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AOL Unveils Consumer Education Campaign On B.T. - On the eve of an FTC Town Hall meeting addressing privacy issues related to behavioral targeting, AOL has unveiled a new initiative to educate consumers about how the company uses their Web-surfing history to serve ads.                          

VSS: Don’t Count Out Old Media Yet In Digital Future - Don’t count out media’s old guard in the battle for the new media landscape, said John Suhler, founding general partner and president of private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson.           

Media M&A Slowing In Wake Of Credit Crunch - The mortgage crisis and resulting credit crunch haven’t impacted valuations yet, but have led to a slowdown in media M&A activity, according to a group of top industry dealmakers.             

Report: Google in Verizon Talks - Ever-busy Google is now talking with major U.S. wireless carrier Verizon Wireless about putting its applications on Verizon-powered handsets. During a third-quarter earnings call, Verizon Communications COO Denny Strigl confirmed that the company had spoken with Google, but he didn’t elaborate.     

NBCU Digital/IGA Deal Strengthens In-Game Ad Opps - NBC Universal Digital Media has entered a sales deal with New York-based IGA Worldwide–a move that strengthens both companies’ abilities to offer in-game ad packages that also feature online, TV and wireless components.   

Google “Out-Opens” Facebook - Today’s technology news is all about Google vs. Facebook, after the search giant announced a common application programming interface that lets software developers create programs to run within a whole host of social networking Web sites. The idea is to let developers keep the information they obtain about various sites and their activity across different sites so that advertisers may target them better.        

HuffPo Reinvents the Media Wheel - Is Arianna Huffington reinventing the media business? As it’s grown, the HuffPo’s business model has morphed into something akin to “building communities around news content” by getting experts and influential people to blog about their specialties for free. But who wants to blog for free? Apparently, 1,600 people and counting–all personally invited by Huffington to drop their two cents on specific topics from politics to entertainment to food.          

Congress Extends Web Tax Ban - Consumers and telecommunications and technology firms rejoiced on Tuesday after the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously voted to extend the moratorium on Internet taxes, prohibiting state and local authorities from taxing Web access for another seven years. The Senate had already passed the measure, which means that President George W. Bush now has to sign off on it before the current ban expires on Thursday. State and local authorities are upset; they wanted to see a shorter extension and a “narrower definition” of the taxes that could not be charged.                         

Casual Games: Big Reach, Small Bucks - The”casual games” sector, an industry generating a serious $2.25 billion per year, according to the Casual Games Association, is growing annually at 20 percent. That’s a healthy growth figure, especially when you consider that some 200 million people already play casual games. The nascent sector has also proved to be a great way for advertisers to reach everyone, as the ratio of men to women is a nearly even 48.3 to 51.7 percent. Compared to the hardcore or “enthusiast” gaming sector, which consists of console gaming and massively multiplayer games like World of Warcraft, casual gaming’s $2.25 billion is a mere pittance: enthusiasts generate up to $20 billion per year with far smaller audiences.

Forrester: Hulu Should Please Advertisers, Viewers - Under the tightest controls, Hulu.com emerged from the lab on Monday to generally favorable reviews–or review, given that its creators had only briefed one analyst. Forrester analyst James McQuivey was impressed with both the design features and business strategy behind the joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp., noting that it has found “the best way to please advertisers is to maximize viewing of content.”                        

Tribune, Gannett Partner On Metromix Entertainment Network - Chicago-based Gannett and Tribune Company’s Tribune Interactive division have partnered to launch Metromix LLC–expanding Tribune’s already established network of local entertainment and activity sites. The network will exist as an independently operated joint venture headquartered in Chicago–with Tribune vet Kara Walsh signed on as the company’s CEO.

E-Mail ROI High, Response Rates Low - Spending on direct marketing commercial e-mail in the United States will hit $600 million in 2008, according to the Direct Marketing Association. That number represents an increase of nearly one-quarter over 2007. The numbers are dwarfed by spending on non-e-mail Internet direct marketing—such as search and display—which is expected to hit $23 billion. But judging by the DMA’s data, the spending figures belie e-mail’s low cost and high ROI.

