Google finally decided to pull the plug on the Adsense referral program and has started sending out emails to Adsense users. We at nosum.net, have decided to stop using this product a long time ago! They weren't very effective and would often publish the same ad continuously for a number of page views. They do not give any specific reason but it is safe to assume that the ineffectivness and difficulty in generating revenue for the user, are definitely the causes. Referrals is one of the five products that Google Adsense offers, others include Adsense for Content, Adsense for Search,Video units and Adsense for Mobile content.
Thank you for participating in the AdSense Referrals program. We’re writing to let you know that we will be retiring the AdSense Referrals program during the last week of August. We appreciate your patience during this transition and here are some alternative options to consider:
* Google Affiliate Network: As part of the integration of DoubleClick, the DoubleClick Performics Affiliate Network will now operate as the Google Affiliate Network for advertisers targeting users located in the United States. Similar to the AdSense Referrals program, the Google Affiliate Network enables publishers to apply for advertiser programs and get paid based on advertiser-defined actions instead of clicks or impressions. For further details, please visit: www.google.com/ads/affiliatenetwork. * AdSense for content ads: If you have less than three AdSense for content ad units on a page, you may wish to replace the referral ad units with standard AFC ad units.
If you currently use referral ads, either to promote Google products or offerings from AdWords advertisers, AdSense Referrals code will no longer display ads beginning the last week of August. We encourage you to take the following steps before the product is retired:
* Remove the referral code from your site(s): Please take a moment to remove all referral code from your sites before the last week of August, so you can continue to effectively monetize your ad space. * Run and save all referrals reports on your desktop: Create and save all reports related to the referrals program on your desktop, so you continue to have access to your valuable campaign information
Why is this happening? We're constantly looking for ways to improve AdSense by developing and supporting features which drive the best monetization results for our publishers. Sometimes, this requires retiring existing features so we can focus our efforts on the ones that will be most effective in the long term. For this reason, we will be retiring the AdSense Referrals program. If you have any additional questions, please visit our Help Center: http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=14882
This is a short and simple tutorial on how to download Google Talk. Google Talk is an instant messenger (IM) from Google Inc. which also allows you to talk to people online. There are several other instant messengers but Google Talk is the most simplest to use.
You can go to the following url and download Google Talk:
Firefox 3 team had a target of 5 million downloads for their new version which would enable them to set a new world record for the most number of software downloaded in 24 hour period. They have surpassed this number by about 3 million downloads and hold the new Guinness world record. Some quick facts about the download day:
- The total number of downloads are around 8.3 million
- Around 2.6 million were from the US and 223, 000 from Canada
- There were around 9,000 downloads per minute at one point
- Around 500 articles linked from Google News
- NetApplications reports 300% positive change
As of now 9:00 AM EST (June 19th, 2008), the total number of downloads are at 11,239,286.
End of the times? With the introduction of App store and solid iPhone SDK, there were numerous opportunities for variety of applications to be developed on iPhone. Nobody however, could have imagined an application that will let you run Windows XP on iPhone. Well, Citrix did and they did it by utilizing their think client technology to run XP on iPhone.
While the rest of the country focuses on illegal immigration from south of the border, an immigration story of a different kind is happening inside the U.S. and in poor countries throughout the world. The use of H1B and H2B visas to bring in foreign workers in the tech and science fields and as laborers and in manufacturing, respectively, has led to a huge underground business of defrauding hopeful immigrants out of thousands of dollars and is largely unregulated by Homeland Security. One such scam shop was recently exposed but it is only one of thousands operating around the world. The wait for an H1B visa is long and the process arduous. Yet the applicants wait patiently for the chance to come work in the United States and positively contribute to the fabric of the nation.
Less well known than the tech focused H1B visas are H2B visas. This visa category was used to bring in foreign workers on oil rigs and in factories. Shady recruiters have moved to using this category to defraud the poor with promises of U.S. citizenship. Recently, Indian workers protested in front of the Capitol after paying $20,000 to recruiters to secure their visas and a promised green card. Such a practice is devestating for the workers and their families left back home trying to pay the heavy debts to local strongmen who loaned them the money. The repercussions for the workers and their families are similar to those of Indian farmers who have been committing suicide in larger number after being unable to pay back loans. These workers and their families may be facing such a situation.
The U.S. government should keep a registery of all fradulent recruiters and refuse to accept any documents submitted through them. Recruiters should be required to pay a sizable fee to register with the government as a legitimate broker in order to stop such abuses. Visas issued to workers should make the terms of the visa very clear and use the native language if possible to avoid any confusion. Finally, any recruiters found to be in violation of such terms should face jail time and stiff penalties as well as being blacklisted to ensure they can never swindle future workers. Finally, the most important piece of this puzzle is improving the conditions in the home countries so that the economy there can provide jobs and a rising standard of living. These recruiters should not be allowed to engage in such trickery and implementing the above steps will go a long way to eradicating this deplorable practice.
