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CBS Spreading Its Shows, Ad Reach Across The Internet - Giving further credence to the power of online partnerships, CBS Corp. has established a broad Internet distribution platform for its TV programming through deals with 10 major companies including AOL, Comcast and MSN.   

USAToday.com Registrations Up 380% Since Makeover - USA Today’s community-centric makeover last month appears to be paying off in dividends. The site has seen a dramatic 380% increase in registrations since the relaunch, while its unique visitor rates have grown 21% from February, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.  

AOL Will Give ‘First Look’ At Programming Strategy - Angling to attract more offline media dollars to its network, AOL on Tuesday will present its programming strategy for the next year to advertisers, media buyers and planners, along with the press. AOL’s “First Look” follows similar events staged by Yahoo and MSN to offer a glimpse into its programming portfolio and opportunities for advertisers. 

15% Increase in Visits to Newspaper Websites - According to NAdbase released in April, 36 percent of all Internet users visited a newspaper Web site in November, 2006, and page views for newspaper Web sites increased 27 percent year over year during the second half of 2006. This latest report shows that during the second half of 2006, unique visitors to newspaper Web sites averaged 57.3 million visitors a month, or one in three of all Internet users, a 15 percent increase over the same period a year ago.

Gamer Demographics Spread Out - Video games aren’t just for the South Park set anymore. Video games seem like a good marketing tool for reaching young males. But measuring in-game ads has been tough until recently, keeping video games from becoming more than a niche marketing tool. Now, advertisers, game developers and console manufacturers are getting a better look at who plays their games. Greater connectivity and digital rights management technologies reveal that although there are still plenty of young male console gamers, casual gamers are predominantly female, according to an Information Solutions Group (ISG) study commissioned by PopCap Games.

Fandango Buy Underscores Comcast Web Push - The media delivery giant Comcast Corp. continues to buy its way into the content business–some might say curiously. Does this mean America’s No. 1 broadband provider sees its future in media? How crowded is this space? It seems like every company out there with even the slightest relationship to media believes it can build the Web’s de facto destination for online video content. But Comcast may have a stronger position than some. The company claims a whopping 2.5 billion page views per month from 15 million uniques. ComScore ranked the cable giant ninth in the page views category in February 2007, ahead of rival Viacom. 

GoogleClick: Execs Explain $3.1 Billion Deal - Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt and DoubleClick CEO David Rosenblatt were those among those on a conference call (full audio for streaming and download below), explaining the $3.1 billion acquisition to investors and journalists. Schmidt’s brief opening remarks highlighted the perceived value of using one console for search and displayed and promised more innovations.

Facebook: Is IPO The Only Option Now? - A good cover-story profile of Facebook and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg in the latest issue of FastCompany. Despite prediction otherwise, Facebook keeps growing, and is now the sixth most-trafficked site in the U.S.–1 percent of all Internet time is spent on Facebook, and some estimates suggest it will bring in $100 million in revenues this year. After turning down a $750 million -$1 billion offers, the company now wants to stay independent,the story says. 

IPG Buys Search Marketing Agency Reprise Media - Interpublic Group filled a gaping hole in its vast network by acquiring Reprise Media, an independent search engine marketing agency whose clients include Microsoft, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, and USA Today.

Comcast Buys Fandango; Plans New Entertainment Site - Comcast bought movie ticket and listing site Fandango and plans to leverage its fan base for a new online entertainment destination Fancast.com, to launch this summer.

Yahoo Close To Acquiring Rivals.com; Price Could Reach Nine Figures - You’re reading it here first: Yahoo is close to making its biggest sports acquisition after, well, the Broadcast.com deal: the college sports network Rivals.com, paidContent.org has learned. The price could reach around $100 million, which some we’ve spoken to say is overpriced, and that’s why the traditional sports media buyers are sitting out on this one. One exec involved in online sports acquisitions told us $50-75 million would be more realistic given a model that can—and has been—replicated and described the reaction to what Rivals was asking—$100 million—as “sticker shock.”

Technorati Buys News Customizer Site Personal Bee - Blog indexer Technorati has bought custom news site Personal Bee, its first acquisition in a while, the ME Times reported. Financial terms were not disclosed. The San Francisco-based company plans to deploy Personal Bee’s platform so Technorati’s users will be able tailor news pages to individual tastes and then get automated feedback.

Akamai Buys P2P Tech Provider RedSwoosh For $15 Million - Akamai, the big CDN, has finally made a push in P2P delivery and has bought the smallish Santa Monica-based P2P tech provider RedSwoosh. The acquisition is valued at about $15 million, net of cash acquired…it is an all-stock transaction.

Google Acquires DoubleClick For $3.1 Billion - Ending weeks of a bidding battle with Microsoft, Google reached an agreement to buy online advertising network DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in cash, the companies announced today. The deal expands Google’s foothold in online advertising. The price is almost double the $1.65 billion Google paid for YouTube last year. DoubleClick, founded in 1996, provides display ads on Web sites. The deal gives Google access to DoubleClick’s relationships with Web publishers and advertisers. Perhaps equally important, it keeps them away from Microsoft.

Dow Jones Buys EFinancial News For $51.6 Million - Certainly not in the Google-DoubleClick range, but an interesting deal completed by Dow Jones, as expected: it has bought UK-based financial media company eFinancial News Holdings for about $51.6 million. The net cash consideration represents about 10.1 times estimated 2007 EBTIDA.

