dave liu dot com

ValueClick Shares Plummet After Guidance Is Lowered On Lead Generation Decline - ValueClick shares dropped as much as 23.5% on Monday after company executives reported its promotional lead generation business — now subject to an industrywide regulatory probe — took a “disappointing” $10 million hit in the second quarter that overshadowed gains in its display advertising, behavioral targeting, affiliate marketing and comparison shopping businesses. But analysts suggested the lower valuation makes the company a more attractive target.               

Monster To Slash 800 Jobs; Reinvest in Product, Promotion - Facing heated competition on both ends from professional networking sites such as LinkedIn and free listings services such as craigslist, Web job site operator Monster Corp., one of the first to the category, plans to slash 15% of its workforce by year’s end, and to reinvest in product development and promotion.              

Search, Display Ad Combo Best At Driving Store Sales: Study - New research from Yahoo and comScore found that retailers who targeted consumers with both search and display ads got the most bang for their buck–as the combination yielded greater increases in converting researchers to purchasers, average amount spent per consumer, and total in-store revenue–than either method alone.               

YouTube Partners With Interscope To Find Next Rap Star - Google’s YouTube is set to launch its second sponsored music promotion, this time in conjunction with Universal’s Interscope Records, to discover hip-hop’s newest rising star.              

Jupiter: Green Teens Receptive To Appropriate Online Ads - Teens who care about the environment aren’t just socially aware. They are also a desired ad/marketing target, says a new JupiterResearch report. The Green Teen cohort trends slightly female (57%), and 45% say they like to be the first to know about new products. Plus, they are effective influencers and trend-setters in their peer groups.              

Building a Better Algorithm - The three largest search engines, Google, Yahoo and msn, account for the vast majority of U.S. searches, but that hasn’t stopped dozens of startups from trying to stake out their own claim to the market. Venture capitalists also don’t appear daunted by the odds. In the first quarter of this year, they’ve poured nearly $135 million into vertical and social search startups alone, according to Dow Jones VentureOne.            

Social Networking Consuming More Time - MySpace and other social networks may have more growth ahead, according to data on June 2007 Web usage from Compete. The firm measured what it calls “attention” (defined as the percentage of all time spent online that is devoted to one site), and attention for MySpace jumped 20% in June 2007 from the previous month. In fact, the top six social networks all saw increased attention, and the top 20 social networks received over 15% of all attention in June. MySpace consumes an outsized share of Internet user time overall.                  

Series Marries Online Video and Social Networks - Online video sharing is an important part of social networks like Facebook, while social-media tools have become an integral part of YouTube and other major online video sites. But is there a way to integrate the two? A new online video series called “KateModern,” just a week old, is doing it. Brought to us by the folks who produced the popular video series “LonelyGirl,” KateModern has caught fire with users of the British social network Bebo, in which its fictional main characters interact with its audience through public profiles, comments, chat, polls, quizzes, even plot suggestions.

Giving Search A “Semantic” Understanding - Search startup Hakia is creating what it likes to call “semantic” search, which means that Hakia’s engine will try to understand user search queries rather than relying on statistical methods like linking, keyword analysis and user history to return relevant search results. Here’s the idea: Search for “headache,” and Hakia will presumably know enough about what you want to return “Tylenol,” “Advil” or another brand name.

Google May Build Wireless Network - Google is making waves in the mobile industry after the company announced it would bid on a $4.6 billion slice of wireless spectrum to be auctioned off by the Federal Communications Commission early next year. A somewhat unexpected decision, industry watchers now wonder if it plans to build a wireless mobile network, or even a Google phone. Google execs reveal that the company’s main goal in bidding on the airwaves is to provide Internet access to those who live in hard-to-reach areas of the country.

Below is an article that was published in the Boston Globe.  I was interviewed for my views on the domain name sector.

Profits hefty in Web addresses

By Carolyn Y. Johnson, Globe Staff | July 30, 2007

The Web addresses that businesses and people online call home have spawned the equivalent of a real estate boom in the real world with speculators, appraisers, developers, investors, and brokers turning the names typed on navigation bars into hefty profits.

“It is a global, multibillion-dollar industry,” said Peter Lamson, senior vice president and general manager of Waltham-based NameMedia Inc.’s domain name marketplace. “Customers need to find your doorstep. A brick-and-mortar business needs an attractive address, and it’s no different online.”

