Google Fact

Google Maps API - Custom Markers (Icons)

2007-01-25T14:27:00Z

It has been a while since I've posted on this blog so I decided that a post was about due. This post is for all of those people who have wondered why Google doesn't provide different color markers for their Gmaps API.

I created a collection of 12 colored markers that you are free to use however you see fit. They look like this:

Also, I created key icons to go along with those and they look like this:

This isn't anything innovative but it is convenient to have these available if you want to create a Google Map with different color icons (markers). These custom markers can be implemented easily since they have the same shadow as the default icon. The code to implement a custom marker can be found on the Gmaps API page but I will provide it here as well.


function createMarker(point,text,color) 

{
 // Create a base icon for all of our markers that specifies the  
 // shadow, icon dimensions, etc.

	

var baseIcon = new GIcon();
baseIcon.shadow="http://www.google.com/mapfiles/shadow50.png";
baseIcon.iconSize = new GSize(20, 34);
	
baseIcon.shadowSize = new GSize(37, 34);
	
baseIcon.iconAnchor = new GPoint(9, 34);
	
baseIcon.infoWindowAnchor = new GPoint(9, 2);
	
baseIcon.infoShadowAnchor = new GPoint(18, 25);

  	
var icon = new GIcon(baseIcon);

  	

if(color == "GREEN")
  		
icon.image = "http://www.yoursite.com/markerGreen.png";
	
else
		
icon.image = "http://www.yoursite.com/marker.png";

	

var marker = new GMarker(point, icon);

	
GEvent.addListener(marker, "click", function() 
{ 
    marker.openInfoWindowHtml(text); 
});


  

return marker;


}



function loadmap()

{
      
  if (GBrowserIsCompatible()) 
  {
        
    var map = new GMap2(document.getElementById("map"));
    map.addControl(new GSmallMapControl());
	
    map.addControl(new GMapTypeControl());
        
	
    map.setCenter(new GLatLng(lat, lon), 13);

	
    var point = new GLatLng(lat,lon);
    map.addOverlay(createMarker(point, "Your Text Here","DEFAULT"));
    var point = new GLatLng(lat,lon);
    map.addOverlay(createMarker(point, "Your Text Here","GREEN"));

      
  }



}

Google And Cross Media Entertainment

2006-09-16T01:47:00Z

AOL Gold Rush is now the seventh (roughly) consecutive online cross-media entertainment game this year. These games are obviously very popular and continue to draw appeal to a large group of online gamers. My prediction is that we will continue to see mainstream online media games like The Google Da Vinci Code Quest, The Hunt From Volvo, and AOL Gold Rush. Google led the way with The Da Vinci Code Quest but I believe they could actually exploit these games and create a business model behind them.

Consider this, gaming is a billion dollar industry which is why Microsoft recently spent a lot of money to jump into the scene with their XBOX product. But, console gaming mainly appeals to a younger generation. With online cross-media entertainment games, the target audience is much larger and the cost to implement a game is also much cheaper. Because of these benefits I believe large businesses will continue to target this market and consequently I came up with the following idea.

I suggest that Google implement a server farm that they lease to companies for use in online cross media entertainment games. Google has more experiance with server farms and load balancing then any other company in the world. Just consider how many searches they process a day. I can't remember a single instance when I had to wait for a search result from Google. And while they did botch the final round of the Da Vinci game, surely they can learn from that mistake and make the necessary adjustments.

Just a thought I wanted to publish so when Google announces that they are going to start leasing a server farm for use with online games, I can take credit for being the first to have the idea.

Microsoft XNA Framework

2006-08-28T16:51:00Z

I know it's not Google, but I can't resist writing a short post on this recent development. Microsoft is providing a free framework to develop games for Windows and the XBOX. This is unheard of in the gaming community where development of games for a console platform requires an enormous amount of capital to purchase the licensing and development toolkits needed to create a game.

With this announcement comes a new era of game development. Now, a small group of developers could get together and build the ultimate XBOX title and knock some of the big players off of their pedestals.

The first beta is set to release in two days, and the official release is set for this Christmas. I am going to try and get a group of developers together to write an open source gaming engine. If you are interested in developing games and would want to help build this engine feel free to leave me a comment in this post.

The wikipedia article can be found here.

The Official XNA blog can be found here.

The Official XNA Website can be found here.

