From some of the companies I've talked to, the results from advertising on LinkedIn have been fairly strong. Then again, the website is the largest and fastest growing professional network, making it much easier for targeting.

Well, LinkedIn is improving things even more. That is, the company has launched LinkedIn DirectAds. As the name implies, this is a self-service system.

Of course, this may not be the best option for major advertisers that need sophisticated campaigns. But, for small companies, this solution can be ideal (hey, just look at the success of Google AdWords).

And the targeting for DirectAds is highly granular. For example, you can select a myriad of industry categories, such as CPAs, graphic designers, and so on. Or, perhaps you want to focus on sales executives or CEOs? Keep in mind that LinkedIn has 20 million registered users (with extensive profile information on each).

Getting started is easy. The process takes a few minutes and the minimum fee is $25.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.

Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) has been accused of charging clients for ads they really don't want. Google's AdWords, the hallmark of the company's revenue success, is under scrutiny due to a single "checkbox" inside the system labeled "CPC (cost-per-click) content bid." Check the box, and your ad will be displayed when a customer uses one of your designated keywords. Don't check the box, and no ads will be associated with your keywords. Maybe.

Plaintiff David Almeida claims that there is no clear distinction between Google's own AdWords program and its AdSense program, which is used to display Google advertising on partner websites, according to Information Week. Under the AdSense program, a customer must use an entry of "0" to ensure ads don't run on that network instead of leaving the entry blank. The suit states that "This action arises from the fact that Google does not inform its advertisers that if they leave the content bid CPC input blank, Google will use the advertiser's CPC bid for clicks occurring on the content network ... Google does this despite the fact that ads placed on the content network are demonstrably inferior to ads appearing on search result pages." Ah-ha -- so Google is displaying inferior ads on its AdSense program compared to its search engine-related AdWords program?

The suit goes on to say that "by redefining the universally understood meaning of an input form left blank, and then intentionally concealing this redefinition, Google has fraudulently taken millions of dollars from Plaintiff and the members of the class." This has huge implications for Google if the true meaning of its CPC business is either not well executed or if crucial pieces of verbiage are left out. that don't demonstrate where an advertiser's dollars "could" go based on what network (AdWords or AdSense) they use. This will be an interesting development to watch.

Although Yahoo!'s (NASDAQ: YHOO) top web searches for 2007 looked like a goofball celebrity wish list, competitor Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) just released its list this week for the top web searches performed on its ubiquitous search engine thus far in 2007. Would it surprise you to find out that by a 3-to-1 margin, more web surfers are searching for the term "inflation" instead of "recession" at using Google's web search? Maybe the consumer has no recession fear, unlike the Fed.

The top search candidates this year have included presidential candidates, lawsuits, Hollywood starlets, sports teams and song lyrics. In an interesting twist, gaining underdog Congressman Ron Paul of Texas was the most-searched for Presidential candidate at Google beating out Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. Does this fare well for Paul's chances a little under a year from now? From looking at his grassroots internet campaign, you just might be able to say that. Paul appears to be pulling no punches while Clinton and Obama are in a celebrity deathmatch of sorts in the media.

For a little comic relief outside the Presidential campaigners, Hannah Montana (played by actress Miley Cyrus, daughter of Billy Ray) was ahead of the Rolling Stones in Google web search popularity. But, Barbie outranked Hannah Montana decades after the first svelte doll appeared on retail shelves. In an interesting trend released by Google, the term "iPhone" has been searched more often than the term "iPod" since its June debut. With Google having a commanding lead in the global web search arena, a snapshot of what global netizens cares about can be gleaned from examining its top hitters list. Ron Paul probably hopes its a harbinger to next year's runoff.

What kind of business has Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) lost to Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) in the online advertising business? Plenty, if you go by the estimates. It's that kind of midnight fear that caused Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to give his internet ad sales chief a call from a recent Hawaiian vacation. What prompted the action? No small potato -- Google announced that it was buying DoubleClick for $3.1 billion.

Was Microsoft's leader sweating out of desperation based on Google's existing advertising revenue dominance that seems to have Microsoft on the defensive like never before? Sure, Microsoft's been on the defensive before, but not when the stakes were this high -- we're talking a level approaching $3 billion a quarter of ad revenue with a cost that is relatively inexpensive (except for partner revenue share Google must pay out).

Although the on again / off again talks of Microsoft buying Yahoo! to try and beat Google have again fallen by the wayside, that does not mean Microsoft and Yahoo! may not partner to fend off the threat of losing all internet ad revenue to their collective largest competitor -- Google. Microsoft's Yusuf Mehdi, the internet ad head for the software maker, says that "Really the one and only thing is the volume of search ... but that's a big thing." Yep -- I agree. Google's numbers prove it.