In the 1990s, speculators registered Internet domain names on the cheap, often hoping to make a lucrative flip selling them to someone else. When the tech bubble burst, many were left with little more than words.

But as money has flooded into Web-based businesses such as MySpace and YouTube and online advertising has grown explosively - rising by nearly a third each year for the past three years - domain names have become a hot investment.

Some industry watchers said that the market could prove volatile over time, and there’s always the potential that a speculator will be left with nothing more than a string of words.

“There’s value there - a few of these companies think they’re worth half a billion because they’ve got all this waterfront property,” said Todd Dagres, general partner and cofounder of Spark Capital, a firm that invests mainly in media, technology, and entertainment businesses. “Right now, the stock’s rising because we’re in a fairly frothy market.”

Backed by venture capital firms Highland Capital and Summit Partners, NameMedia has raised more than $100 million in debt, according to a New York Times story, with the help of Goldman Sachs and owns 750,000 domain names as well as marketplaces where people can buy or sell names. This outfit of “cyber real estate tycoons,” as president Jeffrey Bennett calls it, is just one of three local firms that are playing a leading role in the rush for prime virtual space.

Internet Real Estate Group LLC, with offices amid the boutiques of Newbury Street, takes a luxury developer’s approach to the domain names game. The company turns a select number of “premium” domains - site names that are instantly recognizable, such as jeans.com, chocolate.com, or software.com, into full-fledged Internet businesses with content, ads, and products for sale. Taking another tack, Sedo.com LLC, a German company with US headquarters in Kendall Square, handles more than $3 million of transactions every month, acting as a kind of eBay for domain names.

DN Journal, an online publication that follows the industry, has tracked five sales this year that topped $1 million each– including Porn.com and Seniors.com — and 50 for $100,000 or more as of July 22.

“We’re about three years into a major upturn,” said Ron Jackson, editor of DN Journal. “A ton of ad revenue started flowing from traditional media models onto the Web and it’s been unbroken upward momentum.”

While people frequently navigate the net by punching keywords into search engines, an estimated 10 percent of searches occur when people type keywords directly into their address bar. That means a website with a common name, such as WiFi.com, already generates a certain amount of natural traffic, and people who buy a portfolio of names could earn a dividend on their investment just by putting ads up, according to Jeremiah Johnston, chief operating officer at Sedo.com.

Think of domain names “as analogous to buying spectrum in the wireless world or channels on television or buying real estate,” said David Liu, managing director of Jefferies Broadview in Silicon Valley.

Mike “Zappy” Zapolin and Andrew Miller, founders of Internet Real Estate Group, got into the domain business in 1998, buying beer.com for $80,000 from a young man in Colorado, who they said used the website to post photos of inebriated people vomiting. The owner, hoping to buy more beer, posted a banner asking for advertising.

They sold beer.com four months later for $7 million. Now, they believe the businesses they are building will ultimately be worth hundreds of millions.

“In real estate, if you built a building and were offered three times what you paid for it in a week, you’d be thrilled,” Zapolin said.

“A piece of virtual real estate, on the other hand, may cost a thousand or a million, but bring in 50 times greater return. “It’s like buying Madison Avenue 110 years ago.”

Acting as a broker, Sedo takes a different approach from Internet Real Estate Group and NameMedia - listing, but not owning 8 million domain names, and taking a 10 percent commission on each sale.

The company also provides services to help people put content on their domains, so they can earn some revenue when people stumble on the sites and click on ads. Recently, Sedo managed the sale of Vodka.com for $3 million and Chinese.com for $1.1 million.

“We were being told when the company was founded that it was the worst possible timing,” Johnston said. “It turned out to be excellent.”

Google Lawyer: Copyright Protection For YouTube Video Almost Ready - Google will have “up, running, and effective”–hopefully in September–a new content-fingerprinting technology for YouTube that would resolve the entire issue at the core of the Viacom copyright infringement lawsuit, attorney Philip Beck told the judge overseeing the case in New York on Friday.                            

ValueClick Accelerates Q2 Earnings Statement - In the midst of a frenzied M&A climate, online advertising firm ValueClick accelerated its second-quarter earnings announcement by nine days and was scheduled to release the information in a call with analysts this morning. RBC Capital Markets analyst Jordan Rohan had downgraded the stock on Friday morning–citing weakness in the incentivized lead generation business.