Networks Help Advertisers Find the Long Tail - Ad networks are increasingly getting into bed with news distributors like Voxant, is in the business of delivering stories from major news outlets like the Associated Press to its own network of smaller blogs and Web sites. Many of these sites are valuable to advertisers because they have loyal niche audiences, but the traffic we’re talking about is very small-Donklephant, the blog has just 40,000 users per month. However, for sites that center around granular topics, Voxant helps deliver relevant text, videos and photos to make their content richer. They also open up new ad inventory from which the publisher and news outlet profit from, in addition to providing targeted advertising for the advertiser.           

False and Misleading Data Devalues Facebook - Facebook’s user info may not be kosher for advertisers. For one thing, you can’t always trust online users–especially young online users–to provide accurate information. There is an awful lot of role-playing on the Web, but to a larger extent, social network users like to fib. A Pew study says that 56% of teens post false items on their social networking profiles.         

Facebook Employees Are Watching You - Privacy concerns were raised at Facebook after an anonymous source revealed that a friend from the company had asked her why she kept looking at his profile. Well, according to the source, one of the “perks” of being a Facebook employee is the ability to see anyone’s profile and their profile activity.

Investors: Set AOL Free - When news came last Friday that Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons could be succeeded by Jeff Bewkes as early as next week, the company’s stock surged 3.5%. The media giant, whose share price has barely budged during Parsons’ five-year tenure, has been in need of change for some time, or so goes the general consensus. Some speculators said the surge indicated that investors hoped Bewkes would break up the lumbering conglomerate, starting with AOL.

Amazon: The Model Of SEO-Savvy Online Retail - Amazon is one of the online retailing greats — growing from its humble beginnings in 1995 as a book reseller, to a juggernaut that sells electronics, groceries and now challenges Apple for the sale of MP3s. But Amazon is also the perfect example of a company leveraging the “content is king” SEO mantra for stellar benefits.         

MSN Improves Local Search - Erick Schonfeld notes that increased competition in the mapping space has spurred the online giants to launch a number of innovative map-based tools. In the past few months Yahoo, Google and even MapQuest have upgraded their map personalization and visualization features — and now Microsoft has stepped up to the plate with changes to its Live Search Maps.          

Beyond Google: Who Will Lead Search’s 3rd Generation? - David Freedman chronicles a bit of the history of search in this piece that uncovers the “global effort” to find a better way to search for information on the Web — noting that as users seek to get their information from more refined sources, Google’s search domination seems vulnerable. His POV stems partly from the idea that while innovative, Google is only the 2nd generation of search engines (a step up from precursors like AltaVista that only searched by keyword) and that its method of ranking by links and keywords (among other “opaque” factors) stands the chance of being usurped by an upstart that figures out the next optimal formula.

Google Confident Of OK On DoubleClick Deal - Senior Google officials last week expressed confidence that the $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick will pass both FTC and EU hurdles.                        

One-on-One With Hachette’s Philippe Guelton - In a leadup to his panel at the American Magazine Conference in Boca Raton, FL, Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. COO Philippe Guelton talked about the company’s digital strategy, latest deal with TheFind.com, and the surprising success of Womansday.com.                 

Media Buyers Welcome More Open Yahoo - Media buyers welcomed Yahoo’s step last week to open up its home page by adding outside links, but said the company should be moving even faster to bring down barriers.

eMarketer on Microsoft-Facebook - When Microsoft Corp. paid $240 million for a 1.6% stake in Facebook last week, it acquired the rights to sell Facebook advertising around the world. With 34.5 billion page views in September, according to comScore Media Metrix, Facebook is now the fourth most highly trafficked Web property worldwide. Just how important is the international part of the equation? Facebook in September racked up 14.7 billion page views in the United States, comScore reported – just 43% of its worldwide total. Yes, the validity of the page-view metric is debatable, but for Microsoft’s sales organization, that is a flood of new inventory any way you look at it.       

Google’s Social Assault: Maka-Maka - Google may have lost out on a piece of Facebook, but the Web giant is now responding by moving headlong into the territory of Facebook and MySpace. Google plans to incorporate social media features into all of its applications, using them as the glue that sticks each application together. The initiative goes by the name “Maka-Maka” and borrows heavily from Facebook.