Google's AdWords program is the complete reason for its financial success. The text ads that show up next to each Google search bring in billion of dollars in revenue every quarter. What had made them so successful? Google's search engine serves the customer with the most relevant search results as fast as possible -- and customers have noticed. This is why Google enjoys the search leadership position it does. Meanwhile, along for the ride is Google's bread-and-butter revenue maker, which also is very relevant to the consumer while being an "unobtrusive" advertisement.

Microsoft and Yahoo! have been blindsided by Google's success, but both are determined to get back in the game or die trying. But, is Microsoft so bold as to try and nip at Google's heels these days instead of Google taking ever-more market share in the web search arena? Some industry analysts think this, and postulate that Microsoft's commitment to use $2 billion to get a better foothold into web advertising is proof.

There is always a "first mover" advantage to any company who creates a certain market then continues to build brand awareness and dominate that market with a superior product. So, can Microsoft really lead up to worthy competition in web advertising with Google? I agree with the analyst statement that "The No. 1 threat to Microsoft is decreased relevance of its core products," which includes things like Web 2.0 technologies and Ajax Web development that simulates installed software in a web browser. With Google's "first mover" advantage and its willingness to try and position itself as the largest advertising network on the planet, does Microsoft have a chance?

[Disclosure: I own MSFT shares as of 4-27-07]

As I've said before, Google Inc.'s (NASDAQ: GOOG) goal of world domination centers around the company's capability to be the center of advertising in as many channels as possible where it can take a small cut from connecting global buyers and sellers of all sizes and wallets. With that said, Google's moves in recent years that sprout from its roots as a web-only advertising conduit to a radio and even TV advertising conduit will only grow to ensure Google stays atop the changing media landscape of meaningful advertising as the 30-second TV spot dies a slow death.

Google, on that note, has launched a CPA advertising model for U.S. advertising customers. In this model, there is an associate cost for the advertised based on every action or acquisition (transaction) between the seller and buyer. The "buyer" does not have to buy anything at all in many cases, but just perform the needed action required by the seller (such as an e-newsletter signup).

This is quite an addition to Google's pay-per-click advertising model if you ask me, and it firmly plants Google in the age of traditional advertising where advertisers and marketers pay for a successful "interaction" between themselves and a customer or potential customer. In the CPM model (cost per thousand), the advertising cost is based on "impressions" with little or no measurement on customer interest beyond electronic tracking using web bugs and associated engagement tools for advertisers. Google's move into the CPA arena will most likely make advertisers work a little harder to gain that customer, but they'll be rewarded as that customer completes an interaction with the advertiser -- making Google's advertising model even more relevant to the consumer hopefully.

After liveblogging the Microsoft Q2 earnings call last week, I was surprised to hear some of the half-hearted answers from CFO Chris Liddell regarding the poor performance of Microsoft Corp.'s(NASDAQ:MSFT) search advertising business, as it actually lost marketshare in its last quarter to Google, Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG). No surprise there -- as Google still offers a more compelling platform for many -- but wasn't the Microsoft "AdCenter" platform and the Windows Live search platform designed to take on Google?

So far, it isn't happening at all. CFO Liddell danced around analyst questions about the slowing growth of Microsoft's search advertising business and slow-growth prospects for this year like a Spanish bullfighter. The furor over today's release of Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system and the all-new Microsoft Office will calm down in time and investors will want to know just how long Microsoft's consumer cash cow franchises can keep up the growth.

Search advertising, when done correctly, can lead to huge revenue piles and a very sustainable business model (ask Google). But coming late to the party and trying to take marketshare --- even when you're Microsoft --- is not a slam dunk at all. So, I'm interested to hear how the Redmond juggernaut plans to get more into the game here.

In yet another move by the Internet search giant to fortify its position as the main bridge between online information and offline commerce, Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has launched its "Click To Call" service in India to take advantage of that country's ever-growing appetite for all-things-internet.

Google already has the top search engine position in India (like much of the world, actually), and now Indian customers can make an Internet call to a vendor after seeing an ad on Google's AdWords program (those test ads that appear next to search results).

Google's "Click-to-call" ads are online ads designed to let users speak directly to advertisers they might find on a Google Search results page -- over the phone and free of cost, of course. Google wants to make sure internet searchers always use it to find things on the internet they want to buy, and "hooks" like this are perfect tools to keep customers coming back.

These new ads can be identified by means of a green telephone handset located next to the text of the advertisement, and when a customer clicks on the title of such an ad, the ad expands and shows off a field wherein the user then enters his/her telephone number. Talk about making it super-easy to connect buyer and seller.