Berkowitz Talks About Microsoft Search Strategy As Google Share Keeps Climbing - On the day Microsoft’s Steve Berkowitz talked about what the company is doing to bolster its Windows Live search product, new monthly search share tallies from Hitwise show Google with a healthy year-over-year gain in March.  

Monster Expands Career Site Relationship With Internet Broadcasting’s TV Sites - Career site Monster.com is expanding its relationship with Internet Broadcasting, a network of local TV sites, to power some 120 co-branded career sites in 108 markets nationwide.

Superpages.com, eStara Sponsor Local Search Guide - Demonstrating the growing influence of local search and its ability to deliver a decent return on investment, Superpages.com and eStara have signed on as sponsors of the Local Search Guide, a popular online resource published by the Yellow Pages Association.

It’s Official: CBS Launches Own Distribution Network; Includes Domestic And International - As we reported first this morning, CBS has made a large number of new online deals and is grouping them together in what is being called the CBS Interactive Network. The official announcement is out and CBS is describing it as “the most widely distributed professional content provider on the Web.” I just got off the phone with Quincy Smith, president of CBS Interactive, and will have more from that soon.

Interview with CBS Interactive President P.1

Interview with CBS Interactive President P.2

McClatchy Walks Out Of Trib-Gannett Online Ad Deal; To Join Expanded Yahoo Consortium - The continued dance of alliances in the newspaper industry: McClatchy has abandoned a nascent national online ad partnership with Tribune and Gannett to join a rival group of publishers that is working with Yahoo, reports WSJ, citing sources. The Yahoo consortium meanwhile now has at least 12 newspaper companies involved, and a new, broader deal could be announced next week, the story says.

World Of Warcraft Grabs 75 Percent Of MMO Time - Xfire, which connects gamers and lets them know when their friends are playing, has released some statistics about the usage of online games—and it’s no surprise that World of Warcraft blitzes the competition. World of Warcraft had an average of 390,703 hours played on it each day in March, while the second most popular game, Counter-Strike Source, had less than half that figure with 157,187 hours played on average each day.

DRM-Free Digital Music Store AnywhereCD Launches; Warners Pulls Catalog Immediately - Within hours of the opening of DRM-free online music shop AnywhereCD, Warner Music Group demanded that the site remove the label’s digital albums, Reuters reported. WMG claimed that the start-up had violated an agreement by selling the record company’s music without copy protection software.

Secret of Facebook’s Success - Facebook is enjoying a run of success that almost no one anticipated. The social network of late has been eating rival MySpace’s lunch, adding new users and more page views at a torrid pace. Only six months ago, critics were saying the company was faced with a membership crisis. The secret to Facebook’s recent success is its ability to learn from its mistakes. Unlike MySpace, which has been exercising a very heavy corporate hand recently (to the chagrin of its users), Facebook has quietly been soliciting user feedback to all of the moves it makes.

Spock Developing “People Search” - A new company called Spock takes a different approach to Web search, focusing on people, like a searchable encyclopedia, using a range of sources that goes far beyond social networks. According to TechCrunch, upward of 30% of Internet searches are people-related. And as anyone who’s ever tried to look someone up on Google knows, people search could be better.

How To Face A Potential Talent Exodus - For those still holding Google stock from the days when the company went public (nearly three years ago now), they’ve nearly quadrupled their money by now, making millionaires out of many a Google employee. This year, hundreds will be coming up on their fourth-year anniversary, which means they’ll soon be able to cash in all their pre-IPO options. When they do, and many will, they’ll be faced an important question: to stay or not to stay?

Tech Boom Is Private, Not Public - Don’t believe what you’ve read: IPOs in the tech sector are back. in the first quarter alone, nine venture capital-backed tech companies went public, with three IPOs just two weeks ago. However, unlike the cavalier days of the late Nineties, these firms aren’t wide-eyed startups; rather, they’re mature enterprises. And for the most part, they’re not Internet media firms: they sell things like networking hardware and wireless Internet service.

Jupiter Finds Search Spending On Rise; Marketer Demand Fuels Keyword Price Increases - A full quarter of advertisers in companies with revenues of $50 million or more plan to increase spending on search engine marketing by more than 25% this year, according to Jupiter Research. They are budgeting for anticipated keyword cost increases associated with the demand.  

Viacom, Yahoo Strike Multi-Year Search Marketing Deal - Taking advantage of the ongoing rift between Viacom and Google, Yahoo has scored an exclusive, multi-year deal to provide search and contextual ad services to top-tier broadband sites owned by the media giant. The deal is also an important vote of confidence in Yahoo’s new Panama platform.

Deep Focus Developing New Model For Video Programming - Interactive marketing boutique Deep Focus is expanding its scope by developing a hybrid on-air/online model for promotion and distribution of video programming. Founder Ian Schafer says the shop is in production on four original Web series.

Meredith 360: Launches Better.tv To Encompass All Media - Meredith is launching Better.tv, the company’s first broadband video network, gleaning content from its array of home-making magazines, as well as its TV stations and book division. The company currently reaches 75 million women and hopes to be a 360-degree entity for advertisers.

Online Video a Male Province So Far - According to a new E-Marketer study and report, there will be an estimated 97 million females online in the US this year, compared with 91 million males. When it comes to viewing video online, however, their positions are reversed. Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer senior analyst and the author of the new Women Online, says “While 78% of males watch video online, only 66% of females do…” (but) “they are less likely than males to visit most video destination sites — even the biggie, YouTube.”

