For the first time ever, Google's revealed its "Economic Impact": $54 billion of economic activity for "American businesses, website publishers, and non-profits in 2009."
UPDATE: Roughly two hours after this post went live, Google re-enabled Studio Briefing's ad serving, without explanation. Irwin still wishes he knew, specifically, what he did wrong. But for now, he says, "we're back in business."
Google announced new search-side video and picture advertisements Tuesday, masquerading them as an improvement for users. It "makes sense to provide you with richer types of information in the ads," Google said in its official blog, calling the rich ads "a better search ads experience."
Google is trying to solicit more hyper-local advertising by straying from the very ad formula that made it rich. AdAge reported yesterday that local ads will not use "keyword auctioning," the Google Ads system that chooses which advertiser to run by accepting automatic "bids" from each advertiser interested in certain terms. Instead, Google will offer local advertisers flat fees.
If you use Google AdSense to monetize your site, you'll now be able to run large, fancy ads when people visit your site from an iPhone, Pre, or another large-screen smartphone.