New and improved Google Talk has everything we need, and then some

2006-08-18T13:28:00Z

Last night was a treat - Google Talk upgraded itself. Again.

Google is really taking a broad swipe at the other voice service providers by tacking on the ability to send voicemail messages, even to people without the Google Talk client. They're taking a slow and cautious approach to adding features to Google Talk, but the developers are adding functionality where it counts and the program's getting better and better.

I've discussed the vagaries of communication elsewhere, but Google seems to be careful in that sense that they're not overdoing it. In addition to voicemail, the upgraded version has two new features: file transfer, and music status.

File transfer was long overdue and now makes the Google Talk client truly useful - no more waiting to attach files in Gmail - and forget FTP or other options - if you want an instant transfer to a buddy, there's nothing better than a nice direct connection.

The music option is a bit more problematic. If your friends don't like seeing your status message change every 3 or 4 minutes, they're going to hate it if you enable it. If you're not familiar, Google Talk will find out what either WinAmp, Media Player, or iTunes are playing, and make that your status message (if you choose the "show current track" status message option from the normal status message list).

I thought it was kind of cool at first, but it's ultimate utility may be questionable unless you feel like being an exhibitionist about your tastes in music.

So far, though, it looks like Google Talk is safe from getting anywhere near the feature creep that bloated ICQ to death.

Now you have a real reason to be jealous of Googlers

2006-08-12T20:03:00Z

They have their own ice cream.

It's described as "a scoop of ice cream between two old-fashioned oatmeal cookies dipped in chocolate". All from a place called It's It. On the upside, it's not actual gelato which would be enough to drive a person mad with envy.

There's an especially good new place open in Toronto which even puts Google's gourmet ice cream sandwhich to shame, called Dolce Gelato.

As with most new places, they haven't had time to put up their own site yet, but who cares? The product is stellar.

While it's not exactly a typical Google Fact topic, share your favourites in the comments or in our forums.

More changes to Google Maps

2006-08-07T01:42:00Z

Guest post by Krupo

Once again, Google Maps is evolving for the better. Previous enhancements came online less than a month ago, and now there's another feature that makes Google Maps even more reminiscent of related google products, such as Gmail and the Calendar: you can save locations.

No more hammering out your home or work address - the system can save it for you; you can customize the name of the address/location and add tags to it too. Soon you can tag the whole world.

It's much more private than Wikimapia, but potentially even more useful. Despite the current privacy, I forsee the system being tweaked to allow you to share your links the same way Calendar, Notebook, and Reader do.

Adsense or Nonsense

2006-08-03T17:50:00Z

I have been using Google's Adsense to offset the cost of owning, developing, and maintaining this website for about two months now. I do have a few complaints about the service, mostly related to context targeting, which in the end is probably my fault and not Google's. Overall though, I am happy with Adsense and pleased with the simplicity of putting advertisements on my blog. I'll admit that using Adsense won't make me a millionaire. And in reality, the advertisements barely cover the cost of keeping this collection of blogs online every month. However, since I never expected to make much money with the advertisements I have little to be disappointed about.

I think many people are falling prey to those fake "get rich quick" Adsense schemes and have false hopes of making thousands of dollars a day using Adsense. When they realize the money from Adsense isn't coming into their bank accounts by the dump truck load, they get frustrated and start resorting to other methods, typically against Google's terms of service (TOS). Consequently, after they get banned from the service for click fraud, and their payment is revoked, they start wondering what in the world went wrong.

Take for instance the supposedly "Bestest Blog of All-Time" blog. In reality this isn't a list of best blogs, rather it is a list of blogs who have link exchanged with the blog. In addition, the "Best Blog of The Month" is actually an auction to see who pays the most money to "win" the award. Even more recently the site owner has stated that the list of blogs displayed, the supposedly "Bestest blogs" is going to be not just a link exchange, but a paid link sponsor list.

Is it any surprise to you that Google recently revoked his Adsense account, for the second time. Obviously the site owner has some problems understanding the TOS. Then he wants to blame Google, attack Adsense, and whine about the money he never got from Google hoping to find sympathetic listeners who don't know any better or have similar stories.

If I am being to harsh, let me say that I do on occasion visit the blog, but by no means on a daily basis. When I'm visiting the blog, I don't expect to find great blogs from his list, and you shouldn't either. If you happen to find a good one like this one, then that's great. Most of the time though, you'll find better results by sifting through a friend's blogroll.