Will Portals Get Poached? - MySpace could lure the majority of heavy users from Google and other big portals, according to JupiterResearch’s “21st Century Portals: Thriving in the Google-MySpace Era” report. The report claims that 55% of the users most likely to pay for services could be swayed by an entertainment and communication combination like MySpace.

Niche Sites Invigorate Online Travel - New online travel sites are chipping away at some of the expertise that drives people to online travel agencies (OTAs), which are themselves already pressured by travel supplier sites run by airlines and hotels. Recent offerings from Farecast and FareCompare help consumers determine the best time to book airline tickets. Travel social networking sites like Gusto.com let visitors share itineraries and trip information. All this activity comes as research from comScore shows that travel supplier Web sites are steadily taking share away from OTAs, due to the success of their lowest-price guarantees.

Google 411 Puts Directory Assistance Under Pressure - Does Google 411 signal the end of big telecoms’ directory phone assistance? It certainly changes things. The days of calling 411 and paying a dollar or more for help appear to be numbered, as Google 411 and a bevy of startups offer free, ad-supported directory service. Those high-cost days have been on the wane since mobile search began connecting users to free yellow pages listings and Web sites. But with Google 411 and other services, consumer can now find people for free, on landlines as well as their cell phones.

MySpace Dumps Photobucket Video Files - Photobucket, the photo and video storage site used by legions of MySpace and Facebook users, once prided itself on being the Web’s No. 3 destination for online video, in addition to being its No. 1 destination for photos. Well, for now, Photobucket can’t claim the former, since News Corp. began blocking videos embedded from the storage site on MySpace.

TV Web Sites Popular During Prime Time - Prime time for the television networks also is prime time for their Web sites, according to a new report by Nielsen//NetRatings. The weekday hours of 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. account for 40% of the total time spent at NBC.com, while they account for around 30% of time at the ABC Primetime and 26% of time spent at Fox Broadcasting sites, Nielsen//NetRatings found. But overall, those hours account for just 14% of all time spent online, according to the report.

It’s A Better Thing: Marthastewart.com Relaunches - A new and improved Marthastewart.com launches today with an elegant new look, improvements to search and navigation, more than 700 videos, and recipes, recipes, recipes. The aim is to become the most important lifestyle source online.   

Google 411 Takes Aim At Directory Assistance - Fueled almost entirely by search-based ad revenue, Google continues to tinker with different services in a variety of industries. In the latest example, it has taken aim at directory assistance providers with a free voice-activated 411 service.  

Survey Forecasts Increased Use Of Ad Networks - A new survey of digital media buyers and planners finds two-thirds of advertisers plan to increase their use of online ad networks this year. The survey found that while the use of ad networks and ad spending is growing, respondents indicated frustration over the number of ad networks and complexity of the marketplace. For example, some 62% of the media buyers polled said there are currently too many ad networks. That said, only 17% of respondents maintained that all ad networks are pretty much alike.   

Creston Shopping For Agencies; Gives Blamer $100MM To Find - Creston plc, the U.K.’s fastest-growing publicly traded holding company, is officially on the prowl for independent stateside marketing services and digital talent, and armed new U.S. CEO Steve Blamer with a $100 million war chest to find it.  

New Study Points To Web Prominence For 2008 Election - Mounting evidence points to the web as a critical communications and educational tool for the 2008 Presidential election. Indeed, voters are relying on the Web more than any medium to research candidates and their positions, according to a new study from online ad network Burst Media.  

Hearst, Fox Team For Digital Content - CosmoGirl and Popular Mechanics, both published by Hearst Magazines, will be creating digital content, including video, in partnership with Fox Television Studios, the companies announced Monday. The new strategic partnership puts Hearst on the same video footing as other big players, such as Time Inc., which recently opened its own in-house video production facility.

Efficient Frontier Launches SEM Solution For Agencies - Search engine marketing solutions provider Efficient Frontier unveiled a new program designed to enable advertising agencies to deliver best-in-class paid search advertising technology and campaign management to their clients.

Microsoft Adds IM Capabilities To Xbox 360 - Microsoft Corp is launching Windows Live Messenger on its Xbox 360, an entertainment system, so users can message directly from their television.The Xbox 360’s free spring update, which starts the week of May 7, will provide Xbox 360 owners worldwide with access to Windows Live Messenger features. The service will allow users to text chat with up to six people on their contact list at one time while playing games, listening to music or watching movies.

Car Sales Start With Clicks - More auto shoppers are going to branded carmaker Web sites than ever, but they are going to fewer sites in total, according to Capgemini. Manufacturer sites topped the list of sources consumers planned to use during their auto shopping process: 49% of respondents planned to use them in 2006, compared with only 31% in 2005. The study also found that traditional media are losing ground. Reliance on print media dropped to 25% of respondents in 2006, from 32% in 2005, while TV advertising remained flat, with 24% of respondents in 2006, compared to 23% in 2005.

Economics 101: Web Giants Rule ‘Democratized’ Medium - When it comes to online-advertising riches, the short tail is getting shorter. A recent number crunch from consultancy group Marketspace indicates the 10 biggest internet players nabbed a whopping 99% of gross online-ad revenue last year. If that’s not enough to startle, consider: That’s up from 95% in 2005. The growth is notable by any standard in any business, but particularly surprising in a medium whose potential for fragmentation, at least audience-wise, is seemingly limitless. It means the majority of the sites on the web are left fighting over the remaining 1% of online ad revenue.