Hulu.com Launches Under Great Pressure - Whatever the fate of Hulu.com, the media world will be watching carefully. The free, ad-supported television partnership launches today on an invite-only basis. Yet it seems like everyone is expecting this thing to fail. Why? Diverging agendas, technical challenges and an all-powerful enemy: YouTube; a group of bloggers has even started calling Hulu “Clown Co.” However, reporters were impressed last week at Hulu’s press unveiling.

Why Hulu Will Fail - Hulu is a product, or an arrangement between content owners–it doesn’t actually own the TV shows or movies it distributes. Actually, NBC and News Corp. can stream as much of their content through their own Web sites as they want, and in any arrangement they want (commercial-free, for example). The only thing Hulu has the rights to is third-party distribution agreements. NBC, for example, couldn’t strike a deal with YouTube, but Hulu could.

When Google = Search, Indie Alternatives Continue to Dwindle - Despite their efforts to keep the word “Google” from becoming as generic as “Kleenex,” or “Xerox,” or “Band-Aid,” the search giant’s name is still synonymous with — well, search. It’s great for the company’s market share, but bad for smaller, independent search engines, according to OneUpWeb’s Chip.While indies like Judy’s Book and WiseNut are mere blips on the search landscape, they do add value and give searchers options that the giants don’t provide.         

Deeper Insight Into Live Search (Part 2) - In Microsoft’s quest to improve Live Search’s relevancy for users (and ROI for adCenter advertisers) the software giant’s search team focused on a number of key areas –including the actual semantics behind queries. The company continues to shed light on the nuts and bolts of the improvements –and today’s post centers on the upgrades to user abbreviations (entering ‘Nw’ for Northwestern university, for example) and the handling of “stop words” (or articles like “a,” “the,” or “and”).

Outsell: Digital B2B Revs Exceed Print By 2009 - In the business-to-business media category, 2009 will be a watershed year as online and related digital revenues surpass print revenues for the first time, according to a forecast by Outsell, Inc., a consultancy serving the information industry. The report, authored by Outsell analyst Chuck Richards, may be a harbinger of similar changes to come in the general consumer media as well.                      

Bytes & Bites: Chapter 8 - A Datamonitor study says that global active memberships in social networking sites are expected to reach 230 million at the end of 2007. That’s 230 million invitations to join groups that you can’t keep up with or even understand why you belong to.           

Report: Facebook Set to Collect $260 Million More - Facebook apparently isn’t done collecting money from third-party investors: the Internet upstart is in talks with hedge funds and private equity firms to raise as much as $260 million. The news comes just two days after the company completed the sale of 1.6% of its equity to Microsoft for $240 million. Nothing has been signed yet, but an announcement should be forthcoming, unless the talks, which are preliminary, collapse in the next week or so. The investments, like the Microsoft deal, would also value the company at $15 billion.

Is MySpace Running Out of Time to Deliver? - Facebook may be ubiquitous, but rival MySpace is still three to four times the size of Mark Zuckerberg’s white-hot social network. It’s also older, too, which means the pressure on parent News Corp. to turn the 100 million member-plus social network into a money-making machine is building. Analysts and investors are waiting.              

Yahoo’s Givin’ Out Link Love — But Can You Get Some? - At the Q3 earnings call last week, Yahoo’s CEO Jerry Yang noted that the company would soon open up its homepage to third-party developers (for widgets and other apps) as well as more non-Yahoo content. It’s all part of Yahoo’s goal to become the main start page for a majority of people on the Web.

Looking To Acquire An Interactive Shop? Ad Age Has A List - A list of the top 20 remaining independent digital agency acquisition candidates.

WPP Acquires Blast Radius - WPP is getting additional new media assets with the acquisition of Vancouver-based interactive shop Blast Radius. The agency will be aligned with Wunderman after the deal closes. Founded 10 years ago, Blast Radius’s client roster includes AOL, Electronic Arts, Nike, and Starbucks. It earned roughly $60 million in revenue this year, and has offices in San Francisco, New York, Toronto, Amsterdam and London.  

