Adwords advertisers have been had two reactions to Google’s quality score — beat it, run for the hills, or crank up the spending.

With Google’s announcement today of profits nearly tripling over the past year, raking in $1.03 billion in the last quarter alone, cynical ad buyers have to be wondering if the playing field is being artificially skewed solely to boost short term profits.

A technique regularly used on eBay, in auction houses, at car auctions, and so on, is shill bidding. Shill bidding occurs when someone with an interest in the sale bids simply to inflate the price. Crowd psychology makes this technique quite effective.

Wouldn’t it be nice if Google and Yahoo could use shill bidding to hyper-inflate their profits? The problem is its illegal. However, with a completely opaque bid system, why not?

The answer — why break the law when you don’t have to? While Google’s quality score has a noble purpose, the lack of straightforwardness leaves me wondering. Would they improve their user experience if it killed their revenue and margins?

Yahoo is about to jump on board too. On February 5th Yahoo is rolling out its new ranking system which factors in “bid amount and ad quality.” Despite a 61% profit crash, you might want to consider buying their stock.

A web site developer over at WebSitePublisher.net wasn’t too happy when he saw Adblock Plus on Firefox’s official list of recommended add-ons. My question, is it even in Firefox’s best interest to block its 8-figure revenue source?

Check this out, RMX Direct from Right Media just exited beta today. In one sentence, what their system does is serves the highest paying ad inventory from any ad network you specify.

If you haven’t heard of RMX Direct, here is a quote from Clickz — “In December, 3.75 billion ad impressions were served through the system, earning publishers more than $1.4 million in ad revenue, according to the company. Each network pays publishers separately on a monthly basis, McCarthy added.” (Pat McCarthy also writes a great blog, conversionrater)

Here is a quote from their press release — “‘We’ve doubled our effective CPM and revenue within a month. It was drastic. We also manage Casale Media, Google Adsense, Tribal Fusion, ValueClick, and Advertising.com through this interface. It’s WAY less work and helping us make much more money.’ Steve Jenkins, President, CheatCodes.com”

You can sign up for RMX Direct right here.

Its not exactly breaking news, but Myspace is sueing Scott Richter, an owner of affilaite network CPAEmpire, over what amounts to spamming affiliate offers through stolen Myspace member’s profiles.

Myspace is using the anti-spam CAN-SPAM law to go after Scott and his companies in civil court. There have been other rumours flying that many other companies and individuals will be sued, but nothing appears to have been made public yet. A press release later denied Myspace’s allegations. Additionaly, the lawsuit documents were leaked to WickedFire.

I wouldn’t address this issue at all, but the fact is I have strong connections to the affiliate marketing industry and so do my readers. I even have an account with CPA Empire. Hmm, I don’t think they will ever be seeing any of my traffic.

The fact is, those who have been using stolen accounts may very well have been commiting a criminal offense. Is the FBI looking into this? Considering the scale, I’d put my chips on yes.

My prediction — the companies and affilaites who cross the line aren’t going to be in this business very long. Don’t associate your business with criminals and you won’t attract their problems.

Via Threadwatch — “Google just went live with Google AdWords/AdSense ads on Myspace.com. It’s part of the search network, so if you’re an AdWords advertiser you cannot opt out of your ads appearing on MySpace.” (example search here, Adsense on profile pages)

We knew this was on its way, but its still big news. Myspace certainly has enough traffic to influence pay-per-click ad markets. Will the traffic convert? If not, it could depress prices across the entire search network. What impact will this have on the Adsense publishing side, if any? After signing a billion dollar deal with News Corp, will Google even be bothered to make quality score adjustments?

Currently Adwords ads are appearing on a search page containing myspace.com results. That means user profiles. Is that really relevent? I am also seeing content ads on your own profile page, logged in view. It is no secret — social networking sites generate a lot of low quality, accidental clicks. Are smaller publishers going to be hurt if advertisers start lowering bids to compensate for massive amounts of garbage traffic?

As an Adwords advertiser I record all of my traffic sources for every single click. Within the next week or so I should be able to have some data to share with you.

Realistically, I think Google already knows this, and has it figured out. In the next few days we’ll know.

Note: As an advertiser you can remain in content but exclude yourself from Myspace, more info here. However, as threadwatch points out you can’t really opt yourself out of the Myspace search.

Business 2.0’s cover story for January/February is “Go Green. Get Rich.” The magazine takes a look at businesses tackling issues such as global warming, oil depedency, overfishing, drug-resistant infections, and so on. The oil price bubble combined with the (possibly) over-exagerated threat of global warming has spiked government intervention, investment, and subsidies. Even the so-called “blood for oil”, “big business” Republican administration is riding the wave.

