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Filed under: Business, Internet, Web services, Google, Search

Google Checkout Trends: Google knows where you shop, what you buy

Google Checkout Trends
If you're one of those people worried that one day Google will own all of your personal data, you'd better sit down. Google has launched a new service called Google Checkout Trends that shows what people are buying from merchants using Google Checkout.

Now, it's not quite as bad as it sounds. Google is anonymizing the data before releasing it. So there's no way you can use this tool to find out what Steve from the office bought his wife for their anniversary. Not yet anyway. But you can get a picture of what items are popular over time, and how two items compare with one another. For example, you can search for "ipod, zune" to see which item sold better last month.

Or at least that's how it works in theory. Right now the service seems to be down. Ionut Alex Chitu at Google Operating System grabbed a screenshot of the service last night showing that it must have worked at some point. But even Google's suggested searches return no results right now. Let us know if you have any better results in the comments.

[via Official Google Checkout Blog]

Filed under: Business, Internet

PayPal will let you buy stuff on sites that don't accept PayPal

PayPal credit cardsLike buying things online but don't feel like giving out your credit card number to a gazillion different web stores? For a few years now PayPal has been the big name in one-stop checkouts. Just sign up for a PayPal account, link up your bank account or credit card number, and send and receive payment for your eBay auctions and buy stuff from participating retailers.

But while most stores take credit cards, there's still plenty of shops out there that won't accept PayPal. So tomorrow PayPal is launching a new service that will let you shop at those stores too.

Basically, PayPal will generate a new virtual credit card number every time you want to buy something on a site that doesn't have a PayPal checkout button. The company is partnering with MasterCard Inc to provide the "Secure Card" service. And we're guessing the service will go a long way toward helping PayPal fend off newcomers in the online payment marketplace like a little company called Google.

Filed under: Finance, Internet, Video, Google

Google launches new tools for non-profits

YouTube for non-profitsGoogle has launched two new services aimed at non-profit organizations. Or rather, two new ways for non-profits to use existing services.

The YouTube Nonprofit Program lets 501(c)(3) organiztions create premium branded channels with higher uploading capacity than typical user channels. Nonprofit videos will also be rotated through the "promoted videos" sections of the site. And nonprofits can embed a Google Checkout "donate" button for fundraising.

Google Checkout for non-profits lets organizations collect money without paying a transaction fee to Google. Right now, Google has only committed to offering this service to non-profits for free through the end of 2008, but we wouldn't be surprised to see the company extend that deadline.

The American Cancer Society, Friends of the Earth, YouthNoise, and 10 other non-profits have already signed up for YouTube channels, and the William J. Clinton Foundation and March of Dimes are among those that have signed up for Google Checkout.

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The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

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