Dailymotion Gains Ground In U.S.; Enters Deal With RDF - Looking more like a media company than a video-sharing site, Dailymotion late last week reached a deal to license programming from the reality TV producer behind “Wife Swap” and “Shaq’s Big Challenge.”

America’s Email Addiction: Benefit For Brands? - Consumers may be SPAM-wary, but according to new data from AOL, ad-supported email still represents a viable tool to garner impressions–as the Web giant revealed that email users check their mail an average of five times a day, and some 15% of all users think they’re “addicted” to email.

Startup Brings HD-Quality To Web Video - Web video startup Hotswap.com is stamping its claim to legitimacy, attracting investment from a pair of media industry billionaire-legends: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Clear Channel co-founder Red McCombs. No, Hotswap is not an online video sharing service; rather, its goal is to improve your online video viewing experience. Hotswap uses a compression technology to transform those fuzzy YouTube videos into HD-quality. Hotswap is currently applying for a patent.

How Amazon Beat the Street - Amazon.com co-founder/chief Jeff Bezos deserves serious kudos for the way his company is pulling away from the rest of the online retailing pack. He built a multibillion-dollar company without turning a profit for eight years, and somehow gets away with not charging for shipping–unheard of in the online retail business. Wall Street never thought it would work, but it turns out that Prime is largely responsible for the turnaround in Amazon’s fortunes. Analysts say Prime helped deliver a 35 percent rise in overall sales in the first quarter. Trading at $30 two years ago, Amazon’s stock last week shot up to a seven-year high: $86 per share.

What’s Pownce All About? - Among the tech elite, Pownce, the latest darling of the social networking industry, has more cachet than Facebook. You need an invite, that’s why. Within 10 days of announcing that invitations were required to join this latest endeavor from Digg co-founder Kevin Rose, invites were selling on eBay for as much as $10. Some believe Pownce represents social networking 2.0 because it encourages file-sharing between friends, which while popular, has never been the cornerstone of MySpace or Facebook. The combination of private messaging and file-sharing makes Pownce novel.

TheStreet.com Posts 12.5% Jump in Q2 Profits - 2nd quarter profits at TheStreet.com were up 12.5% year-over-year thanks to growing subscriptions and advertising revenue. That amounted to $3.6 million, compared to the $3.2 million recorded in second-quarter 2006. Revenue was up 20% to $14.9 million year-over-year from $12.4 million. Notably, non-endemic ad revenue rose 206% year-over-year, representing 39% of the site’s total ad revenue this quarter.                       

Havas Reports 2Q Growth Up 5.4% - Thanks to the new client gains, Havas on Thursday reported second quarter growth up 5.4%, excluding growth related to currencies, acquisitions and divestitures. That brought growth for the first half of the year to 4.4%. Notable new account wins in the period included drugs giant Sanofi-Aventis and household goods manufacturer Reckitt Benckiser. Sales rose to $1 billion in the six months ending June 30, with net new business up 38%. High growth areas included healthcare communication and media consulting.          

The Internet is Dead, Long Live the Intranet - Mark Cuban, who famously got away with selling Broadcast.com to Yahoo in 1999 for $5.7 billion, declared Wednesday: “The Internet’s dead. It’s over.” Speaking before a room of operators of high-bandwidth cable systems, Cuban said the Internet is for old people, adding that YouTube was the “new application” of any importance. The future, he said, belongs to intranets, or closed networks.                    

Microsoft Calm About Under-Performing Areas - Microsoft Chief Steve Ballmer conceded to a hammering from financial analysts in a recent meeting, who said the company should focus on its core desktop and software business and get out of the content, video games and electronics businesses. Ballmer responded that the software giants needed to be in every sector if it wants to realize its dream of integrating software, media and distribution.         

Wall Street Expects Big Numbers From AOL - Since its landmark decision to ditch its dying dial-up Web business, AOL has enjoyed three straight quarters of solid growth in online advertising. The Time Warner company is still miles away from offsetting the revenue lost from its ISP business, but Wall Street appears to be happy. “Time Warner has resuscitated AOL from the dead,” said portfolio manager Diane Jaffee of the TCW Diversified Value fund. Her company is the (happy) owner of about 1.3 million shares of Time Warner stock.

Viacom’s Copyright Dilemma - A new twist in the Viacom-YouTube lawsuit came out in a New York federal court this morning. Viacom complains that users have uploaded “many, many thousands” of its clips to the video-sharing site. But it became clear in court today that Viacom has no idea how many of its clips have been uploaded — and no good way to obtain a precise count. That’s because Viacom isn’t just suing over clips that have been uploaded to the public portion of the site. It claims the clips that users uploaded but marked “private” also violate copyright.

