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To enable our customers to discover who’s sharing, voting and bookmarking their content on the social web, cross-network measurement needs to become easier.  So today we’re inviting social networks and platforms to integrate their activity streams with Google Analytics. Through these integrations, marketers and publishers will be able to discover off-site engagement, optimize their engagement within each social community, and measure the impact of each social channel and its associated digital investment.

Any network can integrate their streams – like +1, votes, and comments – into the Google Analytics social reports, which will be fully available next year to the many marketers, publishers, and websites that are using Google Analytics for free.

To make integration easy for social networks and platforms we’ve created a social data hub – it’s based on widely deployed, open web standards such as ActivityStreams and PubsubHubbub. A number of partners are already working with us to improve measurement of social actions – including Delicious, Digg, Diigo, Gigya, LiveFyre, ReadItLater, Reddit, TypePad, Vkontakte, and of course, Google+, Blogger and Google Groups.

We’ll have more to share next year, so keep reading the blog or follow us on twitter @googleanalytics for updates. If you’re a social network or platform interested to learn about integrating with Google Analytics you can visit our developer site where you’ll find more information.

Phil Mui, Group Product Manager & Ilya Grigorik, Engineering Manager, Google Analytics  

I am extremely pleased to announce that NewsOK have agreed to partner with us and utilize the VR Platform for NewsOK.com! This is the official Press Release we sent out this morning:

Visual Revenue, Inc., the leading provider of online publisher tools for real-time homepage editing, today announced the addition of NewsOK to its portfolio of online news publishers.

The real-time recommendation capabilities of Visual Revenue’s Decision Support Platform are helping NewsOK determine what content should be placed where on the Homepage (and Section Front pages) of NewsOK.com and for how long. The platform takes a host of signals into consideration when providing content placement recommendations; from Editorial Instructions set by NewsOK, to how they value an item of content, how it’s performing given it’s current exposure, semantic analysis and a plethora of other signals.

“NewsOK is using Visual Revenue for recommendations for our lead stories on several pages throughout the site” said Alan Herzberger, Digital Managing Editor for NewsOK. “Our editors have found the tool to be a welcome complement to our news judgment, allowing for predictive analysis to be mixed in with the knowledge we already have about our audience’s interests and trends. In short, Visual Revenue’s recommendations serve as another set of analytical eyes on our deep content for every minute of the day.”

“We’re extremely excited to partner with NewsOK” said Charlie Holbech, VP Operations and Co-Founder of Visual Revenue, Inc. “Their progressive online approach coupled with our platform will help them increase front page performance and drive downstream content engagement – or put another way, provide their audience with the best possible reader experience each and every time they visit NewsOK.com.”

About Visual Revenue
Visual Revenue Inc. provides a predictive analytics solution that helps online media organizations set a better front page. Headquartered in New York, Visual Revenue is helping media organizations across the globe better place their current content throughout their online publication. Visual Revenue’s Front Page Decision Platform currently provides more than 45 online publishers with real-time recommendations. These include Forbes.com, NYDailyNews.com, Telegraaf.nl and OneIndia.in.

Visual Revenue was founded by former IndexTools (now Yahoo! Web Analytics) COO Dennis R. Mortensen and officially launched in January 2011. The founding team are industry veterans from the web analytics, big data and predictive modeling world.

For more details on Visual Revenue, Inc. visit the corporate website at visualrevenue.com or call +1 (212) 506-6700 or email hello@visualrevenue.com.

Posted by Bill Kee, Google Analytics team

It’s been an extremely busy 2011 for the Visual Revenue team, the Platform has developed at a rate of knots, we’ve – signed dozens of customers, have dozens more evaluating the platform, expanded the team (and continue to do so!), won the CNNMoney Startup Event and have now been shortlisted for the Econsultancy Innovation Awards 2012!

More than 450 companies entered and were whittled down to 150 in 19 categories. We fall into the ‘Innovation in Publishing, Media and Entertainment’ category and are up against the following prestigious companies:

• Random House Publishing
• Sunday Publishing
• The Sunday Times
• Movellas
• [Visual Revenue Inc.]

Are we happy – you bet

YouTube has launched a new ad format out of beta: TrueView Video Ads. The basic concept is that the user has a choice whether or not to continue watching the ad. The advertisers only pays when the user watches at least 30 seconds of the ad (or to completion, whichever comes first).

