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By using this feature, campaign managers can be extremely proactive while minimizing the manual effort on redundant tasks. Here are a few examples – identified by Google – that demonstrate how automated rules can help advertisers:

·        Scheduling ads for special promotions or events
·        Pausing low-performing ads or keywords
·        Changing keyword bids to control average position
·        Adjusting budgets or scheduling budgets for certain days each week
·        Raising keyword bids to ensure ads show on first page

To see how this works, watch this video which quickly demonstrates the simplicity and power offered by Google’s new automated rules tool. I would love to hear about any power rules you create…

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Using www.schema.org vocabularies in combination with W3C microdata formats (see http://dev.w3.org/html5/md-LC/), Webmasters can pick from a collection of shared vocabularies to semantically program their web pages with built-in information that helps major search engines -Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! – understand what type of information is being displayed.  Here is a list of some commonly used data types:

• Creative works: CreativeWork, Book, Movie, MusicRecording, Recipe, TVSeries …
• Embedded non-text objects: AudioObject, ImageObject, VideoObject
• Event
• Organization
• Person
• Place, LocalBusiness, Restaurant …
• Product, Offer, AggregateOffer
• Review, AggregateRating

For a full list please visit:   http://schema.org/docs/full.html

Everything you need to get started and learn how to improve your Search Engine Optimization can be found here:  http://schema.org/docs/documents.html.  Be ahead of the curve on this topic and it could give you a strategic advantage for search engine placement and optimization.

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The Can I Use Website located  here or the Web Designer’s Checklist located here are both tremendously useful tools because they help you determine if a particular HTML or CSS feature is supported by a specific browser type and version level.   For example, how many of you have heard of Web Sockets which instead of using http://  URL addresses you would have a ws:// starting URL?  Web Sockets will eventually allow browsers to support persistent connections on servers and improve performance; however, this feature is not yet supported until IE version 10 although FF, Chrome, and Safari partially support it for some time now.  Needless to say,  it’s a good idea to avoid Web Sockets if IE 6,7, 8, or even version 9 are part of your visitor’s web profile.

Bottom Line:  http://caniuse.com  and http://findmebyip.com/litmus are very helpful design planning tools that can help make sure that your code will be compatible with your visitor’s targeted browser types and versions.  Check them out…

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But what if these tiny links could provide a bigger opportunity? What if they allowed you to serve up a message in-between a user’s click and the final destination? Enter Bre.ad. This site (now in beta testing) shortens links like bit.y and tinyurl, but goes one step further. Bre.ad provides an interstitial page or billboard before the user lands at the shortened url. Bre.ad calls this interstitial page a “toast.” Get it?

The Bre.ad link and its “toast” can provide advertisers an additional opportunity to message their consumer. Think about when you “toast” someone at a party. Your toast brings attention to them and highlights something great. And, unlike some champagne toasts that drag on for way too long, bre.ad toasts are only 5 seconds long, which is just enough time for a consumer to get the message but not too long for them to get annoyed.

Think of this “toast” billboard as the one punch and the landing page as the two punch. Advertisers could have fun with this new experience by posing a quick question on the billboard and paying it off on the landing page. For example,

Example: check out our portfolio page for a campaign we launched for Ronzoni Garden Delight Pasta.

Setting up a “toast” is extremely easy. Just upload an image and a short (of course) message (140 max characters) and you’re all set. After that, shorten the link and share it with friends. If you want to get really crazy, make multiple billboards for different sites.

So, here’s to bre.ad, a short way to make a big impression.

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This was a great read. Certainly learned a lot of useful lessons on front-end optimizations. Written by Steve Souders (previously lead Optimization efforts at Yahoo!), who also developed YSlow! – a Firefox add-on (actually an add-on to the Firefox add-on called Firebug) that gives your web pages a grade from A through F and tells you how to make them faster.

If you have a build script, you may be able to automate a lot of what he mentions in the book, like combining JS and CSS files, and optimize PNG files (check out http://www.phpied.com/give-png-a-chance/ to see how to optimize from the command line). If you’re going to optimize JavaScript, I would recommend YUI Compressor (http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/compressor/) since it’s not as greedy as Google’s Closure Compiler for JavaScript. The Closure compiler (http://code.google.com/closure/compiler/) is relatively new and you may get even smaller files, but if your JavaScript is complex, it may have bugs because it’s a greedy compiler.