AOL Reels in Behavior Targeting Network Tacoda - AOL is bringing behavioral targeting into its stable, acquiring Tacoda, an advertising network that targets users by their online behavior, for $275 million. The Time Warner-owned internet portal beat out Microsoft in the bidding, according to a person with knowledge of the deal. AOL wouldn’t say whether it would deploy the technology on its owned-and-operated sites or across its Advertising.com display network, but would only tout the value of the scale the Tacoda network brings to the table.

Hearst Ups The Male Factor With Acquisition of Ugo Networks - Eyeing male audiences, Hearst Corp. now plans to buy Ugo Networks and its group of sites devoted to gaming, movies, and entertainment. Ugo’s sites attract 28 million worldwide. Terms were not disclosed.

TradeDoubler Buys U.K. Search Marketing Agency IMW Group For $115 Million - TradeDoubler, the Stockholm-based pan-European internet affiliate advertising network, has bought Internet Marketing Works (IMW Group), a holding group for two two search marketing companies, for £56 million ($115 million) in cash. Founded in 1999, IMW Group operates The Search Works, which mediates buying of search advertising on sites including Google and Yahoo, and The Technology Works, the arm of the company that comes up with software like BidBuddy to automate the process.

CNET Acquires SportsGamer To Broaden Gaming Coverage - Tucked into CNET Network earnings (Nasdaq: CNET) Thursday, an announcement that the company has added—acq-hired, to be more exact—SportsGamer.com. with its focus on mainstream sports games, to extend GameSpot’s reach in the category. The deal closed earlier this month and the site, along with its community of sports gamers, is already part of CNET. Nothing official about terms but gather the range was high six-low seven figures.

Online Video Ad Spending On Track To Rise 89% In 2007 - Online video ad spending will register its greatest year-over-year growth in 2007–rising 89% to $775 million, forecasts eMarketer. Even more significant, the researcher says, the growth rate will remain near or above 40% through 2011, when video ad spending will reach $4.3 billion.                   

‘Facebook Effect’ Boosts Site Traffic - Publishers that have built and deployed widgets on the Facebook platform are seeing dramatic traffic increases, reports Quantcast.      

ConnectU Given Time In Facebook Prosecution - Facebook on Wednesday was given a boost in its defense of an intellectual-property lawsuit after a judge told prosecutor ConnectU it did not have enough evidence to prove that Facebook stole its ideas. However, there still isn’t an end in sight to the case, as the Massachusetts Federal Judge gave ConnectU’s founders Divya Narendra and Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss two weeks to produce factual evidence that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and a group of early Facebook employees had stolen ConnectU’s business model and code. After the Aug. 8 deadline, Facebook will have two weeks to respond.

How Long Can Amazon Party Last? - Amazon.com has posted consecutive quarters of dazzling results, resulting in a change of tune on Wall Street about the online retailer’s long-term prospects–but not necessarily for the better. However, despite the long-term caution, the company’s stock rose 24% yesterday following Tuesday’s second-quarter earnings report. In the last year, the stock has seen a three-fold increase.

ComScore Revises Measurement System - ComScore, one of the industry’s leading firms, has decided to refine its system for determining site usage. Instead of calculating an average from its cross-section of Web users around the country, comScore will divide usage into separate audience segments. The idea is to help advertisers distinguish the minority of heavy Web surfers from the masses of less active users.

Sprint, Google Vow To Make WiMAX Widespread By 2008 - Sprint has partner with Google to create a WiMAX portal that will house Web-based applications, social networking and search–creating an opportunity for marketers to reach consumers with a digital message wherever they are, and on any available device.

Sony, WOW On Top In Nielsen’s First GamePlay Metrics Data - More than 68 million people used a video game console last month, according to Nielsen, which has released its first GamePlay Metrics report providing a granular read for advertisers on PC and console video game use in the U.S.

MPA Counts Record Number Of Digital Efforts - The Magazine Publishers of America has tallied a record 62 new digital initiatives from magazine publishers in the second quarter of 2007–a 139% increase over the second quarter of 2006.

