Just a few days ago, Google Talk gained support for Thai.  That development was rather less interesting, though, since Thai was only one of 19 languages that were taken into account.  With this new update, a whole post on the Inside AdSense blog revolved around just the addition of Thai.

“If you manage a site primarily in Thai, you can now offer Google search results directly on your pages and monetize the results pages,” wrote Patcharin Areewong.  Then came a bit of a push: “Don’t have an account yet?  Feel free to submit an application today.”

Oh, well – despite its many charitable pursuits, it’s not like Google’s a non-profit organization.  And actually, considering that Thailand is a fairly well-populated country in Asia (where Google has put forth so much energy), the only surprising thing is that it took the company so long to offer AdSense in Thai.

The Google LatLong blog actually collected four of them over the past week; two center on New York, and two were highlighted for their European relevance.  The first of the NY maps is titled “Queen’s Jazz Trail,” and documents “Homes of Jazz Greats and other notables in Queens, NY.”  Credit goes to David Bellel for creating it, and to Google’s Liz Xu for publicizing his effort.

Xu, a software engineer, also makes note of Bellel’s “Famous & Infamous Manhattan: East Village.”  The map covers a lot of crime-related spots, but if you ever want to turn this into a walking tour, fear not: most of the incidents took place a long time ago.  And many of the points of interest aren’t “bad,” anyway; I don’t think there’s anything wrong with James Fenimore Cooper’s old residence, for example.

On to the other maps, then.  These were highlighted in a post by Thai Tran, a product manager, who writes, “I just returned from a vacation in Europe, and I found two Mapplets invaluable for planning my trip. . . .  Wikimapia.org is a website where people have . . . annotated millions of places all over the world, and you can now view these annotations on Google Maps using their Mapplet.”

Tran then continues, “Booking.com is an online hotel reservation service that has especially good coverage in Europe.  Using the Booking.com Mapplet, I was able to find out which hotels were available and compare their rates and proximity to the locations I was most interested in seeing.”

These sites and maps could be useful to you, if you’re planning on taking on a trip.  They should, at the least, be able to burn a few more minutes until the end of your workweek.

Google Apologizes, Thailand Drops Lawsuit

The government had actually not yet filed the suit (which would have been filed in a Bangkok court), but it had enacted a ban on YouTube throughout Thailand.  As you can read in our previous coverage, the hubbub all goes back to a picture of the Thai king juxtaposed with the image of some feet.

Strangely, there was no indication that YouTube cared about Thai government’s reaction – this ban has been in place for over a month – until the news of a letter sent to Sitthichai Pokaiyaudom, Thailand’s Information and Communications Technology Minister, broke.

In the letter, Kent Walker, Vice President of Google, wrote that “he did not want Google to become a source of hostile feeling regarding the King’s video clips,” according to the Bangkok Post.  That is a fine sentiment, and yet backing down in this case will only reinforce the view of many that YouTube is not a strong defender of free speech.

Earthtimes.org, in fact, chose this occasion to pull out a rather damning statistic: “Increasing government censorship of websites was cited as one of the reasons Thailand was downgraded earlier this month to 127th place out of 195 countries on the Freedom House ranking of press freedom.”

It may be an instance of guilt by association for YouTube.

Just before midnight local time on September 19th in Thailand, Reddit.com participant by the username of Alpha_Binary began to post information about the coup.

The military intended to overthrow Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, according to follow-up coverage by BBC Asia-Pacific. While Thaksin was in New York at the UN receiving news of the coup, Alpha_Binary posted his observations over about a three-hour period.

Those comments started with this:

Then later:

Alpha_Binary also kept his priorities straight, in wryly noting, “On an unrelated note, looks like my chemistry exam tomorrow is going to be canceled; making the first good news in several hours.”

Commenters on Reddit offered messages of support. One placed a link to a blog containing links, photos, and video of the coup taking place.

Numerous other news outlets in the region and beyond have since carried accounts of the coup and remarks from various political leaders. The immediacy of the on-the-ground commentary has proven much more compelling.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

When Thai Winds decided to use Google’s AdWords program, they wrote their ad in the way that made the most sense from the perspective of their business. They didn’t anticipate what happened next, however – their ad was disapproved, all of their ads with Google were deleted because of the phrases they chose.

Was the judgment fair? Well, it depends upon your perspective. Thai Winds believed they had selected logical terms, while Google could point to some very plainly stated rules that had been violated. Here’s how the events unfolded:

Thai Winds selected what they believed to be the most meaningful keywords for their online business. First, they selected “thai winds,” the name of their business, because their business name is different from their domain name. Next, they selected “thai clothing,” because that is the type of merchandise they carry. Finally, they chose “thai dye” to emphasize a particular type of Thai clothing sold through their store.

Google saw these selections, and balked. Their guidelines clearly state that ad content should not include repeated words. Their belief is that elimination of repetition makes the ad clearer. The penalty for repetition, as Thai Winds discovered, is censure, until the matter is resolved. Until that time, all listings with Google are disabled.

Meanwhile, back at Thai Winds, the SEO professional was dumbfounded. How could he merely include Thai, winds, clothing, and dye? If the word “Thai” was not associated with each term, it made no sense. They didn’t sell dye and had nothing to do with wind. Google suggested the phrase “Thai Clothes and Dyes,” which again was not quite descriptive of what Thai Winds did. Thai Winds protested. Google referred to their guidelines, indicating that they prevent gimmicky ads; Thai Winds insisted that the use of “thai” three times was not gimmicky but descriptive. Google claimed that repetition led to uninformative ads; Thai Winds countered that their ad was informative as it stood. Google again indicated their guidelines were firm; Thai Winds suggested that a case-by-case examination was in order.

After this back and forth, Google approved their ad, finally deciding that the repetition of terms was warranted after all.

What can the average online business learn from Thai Winds’ experience? Perhaps first and foremost, examine Google’s ad guidelines very carefully. Most e-tailers can’t afford to be dropped from Google for even a day while working through difficulties.

There are quite a few rules regarding use of question marks, exclamation marks, capital letters, correct spelling, proper grammar, popups on the landing page, use of superlatives, and much more. Before you write, read. The rules are clear and located at this link: https://adwords.google.com/select/guidelines.html.

The other lesson here is that Google isn’t a machine. It’s a company that’s made up of people. If you’re right, and you can afford it, stick to your guns. If you’re positive you’ve done nothing wrong then argue your case, rationally, and eventually you’ll be heard (although pointless arguing will gain you nothing, I’m sure).

It wouldn’t be fair to leave this topic without offering a word in Google’s defense. Google’s guidelines are there to prevent abuse and to actually help the advertisers. In most cases, their blind application of rules to everyone works. If everyone claimed to be the best, cheapest, or shouted in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS, or used excessive punctuation, would you use it?!?!?!? Annoying, isn’t it? If Google’s system was prone to such abuse, then it wouldn’t be the most popular search engine in the world and no one would care to advertise there.

Check out the guidelines before you submit your ad, and help Google maintain an effective ad program by adhering to the rules as much as possible. The odd case may be an exception, but in general, the rules work, and applying them to your ads works toward everyone’s benefit.

Links:
Google’s AdWords Guidelines (https://adwords.google.com/select/guidelines.html)
Thai Winds (http://www.thailand-clothing.com)

Jackie Rosenberger is an editor with iEntry, Inc.