboard, which can now be customized to show a number of preferred reports at sign-on. Reports and graphs may be dragged and dropped to create a personalized home page within the interface, assisting in making the most pertinent information available at a glance.

The new interface has become easier to navigate as well by allowing use of the back button and adding links to related sections from within each report. Moving around within the interface is very natural feeling now, and less clicks are required to jump from report to report. Some newer features include automatically e-mailed reports and better designed graphs of analytics information.

New Internet advertisers can now easily take advantage of this quality analytics software thanks to simplified terminology and easy to find descriptions available in the new interface. This new platform also helps us to share information with our own clients more easily and with less training. Google Analytics is currently one of the most robust analytics programs on the Internet. With increased competition for keywords and positioning, quality programs like this have become an imperative step in the creation of a successful PPC program.

As the scope of the Internet gets larger, personalization becomes the logical next step for search. Personalized search provides marketers with new ways to both identify searchers and target user behavior. Combined with the multiple advertising channels offered by search engines, a marketer’s dream has come to life.

The monetization opportunities are tremendous. AOL has capitalized by showing only relevant ads based on recent queries. MSN allows marketers to increase / decrease bids according to whether or not the searcher fits a certain criteria. Google offers iGoogle, where searchers create a “profile” for themselves based on what they’re interested in. Major engines are now capable of tracking user behavior, and each have applied it in a different way. Imagine what would happen if all of this was combined! You’d have an engine that knows your profile (because you’ve defined it), knows what you’re interested in (based on historical data), and is able to target you accordingly. The possibilities are endless…
Read the rest of this entry »