DoubleClick Launching Video Ad Feature - DoubleClick this week is launching a new video ad feature that allows developers to create high-impact teaser ads with short flashes of video. The new technology is also designed to increase the range of options available to advertisers–including Universal Pictures, which has signed on as the first partner to promote its action-thriller “The Bourne Ultimatum,” set to debut in August.

Massive Adds Five EA Sports Titles To In-Game Ad Network - Microsoft’s Massive Inc. announced the incorporation of five new sports titles from Electronic Arts (EA) into its in-game advertising network–further strengthening the in-game ad value proposition in a booming U.S. video game market.                       

BT: The Teen Years - While the recent acquisitions of 24/7 and now Tacoda suggest a maturing of the BT industry, I was struck at Tuesday’s Behavioral Marketing Forum by how young it really feels. Standards are still fleeting and the market is still cluttered by too many companies claiming to do too many flavors of behavioral marketing. There is still a lot of confusion in the market over what differentiates these vendors.

Netflix Stock, Site Go Down; Amazon Soars - Wall Street gave Netflix a beating Tuesday after the movie renter reported its first quarterly customer losses ever, and a more sober earnings outlook for the year. Netflix.com also went down for parts of Monday and Tuesday, sending the company’s stock price to a two-year low. Shares dropped as low as $15.62 in early Tuesday trading, the lowest price since June 2005. The stock closed at $16.07 in New York, down nearly 7%. Meanwhile, Amazon.com’s stock soared–up nearly 22% in after-hours trading–when the Web retailer reported second-quarter profit more than tripled, boosted by strong sales of books, music and electronics worldwide.

Millions Wasted in Second Life - Second Life is officially over. The virtual world supposedly heralded a new era of online advertising, as consumers increasing adopted massively multiplayer online gaming. Fascinated by Second Life’s commercial potential, marketers, news publishers, even interactive ad shops bought the hype. Unfortunately, the numbers don’t support their enthusiasm: In June, there were 4 million Second Life avatars created by distinct individuals. Of those, about 1 million had logged on in the last month. In all, about 100,000 Americans enter Second Life per week.

Facebook Nabs Former YouTube CFO - High-powered Web media executives have a tendency to jump around like mosquitoes, moving from one Next Best Thing to another. For Google’s YouTube, CFO Gideon Yu’s decision to crossover to Facebook, may be a sign of the times. Facebook is where the Web’s best minds want to be, not YouTube or News Corp.’s MySpace–yesterday’s Web 2.0 darlings. Yu will take the place of Mike Sheridan, the company’s current CFO, who did not disclose his reasons for leaving.

Nintendo Sales Increase Fivefold - After laying in rival Sony’s shadow for more than a decade, Nintendo has officially gotten its groove back: The Japanese video game giant posted a fivefold increase in second-quarter earnings yesterday, thanks to strong sales from its Wii console and portable DS gaming systems. Net income was $667 million for the quarter on total sales of $2.83 billion; the company also raised its profit forecast for the year to $2.04 billion.

Web Video Watchers - Almost one in five online adults, or 19%, now watch Web video on a typical day, while 57% have viewed online video at least once. That’s according to new research by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. “The growing adoption of broadband combined with a dramatic push by content providers to promote online video has helped to pave the way for mainstream audiences to embrace online video viewing,” states the report, which was based on a recent telephone survey of 2,200 adults.

The New AOL: From Ugly Duckling To Swan - Look for Time Warner’s ugly duckling AOL to emerge as a swan when earnings are announced next week. Smart acquisitions, new hires, a move to drop the subscription wall, and a focus on original content have both analysts and agency heads praising the unit for the first time in years.

Microsoft Gets a Digg On Google - In a big win, Microsoft will manage the ad inventory as exclusive provider of banner, display and paid search advertising on the popular Digg.com–replacing Federated Media and Google.

Industry Applauds Microsoft Pledge On Consumer Data - Behavioral targeting veterans applauded Microsoft’s announcement this week that it would join the Network Advertising Initiative and give consumers the ability to opt out of receiving targeted ads when it starts offering third-party ad serving later this year.                  

Online Sports Spending To Hit $1 Billion By 2011 - Marketers will spend some $727 million on paid search and rich media ads on sports Web sites in the U.S. next year–up almost 33% from this year, reports eMarketer. And while advertiser spending on the Beijing 2008 Olympics will fuel much of that bump, the upward trend is slated to continue, pushing sports site ad revenues to top $1 billion by 2011.      

