iPad Option Added to Device Targeting

This week, we looked at a survey from Kit Digital, which found tha most marketers are intersted in reaching iPad owners. This mentality isn’t lost on Google, despite the company becoming one of Apple’s main rivals.

Google of course knows a lot of people are using iPads, and a lot more will use them in the future. The company has now released iPad device targeting for AdWords. To target iPad users, edit the “devices” section in Campaing Settings. Then edit the “Devices” section in your Campaign Settings, and select the iPad under ‘Advanced device and carrier options.

Google says to keep the following in mind:

- If your device settings are set for desktop and laptop computers only, your ads won’t show on the iPad.

- If you’re already targeting selected mobile devices (such as iPhone or Android), your ads won’t show on the iPad. Make sure to select the iPad as well if you want to include it in your device-targeted campaign.

Google also reminds advertisers they can promote their iPhone/iPad and Android apps by linking to the download URL in ads.

Corporate blogs share useful insights and tricks

When a site like Facebook is slow, or Twitter becomes inaccessible, it’s a memorable and headline-generating event (at least in certain circles).  Given the millions upon millions of visitors these sites see every day, they do pretty well for themselves, though, and it might be possible for small business owners to learn some tricks from them.

Pingdom’s bloggers recently rounded up a large number of technical blogs maintained by big, important companies.  The first three are Twitter’s engineering blog, Facebook’s engineering notes, and Digg’s technology blog.

Next up is Inside Windows Live, Flickr’s developer blog, and Meebo’s developer blog.

Moving on, business owners who maintain their own sites may find it worth their while to check out the Amazon Web Services blog, the Google Code blog, the Google App Engine blog, Yahoo’s developer network blog, and Wikimedia’s techblog.

At least some of the posts on these blogs should provide information that can be applied under other circumstances, and strategies that serve to keep things like Facebook and Twitter running should be enough to make the average small business’s site bulletproof.

If you have any other favorite sources of technical advice, feel free to name them in the comments section.