All of this makes investing in the green revolution a pretty safe bet. Or, at the very least, it makes it a safe bet for those who know what they are doing.

As a web site publisher you can’t build the next electric car and selling gas mileage booster pills probably will be an open invitation to the FCC — so what can you do?

The interest in hybrid cars may have peaked — but certainly ad spending for them has not. As long as big mega-corporations pour billions of dollars into producing a product or enlarging mindshare through mass advertising — you can make money!

Here is a list of a few ideas you can try out:

-Hybrid cars. Try targeting a specific unreleased model or even concept car to avoid oversaturated competition. The ex-hippy, middle-aged, and middle-class demographic that you will attract may be very valuable.
-Solar Panels. I hear a whole lot of different companies are trying to cash in on this business. Its time to cash in on them.
-Energy Reduction E-books. Yes, there are people who will pay you $40 for you to tell them putting a brick in their toilet will cut their water bill by half a penny next month.
-Earth Friendly Investing. Blog about publicly traded companies who are in love with Gaia.
-Home Wind Power. If someone has $13,000 to drop on a big ugly metal Skystream 3.7 windmill, they are the type of person who would post obsessively on a message board about them.

What do you need to get started? How about a free copy of Wordpress or a 1 year vBulletin lease for $85.

Affiliate Summit has come and gone. I had an unbelievable experience meeting and hanging out with the sharpest (and sometimes wildest) guys and gals in the industry.

The panel discussion I was on got off to a questionable start but ended pretty well. I think this was the first Affiliate Summit for all three of us, so we were caught off guard having no moderator.

More details of the session can be found at Shoemoney.com and conversion rater. Andrew Wee also has a good write up. Me and Jeremy sat down with him before the session for lunch and talked. Jokingly he said “This is like my own private Q&A.”

I’m a little hesitant to watch video of the session. At one point I said I just forgot what I was talking about and handed the microphone back to Jeremy.

For the heck of it, here is a shout out to some of the others bloggers and marketers I met and hung out with - Jon, John, Mike, Andrea, Brandon, Tom, Chris, Andrew, Pat, and if I missed you post in the comments.

Everyone is making final preperations for Afilliate Summit West 2007. I’m learning that there were a bunch of things I should have done last week, but it looks like its all coming together.

I just got a new Samsung mobile PocketPC phone and its working out great. In fact I am pounding out this post on its tiny QWERTY keyboard right now. This means you can expect regular updates from the show here.

If you are interested in getting in touch with me click my contact link and send me an e-mail. I’ll give you my phone number and we can get in touch at the show. I am really eager to meet with everyone and give you detailed help on breaking your 2007 goals!

By the way, you should be able to find me around the WickedFire table Sunday. Otherwise I may also be hanging around COPEAC (intermark media) or Azoogle’s booths.

Here is a list of outsouricng resources for you to look at if you need cheap labor. I have heard positive reviews of all of the places listed here, and use some myself. If you have a resource I haven’t listed feel free to add it in the comments.

Managed Outsourcing Companies - This means you deal with a central company which hires and manages outsourced work for you. Each company does things differently so explore each web site to learn the specifics.
WebmasterLabor - Writers, data entry, promotion (signatures, etc.), and other manual tasks.
iWebMasters - Writing, graphic designers, web designers, programmers, data entry, quality control, call center outsourcing
Agents of Value - Full time linkbuilders, webmasters, writers, programmers, and designers at competative rates.

Online Job Recruitement Web sites - The downside is both price and quality can range wildly. However, you have a very large pool of workers to draw from all around the globe.
oDesk - Hire workers by the hour and check on them yourself via video.
eLance - Full range of services from web design, SEO, writing, programming, consulting, accounting, video, administration.
GetAFreelancer - Simliar to Elance, not as big.
Guru.com - Again, an extremely wide selection of available jobs from programming to ice sculpture.
RentAProgrammer - Strictly programming.
ScriptLance.com - Programming only.

Your third option is to look on forums. When you are looking for a highly-specialized task, such as a vBulletin mod, this is your best, and perhaps only, option.

If you have additional companies you think should be listed, please add them in the comments.

Interesting article about ex-Google employees in the San Fransisco Gate. This particular part stuck out at me. May be its just a disgruntled former Google employee, may be there is something more:

“Whitted, who helped design several generations of Google’s servers, said the company was increasingly bogged down by its size. Conservatism was creeping in… ‘Instead of inspiration-based design, it became fear-based design,’ Whitted said.”

Its no secret, on the internet things change fast. Leaders come and go. A new leader may be on its way; and I don’t think it will come from Microsoft.