This new format is referred to as a TrueView in-stream ad. Long-form YouTube videos are eligible for the TrueView in-slate ad format. With in-slate, the user is given a choice to either watch a longer commercial video ad before the primary video begins, or see regular commercial breaks during the video.

According to Google’s onesheet on TrueView (pdf), in-stream ad viewers choose to watch an ad 15-45% of the time. Some advertisers have seen 3-4x higher CTR’s with TrueView than with other video ad formats.

YouTube Promoted Video Ads are being renamed “TrueView in-search” and “TrueView in-display” depending on where they show.

Such a shift in video ad delivery is sure to start affecting how video ads are composed. Advertisers need to front-end-load the “interesting” parts to entice the viewer to watch. Also, given that you only pay when someone chooses to watch the video, the proportion viewers from your ideal target audience will be higher.

Name-brand keywords are some of the best performing you can find. In competitive markets, searching for trademarked terms usually reveals a dogfight, with the rightful owner at the top of the pile. Although bidding on competitors’ trademarked terms will often lead to poor quality scores (and thus a large bid surcharge), those low quality scores can be offset by the high conversion rate of these ready-to-buy visitors.

This situation is common because Google’s US trademark policy only applies to trademarks in ad copy; it doesn’t prohibit bidding on trademarked terms. While Burger King wouldn’t appreciate a McDonald’s representative standing outside their establishment holding the sign “Come to McDonald’s Instead”, there’s no trademark law against this, trespassing notwithstanding.

What companies can’t do is misrepresent themselves. It would be a trademark violation for McDonald’s to put a Burger King sign outside their own establishment. Are competitors using your trademarked terms in their ads? Google can help you – but you must take the initiative.

If you are a trademark owner interested in claiming your trademark and/or authorizing a third party to use your trademarked terms, fill out the AdWords Authorization Request form.

If you believe someone is currently infringing on your trademark in their ads, Google will perform a limited investigation. To get the process started, file a Google Trademark Complaint form. Note that Google only investigates trademark use in ad text (not keywords) within the United States. The investigation typically takes 6-8 weeks.

Keep in mind that Google does not monitor the use of trademarks in the display URL, so advertisers are potentially allowed, for example, to use the display URL www.shoeshop.com/Nike even if they are not an authorized reseller. (There are some exceptions to this rule such as being an authorized reseller or an informational website. See Google’s policy on resellers and informational sites.)

Name-brand keywords are some of the best performing you can find. In competitive markets, searching for trademarked terms usually reveals a dogfight, with the rightful owner at the top of the pile. Although bidding on competitors’ trademarked terms will often lead to poor quality scores (and thus a large bid surcharge), those low quality scores can be offset by the high conversion rate of these ready-to-buy visitors.

This situation is common because Google’s US trademark policy only applies to trademarks in ad copy; it doesn’t prohibit bidding on trademarked terms. While Burger King wouldn’t appreciate a McDonald’s representative standing outside their establishment holding the sign “Come to McDonald’s Instead”, there’s no trademark law against this, trespassing notwithstanding.

What companies can’t do is misrepresent themselves. It would be a trademark violation for McDonald’s to put a Burger King sign outside their own establishment. Are competitors using your trademarked terms in their ads? Google can help you – but you must take the initiative.

If you are a trademark owner interested in claiming your trademark and/or authorizing a third party to use your trademarked terms, fill out the AdWords Authorization Request form.

If you believe someone is currently infringing on your trademark in their ads, Google will perform a limited investigation. To get the process started, file a Google Trademark Complaint form. Note that Google only investigates trademark use in ad text (not keywords) within the United States. The investigation typically takes 6-8 weeks.

Keep in mind that Google does not monitor the use of trademarks in the display URL, so advertisers are potentially allowed, for example, to use the display URL www.shoeshop.com/Nike even if they are not an authorized reseller. (There are some exceptions to this rule such as being an authorized reseller or an informational website. See Google’s policy on resellers and informational sites.)

Name-brand keywords are some of the best performing you can find. In competitive markets, searching for trademarked terms usually reveals a dogfight, with the rightful owner at the top of the pile. Although bidding on competitors’ trademarked terms will often lead to poor quality scores (and thus a large bid surcharge), those low quality scores can be offset by the high conversion rate of these ready-to-buy visitors.

