E2 Solutions added another feather to its cap by attaining the recognition of a Google AdWords Certified Partner. It is a just reward for the proficiency and skill that we have showcased over and over again in the field of Search Advertising, having worked with over 700 companies and maintained highest service standards throughout.

The certification further cements our authority as a top service provider in search advertising. For us, this is a just one of the many milestones which we have achieved and would continue to do so in the future.

The possibilities of what could have been if any of us had something/anything to do with the beginning of Facebook! A couple of thousand shares in the social media giant, and I could be among the lucky few who have already started selling their Facebook shares, at a mind-boggling Facebook value estimation of $50 billion. This is one of the most insane number ever to have thrown around in the tech market. (Valuation of Google is a completely different thing!).

It was just a few weeks ago that Accel Partners sold off around half a billion dollars of Facebook shares at a company valuation of $35 billion. Well, that’s just peanuts when it comes to what happened last week. Approximately $40 million changed hands last week in a Facebook share auction held by SecondMarket. The end price per share was $20.76, and about 1.9 million shares were bought and sold. Based on this, orovided that there are already around 2.5 billion shares outstanding after a 5-1 stock split earlier this year, that values Facebook at around $50 billion.

I could think of thousands of things big, small, valuable, insane – which I could buy with that kind of dough! Alright lets get cracking with comparisons. At a $50 billion valuation Facebook is :-

*more than 1/4th the market capitalization of Google
*nearly 1/4th the value of Microsoft
*Worth more than eBay and Yahoo as well
*Closing on Amazon’s $80 billion valuation

And as far as we know it, Facebook is only getting bigger and with the much anticipated Facebook IPO due in an year or two, who knows what exact valuation would be made of this online phenomenon which has taken the social networking world by storm.

Now here´s something we had been waiting for a long time now. For a long time now Google has cluttered up its search interface with text ads. The Google Product Listing Ads have been a huge source of revenue for the search engine giant and therefore the new feature introduced in the search results, for us, took longer than expected.

So what can we expect from these revamped Google Product Listing Ads? Expecting these Google Ads to get better reception from the users is pretty much expected and the initial results have been pretty encouraging. The new feature ha been introduced in the United States so far and the world, as always, would gradually follow.

Speaking on the same, a spokesperson from Google said,” We have “found that people are twice as likely to click on a Product Listing Ad as they are to click on a standard text ad in the same location.” Therefore the excitement surrounding the new step is pretty much justified.

Google ads before this step had around 800 advertisers, but now the focus has been expanded to include Google’s entire advertiser base. So better start expecting a little more perked up and graphic driven ads on Google and the advertisers too can start expecting better results for their Google Ads.

Another reason to be on Google and get the most out of your  search engine marketing tools.

Say hello to the brand new Friendship Pages on Facebook. They are exactly as they sound like. Social media is taking a new turn with Facebook coming up with its Friendship pages. A little more elaboration on the same would tell you that these Facebook Friendship pages integrate the absolutely everything commonly related to two friends on facebook. This can be in the form of:-

• Wall posts
• Photos which need to be tagged so as to pull them to the Friendship page
• The common events attended by two friends

This is certainly a great way to showcase (show off) the bond between two friends which has been shared on Facebook. This show of common activity is another step forward for Facebook after the Groups feature rolled out recently on the social networking website. Facebook in a way is trying to bring out the more sentimental side of social networking as the Friendship Pages do bring out the humane side of things and helping friends feel nostalgic everytime they peep into these pages after years.

How wonderful would be to look back on all the crazy conversations that these friends had at one point in time. Truly amazing.

So where can you find these friend pages on Facebook?

• Look under the Display picture on profile of your friend, the friend pages would be accessible from there.
• The wall-posts and stories too would provide you with the link to these pages.

There is the option of providing access/permission to others to view these pages, therefore further giving the required security to these pages. Although the announced date of launch of the Facebook Friendship Pages is today, but as always,. they would be rolled out gradually.

It was tech to begin with and then came the turn of customer services and now it’s Education that is becoming the next big thing in business outsourcing. The natural destination of business outsourcing throughout the world has been India, and that too for a very  long time.

India has always been the hub of technology and education and it was only a matter of time when Education too became one of the services added to the long list of outsourced serviced to India. Picture elementary kids sitting down everyday with headphones and mics over their heads in a school in London. They are connected to their teacher a few thousand miles away in a remote village in India. This is not a hypothetical situation; rather the current reality!

A company that goes by the name of BrightSpark Education, a London-based company set up last year, is employing and providing training to 100 teachers in Punjab to teach kids from the Ashmount Primary School in North London, to begin with. The teachers are put through the grill of coming to terms with the teaching methodology in Britain, so that they can perform accordingly when they are connected to their pupils through an interactive online tutoring program.

Most of you would be guessing about the kind of feedback that was gained from these pupils. Surprisingly, it was better than expeted and almost all the students liked the performance and the teaching methodology of the new outsourced teachers. The school and the parents too gave thumbs up to the same and more schools are expected to follow suit. The one-on-one sessions not only cost about half of what personal tutors in Britain charge but are also popular with pupils, who enjoy solving equations online, said Rebecca Stacey, an assistant head teacher at Ashmount.

“For children, it’s a novelty that catches their attention for longer and engages them in a different way,” Ms. Stacey said. “Eleven-year-olds aren’t always enthusiastic about math classes, so any way we can make it more fun for them is good.”