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Google caters to a lot of specialized interests and industries - with a market cap of almost $170 billion, the company can afford to be versatile.  Yet a new AdWords newsletter addresses a topic about which I’m especially enthusiastic: cars.

The Google AdWords Automotive Newsletter is “designed to help auto advertisers get the most out of AdWords and other Google products,” according to the search engine giant.  There will be four issues per year, and the first installment “examines several industry trends, best practices for promoting summer sales, and the benefits of Google Analytics.”

The newsletter is targeted at a fairly small group of people - those who “sell parts online, own a dealership, or host a website for car aficionados” - but as the “On the horizon” and “Get your motor running” sections prove, the online auto industry is growing fast.  (65 percent of U.S. Internet users visited a car site in January of 2006, according to that second segment, compared to just 32 percent in August of 2005.)

Also, it has often seemed like Google has a soft spot for automobiles; this may, I admit, be a form of blue car syndrome, but in the past four months, I’ve seen the company make news with BMW, Volkswagen, a robotic SUV from Stanford, and a whole bunch of Toyota Priuses.  That’s certainly more than Yahoo, Microsoft, or Ask has done.

So the Google AdWords Automotive Newsletter is a good thing, in my book, and should be helpful within a particular field.  If that field doesn’t interest you, well . . . go drive an Audi R8, and then tell me how you feel.