December 2007

There’s always a danger when running ads on a site that the “magic pixie dust” will stick a wholly inappropriate ad just where you don’t want it. It’s happened to me on this blog before. A rant about people using fog lights when they shouldn’t left a raft of ads for people to go an buy fog lights!

On a more serious note, though, I’m sure Sky didn’t intend the following, especially when you read the last paragraph before the ad…

I’ve been a real fan of Laurel and Hardy for decades. The level of obsession varies, and I must confess for the past 10 years or so, I’ve not watched them a great deal. Maybe I overdid it up to that point. I was attending monthly meetings where 30 or more grown men (and the occassional woman) would be rolling around laughing watching their wonderful gems and watching them regularly at home. Maybe I needed a little rest from them.

Anyway, fast-forward 10 years or so and I find myself with a little Christmas money. Coincidentally, I’ve just started reading Paul Merton’s excellent Silent Comedy and it reminded me of just how great they were. I already own a large number of Laurel and Hardy VHS tapes, but I thought I’d do a little searching and see what was around, when I came across a truly fantastic box set, containing virtually everything the boys had created on 21 (yes, 21!) DVD’s, in a beautifully created case for the ridiculously low price of £49!

You can find out a bit more about the set over on Amazon, but I wouldn’t pay the price they’re asking. I got mine from a place called Zavvi. The only very slight disappointment is that none of the DVD’s have sleeve notes. I believe Universal may have re-released this set (it first came out in 2004) and perhaps left out the notes to keep the price down.

Given that I used to pay around £10 for a single VHS with between 1 and 3 movies, this  really has to be one of the best bargains around.

I’ve only had a chance to watch one film so far (A Chump At Oxford), but the quality is good and, more importantly, the belly laughs just keep on coming

If you’re a fan, go get it now whilst you can.

WidgetBucks have today announced the launch of their CPM product for non-US/Canadian site visitors.

As you may know if you read this blog frequently, I recently pulled WidgetBucks from my sites when they announced that site owners would only get paid for clicks originating from the US and Canada. That wasn’t much good for me, as around 75% of my traffic comes from the rest of the world (it’s a big place!).

Now, with a touch of geo-analysis, WidgetBucks will determine where a visitor comes from. If from the US/Canada, the “traditional” WidgetBucks ad will be shown. If not, they will display a CPM-based ad in its place. This sounds like a good solution to me and I’ve reinstated it on my blogs/sites. I hope the CTR returns to the pretty good level it was at before I decided to pull them.

Here’s some of their press release:

We are now serving CPM ads to the non-U.S./Canada traffic. This will give you revenue, per impression, for your site visitors who come from other countries. This is designed to help publishers who have a blend of traffic from a variety of countries.

Our system will do the geo-location for you, determining where the visitor is coming from. Then we’ll either show the regular pay-per-click widget (to visitors from the U.S. and Canada) or show an ad that pays per impression (to visitors from other countries).

Spotted this in the local Super Store on Friday - must be deliberate

I’m a pretty regular user of Gmail, as my previous posts indicate. However, every now and again I get a bit bored of it and try something out just for a change.

I’ve started to notice, though, that almost every time I stop using it and try something else, they add a neat new feature that brings me back! They recently added IMAP, which kept me back there for a while. I drifted off somewhere else again after a few days and now they’ve added label colouring

It’s a nice feature and really helps you quickly identify your labelled messages in your Inbox. So, that should keep me back on Gmail for a coupla weeks or so.

So, are Gmail monitoring my use of their service and adding features specifically to encourage me back? Well, it’s a nice thought…