Beyond Pre-Roll: New Opt-in Options That Could Help Monetize Online Video - What will be the web’s 30-second spot? For one thing, it won’t be a 30-second spot. The absence of a killer-app ad model is arguably the biggest question hindering the growth of the online video ad market. While TV has grown $68 billion fat on, for better or worse, a fairly consistent ad format, the online space has no such tried-and-true standard. And it may never have just one. While some publishers are selling pre-roll ads, a number of companies are betting on an entirely new opt-in approach, one they say will be less annoying to consumers and offer better returns to marketers.

Games Don’t Just Draw Boys. They’re Wooing Women, Too - When women ages 55 to 64 were asked what their favorite leisure activity was, online gaming came in second, just behind TV but ahead of listening to music, watching DVDs and reading newspapers or magazines. Online gaming came in third behind TV and the internet when the same question was asked of women ages 25 to 34 and 35 to 44.

“Widgets”: Coming To A Web Profile Near You - An old word used in economics textbooks has received a new Web 2.0 makeover: a “widget,” no longer just a 20th-century product, now refers to a piece of branded micro-content that can easily be shared between consumers or embedded on a personal blog or social networking profile. A pair of companies from the D.C. suburbs are producing these branded products. “Advertisers are no longer wanting people to click on a link to buy something,” said Haroon Mokhtarzada, the 27-year-old founder and chief executive of Freewebs, a company that makes online widgets. “Now, they’re wanting people to engage in a neat product while they build brand equity.”

Whither Meg Whitman? - Is it time for eBay chief Meg Whitman to go? She’s been running the Web retail giant for nine years, approaching the one-decade deadline she set at the outset of her reign. It’s not exactly a secret that eBay’s growth continues to slow, while its stock has failed to rebound. The official word from eBay is that Whitman is staying.

Big Media’s Next Move: Video Games - It’s no secret that big media needs to mine new areas — and video game publishers, which could use some added financial push, could help them move into the potentially lucrative world of online gaming. As ever, it looks as though Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. will be first out of the gate.

Survey: Product Reviews Get Good Review - When it comes to making purchasing decisions, one in three Internet users report being influenced by Web sites that publish user product reviews, according to a report from search marketing services firm iProspect and JupiterResearch, a Web research firm. The study, which polled 2,223 respondents in January, sought to measure how consumers use social networking sites.

AOL Launches Private-Label AOL-Only Search Product - AOL today launches AOL Search Marketplace, a private-label version of Google AdWords search allowing advertisers to place search ads only within the AOL Network. It is designed to provide AOL display advertisers with a better package and give AOL a chance to get at more of these advertisers’ search ad dollars.  

Let The Games Begin: Growth Seen For Video Game Ads - Video games are fertile ground for marketers looking to promote their brands, but the medium remains underused. eMarketer forecasts a 23% year-over-year increase in spending on in-game ads and advergaming through 2011. 

Pitches For Ailments Drive Consumers Online - Ads focused on building awareness for conditions such as restless leg syndrome, acne, or HPV are driving consumers to visit particular Web sites to take action and research the ailments online, according to a new study from health care market research firm Millward Brown.   

Despite Problems, Cable Execs, eBay Stunned By Rejection - Cable network executives were caught off-guard by the proposed eBay auction system because of one glaring component: the price. The Cable Bureau of Advertising nixed the plan, but says it hopes to find a better approach to electronic media buying. Although the system was criticized on several fronts, various cable and eBay execs were stunned by the rejection.

Few Convert at Retail E-Commerce Sites - US retail e-commerce conversion rates average 2%-3% year after year. Yet there are firms which convert 15% or more of their site visitors to buyers. Included are tables and graphs of percentage break ups of conversion rates and the top 10 converting e-commerce sites.  

Lending Credence To Controversial Vidmeter Study - Holes in its methodology notwithstanding, that Vidmeter study, which said copyrighted material accounts for less than 9% of all videos on YouTube, continues to get a lot of press. Most reports harp on its use of deleted videos to conduct the study, a New York Times report explores the possible merits of its findings.  

Schmidt: Future Is Search - Far short of calling Google “a one-trick pony” (a la Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer) Google chief Eric Schmidt, admits the search giant does get the vast majority of its revenue from one source–but he says online advertising is a business “a lot of other people would like to be in.” He doesn’t point out that Google get most of its revenue from text ads, despite having entered several new advertising areas. Unconcerned, Schmidt asserts that, “new revenue models are on the horizon.” He’s particularly excited about Google Apps’ potential to move into the market enterprise-level Web-based office tools–territory traditionally dominated by Microsoft.

Media Moguls Head For Web - Just about every media company in the world is trying to figure out a way into the world of social networks, blogs and online video. Several, like Google, News Corp. and NBC Universal, have bought their way into Web 2.0, while others, like Viacom, are choosing to build it. Critics might say that due to their size; big media companies are at a disadvantage when it comes to the fast-paced world of new media. Several former media moguls have abandoned the traditional world in favor of growing their own Web startups.  

