Google has extended its AdWords program to Google News searches, delivering text ads on the right side of the search results page, just as Google has long done with regular Web search results.
Josh Cohen, a business product manager at Google, announced the move Wednesday in a company blog:
In recent months we've been experimenting with a variety of different formats, like overlay ads on embedded videos from partners like the AP. We've always said that we'd unveil these changes when we could offer a good experience for our users, publishers and advertisers alike, and we'll continue to look at ways to deliver ads that are relevant for users and good for publishers, too.
The ads are intended to be tailored to news search terms, but the two aren't always on the same page, so to speak. While the news search understood that "spring training" was related to baseball, for example, only one of the top three ads presented made that connection, as the example below illustrates.
Faced with a much tougher economy, Google is working harder to make money off more of its properties. In recent months, it's begun showing ads in Google Earth and Google Finance as well.
Google has begun placing text ads beside Google News searches.
(Credit: Screenshot by Steven Musil/CNET News)
By any measure, the growth and popularity of Twitter has been phenomenal. To say that Twitter has hit mainstream isn't really the right metric to use. It's more powerful to note that for a large group of Twitter enthusiasts, to spend even a day without using it would be as bad (or perhaps even worse) than not having email. It has become just that necessary. How did the site get to this point? And what are the lessons that any entrepreneur might be able to learn from how it got there? Here are a few thoughts on the real secrets behind Twitter's success: 
