Steve Bryant

In a sign that quality control problems at Google persist, the Google Video team sent an e-mail to about 50,000 recipients yesterday that may have contained a virus. The e-mail was sent to a discussion list focused on its Google Video blog. “On Tuesday evening, three posts were made to the Google Video Blog-group that […]

So the rumors were true. Google is offering free Google Checkout processing for the holidays, from today until December 31. The offer stands for all Checkout users, regardless of whether you use AdWords. New users who sign up for Checkout are eligible as well. Checkout, which was released in June, has met with adoption problems. […]

Update: See this threadwatch post for more grousing about price gouging. It’s a well-known phenomenon, at least among search engine optimizers and marketers, that Google is constantly making changes to its ad-serving algorithms in an attempt to combat fraud and to make their advertising system more efficient for their customers. Now, I’m not an SEO, […]

In the Internet’s second era of rapid adoption and growth, Google isn’t betting on the user. It’s betting on all the users, and using their collective activity to better understand how to serve ads. Google CEO Eric Schmidt took the stage at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco yesterday and explained how Google’s acquisition […]

A startup run by former AltaVista CEO Jim Barnett is betting that its cost-per-action advertising system can outperform Google’s pay-per-click method. The news coming out of the Web 2.0 conference today so far concerns the launch of Turn, former AltaVista CEO Jim Barnett’s new advertising network that will charge advertisers only when Web surfers perform […]

Google has moved to dismiss a class action click fraud lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania in August, saying the plaintiff is required by his AdWords contract to file suit in California. Google Watch was the first to break the story that Samuel Lassoff, a personal injury attorney and amateur Web site operator, filed suit against the […]

In a move that expands Google’s advertising efforts beyond magazine glossies, Google will now sell advertisements that appear in the print editions of 50 major newspapers. Many of the largest newspaper companies, including Gannett, The New York Times Company, The Washington Post Company and Hearst will being testing the system later this month. The trial […]

Google and the NBA have apparently gone their separate ways, ending the landmark deal that brought NBA videos to Google Video. Several people have pointed out that the video links on the NBA’s site no longer work. But good news for Hockey fans: Google now has NHL games. I’m not privy to why the NBA […]

Google’s Gmail is offering users the option to open Excel attachments in Google Spreadsheets. File this one under “saw that coming.” Like any good citizen with a brain full of pop culture debris, when I saw this news I thought of the famous line from Seinfeld’s Newman: “When you control the mail, you control information.” […]

Now that YouTube has money in its pockets, the video-sharing site is being sued — but not by the media companies. Universal Tube and Rollform Equipment Corporation, an industrial manufacturing and sales firm, filed suit this week against YouTube in Ohio federal district court, arguing they’ve incurred dramatic Web support costs and lost business because […]

A media and entertainment analyst issued a note this week saying it would make sense for Google to take minority stake in radio, TV and outdoor advertising giant Clear Channel. Clear Channel is currently examining whether to sell parts of itself off. The company’s 3rd quarter earnings fell almost 10%, but profit and revenue were […]

Google is announcing today a new Java Gmail client for mobile devices. Gmail for Mobile Devices is a free application and will work on any J2ME phones in the U.S. Users can download the app by using their phone’s browser to navigate to gmail.com/app. According to Google, the new app will work on about 300 […]