Wal-Mart Sold 3K Download Movies In First Month; Akimbo On PCs - In a general AP story about offline retailers looking to start online movie services, a good factoid about Wal-Mart, which launched its online movie download service in Feb: it has sold 3,000 movie downloads in its first month. Not sure what their benchmarks were, but it seems a bit low.

Media Contacts’ Global Traders Angle For Access - Long before news about DoubleClick’s online ad auction system broke, Havas’ Media Contacts not only knew about the trading floor-style platform, but offered feedback and briefed clients on it. The digital media buying and planning shop got an early peek at the system and signed on to participate in a test driven largely by the work of its Global Trading Team. 

Glam Media Snags iVillage’s Salant To Lead Biz Dev - Fashion and shopping e-publisher Glam Media has hired former iVillage executive Jennifer Salant to lead its expansion and business development efforts.

NYTimes.com Adds Outside Content To Relaunched Auto Site - Taking a page from other popular news and affinity sites, NYTimes.com has relaunched and redesigned its auto site to include content from non-Times sources. But the effort may be too little, too late in a highly competitive category.

CAB Axes eBay Media Marketplace - The Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau — which essentially held the keys to launching eBay Media Marketplace, the long-ballyhooed online buying and selling system for TV time– said it was a permanent no-go. The trade group’s opposition was based on two points: The eBay functionality was flawed, and the system wasn’t in step with the new age of media buying.

Travel Channel, SideStep Partner Online - The Travel Channel has teamed with SideStep Inc., an online travel search company, as part of an overall redesign of its flagship Web site, TravelChannel.com. The revamped Web site, which features a new design, navigation and search-optimized pages, enables visitors to get information on specific travel destinations, watch travel-related video and book trips. It also has updated information about various Travel Channel shows.

Top Online Current Events and News Destinations - Charted display of the top news and current event destinations. Includes a drill-down of reader demographics, advertisers, ad types and sizes for the top Online global news and current events destinations.

Let the Games Begin Advertising! - In-game advertising will evolve in scope and sophistication, offering new platforms for marketers, new business opportunities for technology providers and vital revenue for game developers, who have struggled with the escalating production costs of increasingly complex games,” says eMarketer Senior Analyst Paul Verna, the author of the new Video Game Advertising: Getting to the Next Level report. “eMarketer estimates that over the next five years video game advertising will grow at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 23%, reaching nearly $2 billion by 2011.”

Venture Capitalist Robert McNamee Sounds Off On Web - Bambi Francisco of Marketwatch talks to Roger McNamee, the venture capitalist who famously called Google a “Web 1.0″ firm at a Web 2.0 trade show about a month ago. Web 1.0 is still very disruptive to the media hierarchy; its time has not yet passed. He calls YouTube “Web 1.5,” and adds that Web 2.0 will disrupt both YouTube and everything that came before it. In other words, Web 2.0 hasn’t started disrupting yet. “Everything that matters will come on my person,” he said of the future, Apple’s iPhone marks the beginning. “That’s the thing that disrupts the PC market.”

Does DoubleClick Fight Mean an Ad Network Fire Sale? - Various reports have pegged the New York-based firm’s valuation at more than $2 billion. What does this mean for DoubleClick’s competitors? Forbes says a DoubleClick sale could boost their value in the eyes of potential acquirers. “DoubleClick has set a benchmark,” says Gurbaksh Chahal, co-founder and CEO of the privately owned ad network Blue Lithium. “It validates our need in the marketplace.”Other potential ad network acquisition targets include ValueClick, whose market capitalization is $2.77 billion, Right Media, which operates an ad exchange similar to the one announced by DoubleClick yesterday, 24/7 Real Media and aQuantive, owner of the ad-serving firm AtlasDMT.

Search Innovation Spotlight: Video Search - List and short description of various video search engines, including Blinkx, Flurl, SearchVideo, SingingFish, Pixsy and more.

New AOL Search Marketplace Launches To Sell Sponsored Links; Based on Google AdWords - Back in December 2005 when Google won a five-year extension of its search deal with AOL, the fine print included an AOL Marketplace based on white-label Google ad technology. Some 16 months later, the AOL Search Marketplace will launch after several months in beta with 30 advertisers. The custom version of Google AdWords gives AOL a viable addition to its display advertising while providing advertisers with the ability to target their search buys to AOL users.

ESPN Acquires NASCAR Fan Site Jayski - Nascar information site Jayski.com, named for its founder, Nascar fan Jay Adamczyk, has been bought by ESPN. Terms of the deal were not revealed. Adamczyk, who started Jayski in 1996, will continue to operate the site, which says it attracts Nascar crew chiefs, drivers and owners among its regular visitors. Jayski features more than 1,500 pages of content on the Nascar Nextel Cup, the Busch Series and Truck Series.

Hostway Acquires Affinity Internet - Hostway Corporation and Affinity Internet Inc. today announced that Hostway has acquired Affinity, combining two of the most prominent web-centric service providers, with clients ranging from consumers, small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and large enterprises. The new company will offer customers all the products, tools and services necessary to build and operate an effective online business on a global scale – from professional web development and design, results-oriented online advertising solutions, to powerful hosting and eCommerce applications.

IT Professionals Network Tom’s Hardware Guide Sold - Tech professionals-focused news and info network Tom’s Hardware Guide (and its parent company TG Publishing) has been sold, paidContent.org has learned. The sale was confirmed by TG CEO Omid Rahmat in an e-mail to the Inquirer.We couldn’t confirm the buyer, but one name that cropped up through our sources was French B2B tech media company BestofMedia Group.