Omniture to Acquire Visual Sciences - Omniture Inc. (NasdaqGM:OMTR - News), a leading provider of online business optimization software, today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Visual Sciences, Inc. (NasdaqGM:VSCN - News) in a stock and cash transaction valued at approximately $394 million.

CNET Sells Off Photo Sharing Site Webshots To American Greetings, For $45 Million - CNET (NSDQ: CNET) Networks has done its first online divestment for a while: it has sold its once-high-flying online photo sharing site Webshots, to American Greetings (NYSE: AM) for $45 million. Webshots is still among the biggest photo sharing sites, and certainly one of the originals in the space, but with competition from the likes of Flickr, Facebook’s photo sharing app, Photobucket and plenty of others, has seen its dominance decline.                   

Gannett Buys Schedule Star, Parent Of Athletic Community HighSchoolSports.net - Apart from its somewhat negative earnings report this morning, Gannett (NYSE: GCI) is building up its digital holdings by taking a controlling interest in Schedule Star, which runs athletic community site HighSchoolSports.net. Financial terms were not disclosed.The Bridgeport, OH-based company claims it has over 6,500 schools subscribing to its Schedule Star athletic management system, which updates team stats and event information. Gannett plans to incorporate features from Schedule Star and HighSchoolSports.net local with its local newspapers, TV stations and websites as a way to increase ad revenue and readership.       

Content Manager Interwoven Purchases Web Page Optimizer Optimost For $52 Million In Cash - Content management software maker Interwoven has acquired interactive marketing services firm Optimost for $52 million in cash. The merger is intended to provide both with a way to create, deliver and analyze targeted online content.

Social Maps Site Platial Acquires FrapprZ - Portland, OR-based Platial, an aggregator of user-generated content based on geography, is acquiring Frappr, a social mapping site based in San Francisco. The companies believe that the combined entity will account for 25 percent of distributed map widgets. In the release, Platial CEO Di-Ann Eisnor said the acquisition will allow it to create a more effective advertising model, using location and social data.

Updated: WordPress In Play, Velocity Among Others In The Mix; WP Buys - Updated: Automattic, the company behind WordPress, the popular commercial blog software , is a sales candidate, according to our sources. The difference between Automattic’s hopes and what buyers are willing to pay so far is holding back progress. The range we’ve heard is from $150 million to $300 million…the upper end being the company’s hopes, and the lower end being the amount buyers are interested in. (We think it would sell quickly at the lower end, and, no, we don’t get commission.)

Pushing Print Online - When the grand, gray lady of newspapers, The New York Times, changes its tagline from “All the News That’s Fit to Print” to “All the News That’s Fit to Click,” there can be no question that momentous changes are underway in the publishing world. “It’s wake-up time for the publishing industry,” said Lisa Phillips, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, Newspapers and Magazines Online: Content Is Still King. “eMarketer projects that US newspaper and magazine publishers will spend nearly $537 million this year to advertise their print and online brands.                     

Is Facebook An Operating System? - Microsoft’s $240 million investment in Google could easily be interpreted as a sign that we are truly in the midst of Internet Bubble 2.0. After all, Microsoft’s acquisition of 1.6 percent of the company sets Facebook’s valuation at $15 billion, or about 100 times the company’s estimated ad revenues of $150 million this year. In scrambling to rationalize the sky-high price tags being assigned to social networks such as Facebook, some experts argue that these sites–and even big search sites like Google–are the operating systems of the future. Because these companies have opened their inner workings enough to allow third parties to write add-ons, known as widgets, analysts draw a parallel between Windows or Linux and the applications that are created to work on the Web-based systems.           

Microsoft’s Facebook Stake No Big Deal - Much of the attention this morning is on Microsoft’s $240 million investment in Facebook, a deal that gives the software giant two things: a 1.6% stake in the company and the right to sell international remnant advertising. That’s right, “remnant” as in leftovers; those ads Facebook doesn’t want to sell itself. In fact, most industry pundits agree that Microsoft didn’t win very much at all at the end of the day. The company invested $240 million for a crumb of equity (1.6%) and a sales-repping job for a company that now appears to be obligated only to treat Microsoft like any tiny minority investor (i.e., send them some financial info once a quarter).                       

