In addition to today’s Internet Marketing Monitor coverage, we felt these stories were worth pulling out of the multitude of news items for July 13, 2007:

Google, Viacom Face Off Over YouTube [The Washington Post]

It appears that the Google CEO surprised a group of reporters by joining them on the patio for a little chit-chat at the Allen & Company conference last night. Eric Schmidt, who is no stranger to the press, didn’t call a press conference or make any official announcements. He just showed up and started talking. A lot of what he had to say revolved around the upcoming lawsuit brought against his company by Viacom, which claims that Google-owned YouTube is a hotbed of illegal content. He did a lot of smack-talking and said that Viacom was a company built by lawsuits. He also expressed his confidence in Google’s anti-piracy practices and their ability to prevail in the suit. But I agree with Andy Beal @ Marketing Pilgrim - it sounds like the nervous banter of a man who’s not quite as confident as he lets on.

AdSense for mobile launches in Beta [Self Made Minds]

We knew this was coming, right? According to Scott at Self Made Minds, invitations to try out AdSense for mobile are currently being sent out to AdSense publishers with mobile sites. Who knows if everyone will get one or not. What we do know is that monetizing a mobile site is much more difficult to do than a traditional site. Perhaps that partially explains why so few website owners (in the grand scheme of things) have created mobile-friendly versions of their sites. Could AdSense for mobile change that? Or is the rise of iPhone-style mobile web browsing the first step in making the mobile website obsolete?

Google (China) vs. Beijing Guge [Danwei]

Google’s name in China (Guge) appears to be part of the name of another company - Beijing Guge Science and Technology - who is now suing the search giant for disrupting its business. Apparently a lot of folks get the two names confused. Google went to court in The States against the government itself and won. But Big G hasn’t fared as well in international courts. Still… documents surrounding the case seem to suggest that Beijing Guge Science and Technology opened its doors after Google announced the name of its Chinese operations. Beijing Guge says that it applied for the name prior to opening. Regardless… it sounds a little fishy to me. Sounds like someone wants to dip their fingers into Google’s deep money pot.

Google Global Firefox Extension [RedFly Marketing]

Have you ever wondered what your AdWords campaigns look like to searchers in other countries (if at all)? Maybe you’ve wondered how your site ranks in organic results for searchers in another country. RedFly Marketing has released a small Firefox extension that makes it simple to run a Google search from the perspective of someone in a different country. I installed it and gave it run today. It couldn’t be more simple: run a native Google search… right click the results page… and navigate to the “Search Google Global” contextual menu. A list of countries (which is editable) appears and clicking one reruns the same search localized to the selected location.

Well… it’s the weekend again. It’s also Friday the 13th. Avoid strange men with hockey masks and axes (at least until tomorrow).

Until Monday… have fun…