Veoh Deal With AMD Allows Streaming Video To TV - Veoh Networks soon will allow viewers to stream its videos directly to their TV via AMD, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the broadband video network will use AMD’s Active TV Solutions, a browser plug-in that sends a signal to a networked set top box for display on a TV. Veoh’s technology allows it to stream videos with no restrictions on length. Veoh backers include Michael Eisner’s Torante Group and Time Warner. Veoh claims to have 100,000 videos in its library and hundreds of channels across 15 categories, including over 25 branded channels.  

Forecast: Online Travel To Reach $146B By 2010 - U.S. customers spent $79 billion on online travel last year, according to a new report released today by eMarketer. The research firm predicts that spending in this category will grow at around 17% a year for the next five years, totaling $146 billion by 2010.

Digitas Consolidates With MBC To Create Digitas Health - Scaling its health care business, Digitas has combined its existing health care practice with the interactive agency it acquired last year, Medical Broadcasting Co. The stand-alone result is Digitas Health, and the idea is to tap the changing ways consumers are seeking out health care information, both online and off.

Newspapers’ Online Classified Nets Drive Traffic - Newspapers’ online classified ad networks are booming in the first quarter of 2007, and Cars.com is leading the way, with all-time highs of 9 million unique visitors and 15 million total visits in March–the latter representing 17% growth over the previous month. What’s more, the visits aren’t casual; a record number contacted car dealers. For newspaper companies, an online ad net is proving fruitful.

LookSmart Signs Blinkx To Power Video Search - LookSmart signed a strategic agreement with blinkx.com to power video search results on findarticles.com. Through the deal, FindArticles’ rich video content will include news clips, short documentaries, TV content, movies and other appropriate search-driven topics.

Is DRM Doomed? - Earlier this year, eMarketer released its Digital Downloading: Music, Movies and TV report, and predicted that digital music spending in the US would approach $5 billion in 2010, up from $1.9 billion in 2006. Apple CEO Steve Jobs predicted that “well over half of the 5 million tracks offered on iTunes today will be also offered in DRM-free versions by the end of this calendar year.” Senior Analyst Ben Macklin, who wrote the Digital Downloading report, says this means the death of DRM is at hand. Another eMarketer Analyst, Paul Verna, is more circumspect.

MySpace Takes On Growth Decline With More Content - How about this for numbers that don’t add up: MySpace last year generated an astounding 31.5 billion page views per month, yet the social network earned a measly $90 million in ad revenues. By our calculations, that represents a paltry $0.2 cents per monthly page view. Surely, parent News Corp. can do better. Big talk yesterday from News Corp. President Peter Chernin said the media conglomerate expects MySpace to turn a profit by 2008, and that its operating margin would be 20%.

White Papers Most Important to Technology Buyers - According to a study in February, 2007 by KnowledgeStorm and MarketingSherpa to examine how content development, formatting and targeting affect technology buyers’ perceptions of value, 71% of technology buyers say that white papers are the most frequently read form of content, and 57% say they are passed along more than half the time. 75% of marketers include them in their marketing mix.

Google Maps Adds User-Mapping Tools - Google, Inc. has opened up mapping tools to its customers, giving away tools that let users customize Google Maps. This means pinpointing certain locations like restaurants or hotels, drawing routes, attaching photos and video to existing online maps.

Copyrighted Clips Not That Important To YouTube? - As major media companies continue to battle with YouTube, evidence is mounting that the video-sharing site is winning the fight for users’ time — with or without copyrighted clips. Online video metrics company Vidmeter Wednesday issued a report concluding that copyrighted clips accounted for a small proportion of the most viewed videos on the site. For the study, Vidmeter looked at 6,725 of the most popular clips on the site between December and March — the same time period when Viacom, News Corp and others publicly complained about copyright violations on the site.

Google Bows Web Site Optimization Tool - Adding to its already enormous toolbox, Google today launches Google Website Optimizer, a product designed to help Web site owners test drive different landing pages to determine which designs drive the most conversions. It’s one of the biggest product launches in some time for Google’s AdWords business.  

Online Media, Marketing Services Lead 1Q M&A: JEGI - The online media sector and marketing services led the way with 119 total transactions valued at a combined $6.5 billion, or more than half the total deal value for the first quarter, reports investment bank The Jordan Edmiston Group, Inc. JEGI says interactive M&A should remain strong through the year.

Zillow.com Offers Do-It-Yourself ‘EZ Ads’ - Real estate site Zillow.com launches a do-it-yourself ad capability today allowing anyone to create an ad and purchase space by geographic region or ZIP code. Analysts predict the feature to take off as quickly as the site.

Boomers Hip to Web Technology. Online for Needs, Not Entertainment - According to a new study, by ThirdAge Inc. and JWT BOOM, with over 1,210 adults 40+ years of age, over 72% of ThirdAgers access the Internet from Broadband in their homes, which is significantly more than the national average across all age groups. And, over 82% of all respondents are researching or reading information Online on health and wellness for themselves and for their families.

Teens Scream for Streams - Three-fourths of US Internet users ages 12-24 have streamed digital content online, according to a new study by Ipsos Insight. Shorter-form content tends to be more popular for streaming than full-length concerts or movies. Over three-fourths of streamers have streamed movie trailers or TV previews, while only 15% have seen a streamed movie online. That will change as Netflix rolls out its “Instant Viewing” streaming to all members, and other streaming movie services grow more popular.

