Google Improves Click-To-Call Ads With Phone Extensions

A little more than a month ago, Google introduced click-to-call phone numbers in local ads on smartphones.  Now, the popular program's undergoing an expansion as Google's made it easier for large companies to take advantage of the offering.

A post on the Inside AdWords blog explained today, "[W]e're bringing the same click-to-call benefits to national advertisers through phone extensions.  Phone extensions allow you to add a phone number that will be displayed whenever your ad is triggered, regardless of the user's location."

Here's the upshot, then: "This enables customers to connect with your business by phone directly from the ad and can be especially useful if you have a call center to handle customer inquiries."

Advertisers should profit as a result of this development, considering that phone calls are more likely than clicks to lead to purchases.  Google looks set to make a lot of money, too, since this move will encourage corporations with big advertising budgets to give click-to-call ads a shot.

Perhaps the only losers will be the companies that don't adapt quickly.  They'll risk losing sales to competitors with more eye-catching and actionable ads.

Celebrities Syncing Their MySpace and Twitter Accounts

MySpace is touting the fact that a bunch of celebrities have already synced their MySpace and Twitter accounts. The feature was just announced today, and MySpace has already issued an announcement listing a number of celebrities taking advantage of it.

When the feature is activated,  a user's status update will appear in  their Twitter feed, and any Twitter feed update will appear in their MySpace Status & Mood.

Celebrities that are already using the feature include:

Lenny Kravitz
John Legend
Rachel Zoe
Margaret Cho
George Lopez
Jamie Kennedy
David Spade
Slash
Cat Deeley
Chamillionaire
Jim Gaffigan
David Alan Grier
Larry The Cable Guy
John Witherspoon

"This is only the beginning, as we plan to enable our users to sync their updates across even more networks," MySpace reminds us.

To set up syncing, users should go to "My Account" then setup the desired services they would like to sync. The company says you can sync to Twitter now, and that more networks will be available soon. After choosing a service, just click confirm.

Phishing Down, But Probably Only Temporarily

Spam is rising as we get closer to the Christmas holiday season according to Symantec, although they do say that phishing is down. The company has shared some findings from its September State of Phishing report.

According to the report, there was a 45% reduction in phishing attacks between July and August. Symantec says this will likely be a short-term lull, however, reflecting the end of a particular toolkit attack on social networking sites.

Symantec also anticipates an increase in holiday spam campaigns as spammers take advantage of not only the Christmas holiday season, but even sooner with Halloween. Other key findings from Symantec's report show: 

- Financial and e-commerce brands continue to top the most targeted list, attracting 19.7% and 29.3% of the attacks respectively

- An increase in attacks using a popular email client application. The phishing scam messages lure the intended victims to re-configure their email client application by a link provided in the email

- An 11% rise in non-English phishing site attacks, with phishing attacks in French, Italian and Chinese languages found to be higher in August. French language attacks continued to be in the top position

The full report can be found here (pdf). You can see the global distribution of phishing sites.

MySpace Mail Arrives

Last week, rumor had it that MySpace was about to launch their long-awaited MySpace email service. It didn't happen last week, but it's starting to happen now. The company is rolling it out. It could be several weeks until you have access to MySpace Mail, but trust that it is on the way if you don't already have it.

The offering makes for an interesting move on MySpace's part, and one that could be a huge success or a huge flop. It's no secret that MySpace has felt the pressure of competition from Facebook, which continues to gain users left and right.

MySpace is in something of a rebuilding process, as indicated by News Corp's Chief Digital Officer Jonathan Miller. MySpace email could end up being a significant factor in future success. The keyword is could.

A few things that won't work to MySpace's advantage:

1. Most people are probably comfortable with their current email services.

2. Sharing on Facebook is reported to have overtaken sharing by email by at least one firm

3. Lots of people have abandoned their MySpace pages in favor of Facebook accounts

4. Email is not a new concept, and you have to wonder how many people it will attract

A few things that could work to MySpace's advantage:

1. MySpace still has a lot of loyal users, and many of them might love the idea of having an @myspace.com address.

2. Facebook doesn't have email addresses.

3. MySpace plans on getting much more involved with gaming, which could attract a lot of users, which in turn could attract them to MySpace email addresses.

4. It has a nice list of features like: unlimited file storage, the ability to embed photos from user profiles or the desktop with one click, the ability to send and receive music and videos as attachments (good considering how great of a role music and video play on MySpace), etc.

It will be very interesting to see if MySpace is able to turn an old idea like email into a new attraction. Will you be checking out MySpace mail? Share your thoughts here.

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