San Francisco -- Watch out Google! A band of smaller Internet rivals are forging alliance in hopes of jump-starting online local ad sales in the face of global search engine leader Google Inc.'s growing clout in the market, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Mountain View, California -- Google Analytics is one of the most robust offerings by the search giant and with its recent release of Google Analytics new features, it has almost become ubiquitous for a large number of companies reaping benefits from it. The Mountain View, Calif., company has just rolled out another set of pretty impressive new features. It includes “Annotations,” a tremendously useful new feature both to analysts as well as executives, who are usually not up to date on granular details about website activity.

This newly launched “annotations” feature which enables you to make comments and bookmark major campaigns on graphs regarding events that happened on specific days within your statistics for future reference. Although, many people criticize against the amount of data that Google has at its disposal as a result of their analytics offering. This will help to explain a spike or drop in traffic to other members within your organization, without having to dig through the past.

London-- Have you ever imagined taking a stroll in New York City’s Time Square, all the while sitting in your home in UK? Well, having access to Internet, you can take that same stroll down the streets of New York absolutely free. No air fare, no jet lag, no translators needed. Search Giant Google is prepared to debut Street View for UK some time next year as the mind-numbing process of collating and processing millions of photographs of Britain’s streets and roads continues in full swing.

Google Earth, the popular geo-tagging service has been utilized for varying purposes in the UK, such as from locating pools to swim in by nefarious teens to planning vacations and driving routes, but, missing from the UK Google Earth service is the street view that is popular in the US.

Google ads that aim to get buyers to pick up the phone are on hold -- at least for now… Instead, the company is focusing on other types of ads, including ads sent to cell phone users and pay-per-action ads.

“Google launched a pay-per-call program -- it calls it “click-to-call” on trial that will come to halt after December 3, 2007.”

If a consumer clicks on a click-to-call ad they are instructed to enter their phone number. Google then calls the consumer’s phone number and connects the person to the advertiser. Google pays for the call and collects a fee for the lead from the advertiser...

Offering a potential peek into the company plans, Google Inc. posted job openings for software engineers with knowledge of television technology.

The company's online help-wanted ad says Google is looking for software experts who know how to create and deploy "robust, high-volume applications for consumer devices." The ad is creating a lot of buzz about what might be next for the search giant.

In the Web-site posting, Google said it is looking for people with experience developing client- or server-based applications for consumer devices, such as mobile, TV and games...

Google is taking steps with its AdWords and AdSense programs to assist advertisers in launching site targeted campaigns, help publishers sell those advertising spaces, and even optimize the advertising creatives and landing pages for the advertiser.

Google AdSense is marketing its site targeting service by testing an ‘Advertise on this site’ link in its AdSense contextually targeted advertisements. Google AdSense is currently testing this technique on Tim Carter’s Ask the Builder website. Once a user clicks through on the link in the ad, they are taken to a nifty AdWords generated site profile page with basic information on the Ask the Builder site and Google suggests to the reader to join or use AdWords to purchase advertising targeting the website...

Mountain View, California -- The NFL season may be over now, but Google's Street View cameras are always active that have journeyed to the Grand Canyon, under the sea, and to the top of ski slopes, and over the weekend added some pretty interesting, interactive, 360-degree imagery of Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the Indianapolis Colts, to its Maps service.

For those armchair viewer as well as those in the faraway land, Google brings a novel way to explore an NFL stadium without paying the $100 average ticket price: Google Maps today introduced Street View for Lucas Oil Stadium, better known as the home of the Indianapolis Colts. This is the first time the Web giant has mapped the inside of an NFL stadium, and it is the first U.S. sports venue to get the Street View treatment in Google Maps.

Lucas Oil Stadium, as seen in Street View... (Credit: Google)

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“Together with the Colts and Lucas Oil Stadium, we are truly delighted to give you, the fans, a behind-the-scenes look at the home of the Colts, and enable anyone to 'visit' the stadium from wherever they may be,” Google Maps product manager Evan Rapoport, wrote in a blog post Friday.

However, the company announced that the plan was made possible due to collaboration with the National Football League's (NFL) Indianapolis Colts. Through this arrangement, Google Maps now offers users a VIP, 360-degree interactive tour of the team's stadium, Lucas Oil Stadium.

As part of its ongoing mission to create the most accurate and usable map of the world, Google decided to take it things a step further by recording what a professional football team's stadium looked like. The company says that it has captured a variety of views, including allowing users to view what it is like right on the football field, look at the VIP suites and concourses, and check out the locker rooms.

The interior of Lucas Oil Stadium... (Credit: Google)

The idea of photographing the stadium was the search engine's idea. In order to photograph the Colts' stadium to Google Maps, the Street View team showed up on a day where no sporting events were planned and proceeded to document using two key tools: the proprietary Street View trolley, a roving pillar on wheels that has a camera mounted on top of it, and more traditional tripods used for capturing the 3D imagery.

Through the use of its Trekker camera, the Google Maps team was able to get a rather realistic view of what it’s like to be inside the stadium. “We had the stadium as most people would never get to see it,” said Rapoport. “We got to go in on an empty day. You got a feeling of what it might be be to like to own the place.”

Amazingly though, with the new imagery, you can virtually walk the tunnel and down the field toward the end zone, just like the Colts players do every season. You can also check out what it is like inside the Colts's locker room (right), or explore the stadium's three concourses and suites, including the Quarterback Suite, a field level suite, and a lodge-level suite.

In fact, users can access Street View by clicking a link to it following a search for Lucas Oil Stadium in Google Maps, or by dropping the orange Pegman figure onto the stadium from the map view.

A view from the stadium terrace... (Credit: Google)

Apparently, the football stadium is the latest in Google's relentless mapping of sometimes hidden places, which follow ski resorts, the Grand Canyon, North Korea, and the Great Barrier Reef.

“We are just really, really thrilled about the level of enthusiasm that people have for Street View,” Rapoport said. “People are always asking us to bring Street View to new places, whether it is in new countries or famous places around the word.”

For those interested in checking out the stadium, they can go to Google Maps and do a search for “Lucas Oil Stadium” or “Colts Stadium”. Also, more sports venues are likely on the cards. However, getting inside requires Google to work with them individually to get permission and coordinate the shoots.

San Francisco -- In a surprising turn of events, Google has updated its field trial of new search features with further Gmail integration: Those who have signed up for the experimental features can now unearth relevant information from their inbox on flights, restaurant bookings, or purchases directly into search results, as long as you are logged in.

The new capabilities are now an indispensable part of Google's search “field trials” that began earlier this year, and are limited to @gmail.com users in the U.S. You can sign up for it here, and you should be able to use the new features after you receive a confirmation email.