In addition to today's Internet Marketing Monitor coverage, we felt these stories were worth pulling out of the multitude of news items for April 5, 2007:

  Ask.com's 'Revolt' Risks Costly Clicks  [The Wall Street Journal]

The Wall Street Journal paints a pretty bleak picture for the success of Ask's "Information Revolution" campaign.  In addition to the advertising we already covered, Ask has taken out television ads and hired people to pass out buttons, sticker London, and project ads on a couple of London landmarks.  And while I know the opinions of a couple of people interviewed by the WSJ aren't necessarily a snapshot of the general public… the folks quoted by the WSJ aren't impressed.  Hopefully this little stunt doesn't backfire on IAC.

  A fresh, new look for AdSense ads  [Inside AdSense]

Google has been playing around the format of its AdSense advertisements for a while now.  It looks like they finally decided on their favorite.  Over the next few days, Google will be changing all AdSense blocks to this new format.

  Technorati vs. Google Blog Search:  Which is Better?  [Search Engine Journal]

That's an interesting question.  As with search engines in general, I think it's hard to simply declare one better than the other.  Maki does a great job of pointing out some of the unique features that each service provides.  I also like the "social-type" stuff that Technorati provides (like favorites, link analysis, etc).  The additional stats (although Alexa-based) are nice as well.

  Google Undergoing Fundamental Search Changes?  [Search Engine Roundtable]

Search Engine Roundtable has noticed a lot of chatter over at WebmasterWorld that suggest Google might making some pretty significant changes to its search results.  I haven't noticed any major changes myself.  Some are even questioning the value of Google's results lately.  One user quoted by SERoundtable even says the results, while still "relevant" are not as "good" as they used to be.  Voice your opinion over at WebmasterWorld.

  Two changes to how top ads are displayed  [Inside AdWords]

The yellow backgrounds that we mentioned seeing a while back are now standard fare for the top Sponsored Links on Google's SERPs.  I like the yellow and I think it draws more attention to the sponsored links.  The other change involves what counts as a "click" on those links.  Previously, a click anywhere in the box would count.  Now users must actually click on the link text for the click to count.

Today was a busy day outside of the Internet Marketing Monitor… hence the smaller than normal post day.  How was your Thursday?