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Sometimes I regret being a day ahead of most of you guys but that's what you get when you live on the other side of the world to the US. I regret it because quite often very interesting things happen on a Friday but it's too late to include in my Friday's column; it was written and submitted to the editor back on your Thursday. So sometimes I'm a little late with interesting news and this is one of those times.

Quite some time ago Google announced that they would soon be testing some pay per action ads. Unlike normal Adsense advertising where payment is earned as soon as the surfer clicks through from the advertising on your website pay per action advertising only attracts a payment if the surfer then buys something from the advertiser.

In other words it's just plain old affiliate marketing and lots of webmasters were happy to hear that Google was going to introduce it. Well now they have and there are some very unhappy webmasters because Google, being Google, has decided unilaterally that some webmasters are going to get pay per action advertising whether they like it or not.

While Google is running this trial they'll decide whether or not the advertising displayed on certain publishers' websites will be the old fashioned Adsense pay per click advertising or the new and improved pay per action advertising. Needless to say most of the publishers who have been selected to take part in this trial would have liked to have been asked instead of simply being told what's going to happen.

Publishers do have the option of opting out of the trial but it's up to the publisher to ask to be removed. You've got to love Google - they really do know what's best for you and they'll keep on inflicting it on you till you beg them to stop.

How bad can it get?
AOL has released the results of a recent study they conducted into email usage. Over four thousand people in various parts of the United States were surveyed and it has been found that 59% of people check their email while in bed. 53% check their email in the bathroom, 37% (and declining) check their email while driving and 12% check their email in church.

I once knew a woman who used to file her nails while she was doing other things with her husband in bed so maybe checking your email isn't so difficult.

So how often do you check your email? My ICQ is so ditzy lately that I find I'm checking my email every five minutes or so just so I can stay in touch with my clients ... but I really do draw the line at checking it while I'm in bed. I might love my clients but I don't love them THAT much.

How dumb do they really think we are?
Recently an Internet marketing company in the United States was asked why they persist in using advertising on websites that consists of video and sound that plays when a surfer happens to move their cursor over a banner accidentally. You know how it happens, you land on a page and, while you're scanning it, you're also moving your curser down the page. It rolls over a banner or link and suddenly up pops a window and you're hit with a marketing message that blocks out what you were reading and fills wherever you are with unwanted noise. Just to make matters worse the link to close the ad and stop the noise is so small you can't find it before the ad has finished playing.

Now as a marketer I'm not necessarily against advertising like that but let's be honest. We use advertising like that because we want to get in the face of the surfer and we want to make a sale so why can't we be honest and say that?

Why do we have to be like the Internet marketing company who explained that they used ads that fired up just by scrolling over them because, '... actively clicking on an ad to start an embedded video is an inconvenience that we don't wish upon anyone who might want to see their ads.'

Really, how many people these days believe BS like that? Is it any wonder that marketers have such a poor image with the general population?

As one industry observer said, 'Is it possible that consumers are revolting from clicking on ads because we continue to serve revolting ads?' People do want to be entertained and ads can be entertaining so why can't marketers be creative and produce advertising that people want to see?

I guess we will never know.