News For April 3, 2008
Google Starts DoubleClick Layoffs
300 people lost their jobs today, as Google laid off 300 employees, or about 25%, of DoubleClick, the advertising firm it bought for $3.1 billion. The layoffs were expected and even warned about by Google, but it’s always sad to see people lose their job, especially in a recession. Hopefully recruiters are excited at the idea of hiring all these people, and they won’t spend too much time on unemployment.
If you can hire a DoubleClicker, or are a DoubleClicker looking for a new job, send me a message. I’ll try to connect the two sides.
Valleywag has been covering the layoffs heavily, saying that:
- The rumor that the layoffs were supposed to be Tuesday was correct, but they were pushed off a day in order to avoid messing with the “festivities” of April Fools Day. Hilarious.
- They interviewed DoubleClickers on the street, some of whom were overjoyed at avoiding the axe.
- DoubleClick’s ex-employees got a severance of four month’s pay, if they sign a non-compete.
YouTube Starts Tagging Copyrighted Videos
YouTube has started identifying music videos by the artists in them, tagging the video with “Contains Content From” and a link to the artist’s YouTube account. Artists in the program get to choose to put advertising on the video’s page and earn money from it, or they can block the videos from being viewed. Alternatively, they can elect to just receive tracking stats on their videos and see how popular they are, or link to where the music can be bought on AmazonMP3.
Google Grants Gave Out $273 Million In Free Ads
Google’s blog noted the five year anniversary of Google Grants, which gives free AdWords advertising to non-profits. They said that in the history of the program, 4,000 grantees have received a stunning $273.3 million in free ads, all out of the kindness of Google’s heart*. 1,000 Googlers have volunteered their time and effort to keep the program running and help it roll out in new countries (fifteen so far).
* - okay, and a tiny bit because, in an auction pricing system, unfilled inventory actually lowers earnings on paid inventory
AdSense Ads All Scrolling Now?
Google ran a test of a modification to AdSense ads last December that added scroll up/down buttons to ad units, letting users click to switch in a new set of text ads. Looks like they really liked the performance of the ads, since many people are reporting spotting the scrolling buttons on all ad units. I can confirm seeing them on all my ad units, so it could very well be the new default.