Online Newspaper Audiences Up 7.7% From 2006 - More than 59 million people on average–or 37.3% of all active Internet users–visited newspaper Web sites during the second quarter, reports Nielsen//NetRatings for the Newspaper Association of America. Traffic was flat compared to the first quarter, but up 7.7% from the same period in 2006.

Search Engines Drive 21% Of Traffic To Travel Aggregators - New data from Compete.com’s Search Analytics tool found that search engines drive 21% of all traffic to travel aggregator Web sites.           

Web Wins In YouTube Video Debate - The so-called YouTube election firmly stamped its place in history Monday night as Democratic presidential hopefuls answered users’ questions in the first YouTube Video Debate, moderated by CNN’s Anderson Cooper. Many reports say that the biggest winner last night was the Internet; CNET in particular said “the video questions posed in Monday’s Democratic debate were more personal and more direct than the circumlocutions that political journalists tend to prefer…”

Facebook: Yours For $10 Billion - The hint came from a report in The Deal last week where PayPal co-founder and Facebook director/major investor ($500K) Peter Thiel discussed the possibility of a merger. Thiel basically said that neither an acquisition or an IPO were in the immediate cards: “If we have a fully developed revenue model, it would be much easier to value [Facebook … but we’re very, very far from that point.” However, at the end of the report he threw out the following: “If we got an offer from someone for $10 billion, we probably would listen to them. I don’t think we’re going to get that offer, and we’re not going to solicit it.”

Yahoo Still Can’t Close Search Gap With Google - Brands matter in search, now more than ever. Recent adjustments to both Google’s and Yahoo’s search algorithms were made to push rich brand-marketing sites up the page of paid search results. But unfortunately for Yahoo, the initial boost Panama provided brands appears to be fading, while Google continues to grow its share of search dollars by continually tweaking its algorithm.

Whither Revenue Science? - That was the question on many tongues Tuesday as AOL announced it’s buying the chief rival of the firm that powers BT on AOL.com. Revenue Science CEO Bill Gossman says it’s business as usual.

Behavioral Targeting: Not Quite Ready For Prime Time - The projections are for behavioral targeting to hit the billion-dollar mark in 2008. But judging from folks at the Behavioral Markeitng Forum, plenty of obstacles remain in the way of getting there.

Comparison Engines Drag On Scripps Interactive Results - Despite a good performance by its online TV and newspaper brands, the E.W. Scripps interactive media unit suffered a nearly 10% year-over-year second-quarter decline, the media company reported Tuesday. The unit, which includes comparison shopping sites Shopzilla and uSwitch, made $59 million in the second quarter–down 9.2% from $65 million during second-quarter 2006.

First You Tube/CNN Citizens-Driven Debate Airs Tonight - CNN and YouTube tonight will hold the first of two Presidential debates driven entirely by questions submitted through the video-sharing site. Tonight’s debate, featuring the Democratic candidates, starts at 7 p.m. Eastern time.                           

Brightcove’s Ad Guru Adam Gerber Departs - At a critical time for the Web video startup, Brightcove has lost one of its key public figures in Adam Gerber, who has decided to pursue other as-yet-unnamed interests.

SI Makes A ‘Deeper Alliance’ With Takkle - Sports Illustrated has made a “substantial” investment in Takkle, the high school sports social networking site. Also investing is Henry Kravis’ and Russell Carson’s New York Investment Fund.

Casual Games Are Red Hot: Lifetime Adds New Series - Lifetime Television has launched a new series of casual games in conjunction with Real Networks, while in a new study, 83% of participants expressed a willingness to view an ad to play a free game.

Summer’s Sizzling For Gather.com - Who said summer’s a sleepy season? Gather.com, the social network for the public radio set, is gearing up to add video and a slew of new features next month. It’s also kicking off a romance-writing competition and drawing attention from a slate of blue-chip advertisers.

Pharma Branded Sites Score Low For Consumer Awareness - Only 4% of consumers responding to a survey by lead-generation firm Prospectiv chose pharmaceutical company Web sites as their source of choice for online health-related research.

Pocasting, Downloadable Media Realize Ad Future - It’s been two years since Apple added podcasts to its list of offerings through its iTunes Music Store, yet “podcasting” still receives quotations in media reports. That’s because the practice, which refers to the distribution of audio, video or other files through an XML feed (thus making it easily transmittable to an iPod or other portable media device), hasn’t caught on with mainstream Web users. It follows that most podcasters don’t make much money from the Web syndication format, and since consumers have shown an unwillingness to pay, advertising has become the de facto moneymaking scheme.

