GOOG to $560; Web Traffic Drop; Dirty Politics

Blogs went nuts this week over Google’s new personalized search engine, which Monkey Bites explains in detail. It makes it easy for anyone to create a search engine for all their favorite topics without a Ph.D., with Search Engine Journal noting that bloggers can also earn revenue through AdSense. You can even allow others to add to or edit your search engine, blogs Mark Cutts. The days of Rollyo and Swicki may be numbered, blogs Mathew Ingram, just like Kiko’s were when Google released a Web-based calendar.

Google also made a small but important change to Google News so that blog and archive search are now neighbors-bringing Google one step closer to integrating news and blog searches, writes Micro Persuasion. Meanwhile, HipMojo.com blogs that advertisers can now choose sites they want their AdSense ads on, a potentially deep cut in ad-agency revenue since more advertisers may take ad planning and buying in-house. With Internet ad growth now far outpacing all other forms of advertising, it’s no wonder GOOG shares just hit an all-time high (via A VC) and Jim Cramer has Google going to $560. Hold the hosannas, though: A somewhat biased Venture Beat blogs that the YouTube buy marks the end of the Google Myth because Mountain View finally looked outside its famously loose engineering culture for a good business.

September Web traffic dropped significantly for MySpace (4%), Facebook (12%) and YouTube (19%), possibly because the kidz are back in school, writes Bloggers Blog. Maybe their textbooks will become a little less expensive if Jimmy Wales has his way; the Wikipedia founder has asked for ideas on how to spend $100 million to free copyrighted works. VentureBlog reports on Chris Anderson’s post-Long Tail theory: The Economy of Abundance, where the costs of transistors, storage and bandwidth approach zero and companies should try to do everything, dropping what doesn’t work. Or they can start completely virtual branch offices in Second Life, like marketing firm Crayon is doing this week (via VentureBeat).

In politics, it turns out President Bush likes using “the Google” to browse satellite photos of his Texas ranch (via VentureBeat). DealBreaker asks whether this misplaced “the” is some regional English tic, but everyone agrees the president has dropped “stay the course” in favor of, um, constantly changing tactics to complete the mission (via Huffington Post). Although Army General George W. Casey Jr. may ask for more troops to calm Baghdad, writes The New York Times, he asserts that just five of Iraq’s 18 provinces are really violent. Brendan Nyhan disagrees; it’s like saying the U.S. is calm except for California, D.C., Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.

Back in the U.S., the GOP is accused of playing the race card (via LA Times). in Tennessee’s Senate race as one of its ads shows a scantily clad white woman winking at the camera and saying “Harold, call me” – a reference to African American Senate candidate Harold E. Ford Jr. (via Tennessee Guerilla Women). Although the ad’s composed of faux man-in-the-street interviews, Talking Points Memo says these are just filler designed to make the ‘Harold does white chicks’ idea seem to fit. Ford responded by crashing Republican opponent Bob Corker’s press conference (via Wonkette). See the video here.

In the politics of entertainment, Madonna’s adoption of David Banda has hit the rocks since the boy’s father started complaining, writes Jossip, while Popbytes reports on The Material Girl’s Oprah appearance to defend herself. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have finally set a wedding date-November 18-and place-Italy (via Yahoo News). But if you really need more pictures and speculation about Suri, Celebrity Baby Blog’s got the goods.