Text ads can be smart, funny, and sometimes unintentionally hilarious when they show up in the wrong context.

David, our web designer and marketing maestro here at Pingdom was surfing the web last night and put together a list of really funny and original text ads from Google Adwords. We liked them so much that we made this blog entry for your perusal. Let yourself be inspired, or if you’re not into search engine marketing, at least amused.

Not quite as intended

Contextual text ads showing up in the wrong context can be highly amusing. Travel plans to Hell, anyone?

More examples over at ROI Revolution.

Clashing interests

This one started as a joke but got the attention of Apple’s lawyers. They are very protective of their brand and forced the person behind it to remove this.

ASCII art

Great idea, and very suitable for a digital design agency. (It would have looked better in a mono-space font, though.)

And here is an example of completely changing a rental car company’s approach to text ads. The pay-off? A 47% increase in click-through.

The potentially bad part about using ASCII art in your text ads is that Google seems to be actively filtering and removing ads with ASCII art.

Extremely well targeted

When Google shares plummeted early in 2006, the following, very well-targeted ad showed up. Talk about grabbing an opportunity.

Trading words

When Jeff Gerstmann was fired from his job as editorial director at GameSpot, the event got a lot of media attention. PC Gamer capitalized on this, and gaming blog GameBump retaliated. Via Adwords.

We’re sure there are plenty of other excellent examples of text ads out there. If you have links to good ones, please do share them in comments.

Most of us already know that Photoshop is the “industry standard” graphic design program. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s always the best option, and it certainly doesn’t mean that it’s the best value for money.

At its retail price of 699 USD / 470 EUR, Photoshop isn’t exactly cheap. And let’s face it, not everyone needs the all of Photoshop’s high-end features. For example, Photoshop has the ability to edit images in CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) mode, a feature mainly needed by print designers. If you work exclusively with web design, you may not want to pay extra for this feature.

Fortunately, there are more affordable (and sometimes even free) alternatives to Photoshop, and I’ll take a look at some very competent ones in this article.

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With the release of the Motorola Droid, it’s becoming clear that 2010 is going to be a very exciting year for Google Android. The operating system is now two years old, and Android 2.0 has begun shipping with new phones.

Gone are the growing pains of introducing a new mobile platform in an iPhone-dominated marketplace and dealing with shoddy first-generation hardware. Now Google, along with the other members of the Open Handset Alliance, can focus on spreading the word of Android with better phones, better software, and an increased presence in the public consciousness.

Here are ten predictions for what will happen with Google Android in 2010.

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Perl has been around since 1987 and became an early darling of web developers. These days, however, you don’t hear much about Perl. Everyone seems to be talking about trendier languages like PHP, Python and Ruby, with Perl left in the back as a neglected, not-so-hip cousin.

That might lead you to think that Perl is dying, but as it turns out, it’s still used by plenty of websites out there, including some pretty big hitters.

Here are some of the more popular sites that use Perl extensively today.

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In this post Twitter enthusiast Garin Kilpatrick shares his tips on effective ways to get more followers.

It is hard to put a price on a Twitter follower but the host of The Price is Right, Drew Carey, is offering to donate $1 to cancer research for every new follower he receives this year. The following eight tips will enable you to make the most out of your tweets and help you connect with as many followers as possible.

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Web design carries with it certain challenges that don’t exist in print design. Perhaps the most obvious is that in print design, whether you print your own work or have it printed by a professional, you know what your work is going to look like before your customer sees it.

Web designers don’t have this luxury. There’s always the chance that something, or maybe many things, won’t look or behave the same from browser to browser and from operating system to operating system. It’s easy to make mistakes that can make your website appear strange or annoying to a lot of website visitors.

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