That’s right, with a few minor settings in your Google Adsense account, advertisers can choose where they want to be on your site. This is indeed a great addition and you should log in and check it out right away (make sure you use channels as well, statistics rock).

There’s a blog post that tells the story as well, so why don’t you pop over and take a look?

Editors Update: As Darren Rowse points out this is not a new feature but a great feature that Google rolled out in November. Thanks for pointing this out.

Originally posted on January 26, 2007 @ 4:58 am

Youtube is foolishly heading towards using pre roll advertising. I have my opinion on prerolls but I can’t wait to see the users revolt over this. I sure as heck hope its user optional otherwise users will surely head somewhere else.

According to the BBC:

YouTube founder Chad Hurley confirmed to the BBC that his team was working on a revenue-sharing mechanism that would “reward creativity”.

The system would be rolled out in a couple of months, he said, and use a mixture of adverts, including short clips shown ahead of the actual film.

TechMeme has more coverage.

Originally posted on January 27, 2007 @ 1:39 pm

Iran has not been known as a country with many political or religious freedoms. Iran is now pushing hard to crackdown on bloggers on the eve of heightened conflict in the Middle East. The BBC Persian takes an inside look.

Iranian bloggers have reacted with anger and scorn to a new law requiring them to register their websites and blogsites with the authorities.

It is being seen as the latest attempt by the Iranian government to control the media.

BBC Persian.com asked six Iranian bloggers – inside and outside Iran – if they thought the law could be enforced and what effect it would have.

Originally posted on January 24, 2007 @ 3:59 am

A contextual ad is an ad that is based on the content of the site. Google’s Adsense ads are contextual, as is lots of other programs out there. However, until now Google hasn’t allowed you to use contextual ads on the same pages as Adsense. A change in the policies are in order, as is an updated TOS. Jennifer Slegg of Jensense got the story:

That is to say, publishers may now display other contextual ads on the same site or page as Google ads as long as they don’t have the same look and feel as our ads,” Brian Axe tells Jennifer Slegg of JenSense.

So, great news since freedom of choice rocks! I’m betting we’ll see lots of IntelliTXT ads in the near future…

Originally posted on January 23, 2007 @ 3:36 am

Apple’s download store iTunes was hit hard in the groin today, as Norway declares it illegal. Free competition is the background to this, and since Apple won’t open up iTunes to other MP3 players, Norway’s consumer officer ruled it illegal. Remove it, or go to court. Ouch.

This means that Norway is the first country in the Nordic region to actually take steps against iTunes. Sweden and Finland have declared the same stance in the matter, but has yet to act. Germany and France are also backing this, and them being a lot more lucrative markets than the small population of the Nordic region, this might actually mean that there will be some sort of impact on iTunes, other than it possibly being made unavailable in some countries.

Financial Times has more.

Now could someone please kill all DRM and give us open formats that we can play any way we please?

Tipster: Jonny Hansson

Originally posted on January 25, 2007 @ 4:08 am