Google, are you afraid of Facebook Ads?

Every now and then, we update the AdSense Terms and Conditions to make sure they’re in line with policies across Google, and to prepare for future changes to the products and services we offer. As part of these regular updates, you’ll soon sign in to your account and see that the Terms have been updated, prompting you to read through and accept them.

This time around, most of the changes to the Terms and Conditions fall into two broad categories: 1) future products and features and 2) privacy requirements. Specifically, one of the main changes is that the terms anticipate future products that may become available in other advertising formats and mediums, for example Gadget Ads. As we look forward to monetizing more online and offline content, we’ve re-worded some portions of the terms to make them applicable across a broader array of media and formats — anticipating, for example, that future products may be priced, paid, or managed differently than current ones.

We’ve also added some specific requirements that make it necessary for publishers to post and abide by a transparent privacy policy that users see. According to this policy, publishers must notify their users of the use of cookies and/or web beacons to collect data in the ad serving process. This change relates to advertisers’ use of innovative products and features like Gadget Ads and other offerings in the future.

The changes aren’t limited to the areas above, however; we’ve made small changes throughout, so it’s a good idea for you to review them thoroughly before accepting.

Posted by Julie Beckmann - AdSense Publisher Support

Small Is the New Big: and 183 Other Riffs, Rants, and Remarkable Business Ideas by Seth Godin:

The communication channels are changing. More and more, face to face communication is being replaced by computer mediated communication. Using mediated communication, the non-verbal communication cues that are available in face to face communication are not. PASION is a European project where mediated communication is augmented. In this paper we present the Shared Virtual Environment (SVE), the framework to be used for the development of two types of applications (social gaming and collaborative work) where augmentation will be studied. The first version of SVE has been used for the development of the first version of a pervasive game for treasure hunting, Bluenet.

Summary Developer platform for social games

Description From their site: The SGN Developer Platform provides an API for social games that allows developers to plug their games into the SGN Gaming Hub and gain the benefits of mass distribution across our network, up-to-date statistics for all users, and greater user loyalty.

API Home Page http://developers.socialgn.com/
The Social Gaming NetworkSGN offers games and a social gaming platform for developers that uniquely leverage people’s social connections -what we call a gaming graph- transforming a typical gaming experience into one that is more relevant, more engaging, more competitive, and ultimately more enjoyable for the player.

Capture the flag: mixed-reality social gaming with smart phones

The author developed a mobile, mixed-reality version of capture the flag, a popular genre of computer game. Our CTF game is novel in three ways. First, the smart phone is the main interface. Using the smart phone, players physically role-play virtual characters who try to capture enemy flags by traversing different landscapes. This approach creates a direct, real-time linkage between the real and virtual worlds. Second, players can move freely in the real world over a wide area while maintaining seamless real-time networked contact with other players in both the real and virtual worlds. Third, CTF explores novel tangible aspects of human physical movement and perception, both in the real-world playing environment and in interaction with the virtual world.

REFERENCES

1 PASION project, http://www.ist-pasion.com/, last visited 2nd March, 2007.
2 Thurlow, C., Lengel, L., Tomic, A., Computer Mediated Communication. Social Interaction and the Internet, Ed. Sage Pubns, 2004.
3 Walther, J., B., Loh, T., Granka, L.,. Let me count the ways: The interchange of Verbal and Nonverbal Cues in Computer-Mediated and Face-to-Face Affinity. Journal of language and social psychology, 24(1): 36–65, 2005.
4 FUGA project, http://project.hkkk.fi/fuga, last visited 2nd March, 2007.
5 IPergG project, http://iperg.sics.se, last visited 2nd March, 2007.
6 Wasserman, S., Faust, K., Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications. New York and Cambridge, ENG: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
7 Margaret E. Morris, Social Networks as Health Feedback Displays, IEEE Internet Computing, v.9 n.5, p.29-37, September 2005 [doi>10.1109/MIC.2005.109]