WebProWorld

YouTube has begun testing a new kind of ad format on some of its videos – skippable pre-rolls. These ads let users choose whether or not they want to watch the ad as it appears at the beginning of a video.

YouTube says that when it first began testing in-stream ads a couple years ago, abandonment rates on videos were as high as 70%. They found that users were much more likely to view and engage with overlay ads.

Mozilla is celebrating the fifth birthday of its Firefox browser today.

Mozilla says in the first four days of launch, more than 1 million people had downloaded Firefox 1.0 Now that number is at 330 million users globally, accounting for almost a quarter of all Internet users.

Currently Firefox is available in more than 70 languages and offers users more than 7,000 add-ons to customize their browsing experience.

A quick, but important, note: the stuff we’re about to discuss is only available on an opt-in basis.  So there’s no need to stop halfway through this article and drown your phone or tape it to a neighbor’s car.  Now, with that out of the way, let’s move on to the news that Google Latitude’s gained two features called Google Location History and Google Location Alerts (which is in beta).

Update: Philipp Lenssen notes that someone has already developed a language called Go! (with an exclamation point). There is a book on it here. The author wants Google to change the name. This could get confusing for developers looking to use Go, although, it could also help sales of the Go! book. It wouldn’t make for very happy customers, however.

As you may know, Google has been sending out Google Wave invitations for a little while now. Many people are still finding these hard to come by, but others have been lucky enough to be selected and get their hands dirty.

Those who have been granted access to Google Wave have the ability to nominate people for invitation, but not directly invite people themselves. So in other words, you’re not getting in unless Google wants you to. They have to approve your nomination.

Walmart has introduced yet another holiday promotion, this time the retailer is offering a $100 gift card with the purchase of any Blackberry device, both in stores and online.
 
Staring Saturday, November 14 at 8 am through November 20, shoppers will receive a $100 Walmart Gift Card with the purchase of Blackberry devices with a two-year contract.

Gmail used to offer a gigabyte of storage to new users, but now it offers at least seven gigs. Picasa comes with a gig. Sometimes that’s not enough. While Google has offered the ability to pay for additional storage, the company has now reduced the prices for it.

Razorfish has released a wealth of interesting data about consumer online behavior, and a good deal has to do with social media and brand interaction. For those struggling to find the right use of social networks for their business, the data is worth paying attention to.

The data is based on a survey of 1,000 consumers in the US, about half male and half female. They cover four major age groups and 10 major cities.

With all of the spam out there and the increasing amount of malice that comes with it, it’s easy to look at the situation and think that email must be dying. Combine the overwhelming amounts of inbox spam and the ever-increasing popularity of communication tools like Twitter and Facebook, and you may ask yourself why you even need email.

Last night on "30 Rock," Alec Baldwin’s character got lost within New York’s subway system, and due to being covered in bedbugs, received no help from his fellow passengers.  But if the same thing happened to him (or a non-fictional person) today, Google Maps could have come to the rescue.