The moral of the story is don't get greedy using Adsense and you won't have a problem. Don't expect to make $30,000 a month and you won't be let down when you only make $30 a month.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

2006-08-01T18:52:00Z

This is a brief post outlining some techniques that can be used to help increase your websites visibility on search engines.

Paid Advertising

Paid advertisements are commonly found at the top and sides of search engine listings and are typically the quickest way to increase exposure to a website with a low search ranking. The most commonly used search engines are Google, Yahoo, MSN, and ASK listed from most popular used to least popular. Of these for advertising purposes Google is the primary choice, not only because of its popularity but also because of its superior Cost-Per-Click (CPC) advertising model.

If sufficient funding is available for Internet marketing, advertising with all search engines is recommended in order to reach the broadest possible target user base. If however, there are limited funds available, I would recommend advertising exclusively with Google’s Adwords program where you will receive the most return on investment (ROI).

What is Google Adwords and how does it work? Adwords is a Google service that allows website owners to purchase highly targeted CPC advertising. Ads can be displayed on both Google search result pages as well as on partner network sites, but because network sites can be unreliable and are the predominate cause of the highly publicized click fraud debate; my recommendation is to restrict advertising to Google search results.

Ads are purchased in an auction format where the advertiser specifies the maximum amount they are willing to pay for each click. The prices range in cost from $.01 to $100.00 depending on the keyword(s) or keyword phrases that an advertiser wishes to target. The more an advertiser is willing to pay the higher ad placement the advertiser will receive. Google provides a keyword tool that can be used to estimate how much it will cost to place in ad in the top slots for arbitrary keywords. That tool can be found at the following link: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Additionally, advertisers can limit the amount of money that they wish to spend using Adwords daily budget feature. The daily budget can be configured as low as $1.00 per day. To determine a daily budget it is necessary to first estimate the cost-per-click for the keyword phrases that will be used. The monthly advertising budget is then divided by the number of days in the month multiplied by the cost-per-click for the keyword.

Since Adwords displays links at the top of search results, it is a highly effective way of increasing traffic to a website, but does not guarantee any conversion results.

Search Engine Submission

Some search engines allow you to manually submit your site to their web crawler. Submitting a site to a web crawler does not guarantee placement but simply makes the search engine “aware” of your site. This is particularly helpful with new sites and but is not significant to sites which are already indexed by a particular search engine. The following is a list of links where a webmaster can submit a website to each of the commonly used search engines. It is worth noting that Ask does not allow this type of submission and only uses link references to increase its index.

Google - http://www.google.com/addurl/
Yahoo - http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html
Ask - N/A
MSN - http://submitit.bcentral.com/msnsubmit.htm

Google also provides a special tool that can be used to help you increase your websites page rank called sitemaps. Sitemaps gives you an idea of how well your pages rank in its index as well as many other useful reports and statistics related to Google’s search engine. Sitemaps is a valuable tool for those particularly interested in SEO. The website for sitemaps can be found at http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/

Online Marketplaces

Ebay and Froogle are two popular online marketplaces. Online marketplaces increase exposure to products and company websites. Ebay is a less professional venue compared to other online stores due to its auction style listings, but has a considerably larger potential customer base. Froogle is particularly interesting because of its integration into the Google search engine, which can increase exposure to a corporate website significantly.

Listing products in online catalogs can be a time consuming endeavor, but can also reap great rewards. It would be beneficial for any company wishing to increase exposure to their products or online store, to list at least several popular items, at low prices, in an online marketplace. This will help to increase product recognition, website traffic, and search engine ranking all of which are necessary to build a successful online store.

Online Directories

Online directories are yet another way to increase your ranking in search engines. Many search engines scan the most popular open directories to retrieve updated information on websites. DMOZ and Yahoo’s directory services are currently the most commonly accessed services. Submitting a site to one of these directories is very quick and simple, but the actual process of becoming listed to the directory can often take weeks. The following links can be used to submit websites to the open directories.