Google Touts Search Ad Improvements - Google’s annual analyst day was sabotaged somewhat by the announcement that the company lost out in its bid for a stake in Facecbook to Microsoft, but the company did make predictions on Google’s future. Riding high from last week’s news that Google recently made even bigger gains in search advertising monetization, Nick Fox, the company’s director of advertising product management, declared: “There is still substantial headroom” in eking out more money from Google’s existing user base. A paramount concern for the company is improving the relevancy of its search and contextual ads.                 

Facebook To Telecoms: Open Up, or Else - The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association is supposed to be a forum for the telecoms to soapbox about the future of proprietary networks and exclusive partnerships with handset makers. However, social networking giant Facebook stole headlines at the annual conference this week as the site’s 23-year-old co-founder Dustin Moskovitz lectured telecom executives on the benefits of open platforms.

Publishers Poised For Blog Land Grab - Blogs may be the Web’s next big land grab, the financial ratings firm Standard & Poors says in a recent report. They’re extremely cheap to run, and the most successful ones reach large, loyal audiences. That’s a business model traditional publishers would love to emulate as they crossover to digital media. Not only that, but TechCrunch, GigaOm, Gawker, Boing Boing and the Huffington Post have become major media voices, which makes them attractive takeover targets for major publishers like Dow Jones and The New York Times Company.

Microsoft Beats Google To Facebook Punch - Microsoft will invest $240 million for a 1.6% stake in Facebook–a deal that values the hot social network at a staggering $15 billion. Beating out Google on Wednesday, Microsoft also won exclusive global rights to sell third-party banner ads on Facebook.

Friendster Follows Facebook With Open Platform - Facebook will need to find itself another major differentiator, because developer platforms are becoming commodities just like social networks themselves. Regarding third-party developer platforms, Facebook rivals have followed CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s lead. Friendster’s platform announcement comes just a week after MySpace; Google is next expected to unveil a similar third-party program.           

Friendster Announces Developer Platform; Can You Say “Commodity”? - Good thing we launched the CrunchBase widget, because you may need it to refresh your memory about a certain social networking company called Friendster that’s announcing its own developer platform today (okay okay, to be fair, they do have 50 million users and are very popular in Asia). Friendster’s platform announcement comes five months after that of Facebook and not even a week after that of MySpace, the company that usurped Friendster a few years ago. Looks like Facebook will need to find itself another major differentiator, because developer platforms are becoming commodities just like social networks themselves.

Advergaming - The Interactive Advertising Bureau, in association with the Games Committee, has introduced the first in a series of papers that outlines a detailed overview of the various game platforms, primarily “console” and “personal computer (PC) online.” Subsequent reports are expected to address audience demographics, behavior, and best practices. Video Games have emerged as a main-stream entertainment medium that generates worldwide revenues of about $25 billion in hardware and software sales. Surpassing box office revenues, movie rentals, book and music sales, Video Game revenues reached $12 billion in the US in 2006.                                         

About.com’s Upgrades Drive Revenues, Traffic For NYT - About.com posted Q3 07 revenues of $24.7 million on Tuesday, nearly a 35% increase year-over-year. At the same time, the online information resource’s operating costs hit $18.4 million–an increase of almost 55% from Q3 last year–pulling down the operating profit margin by 2%. The company employs over 600 industry experts to author, monitor and constantly maintain the topic-specific GuideSites, which also feature rich media and video content (powered by Brightcove).                                 

Google, Nielsen Form Alliance: First Step Brings Demo Data To Google TV Ads - After months of angst concerning Google’s inroads into television, and potentially into television audience measurement, Nielsen Co. has entered into a strategic relationship with the online search giant. The first phase of the relationship will give Google’ access to Nielsen’s demographic data, which will be integrated with the digital set-top data Google currently gleans from the TV operators partnering on its Google TV Ads network.                       

Marketing Apparel on Social Networks - Heavy social networkers in the United States visit leisure-oriented retail Web sites more than average Internet users, according to comScore. Such Web sites include music, jewelry and luxury goods and accessories, consumer electronics and apparel. comScore found that more than 95% of heavy social networkers visited retail sites in August 2007, compared with 80% of the total US Internet audience. Heavy social networkers were defined as the top 20% of visitors based on time spent on social networking sites.                      

