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I saw this rant on 5xmom. She complains of decreasing blog income… actually she earns more than $500 and that is already a lot of money for me. I understand her frustrations as I am also feeling the crunch with paid writing jobs becoming scarce and the remuneration getting lesser.
Adsense earnings have dropped for many bloggers too. Although I don’t use Adsense here (because of my low trafffic), I have read a lot of blog posts commenting that their clicks are earning less. Not surprising considering Google’s share price has tumbled to less than 50% of its peak. Google now has to source for more advertising money as well as cut costs to achieve good quarterly report.
To sustain a blog, it is not easy, what with lots of research, forum/social networks/blog hopping, and editing to do. It is almost like having a full time job except that you are not answerable to anyone but yourself.
If bloggers cannot at least cover the basic cost like domain and web hosting, then the blogosphere is as good as dead.
After vowing repeatedly to go through with its search advertising deal with Yahoo no matter what the Justice Department does, Google reversed course today and pulled the plug on the deal.
Chief legal counsel David Drummond writes:
. . . after four months of review, including discussions of various possible changes to the agreement, it’s clear that government regulators and some advertisers continue to have concerns about the agreement. Pressing ahead risked not only a protracted legal battle but also damage to relationships with valued partners. That wouldn’t have been in the long-term interests of Google or our users, so we have decided to end the agreement.
We’re of course disappointed that this deal won’t be moving ahead. But we’re not going to let the prospect of a lengthy legal battle distract us from our core mission. That would be like trying to drive down the road of innovation with the parking brake on.
Apparently, the recent revision of the deal’s terms to cap the amount of Yahoo’s revenues generated by Google at 25 percent was not enough to satisfy the Justice Department. And Google threw up its hands, giving up the fight.
Read the full article here.
Google’s Brazilian subsidiary on Wednesday handed over information on more than 3,000 of its users to a Brazilian Senate panel investigating pedophilia.
Felix Ximenes, Google’s communications director, delivered a set of DVDs containing information on 3,261 users of the company’s popular Orkut social-networking service for an investigation into the spread of child pornography on the site.
“With the information we have received, we will be able to strike a major blow against the pedophile network acting in the country,” said Sen. Demostenes Torres.
The information contained in the Orkut albums will be analyzed by prosecutors and federal police, Torres said. Google will meanwhile use filters to prevent the spread of child pornography on Orkut, Ximenes told reporters.
Federal prosecutors last August said Google failed to comply with requests to provide information about users who allegedly spread child pornography and hate speech against black people, Jews and homosexuals on Orkut.
Google eliminated the users from Orkut groups and has refused to release information about them to authorities, arguing it was bound by U.S. laws guaranteeing freedom of speech. However, Google refuse to comment on why its position was changed now.
Google’s fabulous quarter earnings eased slowdown fears. Fans enjoyed the biggest one-day Google stock rise — up $89.72, or 20%, to $539.26 — in the past two years as the Net search giant blew past earnings targets by avoiding a big drop in U.S. paid click traffic during the first quarter of 2008.
Wall Street had been a little pessimistic going into the earnings report Thursday, after ComScore (SCOR) surveys showed a third straight month of negligible advertising traffic growth related to domestic searches. The reports helped confirm suspicions that the drag of decreased consumer spending was starting to spread beyond retail and housing to the tech sector.
But the fears of a revenue slump at Google were overestimated as the company saw strong international paid click sales, and the effects of higher prices. Google reported 20% growth in overall paid click revenue over year-ago levels, which was down from the 30% pace in the prior quarter, but well above the 1.8% U.S. rate ComScore reported for March. ComScore flagged the U.S. slowdown but did not capture the bigger picture, namely Google’s expansion overseas, which accounted for 51% of total sales, up from 47% a year ago.
Analysts who had braced for a slowdown going into the earnings report quickly turned bullish after Google’s earnings were released.
One element of Google’s big performance may reflect well on rival Yahoo. Though Google gained market share in the first quarter at Yahoo’s expense, the health of the sector seems to be intact. This should give Yahoo some added sway in its standoff with Microsoft over the $42 billion proposed merger.