Yahoo - https://ecom.yahoo.com/dir/submit/intro/
DMOZ - http://dmoz.org/add.html
Base – http://base.google.com

In addition to open directories submitting to company directories is also an integral part to increasing search ranking. One example of this type of directory can be found at the Network Solutions (http://www.nsconline.com/members/southeast.html). Companies that are listed on the Network Solutions member’s page will not only get referrals from nsconline.com, they are also receiving a potential boost in page ranking value. Without getting into unnecessary details, this boost is experienced because a link in to a website is much like a vote. With more votes (links) for your website, search engines will perceive you as more valuable to searchers and rank you higher in their results.

Corporate Blogging

Corporate blogging is a relatively new concept but has quickly gained popularity for a variety of reasons including SEO. Blogs have quickly risen to the top of many search engines because they are constantly being updated with new relevant information. There are also search engines specifically for blogs that generate a substantial amount of traffic to corporate sites. One company who recently started offering a corporate blog is Dell. Dell’s new blog can be found at http://www.dellone2one.com/ . Dell’s reasoning for creating their blog is not SEO, but is still closely related to general marketing principles. There are many other companies creating corporate blogs, but the fact that a company as big as Dell has moved in this direction is proof enough that blogging is a valuable marketing tool.

Click Fraud - The Final Frontier

2006-07-31T05:10:00Z

This post is a bit of a continuation of some of my prior posts on Google’s Adsense along with some new material pertaining to the 47-page report by Alexander Tuzhilin that was submitted for The Lane’s Gifts v. Google Report case. Those of you who have been following my blog will recall that I have written about Adsense several times and in each of those posts I have tried to stress how important both Adsense and Adwords are to smaller or less established publishers. Namely, that Adsense and Adwords give lesser known websites an opportunity to grow and expand their user base as well as generate residual income that allow them to compete with larger entities and mainstream websites.

Recently however, Google’s Adsense has been under attack by the legal system, the media, and the general public for its policies regarding click fraud. Consequently Google was taken to court in February and eventually a 90 million dollar settlement was reached. Also resulting from the case was the 47-page report that will be the focal point for the remainder of this post.

I’m assuming that since all of you are die-hard Google fanatics, you have probably already read the pithy report and much of what I write will simply serve as a reminder of what you already learned. But, for the few of you who didn’t make it through all 47 pages (Donna you’re in this group. I checked your blog, where your posts on the subject were comprised of a slew of excerpts from the paper with no original commentary, once again proving that you don’t actually care about the matter of click fraud, but simply want to find anyway possible to write negative articles with regards to Google, thereby promoting your personal vendetta against them.)

Alexander Tuzhilin was asked to determine if Google has made reasonable efforts to combat click fraud. In the first paragraph he says, “I conclude that Google’s efforts to combat click fraud are reasonable. In the rest of this report, I elaborate this point.” The interesting part of this conclusion is that in section 9.5 (p. 41-44) he explains that his conclusion is based solely on indirect evidence. Not only is the evidence indirect, but it is also statistical in nature, for which I’ll remind you of a quote made famous by Mark Twain, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."

Dr. Tuzhilin concludes that Google made reasonable efforts based on evidence that he states is “not hard enough” and continues on to say that “he is used to dealing with much more conclusive evidence” (p.43). He says on the final page of the report, “There is no hard data that can actually prove this statement” (p.47). There are two very interesting points about this inconclusive evidence that I wish to share with you.

First, there are a number of people outside of Google (and other search engines) who seem to think they know exactly how big the problem of click fraud has become. They claim to have statistical evidence of click fraud and boast fraudulent percentages as high as 30 percent. I find it interesting that these organizations (see here and here) can come to such conclusive evidence, but a highly educated and informed Tuzhilin with inside knowledge of the advertising system cannot.

Secondly, there is one point where Dr. Tuzhilin was able to conclusively find evidence of click fraud, and this is most definitely the highlight of the findings disclosed in the paper. I am referring here to Google’s double-click policy. Google had been counting double-clicks as valid clicks (charging the advertiser for both the first and second clicks) until just recently, when they changed their policy in March 2005. Double clicking Internet links stems from the habit of double clicking Windows icons/applications and is fairly common.

It is hard to say exactly how much extra revenue was generated from these double clicks, but Dr. Tuzhilin points out that it was a “non-trivial” amount (Section 9.1.4 p 29). Even more interesting is that from the very beginning of the Cost Per Click advertising model, Google decided to eliminate the third and fourth clicks and considered them invalid. Stated in a slightly different format the logic can be shown as follows:

1st Click – valid, 2nd Click – valid, 3rd Click – invalid, 4th Click – invalid.

