In addition to today’s Internet Marketing Monitor coverage, we felt these stories were worth pulling out of the multitude of news items for June 12, 2007:

Gmail Rolls Out PowerPoint Preview [Google Blogscoped]

Back in April Google said they were working on a PowerPoint-style presentation application for their Docs & Spreadsheets service. While the stand-alone presentation application has yet to surface, the fruits of Google’s labor have in the form of Gmail support for viewing PowerPoint presentations. Gmail users who receive PowerPoint presentations as attachments will now be able to view those presentations by clicking a simple “View as slideshow” link in an equally simple viewer.

More ways for you to give us input [Official Google Webmaster Blog]

Google has added an option in their Webmaster Tools service that lets users report other sites for buying and/or selling links. Google says this service has been requested by webmasters. To access the submission form, log in to Webmaster Tools Dashboard and click the link on the right side of the screen that says “Report paid links” (it’s right under the newly renamed “Reconsider request” - formerly Reinclusion request).

Three AdWords Experts: Don’t Let Google Optimize Your Campaign [Small Business SEM]

When a call was put out as to whether or not AdWords users should let Google do the optimizing for campaigns, the resounding answer was “NO”. Google (and really any third party) will never be able to understand your wants and needs as well as you will. It’s reasonable to assume that Google will be making a lot of generalized assumptions about what your campaign should look like (their optimization is done by a computer, after all). A well-researched, well-planned campaign done by human hands is almost always going to have better results (and will usually end up costing you less money in the long run).

Don’t Just Consider the ‘Last Click’ [Search Views]

In response to an Atlas Institute study that says search marketing/advertising is over-rated, Peter Hershberg says:

“To increase “overlapping” ad spend at the expense of search would be like building a skyscraper without a doorway - it might make your brand more visible, but without a key point of entry, it’s effectively useless.”

I couldn’t agree more! Search advertising might get credit for conversions that are the result of overlapping ad visibility from a number of other mediums (online image, television, print, etc). But there’s a reason for that. If someone sees a great commercial or print advertisement while they’re… say… in a bar… or on a train… are they going to remember all of the details of that ad when they’re at home searching for it later? Probably not. Search advertising (and SEO/SEM) will bring that future customer from the magazine ad to your website. I second Hershberg’s advice: don’t cut back on your search advertising and move those funds to other ad formats. Make sure you’re spending enough on ALL forms of advertising and have a good search advertising campaign in effect to bring those customers right to your door.

How to Handle a Google Penalty - And, an Example from the Field of Real Estate [SEOmoz]

SEOmoz has created a nifty flow chart to help direct webmasters who think they may have a penalty. By answering a few simple questions - and performing a few simple searches - the flow chart attempts to direct you to the correct solution to your indexing problem.

Morph & In-line functions: The power behind the panels [The Ask.com Blog]

Since the release of Ask.com’s new search engine - Ask 3D - the company has been blogging about the new-and-improved functions of it’s “Morph” algorithm. In this, their latest installment, The Ask.com Teams talks about some of the ways that Morph changes the content it displays for different searches based on a number of factors. Specific examples illustrate why, for example, a map might show up for some searches and not for others. The post also illustrates the ease of use that the new Ask 3D interface applies to vertical searches. Even if you’ve played with the new Ask.com already, this post is a great way to get a better understanding of what’s going on under the hood.

Yahoo shareholders defeat exec pay/perform link [Reuters]

Yesterday I talked about some pretty major challenges being brought before Terry Semel and the rest of the Yahoo! Board at a shareholder’s meeting today. Big surprise - the non-company sponsored proposal all suffered defeat. *Sigh* Oh well… I guess we can expect business as usual over at Yahoo. And you know how well that’s been going.

You Asked For It, You Got It. New Features Added to Google Analytics [Official Google Analytics Blog]

Google has added a host of the most frequently requested features to the new version of its Analytics service. Those additions include: 1) hourly reporting 2) clickable URLs (yay!) 3) cross segmentation by network location 4) increased data rows per page 5) bounce rate increase/decrease 6) better AdWords integration 7) several smaller, less significant changes. Check out the full post for more details.

The big non-Internet marketing news story today has been the security holes found in Safari (which was just released for Windows yesterday). I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a story sit at the top of Techmeme for quite so long!

Have a great night, all! We’ll be back tomorrow morning.