Pay Per Click advertising in the UK is about to change dramatically following an updated Google AdWords trademark policy. The change allows advertisers to use the trademarked name of the products they are selling – without owning the copyright or obtaining the owner’s permission. The new AdWords trademark policy initiated in the US last year allows users to bid on trademarked keywords, provided the advertised site actually does stock and sell the corresponding goods.

The AdWords policy update rolled out in the US in June 2009 and will become effective in the UK, Ireland and Canada on September 14. Most European countries will also be able to use trademarked text as of September. This is huge news for the PPC advertising industry, as the new AdWords trademark policy will increase the relevance of UK advertisers’ campaigns and allow them to compete with the larger companies who own the trademark rights. While advertisers will be pleased by the news, trademark owners will most likely not share their excitement about the AdWords trademark policy updates, as the bidding for their trademark name pushes up the cost per click.

Google Inc first announced the launch of Google Wave in May last year, and the Google marketing department went to great lengths to promote the real-time online communication platform. The aim of Google Wave was to facilitate online collaborations by combining e-mail communication, instant messaging and social networking. While the application made a substantial splash in the market at first with high user interest and great demand for Google Wave invitations, Google found the user adoption rate disappointing. Yesterday, the search engine giant announced the suspension of development for the Google Wave service.

While Google Wave might be washed up, the company plans to maintain the Wave website until the end of 2010 and look at applying Google Wave technology to future applications. Google CEO Eric Schmidt described Google Wave as “a very clever product”, but went on to say that many users had struggled to find a use for the service on a regular basis. Google executives were upbeat about the announcement, saying they are happy to learn from their failed attempt to corner the social networking market, and hope to adapt the technology to create newer, better applications.

Ok, so finally Google Caffeine is up and at ‘em and in the few days there has been numerous posts on the effect that Google Caffeine will have on search. We know what Google Caffeine will mean for consumers, but what will it mean for the other side of the coin, SEO’s who produce content for individuals who require their current information to be as up to date as possible?

Basically, the most obvious benefit that will affect consumers, SEO’s and content owners is that documents will be able to be found seconds after they have been crawled. Google Caffeine is now offering a real time indexing system which is said to be “fresher” than ever before.

So, unless you’ve been hiding (with 95% of the MP’s) underneath a rock that protects you from any sort of digital media issues and news, then you should’ve heard by now that the Digital Economy Bill has been passed and will inevitably be made law very soon. Everyone is clearly upset about the decision, but what exactly is it that they’re upset about, and how is this going to affect the average internet browser like you and me? Let’s take a look…

Why is everyone so upset?

Well first of all, the major reason that everyone is up in arms is due to the fact that this HIGHLY controversial digital bill was voted into action in a MAJOR hurry and clearly wasn’t given the time and energy that such an important document should be given.

We know that different mediums require different business models, but because digital platforms – online and mobile – change and progress faster than their predecessors, it takes some time to identify trends and pinpoint exactly how to use current technology to your business’s advantage. In its latest brief, Trendwatching.com identifies and comprehensively discusses the development of online business practice over the past couple of years.

The brief outlines a concept called ‘brand butlers’ and I think they’ve hit the nail on the head. In the colonial days of yesteryear butlers were employed primarily to assist people in their daily lives, to take care of the tedious administrative part of an experience so their masters could indulge in the pleasurable part. They provided a service which enhanced the lifestyle of those who could afford to pay for it.

There will always be twisted people who make it their mission to spoil or deface an image or content that is not intended to be offensive. I think we all shake our heads in disbelief that this content still shows up in searches and most of the time shows up on the first page results. None of us wish to dwell on content that disturbs or offends, so many of us just move on and try to forget about it. But just because offensive content disappears from our brains, it doesn’t mean that it vanishes into thin air. The question that we find ourselves asking when the thought of offensive content pops into our minds is who regulates the search results and how do the powers that be decide on what is offensive and what is not. This question raises many opinions owing to the fact that we live in such a diverse world with different religions, political associations and sexual preferences.

Yesterday was the busiest day ever for internet shopping. More than £300 million was spent as shoppers flocked online in search of Christmas gifts. For the last two years, spending on presents has always peaked on the Monday closest to the start of December. Deloitte estimates the online market to be worth £20bn this year – an increase of more than 10% on 2008.

Visa Europe was handling up to 1,600 transactions per minute, up 25% from last year. Commercial Director at Visa Europe, Dr Steve Perry, was quoted saying that “In the past year, we’ve seen a continued increase in online spend on Visa cards, despite the recession. In fact on November 2, 2009, we surpassed our busiest days for spend in 2008 in the UK.”

It is predicted that the busiest day for high street retailers this year will be Wednesday the 23rd of December.

A couple of weeks ago it looked very much as if Google would acquire Digg (at the not insignificant price tag of $200 million). Many people in the search/social marketing world thought that the deal was pretty much done and dusted, people such as Gyutae Park, from Winning The Web, who went so far as to compose a list enumerating the ways in which the Google-Digg deal would affect the internet. Even though the deal fell through or was called off, or whatever (who knows what`s going on the world of virtual acquisitions?), Park still believes that a Google-Digg is on the cards, and he is not alone.

Advertisements are not my favourite things in the world. It`s not that I find them intrusive (aside from pop ups and unsolicited emails), and it`s not really that I find them annoying (aside from pop ups, unsolicited emails and property pamphlets), it`s that by and large I find ads to be bland, insipid and uninspired. In some instances it`s very difficult to believe that the ideas were actually sanctioned and given the go-ahead by a committee of supposedly informed decision makers. The thing that makes it all so much sadder is that you just know that someone was very excited and very proud of the concept. Take the Meerkat in the South African Vodacom ad, for instance, many people thought that it was brilliant, cool, funny and marketing genius. But an equal number of people, myself included, thought that it was ridiculous, inane and epitomised the gunk that is scraped off the bottom of the barrel of creativity.

In mid-June, an NBC host died of a heart attack, and not unusually, the network delayed reporting it so that his family could be alerted. But the news broke on Wikipedia prior to the announcement on television, because a junior network employee updated a Wiki biography – and changed it to the past tense. The story probably got out of hand because people who heard the rumour Googled it, landed on the Wiki biography on the first Google SERP, noted the tense, and spread the news.

This raises a number of issues: of all the places to update news, why was Wikipedia the obvious and most effective choice; how did the nature of search affect the story; and what impact did Wikipedia as a source have on the framing of the news?