DoubleClick To Launch Ad Exchange; Dressing Up For Acquisition - DoubleClick, the online ad firm, which is in talks with Microsoft and Google for a possible sale, is in the process of launching an online ad auction exchange, reports NYT. In this online exchange, to be launched in Q3, publishers and ad buyers will participate in auctions for ad space. It has signed up 35 Web publishers, advertising networks, agencies and advertisers to test the system.

Podcasts Attract Growing Audiences, But Not Ad Revenue - The number of podcasts continues to grow but actual revenue from podcasting isn’t budging much. BusinessWeek is the latest to look at the podcast ad landscape, noting the lack of standards for placing ads on podcasts and the absence of solid audience measurement as two major impediments to push spending beyond last year’s estimated $80 million.

Scripps Hopes To Repeat Cable Success With Interactive Expansion - Scripps has stepped up the pace of new digital initiatives and hires over the past few months. And while some have expressed lingering doubts about its newspaper holdings and concern continues over the ability to absorb the high acquisition costs of comparison shopping sites Shopzilla and uSwitch, it’s clear that the company has been zeroing in on growing its interactive revenues.

Yahoo Messed Up Not Buying Facebook: Analyst - Needham analyst Mark May is out with a research note on Yahoo today, and says that the portal made a mistake not paying up to buy Facebook. The report says “It appears that since then Facebook has far exceeded the assumptions Yahoo supposedly used to value Facebook.” That reports were around and upwards of $1 billion, when the rumors started circulating last year.

News Corp., Offline, Online Content King - News Corp. is becoming more and more like Google in the big media world, in that the conglomerate is eating its competitors’ lunch. With a huge thanks to “American Idol,” News Corp. dominates TV. But it’s also pulled ahead in the digital sphere, thanks to the purchase of MySpace owner Intermix Media in 2005, and now, the new online video venture with NBC Universal.

Will Microsoft Take Yahoo After DoubleClick? - Microsoft might be looking to buy ad-technology firm DoubleClick.  Assuming that the rumors are accurate (and they’re certainly looking more truthful all the time) I’m left wondering if a DoubleClick buy would actually be a step towards a much larger Microsoft acquisition down the road. Specifically, Microsoft may want DoubleClick so it can buy Yahoo.

Google, EchoStar Announce Automated TV Ad System - Amid mounting speculation about its plans for TV advertising, Google announced a partnership with EchoStar Communications to introduce an automated system for buying, selling, delivering and measuring TV ads. Participants in the beta say the system’s near real-time measurement is nothing short of revolutionary, and should result in more ad relevance for consumers.

Google TV Deal A Bid For More Brand Advertising Dollars - Google’s TV plans are just the latest step the company has made to expand its ad revenue base beyond search and to tap into brand advertising budgets. Beta advertisers, meanwhile, are already drooling over the prospect of second-by-second ad viewing measurement promised by the system.

American Streaming Habits Favor Short Videos - In an online world dominated by clips of 3 minutes in length or less, only 26% of consumers who actively view streaming video have watched full-length TV shows offered by networks. Only 15% had streamed an entire movie online, reports Ipsos Insight in a new study detailing the streaming habits of Americans.

Online, In-Cinema Games Play Into MSNBC.com Brand Campaign - MSNBC.com’s first brand campaign angles to get newshounds to interact with its content through a game, screensaver and unusual in-cinema effort that deploys a new technology.

Google Expanding Interactive Influence, Too - While Google is busy grabbing headlines for its offline exploits, the search giant, long the leader in text and search ads, has steadily been adding to its online display and video-advertising network. Google’s total network is up 24% in unique visitors over the past year and reaches 62% of the country, according to ComScore, and Google has been working hard to add more video and display to the traditionally text-based AdSense. “Google is definitely sneaking up on people in terms of being a display and video network,” said Bryan Weiner, chief operating officer of 360i. “It’s almost inevitable that they’ll be one of the largest display and video networks.”

A New Kind Of Real Estate Land Grab - The online real estate business, which refers to the sale of virtual property on the Web (think Second Life), is a bit of a booming market these days. A company called Weblo makes money by selling real estate pages that represent real-world cities. As company CEO Rocky Mirza sees it, the pages are supposed to become mini-travel guides to the locations they represent–but so far, there is very little content on Weblo. Owners expect that traffic and ad revenue will both become significant in the near future as more content is added. Weblo has attracted some 10,000 speculators to its virtual city sites. Mirza calls the project “Monopoly on steroids,” and says he expects to earn $10 million this year.

MySpace To Hold Presidential Primary - It has more registered members than the entire population of Mexico. As a country, it would have the 11th-largest population in the world. Yep, as you may have guessed, we’re talking about News Corp.’s MySpace, the Web’s biggest social network. TechCrunch reports that Rupert Murdoch and co. are announcing an online presidential primary next January–one month ahead of Super Tuesday, February 5, 2008, the day when up to 20 states will hold their real-world primaries.

Microsoft-Doubleclick Talk Shines Light on Ad Serving - Suddenly, third-party ad serving is hot. A deal that would have Microsoft acquiring Doubleclick would be full of real and symbolic benefits for the Redmond, Wash.-based company and could trigger a slew of other similar deals as other online giants and even ad-holding companies try to jump into the ad management game. For Microsoft, adding Doubleclick to its arsenal could give it a jump start in trying to create an ad network or media exchange, should it choose to do so, and a deep pool of digital talent at a time when shortages abound.

