Google Integrates AdSense For Feeds, FeedBurner, Analytics

The desire to integrate products is strong at Google; it’s not hard to imagine that the company would eventually like to offer one great, big search/video/email/advertising ball.  And today, it took a tiny step along that path by rolling together some analytics products.

A post on the AdSense for Feeds blog announced, “If you use either AdSense for feeds or Google FeedBurner to track item clicks and also use Google Analytics, as of today, you will automatically start to see your feed item click analytics show up in Google Analytics with some additional information added to help you understand how distributing your feed with FeedBurner leads to traffic on your site.”

The post then continued, “Specifically, we will help you classify your links by tagging the Source as ‘feedburner,’ the Medium as the channel in which we sent out your feed such as ‘feed’ or ‘email,’ and the Content as the actual endpoint application in which the user viewed your feed content such as ‘Google Reader’ or ‘Yahoo! Mail.’”

More distribution endpoint labels are on the way, too.

Hopefully this update will help people earn a little extra money heading into the holidays.  At the least, it may simplify FeedBurner and AdSense for Feeds users’ lives a little, which would also represent a nice treat this time of year.

Have You Read This?

> Google Launches Analytics For Mobile Apps

> Correcting Your Web Analytics Mistakes

> FeedBurner/Google Alum Goes To Twitter

Facebook Poke Leads To An Actual Arrest

Let this be a lesson to us all: be careful who you poke on Facebook. The click of that button can get you arrested.

For most of us, the note that we’ve been poked only elicits an eye-roll. But when Shannon D. Jackson of Tennessee poked one of her Facebook contacts, she actually broke the law—a restraining order. The order prohibited “telephoning, contacting or otherwise communicating with the petitioner.” Somehow methinks poking qualifies as “communicating” or “contacting.” After all, once you poke someone on Facebook, they are automatically notified:

Violating a restraining order is a class A misdemeanor in Tennessee, punishable with up to 11 months and 29 days in jail and a fine of up to $2500.

I’m guessing that her actual punishment will depend on her legal argument: whether she claims she didn’t know poking would count as contact or communication. Judging from these limited facts, I would have to say she was trying to subvert the court order and thought she wouldn’t get caught.

As far as Facebook’s liability goes, it’s probably negligible. But it’s a good thing LivePoke was just a joke.

This does leave one big question on the table, however—if the plaintiff here felt so threatened by the defendant, why didn’t she block (a little-known option in the privacy settings) or at least de-friend her on Facebook? From what I can see, you can only poke friends (or possibly people on your network with public profiles). Yes, the accused is responsible and shouldn’t have poked her, but shouldn’t the plaintiff have taken steps to avoid contact if she was distressed enough by their interactions to get a restraining order?

What do you think? Should the perp here have known her poke counted as contact? Was she naive or hoping to subvert the court order?

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