Google testing Cost-Per-Action - 2006-07-28
Google this week quietly launched the beta of its new Cost-Per-Action program. Like Ad-Sense this tool is being designed to allow web masters to purchase ads that drive traffic to your web property. Ad-Sense however charges you blindly every time a user clicks a link to visit your website, a real problem for Google.

Over the years people have learned how to break Ad-Sense, even bend Ad-Sense to their will and use it as a tool against their competitors. If company X were to search out a competitors ads and continually click them, or better yet have a programmer whip up a script that does the same thing they would effectively drive up their competitor's costs. With each click costing their competitor a few cents per click, and a few thousand clicks each hour the effect would be an Ad-Sense bill thousands of dollars. 

Google is effectively turning the problem on its head. For years it has tried to detect, block and subsequently refund these kinds of abuses. This new approach will allow web developers to tie actionable items on your website like a sale, the download of a file, or the view of a specific page to your advertising at Google, you only pay Google when one of those very specific actions is close

 

-Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service (Miami Bureau)

Sweeping the Dirt Under the Carpet - 2006-07-27
In an interview conducted Tuesday Gary Schare the director of IE product management team announced Internet Explorer 7 will be pushed to millions of Windows users worldwide via its automatic update system. For websites worldwide this has serious implications.

Compared to the long standing IE 6, version 7 is comprised of a lot more new than is old. Each website speaks its own sort of language, each programmer uses their own dialects. In order for the web to operate everyone must speak the same language and every listener ( browser) must understand what is being said. For years IE has been criticized for "inferring" the meaning of these dialects and using too much "slang", which has led to developers to use pervasively bad habits in order to get IE to display things just right. 

 Version 7 comes closer to acting like a good net citizen and has shaken a fair amount of these bad habits. If your site is designed for IE 6, 7 might not understand what is being said. The day that millions world wide have 7 delivered to their computer screen you may find your links are unclickable, that effects don't work, and your page layout is corrupted. Directly frustrating the people who use your website everyday.

TIP: Download and install mozilla.org Firefox, if your site works well in this browser your site will likely function correctly in version 7.  IE 7 beta can also be downloaded from microsoft's site, however it is still beta software.

 

- IT department at Icona Inc. July 27 2006

We're Live! - 2006-07-03
Welcome to Icona Inc. The new site is up, showcasing our work, experience (around since 1997) and expertise. Watch for much more to come.