The Core

Thanks for the votes, any more?

Looks as though Blekko have not got the data delivery method sorted (for the large result sets), I'll let you know when they do. They are very good at responding to emails, so I'm in touch with them re the data.

Indeed, Excel can be a very effective tool for PPC - we set up an enormous AdCenter campaign when it launched ages ago (1.3 Million local ads, each with a different URL and text, based on rules we were able to set up in Excel - probably could have done it in PHP but excel was straight forward too). Not sure if things have changed much as we stopped doing PPC a good few years ago.

Nowadays, I would suggest using PHP or something similar (that you program with to your specific needs) as you can then call the Google API rather than rely on spreadsheet uploads - it's all down to how much time you expect to invest in PPC.

A little fun...

Now that anyone with a good story (and $185K) can get a .anything GTLD; what would you go for?

I think it'll be confusing for most users so I'll start with a really bad pun rather than a real one:

.cotton

There are lots of ways that advertising can be targeted - "Behavioural Targeting" is a good search to start with if you are new to this. The advertising companies are currently probing to see how much they can get away with (before governments legislate against actions) - it's frightening what info can be collected...

Indeed, personalisation is a double edged sword. If a service knows what I like, and only delivers me things it thinks I'll be interested in, what likelihood is there of me discovering something new (and a bit or a lot different) through that service.

Furthermore, being constantly fed the same viewpoint is dangerous(which is what could happen if meaning is successfully extracted from the sources on offer); we can see at all sorts of examples where people choose to read views which are similar to their own (newspapers are a great example of this) - the last thing we need is for the web (a great source of conflicting views) to be divided up so that people believe that they are right because all they see agrees with them. Such a setting is a breeding ground for extremism (and I'm not just talking about religion) - an example is the peak oil vs abiotic oil argument; either side emerses itself in its own literature and can develop a fierce hatred of the "opposition" (although I have to agree that those that think oil is abiotic are nuts...)

But...

This does remind us that a good way to repeat traffic is to be on the extreme edge of an argument, or at least consistent in reporting a (relatively) commonly held viewpoint that is under-represented in the mainstream media.

Seems to me that they should (or will be in the background) have tiers depending on sales volume. If Amazon sell a lot of eBooks then they should have a small percentage applied rather than 30%, you could say that's unfair to the smaller player but that's reality - bring volume and you get better terms. I don't like it (the fact they want to monetise access to people on their devices), but Apple do have a captive audience that like to spend cash so small companies will still see a benefit in losing 30% of sales to Apple as they will get more revenue being in rather than out.

There's so much wrong with that video...

It's a rip-off for a start, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyGEEamz7ZM is the original.

It's offensive to blind people, being blind does not equate to having to beg. How does giving money contribute to solving the message on his sign? That sign says pity me.

It's a sad reflection of what we expect from our society in the UK that not a single person is portrayed interacting in any way with the guy.

...

Better stop the rant before I go too far.