Microsoft, Ask Take Steps to Curb Privacy Concerns - In response to the pressure, search leader Google told the EU it would dump user search data after 18 months. Microsoft on Monday went even further, outlining incremental steps to improve privacy for Live Search and its other online ad services. MSN will also keep search data separate from personally identifiable information gained through its Web portal services.

Google Fights Good Spectrum Fight - Google on Friday announced its intention to take the spectrum plunge in a letter to the SEC, guaranteeing that the company will put up the minimum $4.6 billion to bid on a piece of wireless spectrum that many believe the FCC will require to be an open network. Which is good news for competition. Why? Because the state of the U.S. telecommunications infrastructure is “troubling” at best, and big G’s intention–or so it seems–is to allow new players to provide cheaper, open wireless access to consumers.

Report: Social Networks Aid Identity Theft - Everybody scream. Users of social networks like MySpace and Facebook put themselves at a greater risk of identity theft, according to a new report from UK-based Equifax. Why? Common sense would tell you that users of these sites make personally identifiable information publicly available. One consequence of this is fraudsters using that personal information to apply for credit cards and benefits.

Google’s 2Q Revenues Up 58% Over 2006 - Google had revenues of $3.8 billion in the second quarter–a 6% increase from the first quarter and a 58% increase year-over-year. Top executives fielded questions about pending legal issues, monetizing YouTube and the strength of Google’s overall advertising offering during its Thursday earnings call.

Scripps’ Secret Recipe: A ‘Hyper-Vertical’ Ad Network - Scripps Networks’ purchase of Recipezaar, a leading user-generated recipe and community site, is just one in a series of purchases planned to bolster its online lifestyle verticals. What’s more, the company plans to announce the launch of a “hyper-vertical” ad network offering a “one-stop” ad solution across complementary partner sites.

Botnets Fueling Rise In Click Fraud - Click fraud in the second quarter averaged almost 16% industry-wide, according to Click Forensics, up one percentage point from last quarter. But average click fraud rates on search engine content networks–including Google’s AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network–reached 25.6%.

Microsoft Online Revenues Up Nearly 19% In Final Quarter - Microsoft’s online services businesses generated $2.47 billion for fiscal year 2007 — an 8% year-over-year increase. But fourth quarter online revenues jumped nearly 19% over 2006.

Sports Marketing Is a Whole New Ball Game - Although television continues to dominate — as both a distribution platform for sports content and an advertising medium for marketers who attach their brands to sports properties — online and mobile platforms are quickly evolving and becoming an important part of the media and marketing mix. eMarketer estimates that US advertising spending at sports-related Web sites will grow from $407 million in 2006 to reach $1.1 billion in 2011.

eBay Struggles Despite Strong 2Q - Wall Street shrugged as eBay on Wednesday reported 50% profit and strong revenue growth in the second quarter. Why? Because eBay is having a hard time adding new customers, and while earnings per listing may have grown, overall listings fell 6%. CEO Meg Whitman dealt with the issue by claiming that an improved user interface is in the offing.

Wales Changed History, Will He Change Search? - Sure, Wikipedia has its problems, but Jimmy Wales’ wiki-based encyclopedia is a phenomenon that’s opened the possibilities for future wiki products and services. Craigslist founder Craig Newmark is a fan: “What Jimmy has done through Wikipedia is change the way people write history. Before, it was guys with guns, now it’s anyone.”

Nickelodean Pours $100 Million Into Online Gaming - It’s a sign of the times: Nickelodeon, Viacom’s kid giant, is moving very aggressively into the burgeoning world of casual gaming, pouring a hefty $100 million into the development and renovation of the new and old casual gaming destinations that fall under its umbrella. MTVN has also thrust considerable resources behind a variety of other gaming genres, including massively multiplayer online games and console-based and handheld games.

Google Shares Fall on High-Priced Talent - Google shares tumbled 7 percent in after-hours trading yesterday after the search giant failed to meet earnings expectations by 3 cents per share. But don’t panic yet, CNET says, “Google isn’t Yahoo.” It’s simply dealing with certain market forces that can’t be controlled.