After reading about www.zecco.com and following coverage here at Bloggingstocks.com, I had to wonder if Google's advertising-only model can just be indefinitely extended. Is it true that just about any online company with a content- or service-rich model disrupt the status quo by providing products and services for free with ad revenue to support it?

Will this strategy work for everyone? The backers of Zecco.com sure think so -- and in the space of personal finance and online trading, I think this is one example where Zecco will shake up the online trading community with its free trades -- if it can build a customer base and attack the likes of Schwab, E*Trade and TD Ameritrade.

Can Google advertising save the, um, industry? Any industry? I'm not so sure it's that simple, but the sheer success of Google's advertising juggernaut is legendary. But, can a pretty decent transaction processing structure (if it's that complicated) be completely financed by income generated by Google ads and other relevant advertising? Zecco.com believes so, and this is an industry where I tend to believe that Zecco can indeed survive on ad revenue. Other industries are questionable, but no online trading according to your truly.

The challenge Zecco.com will have will be to build an audience and recruit longtime traders from online discount brokerages like Schwab, TD Ameritrade and E*Trade. For those that trade frequently or even daily, Zecco.com's "free trades" is bound to catch the attention of quite a few active traders among other folks. The challenge will be to get them to click on Google ads when they get over to Zecco.com.

In what could be a rather significant change to the way Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) displays its AdWords-based text ads to customers of its search engine, the Internet search giant has been testing an ad feature that removes the "blue bar" ad at the top of a standard Google page when a search is performed. This happens if a Google customer consistently does not interact with ads on the page. In other words, the top "blue bar" sponsored ads are removed after consistent ad-opposed behavior happens, probably to make more ads visible and potentially clicked on when they only appear at the right-hand side of the page and are completely absent from the top of the page.

Is this an attempt to maximize profit from Google's end? Sure it is -- and if a customer hardly to never interacts with an ad when performing a Google search, it makes sense for Google to remove ads from the top of the page and move those ads to the right-hand side of a search page to make it more likely that an actual ad will be clicked. Remember, when an ad is clicked on a Google search page, Google makes a "sale".

While still trying to fulfill the medium between a customer's needs and Google's profits, I continue to believe many millions of Google customers do not even distinguish the difference between regular search results and displayed Google ads. Having run a statistically-significant test on just this subject before, that was a verified conclusion.

Customers who come to Google to search want a result, and in my experience, they don't care if the result is an organic search result or a "sponsor" (why doesn't Google just state "paid advertisement", which is much clearer?). Sponsor is just a politically-correct way to say "this entity paid cash money for the privilege of being noticed here". Ah, I like the sound of that.

I'm sure to get reader comments again suggesting that I'm somehow "bashing" Google, but hear me out here -- I defend Google below. According to this blog post over at ComputerWorld, the author suggests that Google's "do no evil" mantra can take on the perception of either side based on how one characterizes the company. In one sense, Google is the champion for the everyday Internet user in its stance against the "evils" of net neutrality, where tiered Internet traffic access would be granted to the telecom companies that are behind all those data networks that makes the Internet an entity for billions every single day.

On the other hand, Google's popularity and pervasiveness in the Internet search field gives it a level of control that makes it where those advertisers with deeper pockets have the upper hand. Indeed, Google makes almost all its money right now on text ads that accompany Internet searches, making it a huge player in the world advertiser market -- something that happened in less than a decade (amazing in itself, really). But, can the smaller businesses compete with the hefty "pay per click" prices the big companies pay to Google to ensure their text advertisements are always seen next to relevant searches? This is where the "too much control" argument comes in. But, it's a non-argument if you ask me.

Jakob Nielsen says this about the current state of the Internet search business:

With the current browsing paradigm, search engines are sucking out almost the entire value of the Internet

Ok, I can see his point here -- Google's sheer popularity means that a vendor or business may not even exist soon if they don't have ads next to Internet searches on Google -- but is this Google's fault? Can a company be lambasted just for providing a superior product that has made it uber-popular in the online world? After all, the small fries find it hard to get national TV ads on prime-time television, whereas the big guys flip a million-dollar switch and bore us to death with Swiffer mop commercials. What makes Google and the Internet different than NBC television and the analog airwaves? Same principle here -- money talks, and it forces the small guy to get creative in advertising (that's putting it mildly).

Sheldon Liber and I have aggregated our latest thoughts on the ongoing eBay saga so you all will have something to SPEND your time on over the weekend. Seems like the eBay seller base is being rather vocal while the market watchers on Wall Street are yawning and just looking at eBay's balance sheet. That's a lot of zeroes.