Do no evil Google? Well, nobody is perfect including Google. There are a few other points worth mentioning but I’ll save those for another time.

There are two things worth noting in case you get in a discussion with you’re a co-worker on this topic and haven’t read the report. First, there is no conclusive evidence about how well Google is combating click fraud or even how big of a problem click fraud has become. Second, Google was at least dishonest in the counting of double clicks when clearly they knew this was wrong as evidence by the fact that they counted the third and fourth clicks as invalid.

Click fraud is such an important topic to discuss because of its implications to the economy of the Internet. I plan on posting a second part to this article to discuss why I think the CPA (Cost Per Action) click model is absurd for most advertising applications.

Why I Love Lawyers

2006-07-25T17:48:00Z

On Friday, Google made public through legal proceedings, various additional details pertaining to the ongoing click fraud circus (CFC). You can read the full news from this link.

I’m about 20 pages into the 47 page document written by Alexander Tuzhilin, which is a very insightful read. I’m looking forward to finishing it up and providing some more commentary on click fraud, which is certainly more research than we can expect from Donna over at ZDNet, maybe I should apply for her job.

Reading through the 17 page objections document Google released, I found it quite interesting that the lawyers are entitled to no more than 30 million dollars of the 90 million dollar settlement. I love this country! I just wish the business model for lawyers applied in other professions.

More to come soon.

Eric Schmidt on Google and Economics - Part 2

2006-07-17T23:36:00Z

Typically I stay out of the he said she said type of blog content but I decided to add a few comments on the matter after Krupo's recent post. This second part is closely related to my previous blog post in context but not in content.

Let me start by naming all parties that will be discussed in this post, simply to ensure that my manhood is not questioned in regards to this post. Listed in order of power and influence from greatest to least, Eric Schmidt - CEO of Google, Shuman Ghosemajumder, Business Product Manager, Trust & Safety, Google, Donna Bogatin, ZDNet blogger.

Along the same lines of thought, I'd also like to ensure that this post stays consistent with my commitment to help Google organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible, and so I'll include all of the links that relate to this story in a date stamped bulleted fashion.

March - Eric speaks at the 2006 SIEPR economics event, see this link
July 9th - Donna Bogatin writes dense blog post #1, see this link
July 14th - Shuman G. writes original response to click fraud allegations, see this link
July 14th - Donna Bogatin writes dense blog post #2, see this link
July 1(5-7)th-ish - Shuman G. updates original response, see this link
July 17th - Donna Bogatin writes dense blog post #3, see this link

Now, in my blogging rule book three stupid posts equals an out, so Donna, congratulations on being the first blogger to strike out in my blogosphere.

If you view the content in the order listed above you will quickly realize what happened, and I'll summarize it briefly for those of you who don't care to spend the 1+ hours it would take to view all of the content discussed.

Eric makes a great speach at the SIEPR conference on Google and related economic topics. Donna (obviously didn't watch the video and) thinks that the conference is about Google's new policy for dealing with adsense/adwords and click fraud. The conference was in actuality on economic policys in general, but particularly those that affect Google's business practices, held in a question and answer formatted discussion.

The brilliant question which prompted the response from Eric that Donna misquoted was asked by an intelligent Stanford student (and I'm paraphrasing), "Ignoring the fact that we know there are technical solutions to click fraud, is there an economic solution to click fraud?". Eric proceeded to explain that he believes there, in theory, is an economic solution to click fraud.

Donna then takes his explanation out of context and accuses Google of encouraging click fraud through ignorance on the issue.

Google responds to deny the allegations made by Donna.

Donna then complains that Google's original response was inadequate because they didn't bring attention (traffic) to her and her blog.

Google then gives her the attention she requests by updating the original post and adding a link back to Donna's blog in the updated revised post.

Donna then makes a post with an "I Love Google" image and short post never apologizing to Google for her lack of research and showing her complete ignorance on the click fraud issue.

Oh yea, I almost forgot to mention that I did learn one thing from Donna, namely why I never see ZDNet articles in my Google search results.

