Google Attempting Cost-Per-Action

Sooner or later, Google was bound to give a nod toward Snap.com, which I recently posted about regarding their Cost-Per-Action ad model. Well, sure enough, they've already started in that direction. And with their recent launch of Google Checkout, you can see how they're intending to bring a measurable (and functional) CPA model to their advertisers, among other things, like the fact that this application, if it has the cajones, could simplify e-commerce on a larger scale for the billions of Internet users out there (like you and I).

Layman's Intro to RSS

An RSS (Really Simple Syndication, or Rich Site Summary) feed is [free] syndicated news, blog or other content that anyone can access and use. It's based on the XML standard. There are also similar forms, such as Atom. A typical feed URL looks like www.domain.com/feedname.xml (also, /feedname.rss, /rss.xml, /atom.xml, or /feedname.rdf). My feed URL is www.danielmonday.com/atom.xml.

To read numerous RSS feeds without scouring the Internet for each feed, you can use a feed aggregator. A feed aggregator does exactly what it implies, it gathers and aggregates multiple RSS feeds into one location for easy viewing and so forth. There are a ton of aggregators. Google has their own called Google Reader, and you can use Google's Personalized Home page, as well. I have an account with Bloglines that does the same thing. Other notable aggregators that come to mind, both downloadable and web-based, are NewsGator, My Yahoo! and Rojo.

So I can bring up one website or program and quickly scan the articles, blog entries and news from as many different websites as I want. Instead of individually going to www.nytimes.com, www.cnn.com, www.micropersuasion.com (a favorite of mine), www.fastcompany.com, etc., and trying to sort through their websites for current articles, I can go to www.google.com/ig, or www.bloglines.com, and view all of them in one place!

Its popularity is currently skyrocketing, and for good reason. Add RSS feeds and feed aggregators to the abundance of opt-in email newsletters, and you have personalized, targeted news and web content delivered directly to you for access when you want it.

Snap.com back in the saddle

When it comes to online advertising, what's better than pay-per-click?

Time's up. It would definitely be "pay-per-purchase."

Enter Snap.com, relaunched by original pay-per-click model inventor Bill Gross. An article from Mercury News has the scoop, but there are a few things I'm considerably interested in right away. First is the preview-based interface in which you can not only view the web page title, URL and description, but the web page itself in a preview pane (which is also customizable). Secondly, the fact that the preview pane is interactive. You don't even have to leave Snap.com to browse and use the websites that come up in the search results. This seems very practical, and I think it will be a key feature of their search interface. Lastly is their Cost-Per-Action advertising model. The concept being that an advertiser only pays for their ad when a user clicks on it and completes a specified action on the landing page. I think this model has great potential because it gives much more meaning to ROI, although it will only be successful if advertisers can master the art of prospect conversion.

The Oldest Living Creature

Ok, so let me preface this by saying that I love Digg. I come across the most interesting articles and learn a lot of fascinating things...

A couple weeks ago I came across a cool article about the "oldest living creature on earth," which was a microbe inside a microscopic water droplet that had been preserved for over 200 million years. Does Jurassic Park ring a bell?

Check out the Vsocial video clip below to see for yourself.