YouTube has begun inserting sponsored videos into the "related videos" column on the lower-right side of video view pages. The move is part of an ongoing quest to deliver ads on more video pages, and it seems to be working. A series of videos tested today turned up "Promoted Videos" in the Related column. These consisted of everything from single episodes by small video creators to major film releases. Not surprisingly, I found more paid videos for entertainment advertisers,

Flickr has become increasingly popular as a very powerful tool for bloggers looking to brighten up their content. An attractive post, containing interesting images, often has a far greater likelihood of gaining attention from social media audiences, attracting natural links and more importantly actually being read in the first place! In this post, I've decided to look at some ideas and tools which I find useful when looking for inspiration in a new blog post.

Google Maps has added a feature I've been wanting for a long time: points of interest. When you're searching a particular area, you'll see restaurants, hotels, historical sites, etc. marked on the map. The more you zoom in, the more you see. Check out this map of Charleston, South Carolina, a very historical city. At a distance, the (in)famous Market Hall and Sheds is not marked, but when you zoom in, it is. The new feature isn't perfect, however.

There is a new beta build for Google Chrome - 3.0.195.4- out today, featuring 30 percent faster processing and HTML5 functionality. I penned the details at eWEEK here . I just downloaded it and welcome the new features. Web site thumbnails were previously static on the New Tab page, but there is now drag-and-drop functionality, enabling users to click a thumbnail and move it anywhere on the page.

It seems we Canadians are cheapskates when it comes to travel. The qualifier "cheap" is a popular one to include in searches in all of the markets we monitor. In Canada, there were 1,746 different search terms that included the word "cheap" in the twelve weeks to June 27, 2009. Looking at that list of search term variations, travel terms dominate the list. The following table shows the top ten Canadian search terms that included the word "cheap" in the twelve weeks to June 27,

Did a video of the Jill Peterson-Kevin Heinz wedding party's dance down the aisle get an assist from outside forces and help to make it a viral YouTube hit? Digital marketer Augustine Fou does not question the authenticity of the "JK Wedding Entrance Dance" video, which scored 16.8 million page views on YouTube since July 19, 2009, and gave the wedding party its 15 minutes of fame including an apparence on the "Today" show. Fou, however, questions whether a third-party,

There is much debate about the need for and business model for local news providers. In looking at Hitwise Canada data on where Canadians have been turning for news of the forest fires in Kelowna BC, I noticed that Castanet.net , a local news website has served as a hub for BC residents looking for details of the fires and evacuations. The top search term used to find information on the blazes is "kelowna fires". The first week the fires burned (week to July 25,

Luka put up a wall where you can add any text you like . It will appear for others in real-time. (This is part of YourWorldOfText.com, a Google App Engine based site where you can create your own walls by adding a page name after the slash.) [Thanks Luka !] [By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Write Anything On This (Multi-User) Wall | Comments ] [Advertisement] Want to advertise here? Your ad will show in the blog and feed.

The use of Android in devices other than cell phones may soon receive a big boost courtesy of MIPS Technologies. MIPS, which deals in processor architectures and cores, is making the source code of its Android port publicly available. Art Swift, the vice president of marketing at MIPS, explained in a statement, "Android presents a compelling value proposition in bringing internet connectivity and a broad range of applications to MIPS-based digital home devices.

Bing's webmaster forum has a number of posts where people are complaining that Bing will not index their content. Some people, however, are having the opposite problem. Content that they do not want indexed by Bing is being indexed by Bing, despite the webmaster's efforts to keep it out of the search engine. One person posted about this, and a Microsoft employee responded, admitting that this is an issue on Bing's side.