Google Pledges $4.6 Billion Bid For Wireless Auction - Google had been giving hints on this for a while, so this was inevitable: it will bid at least $4.6 billion in an upcoming upcoming auction to operate a license as part of the wireless spectrum, as the Federal Communications Commission has been reviewing proposals for how best to open up the upcoming 700 MHz wireless band.

ValueClick Boosts Comparison Shopping With MeziMedia Deal - In a move that strengthens its comparison shopping business while adding search expertise and a presence in China, ValueClick is buying MeziMedia for as much as $325 million.

Answers Corp. Paying $100 Million For Dictionary.com Owner - Answers Corp. says it will pay $100 million to buy Lexico Publishing Group, owner of Web properties Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com, and Reference.com. The deal will make it the No. 2 player in online reference, second only to Wikipedia. New ad opportunities are part of the plan.

Jupitermedia Acquires Mediabistro For $23 Million - Mediabistro was once the place for media professionals to find new jobs and the next industry party offering free booze. Ten years later, it still is, although the site has expanded to include services like news coverage, reports and industry-specific classes. Today, Mediabistro is being sold for $23 million to the New York-based holding company Jupitermedia Corp., whose Web properties are devoted to industry research and stock art and photography.

ROO Group Completes Wurld Media Acquisition - Online video firm ROO Group says it has completed the acquisition of strategic P2P assets of Wurld Media, the peer-to-peer distribution company. The total purchase price of the transaction was $4.3 million, consisting of $3.2 million in cash and the issuance of approximately 655,000 shares of ROO common stock.

Local.com Buys PremierGuide For $2 Million - IN A $2 MILLION DEAL, search engine company Local.com has acquired PremierGuide, a provider of regional business directories to more than 350 online newspapers, broadcasters, and city portals, including Washington Post Newsweek Interactive.

Facebook Acquires Parakey - Social networking sensation Facebook on Thursday acquired a Web startup named Parakey, a platform its creators say “bridges the gap between information on the Web and the desktop.” There are almost no details on the company’s Web site–as the product has yet to launch–but the idea behind Parakey (or so it seems) is to create a closed network or intranet that links desktop and Web information. “Computers are frustrating. Creating documents, finding files, sharing information — why do everyday things still seem so tedious and counterintuitive?” the company’s Web site says.

OMG Forms Global Digital Unit - Sean Finnegan, formerly with OMD USA, will head OMG Digital, which will oversee $2 billion in worldwide media spending.                   

Never Heard of Minyanville? Soon You Will - Minyanville.com hit an important milestone this week in its mission to become a financial media company that serves every rung of the ladder from the sophisticated professional trader down to families and kids with a mix of “content, community and critters.”

Advertisers Prefer Their Own Web Sites, Followed By Email And Search - Outsell Inc.’s Annual Ad Spending Study found that marketers plan to spend almost 12% of their total 2007 ad budgets on their own home pages. But search spending will increase 40%.

Weak Ad Market Weakens Gannett, But Online Is Immune - Blaming a weak ad market, Gannett Co. reported lower second-quarter earnings. But, as is now customary for newspaper publishers, Gannett cited online operations as a bright spot in all the darkness.

TV Commercials Move Online - eMarketer estimates that this year US online video ad spending will reach $775 million, and grow from there. At 89%, 2007 will show the greatest year-over-year growth for US online video advertising. Coming from such a small base, however, makes this high rate relatively easy to attain. More important indicators come over the next four years, as spending continues to rise at rates of 39% or higher. Still, putting these high growth rates into perspective, video will represent only 3.6% of the total online ad spend this year. Even by 2011, when video ads will be commonplace on the Web, less than 10% of the annually escalating spend will be devoted to the format.

Web Radio Will Stand and Fight - Is Web radio dead yet? “Black Sunday” (July 15) has come and gone, royalty fees have been marked up by more than 300% for some Web radio stations, and some smaller broadcasters have already shut down, but (gasp!) there is light at the end of the tunnel: SoundExchange, the government-appointed organization that collects royalty fees on behalf of the recording industry, has agreed to continue negotiations on new rates in the hope that an agreement can be reached.

CBS Interactive’s Swingtown Strategy - CBS television content will be available through 400 sites on the Internet by the fall, according to executives from the broadcast network’s interactive division. “CBS is all about open, nonexclusive partnerships,” CBS Interactive president Quincy Smith said. “Just CBS.com is not the answer” to reaching viewers, he added, so the network is devoted to going out where the viewers are, not forcing them to CBS.com.