Checking through the weblogs, this interesting search query was found within the refferals from MSN:

http://search.msn.co.uk/…

Now this query was made by someone else who had also been screwed over(not surprisingly, that person decided to use MSN instead of Google search) over alleged Click Fraud. Having a look at the results, VSNetwork.co.uk came up in third and fourth spots, but there are many other sites that were screwed over:

http://www.domainblog.net

http://www.itsmyjourney.com

http://business.timesonline.co.uk <-- Really good article here

Who needs Google Adsense anyway? Right? If you have also been screwed over by Google, please feel free to leave a comment.

Microsoft has confirmed that Japanese firm Toshiba will make its portable media player - “Zune” - to be released before the end of the year. Toshiba’s filing with the Federal Communications Commission showed the Zune will have a 30-gigabyte hard-disk drive and wireless connection. Microsoft declined to provide any further product details. Analysts expect Microsoft’s Zune to compete directly with Apple’s iPod, which dominates the music media market.

Based on information from the filing, the wireless connection will permit users to exchange photos, songs and entire albums with other users in close range. Specialists have previously said the success of the Zune would depend on whether users would be able to download music and video through a wireless connection.

There has long been talk that a rival to Apple’s highly popular music player could be an “iPod killer”. However, industry specialists have said that Microsoft would be hard pushed to compete with Apple’s iPod and its music store, iTunes. Within the digital media market, iPod holds over half the market. Meanwhile, within the digital music sales market, iTunes has more than 70% of market share.

Information about the price of the Zune has yet to be released.

News source: BBC Technology News

TheShishaShop.com has confirmed its place at this years Brick Lane Festival in association with EMEP. The big day is set for the 10th September 2006 and if its anything like last year, it will be an grand day out for all!
Here’s a press release:

“Its party time once again for the most famous street of London… After Coronation Street (probably!).

Held every second Sunday of September, the Festival is now firmly established on the London calendar of events attracting over 60,000 people who come to enjoy the rich mix of culture, history, live music, films and food.

Fast becoming recognised as the alternative to Notting Hill Carnival, the event combines the excitement and buzz of a street festival, alfresco eating, fun fair, Brick Lane’s own Chili Film Festival (debuting this year) and a relaxing outdoor music concert with local and international performers.

Add to this, the huge diversity of cultures and the vibrant neighbouring street markets the Festival always proves to be a resounding success for the whole family.”

We hope to see you all there!

Microsoft has quietly released the latest test version of Internet Explorer 7.

The RC1 build includes improvements in performance, stability, security, and application compatibility. With this build, Microsoft has also made enhancements to the fit and finish of the user interface, completed CSS platform changes, added language support and included an auto-uninstall feature in Setup, which automatically uninstalls prior betas of IE7 making installing the new build even easier.

IE7 RC1 is available in English today, and all localized versions of RC1 will be available in September including Arabic, Finnish, German, and Japanese as well as the French and Spanish versions which will be available for the first time.

Microsoft is expected to finalise Internet Explorer 7 at the same time as Windows Vista.

Download: IE7 RC1 for Windows XP SP2 | x64 | Windows Server 2003

Source: www.neowin.net 

Alot has happened in the last 3 weeks, especially with TheShishaShop.com project that has taken alot of time and resources. Other significant news relates to Google and its Adsense network. We were accused of click fraud and have had our account terminated! More on than later on as additional posts are added to make up for the last three weeks!

In quite a surprising move, here an email that was recieved from Google:

” It has come to our attention that invalid clicks and/or impressions
have been generated on the Google ads on your site(s). We have
therefore disabled your Google AdSense account. Please understand that
this was a necessary step to protect the interest of the AdWords
advertisers.

A publisher’s site may not have invalid clicks or impressions on any
ad(s), including but not limited to clicks and/or impressions generated
by:

- a publisher on his own web pages
- a publisher encouraging others to click on his ads
- automated clicking programs or any other deceptive software
- a publisher altering any portion of the ad code or changing the
layout, behavior, targeting, or delivery of ads for any reason

These or any other such activities that violate Google AdSense Terms
and Conditions and program polices may have led us to disable your
account. The Terms and Conditions and program polices can be viewed at:

https://www.google.com/adsense/localized-terms?hl=en_GB
https://www.google.com/adsense/policies?hl=en_GB

Publishers disabled for invalid click activity are not allowed further
participation in AdSense and do not receive any further payment. The
earnings on your account will be properly returned to the affected
advertisers.

If you feel that this decision was made in error, and can maintain in
good faith that the invalid activity was not due to the actions or
negligence of you or those you are responsible for, such as employees
and family members, you may appeal the closing of your account. To do
so, please contact us only through this form:

http://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/request.py?contact=invalid_clicks_appeal&hl=en_GB

If Google decides to evaluate your appeal, we will do our best to
inform you quickly and will proceed with appropriate action as
necessary. If we have reached a decision on your appeal, subsequent or
duplicate appeals may not be considered.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team”

This of course was a ridiculous and outragous claim and an immediate appeal was made! This decision by Google has greatly affected the VSNetwork of sites including live sites such as TokyoDriftTheSoundtrack.com and PowerTheBrain.com. Let’s up Google decides to do the right thing and re-enable the account!

After struggling to come up with a good slogan for TheShishaShop.com, a quick Google search came up with a Slogan Generator at this site here: thesurrealist.co.uk. So off we went o a lucky dip in the hopes of a decent slogan and this is what we came out with:

You Too Can Have A Shisha Like Mine.

Whatever You’re Into, Get Into Shisha

Pretty cool eh?  Go on, you know you want to give it a spin! Link is here.

Downgrade Your PSP marketing split into two Adword Campaigns, one targeting the US, Canada and Australia and the other will specifically target the UK audience. How this will do, only time will tell…

UPDATE: After running for 4 days, there has been another sale in the UK taking $13.04, should this campaign continue? Probably not, both campaigns stopped.

OK a new theme has been installed called Tarski. Is has been modified slightly, more changing and hacking will be done later! While browsing around the Tarski site, a recommended plugins page was found that included a few useful Wordpress Plugins including the Ultimate Tag Warrior.

You may start to notice that each post now has Tags which should increase relevency within search results. You can even go to a page dedicated to tags here that include two very cool functions; The first is called a Tag Cloud, this basically is a scale system that shows how popular the tags on this site are, the darker and bigger the text, the more pages are associated with it on the site. Clicking on any of these tags will display the associated posts. The second feature allows you to search for posts associated with the tags, this also allows you add tags as well to show you a greater pool of results. Take it for a test spin here.

Another plugin that was installed was the Clean Archives Page plugin, this changes the look of the archives pages to include individual dates for each posts made. Click here to view the page now. Im sure you will agree, the page is alot more detailed now.

A plugin called Widgets was also installed, this was made by a company called Automattic.com, its basically something that allows for easier customisation without messing around with HTML coding. It made customising the side panel a lot easier! More information, visit there site here!

Checking through web stats from Stat Counter, it appears that Tokyo Drift is getting a lot of traffic from Yahoo (Singapore) and MSN. According to the Stats, most traffic is now coming from Yahoo, and with position 9 rank in Yahoo Singapore for keyword ‘Tokyo Drift Soundtrack‘ (44 hits (from 57) making up 66.69%).

But what is traffic without leads and conversions? Its seems that 80% leave after 5 seconds or so, something will have to be done to stop this from occurring, apart from a facelift and additional content that is…