Eric Schmidt on Google and Economics - Part 1

2006-07-17T16:59:00Z

I am, if you haven't noticed, a huge fan of Google. I love what Google does, who they are, and who they represent. There are millions of documents on the Internet, most of which are unrelated to the information we are trying to find at any given moment. Google allows us to find these documents and in a very timely fashion which is something many search engines still haven't figure out.

I've noticed this trend to redesign and remarket a search engine in the hopes to gain more users. The problem with this is that no matter how good your search engine looks or how much you spend to advertise your search engine, people aren't going to use it unless they can find the information they are looking for quickly, something Google does magnificently.

Google has found a great leader in Eric and he continues to help the company grow and produce exceptional products and services. He spoke several months ago at Stanford on economics, to an economics audience and thanks to Google Video, those of us who couldn't be there can still enjoy the talk (see this link).

Eric talked about a variety of topics and policies, many of which were more indirectly related to economics then directly related. The talk was in a question and answer format and he addressed many "hot topics" including Net Neutrality, Google and China, and Click Fraud. I enjoyed this 37 minute video from the CEO of Google and if you are a fan of Google you probably will too. The ability to hear and see this talk is just another reason why I can't get enough Google.

Buy Online with Google Checkout

2006-07-13T15:21:00Z

A couple weeks ago Google announced the release of their new checkout service. Talk about the service has been around for several months and was highly anticipated by shareholders of Google stock.

What is the checkout service? Simply stated it is Google's version of Paypal. Google already does quite a bit of online transcactions through adwords/adsense, video, and others, so it only made sense for them to go vertical in the online transaction processing business.

What does this mean for you? Not a whole lot unless you own a storefront. It will take Google several years to integrate its service with major Internet business players. What is more likely is that new services entering the market may consider using Google's checkout as opposed to using a competing service provider.

If however you own a website storefont, you might consider using Google's service simply for its massive user base where Google has a huge advantage over other service providers (except for maybe the Paypal / Ebay combo). You can checkout (no pun intended) the all of the features at http://checkout.google.com

Subtle development at Google Maps

2006-07-12T21:15:00Z

Guest post by Krupo
Hop over to Google Maps if you haven't been there lately. The interface has undergone subtle tweaks, including a slightly prettier colour scheme (orange tabs!), and most impressively, "smooth zoom" scrolling.

I've already forgotten the details behind the old zoom system, but I love how it now works. Instead of the herky-jerky skipping motion you get when changing zoom levels, which I now only vaguely recall, now you see the whole screen 'slide' in or out somewhat crudely, but it's very smooth.

Aesthetically, it just feels better.

A wonderful tool/toy just got better.

What You Missed in Las Vegas

2006-07-05T16:50:00Z

I recently took a trip out to Las Vegas to participate in the 2006 World Comp proceedings. I had a great time while I was there and learned a few things along the way.

On the plane trip I had the opportunity to meet the creator of the SleepTracker watch. He is a great guy, real nice, and the watch has received raving reviews including the praise of Time Magazine and CES.

I learned about CSound, a structured audio (mpeg 4) tool that allows you to programmatically generate sound waves, from Barry Vercoe, one of the keynote speakers. This free software is the same software that has been used to create Hollywood movies like Stealth. I downloaded the software when I got home and found it to be fascinating. The only problem I have with the language and tools is the huge learning curve that is associated with the development and use of the software.

Additionally, Barry presented the One Laptop Per Child organization to us, which I also found to be quite interesting. The laptop being created will require very little power such that the battery can be charged using solar or pedal based power.

One evening I had the opportunity to see the Blue Man Group at The Venetian. I found them to be a wonderful relief from the technical and academic aspects of the conference. The show was entertaining and humurous, and even included a number of interesting facts about various topics including the human eye, and U.S. population, all of which were presented in an entertaining manor. If you have the opportunity to see them on their tour, I would highly recommend it as a "must see".

Finally, a few minor recommendations when going to Las Vegas:

Play the Penny Slot Machines. You can play for several hours on a couple bucks and have a blast. (No I am not advocating gambling)
Stay at The Venetian, if you can afford it, which I can't.
If you can't afford to stay at The Venetian, then stay at Treasure Island.
Do go see the Blue Man Group.
Don't expect cheap food or cheap airfare, those days are over.
Stop by the MGM to see their lion exhibit.
Go see the Grand Canyon and Hover Dam on a hellicopter tour.

There we go, now you don't have to feel like you missed anything in Las Vegas.