MPAA Enlists ISPs in Fight Against Piracy - The Motion Picture Association of America is now trying to enlist Internet service providers like Comcast and AT&T in its fight to curb rampant piracy on the Web. Now that network neutrality looks dead, the MPAA can bypass Gnutella, BitTorrent and other file-sharing programs by going straight to the source of Internet access. AThe MPAA has already gone to several ISPs to discuss adopting policies that keep discourage users from illegally downloading and sharing movies over their networks.                        

Yahoo’s “Openness” Strategy - Following an improved third-quarter performance, Yahoo Chief Jerry Yang made his first public appearance since reclaiming office, talking about the company’s growth strategy and its plans to compete with rivals Google and Microsoft. Whereas most Web publishers are focusing on the idea of “stickiness,” Yang said his goal is to turn Yahoo into a series of reference points that consumers use repeatedly. Its main services would be the My Yahoo homepage, Yahoo Mail, search, and its mobile platform.                 

EBay: Helps Poor Help Themselves - As opposed to simply giving money away to charity, the process of micro-lending has emerged as a popular way to help the world’s most impoverished countries. Lenders help would-be businessmen with a small cash investment, then collect repayments with an equally small amount of interest. The idea is to help create sustainable economic growth for third world countries.                     

Amazon Quadruples Profit, Shares Fall - As Amazon will tell you, Wall Street can be frustratingly tough to please. Despite quadrupling its third-quarter profit, the Web retailer saw its stock fall nearly 10% following its Tuesday earnings report. The reason: investors were already expecting a blowout quarter, but when the company announced a slight operating margin decline from the second quarter, they took that as a signal that the company’s boom days were coming to a close.

Search Drives CPG Site Traffic And Store Sales: Study - New research sponsored by comScore, P&G, Yahoo and SEMPO showed shoppers who search online for packaged goods brand sites also spend 20% more in-store within a month of their searches. The research highlights the need for companies to secure their space on “The Digital Shelf” in the same way they spend for the best in-store shelf space.                            

Industry Watch: Video Game Ads Grow Up - Success in online gaming calls for a whole different kind of creative. Despite all the new options, some experts say marketers are squandering opportunities — placing the wrong ads in the wrong games.

Is Search Still Worth It? - The SEO effect is great, but gauging ROI is tough. Search marketing budgets are set to increase in 2008, according to MarketingSherpa’s “Search Marketing Benchmark Survey.” Responding marketers said they planned to increase their pay-per-click budgets by at least 11% in 2008. One-third of search marketers whose spending was average said they planned to do so on Google AdWords. Respondents rated both PPC and search engine optimization as effective search marketing tactics.

MySpace To Launch Game Sector - A day after announcing its first foray into Web video production, News Corp.’s MySpace is now planning to become an online gaming destination, too. The social network is striking a deal with game distributor Oberon Media to feed its new MySpace Games section, set for a January launch.

NBC Removes YouTube Content Before Hulu Launch - In anticipation of next week’s launch of Hulu, the joint online media venture between News Corp. and NBC Universal, NBC on Monday removed content from Google’s YouTube, including licensed video clips and a promotional channel that were part of a deal signed by the companies almost nine months ago. A company spokesperson confirmed that NBC was removing its content from YouTube, but said the decision was intended to provide a boost to Hulu, not to spite Google or YouTube. YouTube, meanwhile, isn’t taking the decision personally.

Microsoft Concedes to EU Ruling - Microsoft has decided not to appeal last month’s European Union commission antitrust ruling, ending a nine-year fight with EU regulators that has cost the software giant hundreds of millions in fines. Defeat means that Microsoft now has to license information to competitors to make their software work better with Windows. It also needs to “tread carefully” when it comes to bundling products and features into sales of the operating system.  