Napster, MusicNet Report Happier Numbers - Both Napster and Musicnet reported their subscriber numbers today, and some seemingly good news form both. Napster says it will announce financial results May 16 that show it had more than $28 million in revenue during Q1 this year. The consensus estimate had been for $26.6 million revenue, according to Thomson Financial. Paid subscribers totaled more than 830K during the quarter, which makes it the biggest subscription music provider, the company says.

Advertising’s Prisoner’s Dilemma - Somewhere between 254 and 5,000 is a number that represents just how many commercial messages an average consumer gets each day. There’s no consensus on it, but just about everyone agrees on two things: It’s way too high, and the industry’s not doing anything to reduce its own overproduction. The solution to-date for marketers to cut through all the noise? Turn up the volume on their marketing campaigns, of course. This is inevitably followed by the obvious response of all other marketers pumping up the volume on their campaigns.

Lonely Planet Launches Video, Social Networking Site - Travel media company Lonely Planet has launched LonelyPlanet.tv, an online community marrying professionally created video programming with a hearty dose of user-generated videos, blogs, forums, ratings, booking services, and other travel-centric applications. Advertisers are being sought.  

Advertising.com Nabs Ad Serving Duties For NBC/News Corp. Venture - As befits its status as one of the launch distribution partners, AOL’s Advertising.com will also provide the display and video ad management services for the new NBC/News Corp. video site due out this summer.

YouTube Adds TestTube For Chat, Audio Features - As rival video ventures prepare to challenge YouTube’s dominance, the Google unit is gearing up with new features and offerings. Similar to customization features long offered by MySpace, YouTubers can now tailor their personal profile pages with unique color schemes and content. The video-sharing leader has also gone live with a new TestTube area where users can experiment with beta YouTube features focusing on live chat and audio.

Web 2.0: The Wow Factor - As we began pulling out of the recession, experts said we would again start to see “big ideas” from the Internet. But not until the explosion of social networking and UGC models in 2006 did Web 2.0 really begin to take off. That growth is now fueling dozens of new sites and categories.

Compete Introduces Attention-Based Web Metrics - Online consumer market research firm Compete today unveils a free attention-based Web metrics service at www.compete.com. The new metrics fuse engagement and traffic into a single picture of a site’s marketing value. Compete’s attention-based metrics aim to allow marketers to understand how much attention a site garners relative to the total amount of time people spend online–demonstrating the true marketing value of that site.

FX Solutions Raises $100 Million From Francisco Partners - FX Solutions, a Saddle River, N.J.-based operator of an online currency trading platform, has raised $100 million from Francisco Partners, as part of a company recapitalization. FX Solutions was advised by Giuliani Capital Advisors.

NBC/News Corp. Take Back Control–With No Guarantees - For big media, the digital media conundrum comes down to a question of economics, whose answer–thus far, anyway–doesn’t look all that promising. The power a site like YouTube gives to its users sets a scary precedent for traditional media companies. The News Corp.-NBC Universal joint venture represents a reluctant step forward by big, bulky companies into a fast-paced new world of potentially diminishing returns. Indeed, some skeptics wonder whether there’s any benefit at all to media companies posting their content online. Even so, the future of this business is still advertising, and much has yet to be decided. Partnerships need to forged, ad units need to be established and then standardized–and meanwhile, it’s only getting easier for consumers to post and share media online.

Google Joins DoubleClick Talks - The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Google has now entered the race to buy the ad-serving firm DoubleClick, potentially leading to a fierce bidding war between the Web’s biggest firms. Last week the Journal reported that Microsoft was the frontrunner to buy the ad-serving giant, but now that the price has surpassed $2 billion, the software giant appears less likely to do so, the sources said.

WTO Rejects U.S. Ban on Web Gambling - Just a day after the founder of BetOnSports LLC was arrested for facilitating illegal online gambling in the United States, the World Trade Organization hit back at the U.S. Justice Department’s broader policy banning offshore companies from doing business with American citizens.

EMI Drops DRM For New Premium Line-Up, Higher Price; Apple First - It’s official - EMI Music just became the first major record label to drop digital rights management on its digital downloads - but many consumers must pay more. EMI is launching a new line of “premium” downloads at twice the current audio quality that will come without usage restrictions.

It’s Official: Tribune To Go Private At $34 A Share—If Sale Goes Through; Cubs To Be Sold - After months of the corporate equivalent of water torture, the Tribune Company will go private and sell its sports interests—including the Chicago Cubs—under the terms of a deal orchestrated by Chicago developer Sam Zell. He will invest $315 million of his own and while employees will hold all the common stock under what is known as an ESOP (employee stock option plan).  

MySpace Ad Revenue Pegged To Grow 201 Percent: Merrill Lynch - After bringing in a relatively meager $90 million in ad revenue, MySpace is poised to generate ad revenues of $271 million this year – a 201.1 percent increase, according to a forecast by Merrill Lynch analyst Jessica Reif Cohen. Not only that, she also predicts that in 2008, Fox Interactive Media, of which MySpace is the largest piece, will produce its first profit: an estimated $208 million (including help from an ad sharing deal with Google), BW reports.