Selected Participants Invited to Test drive AdWords Editor

Google just began offering their AdWords Editor in beta, to selected advertisers.

From the AdWords Editor website:

AdWords Editor currently is available only to a limited number of advertisers. If you aren't a beta participant, please be assured that we're working to release AdWords Editor to a larger number of advertisers in the near future. 
According to the description on Google AdWords Editor website, the AdWords Editor is a downloadable account management application for one's computer and is designed especially for large AdWords accounts where it allows one to make changes to their account with greater ease and flexibility. "Download your campaigns, make bulk or individual edits offline, then upload your changes to your AdWords account".

6.5MB in size and downloadable in 30 seconds over a broadband connection, AdWords Editor works the same way as GTalk does when it comes to updates, which is done automatically. As of now, the AdWords Editor has only been tested on the Home and Pro editions for Windows 2000 and Windows XP, however, Google says that the application is designed for cross-platform functionality and they're working on expanding functionality to Mac & Linux!

Apparently, the first publicly available version of AdWords Editor was released on the 24th of january this year (version 0.9.2). Some new features in the latest version include, the ability to list HTTP proxy settings in the Tools Menu under the Settings and additional campaign search network distribution preferences can be specified in terms of Google search only, Google and the search network, or no search network distribution.

But like I mentioned above, as AdWords Editor is just opened to invited Beta participants, you need to enter a username and password in order to download the application. A user dialog box like the one below appears when you click on the download link:
Although AdWords Editor is free, Google's AdWords is no longer free ever since the AdWords API team announced on their blog that they had made some revisions to their Beta Program and effective July 1, 2006, the current free quota system will be replaced by a usage-based system. Under this cost-based model, AdWords API token holders will be charged a nominal $0.25/1000 quota units consumed. This charge has caused some anger and disgust amongst AdWords API developers… Blogosphere has the buzz on that!

Now if you're interested in getting involved with this latest beta product by Google, talk to the AdWords team here. Believe me, they are listening!