MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has hired Jonathan Lister as the new Managing Director and Head of Google Canada. Most recently, Jonathan was the Senior Vice President of Operations for AOL Europe. In his new role, Jonathan will focus on continuing to build Google’s brand and reach in the Canadian business community, as well as developing and executing Google’s market strategy within Canada. As Managing Director and head of Google Canada he will lead Google Canada’s advertising sales operations, and contribute to the strategic growth of Google products and services.

“Jonathan combines great expertise about the Canadian online market and experience in search, marketing, sales and partnerships that will be integral to our continued growth in Canada,” says Penry Price, Vice President, Advertising Sales, Google North America. “On behalf of all my colleagues at Google, we welcome Jonathan to the team.”
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New Courses Include GAP Test Preparation and Google AdWords™ Advanced

MIAMI – Google and CTT Corporation, a leader in talent development services for information and communication technology professionals, announced that the recently launched Google Business Education Center (GOOBEC), will now offer an even wider range of educational services, including expert assistance and tools that allow professionals to deliver more efficient online advertising solutions to companies in Latin America. Specialized know-how for Google marketing and advertising solutions will be available in the region starting March 2009 with the introduction of GAP Test Preparation and Google AdWords™ Advanced courses.

“Online advertising has demonstrated consistent growth in Latin America as companies address the online needs of their clients in order to compete effectively in today’s global marketplace,” said Hermann Gomez, President of CTT. “GOOBEC provides advertising professionals access to unique know-how that will enable them to perform online advertising in more simplistic and effective ways than ever before.”
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MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) today announced that it will hold its quarterly conference call to discuss fourth quarter and fiscal year 2008 financial results on Thursday, January 22, 2009 at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time (4:30 p.m. Eastern Time).

The live webcast of Google’s earnings conference call can be accessed at http://investor.google.com/webcast.html. The webcast version of the conference call will be available through the same link following the conference call.

Following the earnings conference call, Google will host an additional question-and-answer session to provide an opportunity for financial analysts to ask more detailed product and financial questions. This follow-up call will also be webcast and available at http://investor.google.com/webcast.html.
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Agreement Gives Advertisers Access to Hallmark Channel Family-Friendly Programming

NEW YORK & MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – Hallmark Channel and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) announced a strategic agreement to offer advertisers access to high-quality family-friendly programming through the Google TV Ads program. Advertisers will now be able to reach even more viewers by using Google TV Ads platform to place ads on both Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movie Channel.

In November, Hallmark Channel was seen in 86 million homes across the U.S. and over the past year has consistently ranked in the top ten prime time ratings. The network will air in 2009 more than 30 original movies – its largest-ever slate. Hallmark Movie Channel broadcasts a mix of classic theatrical films, presentations from the acclaimed Hallmark Hall of Fame library, Hallmark Channel original movies and special events. Using the Google TV Ads platform, advertisers, starting in early 2009, will be able to access both networks’ national audiences and receive viewership data at an unprecedented scale. Google TV Ads advertisers – many of them new to the television medium – can then better understand what consumers are responding to and make real-time adjustments to their campaigns to maximize return-on-investment.
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Google to Bring New Advertising Clients to the BLOOMBERG TELEVISION® Network

NEW YORK & MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – Continuing efforts to make television advertising more relevant, accountable and measurable, Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) announced today that the BLOOMBERG TELEVISION® network will make national cable advertising time in the U.S. available through the Google TV Ads™ platform. By offering self-service buying opportunities through Google TV Ads, the BLOOMBERG TELEVISION network will expand its reach to a wider range of advertisers, including those that are new to the medium.
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Google has made yet another move towards consolidating its position as advertising superpower and enter new markets: they’ve gotten NBCU Cable to implement the Google TV Ads advertising platform.

The partnership also includes collaboration on custom research projects to help drive new insights into TV advertising, raising a few question marks:

- will there be any user targeting?
- if so, what would it be based on?
- what metrics are used and how is the data collected?

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No doubt you have already heard of Google’s newly launched browser Chrome, based on Chromium’s open source platform. Whether Chrome will quickly eat up market share from IE and Firefox or if it will just end up at the bottom of the playground, remains to be seen. I’ve been trying it for the past several hours and, while the controls are still a bit awkward, the performance is good.

Still, Google Chrome in itself is not what I wanted to bring your attention to: it’s the window (pun intended!) of opportunity it opens for Google in regard to gathering even more data on users and their behavior. In today’s ever tightening world of online advertising, with rapidly dropping CPM levels and advertisers pressuring for accurate targeting, the ones able to fine-tune ad targeting will be the winners. Google has already enough information coming from all those using Google accounts and applications such as the toolbar – with Chrome, they have just taken a bigger bite from the pie and one step forward in user targeting. Read the full story

Paris and Mountain View, California – August 6, 2008 – Publicis Groupe (EURONEXT Paris: FR0000130577) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced today that Publicis Groupe has agreed to acquire the Performics Search Marketing business (Performics) from Google.

Chicago-based Performics, one of the leading search marketing service providers, helps to improve the performance of advertisers’ investments and maximize client campaign effectiveness. Its profit-driving suite of marketing solutions includes Performics’ reporting platform, local platform, advanced market expertise and active account management.

The acquisition of Performics will enrich Publicis Groupe’s strong search capabilities and strengthen the offering of the VivaKi Nerve Center, a new strategic entity launched by the Groupe in June. VivaKi leverages the collective scale of Digitas, Starcom-MediaVest, Zenith-Optimedia and Denuo to develop new services, tools and partnerships, including new and emerging performance marketing platforms. The VivaKi Nerve Center includes a number of performance marketing assets, including Phonevalley, Webformance, Click2Sales and iBase. The addition of Performics will deliver a full and enhanced suite of performance marketing tools and capabilities to Publicis Groupe agencies and their clients.

Launched in 1998, Performics now employs nearly 200 search marketing specialists with employees in Chicago, San Francisco, New York, London, Hamburg, Sydney, Singapore and Beijing. The business will report into Curt Hecht, President of the VivaKi Nerve Center.
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