Google's Christmas Gift

This year Google have made a $20 million donation to charity, rather than sending goodies to publishers and ad partners. Some cynics have claimed that this is less about doing good for charities, but rather more about reducing their tax liability but what the heck - at least the dosh is going to good causes.

Google have provided a list of the charities which are to benefit from Google's $20 Christmas present, and most of them are lesser known charities. One name, however, has stuck out (at least for those of us in the UK) and that is "Loud Against Nazis."

They appear to be a German charity who are trying to tackle "the increasing right-wing radicalism" which, apparently "is a problem in everyday German life."

If you are looking for more information on the charity, a Google search brings up a rather cool looking skin-head egg-cup, but not much else.



This is because the charity is actually called "Laut Gegen Nazis" (it is, after all, a German charity).

More info at their home page.

Merry Christmas!

Dead and Dying

I was going to post something about the PIN for Google Adsense arriving in the post today, but, to be honest, I really don't feel up to it today.

I've got that wonderfully grotty feeling that my wife sympathetically refers to as "Man Flu". So with that in mind I'm off to take some more flu medicine and sniffle in a pathetic manner, whilst I wait for it to take effect.

Keyword Frenzy

Hello.

You may be wondering about the large number of keywords for this post.

Well, there is a reason for that.

I'm trying to see if more keywords means more hits to this entry. Usually I'm fairly frugal about how many labels I add to each post, so I'm curious to see if that strategy is a good one or not.

It is worth noting that the most labels you can have is 20.

The results, as usual, will follow.

P.S. - While you are here why not have a look around - maybe you'll find something you like?

Blogger / Blog*Spot Blues

I'm guessing that you probably heard the wailing and gnashing of teeth that accompanied todays unscheduled Blogger meltdown.

If you check out the Blogger help forum it was full of very annoyed bloggers who were unable to access their blogs or administration areas.

Now, things like this can (and do) happen on any system, and shouting at the people trying to fix it does not help resolve things. One thing that I feel would have helped would have been an official announcement made sooner and in a visible place, such as on the front page of the Blogger dashboard. This would have prevented the firestorm of complaints that followed.

Blogger is a free service (and a good one too) so let's not blow a couple of hours of downtime out of proportion, and give the good folks at Google a chance to resolve things properly.

Changes to Adsense - Part 2

This morning I received an email from Google regarding the Adsense changes. So here it is, in their own words (with some highlighting from me on some of the important points):

Hello,

We have recently sent you a Personal Identification Number (PIN) via standard mail. You should expect to receive it within about 2-4 weeks. Once you receive your PIN, you will need to enter it into your account in order to become eligible to receive AdSense payments. To enter your PIN, simply follow the instructions included with your PIN mailer.

Please note that publishers have 6 months from the original issue date to enter their PIN. If you have not entered your PIN within 4 months, we will start displaying Public Service Ads (PSAs) on your web pages. If you have not entered your PIN within 6 months, your account will be disabled and any unpaid earnings will be refunded to the appropriate advertisers. You can learn more about our PIN policy at http://www.google.com/adsense_pin_info .

For additional questions about getting paid, please visit http://www.google.com/adsense_payment_guide . If you prefer a video presentation of this information, we encourage you to watch our Payment demo (currently available in English only), located at http://www.google.com/adsense_payment_demo .

Yours sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

So if you are still waiting for your pin, don't delay when it turns up or you may end up loosing out on your pending payments.