Anywho, here’s what I got from it:

1. Reduce as many HTTP requests as possible.
2. Minify JavaScript (don’t obfuscate, because it’s more trouble than it’s worth for the benefits you get)
3. Minify CSS and optimize it (reduce duplication).
4. Future-expire resources for caching (PNG, JPG, GIF, JavaScript and CSS).
5. Minify HTML (get away from tables)
6. Put CSS at the top, put JavaScript at the bottom.
7. For design components (background images, button images, nav images), use CSS sprites.
8. Use PNG for design components (they compress better than GIF, have partial transparency, and can have greater color palettes).
9. Gzip non-binary data like HTML.
10. Combine CSS and JavaScript into single files to reduce HTTP requests.

A summary of his optimization rules are found here, but of course, it’s not as detailed as the book: http://stevesouders.com/hpws/rules.php .

Stoyan Stefanov, another prominent developer who’s written tons on JavaScript and optimization, published 24 articles this month on optimization. I find these articles invaluable. It’s recent and he does actual optimization tests and tells you what tools he uses. Here’s the site: http://www.phpied.com/performance-advent-calendar-2009/

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Today, brands are asking, “what’s an advertising agency?”

As agency work has expanded into labor intensive “free media” how should an agency be paid?

What is a “creative team?”  (Hint: it’s not simply a copywriter/art director)

Is there still a place for the long-running campaign or should it be replaced  by the long running strategy/positioning?

When will the words “traditional agency” fade away?

I like the way Theresa Lezzi attacks conventions in her new book, “The Idea Writers.”

“First, forget about making an ad; instead focus on creating something useful, entertaining or beautiful (or all of the above) on behalf of a brand.”

Who will create these things? If they are not advertising, what’s an advertising agency?

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Prior to this feature, businesses were afraid to lose fans when creating a new Facebook Page; however, it’s now advisable that any Business, Company, Brand, Artist, Entertainment, or Non-Profit Communities convert their old profiles to Facebook Pages.  Below, is a snapshot of the choices available for page categories:

Top reasons why Facebook Pages are better:

• FB Pages can have an unlimited number of fans while profiles are limited.  There is an active petition located here to remove what is thought to be a 5000 friend limit.  FB pages are intended for larger quantities of fans.
• Facebook offers helpful admin features to administer your pages which improve your control over the user experience.
• Purchase or Add Facebook applications — built using developer APIs – to customize your visitor experiences and add viral features to your community.
• Gain access to meaningful analytics about how users are interacting with the page.
• Pages can have multiple administrator accounts assigned which enables multiple people to help manage the Facebook Content.
• FB Pages facilitate running promotions, contests, games, and e-couponing through Facebook’s Deals features.
• Pages are supported by Facebook’s Advertising system so you can promote your Page using Facebook Ad campaigns.

How do you get started with Facebook Pages?

1.   Read the Help Section located here.

2.   To create a new page, visit here .

3.   To convert an existing profile, begin by clicking this link.

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The WAC initiative has approximately 70 members, which are mostly mobile operators such as AT&T, China Mobile, MTS, Orange, Smart, Telefonica, Telenor, Verizon Wireless, and Vodafone. These mobile carriers are trying to avoid just becoming the plumbing behind the success of companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft, and other companies that have quickly entered the smart phone mobile industry.

At this month’s Mobile World Congress meeting, WAC 2.0 was released with support for HTML5′s built-in multimedia abilities. WAC technology is essentially a close variation of Web application programming. To be a compliant phone, there is “runtime engine” which becomes the software foundation needed to run the apps. This “runtime engine” is intended to enable developers to write native mobile applications across multiple mobile device platforms, using web-based programming techniques.

Furthermore, WAC is promising to enable applications that can be deployed across the connected retail application stores. The end result of the WAC approach will be to significantly increase the number of applications which are available to users by simplifying and lowering the cost of their development, testing and deployment by developers. WAC wants to be the vehicle to bring the mobile industry together to achieve this goal. Version 3 will be release by Sept 2011 and you can get all the software development kits here.

I don’t know about you but this sounds too good to be true…  Why would Apple, Google, Microsoft, and other Mobile innovators get behind this standard?

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