Google has rolled out another tweak to its Gmail users that makes its labels work like folders. Now, you can drag emails directly to the labels. Other changes include the shift of the labels option to a new location on the left side bar. It is now located above the Chat section and you can now choose what labels you wish to see there. The other labels will of course be accessible via a drop down menu, yet another new feature addition. Sadly, the position of the Labels are fixed and you cannot re-arrange them.

The worst of the crisis has passed and the US recovery is likely to begin this autumn, Google’s chief executive Eric Schmidt said.

Schmidt said the rate of jobless claims is decreasing although the absolute number is increasing, it is reasonable to be optimistic for 2010.

He didn’t want to comment on Google’s team of engineers which will have to study the technical specifications of Microsoft search engine Bing.

But he added: “Bing is a competitor. We have absolutely looked at Bing; we have actually studied what they do as Microsoft studied what Google does.”

Upon searching for 2,500+ popular keywords across 400,000+ URLs, McAfee’s research concludes that “lyrics” and anything that includes “free” has the highest risk % of exposing web surfer to malware and other fraudy web sites.

Here are some more interesting facts emerging from the research:

• The categories with the worst maximum risk profile were lyrics keywords (26.3%) and phrases that include the word “free” (21.3%). If a consumer landed at the riskiest search page for a typical lyrics search, al the least, one of four results would be risky
• The categories with the worst average risk profile were also lyrics sites (5.1%) and “free” results page sites (7.3%)
• The categories with the safest risk profile were health-related search terms and also searches concerning the recent economic crisis. The maximum risk on a single page of queries on the economy was 3.5% and only 0.5% risky across all results.

Hi,

We’re writing to let you know about the upcoming launch of interest-based advertising, which will require you to review and make any necessary changes to your site’s privacy policies. You’ll also see some new options on your Account Settings page.

Interest-based advertising will allow advertisers to show ads based on a user’s previous interactions with them, such as visits to advertiser website and also to reach users based on their interests (e.g. “sports enthusiast”).  To develop interest categories, we will recognize the types of web pages users visit throughout the Google content network.  As an example, if they visit a number of sports pages, we will add them to the “sports enthusiast” interest category.  To learn more about your associated account settings, please visit the AdSense Help Center at http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=20310.

As a result of this announcement, your privacy policy will now need to reflect the use of interest-based advertising. Please review the information at https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=100557 to ensure that your site’s privacy policies are up-to-date, and make any necessary changes by April 8, 2009.  Because publisher sites and laws vary across countries, we’re unfortunately unable to suggest specific privacy policy language.

For more information about interest-based advertising, you can also visit the Inside AdSense Blog at http://adsense.blogspot.com/2009/03/driving-monetization-with-ads-that.html.

We appreciate your participation and look forward to this upcoming enhancement.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

The new layout looks like this:

Now, it’s easier than before to apply a label to a conversation. When reading a message, just click the Labels drop-down menu or if you have keyboard shortcuts enabled, type L. From there, you can:

• Select the label you’d like from the list.
• Start typing the name of the label you’re looking for in the  Search box; auto-complete helps you find the label quickly.
• Create a new label. Just type the name you want to give your new label and select Create new.

This new logo was inspired by a user-submitted logo from the contest that was held towards the end of 2008. Read GoogleBlog for more on that. Google had said in the past about the new favicons that the redesigned favicon reflected a “Simple, Playful & Unique Brand.”

Remember the old favicons ? Till 2007 we had and then somewhere in 2008, Google changed it to

In July 2008, Google Inc. had launched Google Lively, a virtual reality service to rival SecondLife. However, in November, just around 4 months after it’s release, Google announced its decision to shut down the service by the end of 2008. This showed Lively’s inability to stand out from the rest of the virtual reality crowd, which is led by Second Life, where people deploy animated alter egos known as ‘avatars’ to pursue digital fantasies and hence creating a second life.

“We’ve also always accepted that when you take these kinds of risks not every bet is going to pay off,” Google’s engineers wrote in a blog post.

Google concluded that it needed to focus more on its primary business (ie: Internet search and advertising) as Google’s revenue growth decelerated in the deteriorating economy.

An AdSenseAdvisor has posted on webmasterworld that you have a chance of expediting Adsense+Analytics Integration process

Want to integrate your AdSense account with Google Analytics? Improved reporting was on publisher wish lists this year, so we’re spreading the reporting cheer this holiday season. Fill out our interest form, and we may be able to enable the feature earlier for you.

Youtube: Linking AdSense to Analytics Video Demo

This move is yet another step towards their goal of organizing the world’s information. The magazines that have been scanned and digitized, are presented alongside Book Search results. Some of the notable publications scanned include

• Maximum PC
• Popular Science
• Men’s Health
• New York Magazine

As part of the deal, the publishers (of the mags) get links leading users back to the publication’s homepage.