This situation is common because Google’s US trademark policy only applies to trademarks in ad copy; it doesn’t prohibit bidding on trademarked terms. While Burger King wouldn’t appreciate a McDonald’s representative standing outside their establishment holding the sign “Come to McDonald’s Instead”, there’s no trademark law against this, trespassing notwithstanding.

What companies can’t do is misrepresent themselves. It would be a trademark violation for McDonald’s to put a Burger King sign outside their own establishment. Are competitors using your trademarked terms in their ads? Google can help you – but you must take the initiative.

If you are a trademark owner interested in claiming your trademark and/or authorizing a third party to use your trademarked terms, fill out the AdWords Authorization Request form.

If you believe someone is currently infringing on your trademark in their ads, Google will perform a limited investigation. To get the process started, file a Google Trademark Complaint form. Note that Google only investigates trademark use in ad text (not keywords) within the United States. The investigation typically takes 6-8 weeks.

Keep in mind that Google does not monitor the use of trademarks in the display URL, so advertisers are potentially allowed, for example, to use the display URL www.shoeshop.com/Nike even if they are not an authorized reseller. (There are some exceptions to this rule such as being an authorized reseller or an informational website. See Google’s policy on resellers and informational sites.)

Name-brand keywords are some of the best performing you can find. In competitive markets, searching for trademarked terms usually reveals a dogfight, with the rightful owner at the top of the pile. Although bidding on competitors’ trademarked terms will often lead to poor quality scores (and thus a large bid surcharge), those low quality scores can be offset by the high conversion rate of these ready-to-buy visitors.

This situation is common because Google’s US trademark policy only applies to trademarks in ad copy; it doesn’t prohibit bidding on trademarked terms. While Burger King wouldn’t appreciate a McDonald’s representative standing outside their establishment holding the sign “Come to McDonald’s Instead”, there’s no trademark law against this, trespassing notwithstanding.

What companies can’t do is misrepresent themselves. It would be a trademark violation for McDonald’s to put a Burger King sign outside their own establishment. Are competitors using your trademarked terms in their ads? Google can help you – but you must take the initiative.

If you are a trademark owner interested in claiming your trademark and/or authorizing a third party to use your trademarked terms, fill out the AdWords Authorization Request form.

If you believe someone is currently infringing on your trademark in their ads, Google will perform a limited investigation. To get the process started, file a Google Trademark Complaint form. Note that Google only investigates trademark use in ad text (not keywords) within the United States. The investigation typically takes 6-8 weeks.

Keep in mind that Google does not monitor the use of trademarks in the display URL, so advertisers are potentially allowed, for example, to use the display URL www.shoeshop.com/Nike even if they are not an authorized reseller. (There are some exceptions to this rule such as being an authorized reseller or an informational website. See Google’s policy on resellers and informational sites.)

Name-brand keywords are some of the best performing you can find. In competitive markets, searching for trademarked terms usually reveals a dogfight, with the rightful owner at the top of the pile. Although bidding on competitors’ trademarked terms will often lead to poor quality scores (and thus a large bid surcharge), those low quality scores can be offset by the high conversion rate of these ready-to-buy visitors.

This situation is common because Google’s US trademark policy only applies to trademarks in ad copy; it doesn’t prohibit bidding on trademarked terms. While Burger King wouldn’t appreciate a McDonald’s representative standing outside their establishment holding the sign “Come to McDonald’s Instead”, there’s no trademark law against this, trespassing notwithstanding.

What companies can’t do is misrepresent themselves. It would be a trademark violation for McDonald’s to put a Burger King sign outside their own establishment. Are competitors using your trademarked terms in their ads? Google can help you – but you must take the initiative.

If you are a trademark owner interested in claiming your trademark and/or authorizing a third party to use your trademarked terms, fill out the AdWords Authorization Request form.

If you believe someone is currently infringing on your trademark in their ads, Google will perform a limited investigation. To get the process started, file a Google Trademark Complaint form. Note that Google only investigates trademark use in ad text (not keywords) within the United States. The investigation typically takes 6-8 weeks.

Keep in mind that Google does not monitor the use of trademarks in the display URL, so advertisers are potentially allowed, for example, to use the display URL www.shoeshop.com/Nike even if they are not an authorized reseller. (There are some exceptions to this rule such as being an authorized reseller or an informational website. See Google’s policy on resellers and informational sites.)