Brian: With all the fierce hubbub these days on fee craziness on eBay, what is the online auction giant doing to quell the masses? Does it even have to? eBay stock has been doing just fine even as highly-motivated eBay sellers have been incredibly vocal all around the web on eBay's recent fee hikes. Sure, eBay has seen hikes before, and the resultant seller loudness has quieted down over time. What makes this situation any different?

Sheldon: Sellers claim they are spending to much for what they get! Buyers will have to spend on some cost pass-thrus somewhere along the line. EBay cannot ignore the fact that they are an ever increasing and larger percentage of the cost part of mechandise so they are contributing to a reduction in the desirability of their website as the customer finds themselves spending more and thus the site being less competitive with other sites.

Google has been vocal at shareholder meetings and with financial analysts about the burgeoning market for Internet use over wireless devices. Specifically, wireless handsets like current cellphones. With 3G wireless data networks now in operation here in the U.S. by Cingular Wireless, Verizon Wireless, and Sprint Nextel, the data speeds are finally here to make the wireless Internet at least usable by customers.

The experience is hopefully enjoyable so customers will continue to use it. But don't expect a PC-like experience on the two-inch screen on your phone, although downloadable programs like Opera Mini are pretty darn slick at the mimic-the-PC process.

Google's foray into the mobile space has seen its world-leading search engine made available to almost every wireless customer worldwide with a WAP browser built into the wireless phone, and even Google Gmail, Google News, Google Reader and the personalized Google homepage are now available for your mobile phone.

Looks like Google is making its famous AdWords ad program available for mobile phone screens now. These ads appear to be the same relevant and unobtrusive text ads customers see when performing a search at www.google.com. Advertisers are now able to fill that space on your mobile phone with the same type of ads, although it will most likely take a while before ads appear on every search.

The cellphone screen is much smaller, navigation can be a little more frustrating and now text ads start showing up, although they are "light" ads with relevancy to what a mobile search user is looking for. Will customers be receptive to this kind of advertising just like they are on a standard web browser on a PC?

With this offering mobile search customers can "click to call" an advertiser right from their phones, a natural extension for a mobile search service. With billions of wireless phones in use globally, much more than personal computers, mobile search combined with newer, faster wireless data networks may be a pot of gold for Google.

Salesforce.com has agreed to purchase Kieden, a company that makes software to purchase and manage Google AdWords for customers. This will give Salesforce.com the capability to offer Google AdWords campaigns alongside its web-based salesforce and marketing management service. The service allows marketing and advertising managers to analyze ongoing campaigns by viewing which people who clicked on Google AdWords keywords became sales leads.

This gives a completed sales-lead closed-end loop to track sales that result in actual revenue but which originate from Google AdWords. The Kieden software presents a dashboard of information that displays the Google AdWords that were clicked on, along with whether those clicks led to shopping sessions as well as an actual sale.

Salesforce.com, according to CEO Marc Benioff, is trying to bridge the gap between customer relationship management (CRM) and Google's AdWords program. There is a disconnect now, since leads are provided but the proverbial travel path a customer takes from first viewing an ad to completing a purchase is still a shaky trail. The more you understand your customer's behavior and online "travel pattern," the more you can acclimate to the needs of that customer and produce more actual sales, right? This is a good thing for Salesforce.com -- the acquisition makes sense and fits into the company's vision.

Brian White has worked in various executive positions in technology and telecommunications and now focuses on editing and writing.

With blogs becoming the next Internet advertising platform by many counts, it's interesting to look back a few years and see how it all got started. It seems that Google's AdSense platform, which rides along with its AdWords program (the text ads you see on a Google search page) was the kicker -- and I agree here.

I remember seeing Google AdSense ads and columns on blogs back in 2003, and -- as usual -- they were relevant to the content on the blog page and were unobtrusive. Being unobtrusive to the visitor/reader cannot be understated. In fact, my opinion is that this type of ad presentation is actually much more visible to the consumer than flashy, annoying and distracting graphic and flash-based ads.

But, are blogs destined to become the shifting point for traditional ad dollars as more and more customers seek non-network and non-corporate sources of information? The power of news is rapidly shifting to the people and away from larger corporate masters, as agendas and opinions are dissected by bloggers and readers alike, leaving very little ambiguity and bias in the news. This is just my opinion, but forming a set of facts from several sources is way better than relying on a few networks for news -- of any kind. Blogs are attracting readers in droves due to this and the niche audiences they recruit, which is prime for ads -- and, for Google.

Brian White has worked in various executive positions in technology and telecommunications and now focuses on editing and writing.