Facebook Set to Introduce Major Ad Play - Facebook is keeping mum about exactly what it is unveiling at the Nov. 6 event, but ad-industry executives familiar with the company’s plans said the social network is looking to better use the data its users voluntarily offer up on their profiles. Of course, that much seems like a no-brainer (although it’s actually not easy to implement). But less obviously, a couple of industry executives familiar with the company’s plans suggest Facebook could use some of what it knows about people — and their relationships with others on the site, what is known as the “social graph” — to target them off Facebook as well.

What’s the Newest Way to Get Your Ad Seen Online? Widgets - Jake Ginsky, like more than 3 million other Facebook users, lists his “top friends” using a nifty little application from a company called Slide. In the application, the 31-year-old designer also recently displayed an affinity for someone else: Sarah Silverman. She’s not actually a friend; Mr. Ginsky was using a branded widget from Slide that advertised Ms. Silverman’s Comedy Central program.

Americans Are Getting Tired Of Search - Yahoo cited “Search Engine Fatigue” as part of its rationale behind adding the new Search Assist feature to its search interface, and now a report by Autobytel follows up on this idea of users getting overwhelmed by the amount of results, ads and overall clutter in the typical search experience. Autobytel, the new and used car search marketplace, commissioned Kelton Research to poll 1,000 U.S. adults and found that 72.3% experience “search engine fatigue” (either always,” “usually,” or “sometimes”) when researching a topic on the Internet.

Yahoo CMO Cammie Dunaway Latest Out The Door - Nintendo, Disney, or even Apple were the speculated destinations of Yahoo CMO Cammie Dunaway who announced her last day at the Internet company will be Nov. 2.                          

Nielsen//NetRatings Numbers Show Softness In Impressions - Online ad impressions dropped by an average of 16% from August to September, according to data from Nielsen//NetRatings–with downward spending trends showing up in all but two of 13 verticals.              

News Corp. Forecasts $1B In Internet Revenues - News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch says Internet revenues for the fiscal year should reach $1 billion.

B.T. Plays Big Role In Online Technology Purchases: Jupiter - Two-thirds of consumer electronics and computing products shoppers buy online at least once a month, and online ads play a role in the purchases, according to a new study from JupiterResearch for behavioral targeting firm Revenue Science.                 

Pepsi Brands Online Minisode Network Of Vintage TV Shows - Pepsi, which is rebranding its packaging to sport a retro look, next month will tout the change on the Minisode Network, an online series of condensed vintage TV shows.     

Virtual Worlds, Real Ad Dollars - Ad spending is likely to increase substantially as more kids and teens spend time in virtual worlds and as more marketers create campaigns for those environments. Parks Associates estimated in June 2007 that $15 million was spent advertising in virtual worlds in the United States in 2006 and projected that it would rise tenfold to $150 million in 2012. The figures did not include marketer-branded virtual worlds. They also did not include other revenue sources, such as micro-transactions or subscription fees.

The Great Traffic Debate - It is a great irony of the so-called “most measurable advertising medium” that the discrepancy between those who count Web traffic is so vast. Publishers count the number of visitors to their sites, while advertisers and ad-serving firms collect data on those sites they do business with. All rely on third-party measurers like Nielsen/NetRatings and comScore Media Metrix when it comes to doing business.

EU Extends GoogleClick - Google, possibly on the verge of failing to receive approval for its $3.1 billion DoubleClick acquisition, made concessions to the European Union to extend its review of the merger for a possible violation of antitrust law. Antitrust regulators agreed to extend their review–and possibly clear the merger–on the basis of the steps taken by Google.

Ex-Googlers Explain Why They Left - The defection of talent can be a major problem for big companies, particularly tech companies, as innovative entrepreneurials often feel stifled by the large corporate environment. The same problem has plagued Microsoft and Yahoo, but it’s now plaguing Google–once the destination for top industry talent, too. At last week’s Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco, former employees of the search giant opened up about why they left the company.

Ballmer Promises 20 Acquisitions a Year - Speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer says that the company plans to acquire about 20 companies a year for the next five years, with deal sizes ranging from $50 million to $1 billion, according to VentureBeat.”We will buy smaller companies. We will buy smaller companies that make some use of open source software,” said Ballmer, according to a report from CNet News. “We don’t want to discourage people who would talk with us just because they do some open source.”                               

Google Wows Market With 46% Q3 Earnings Gain - Google recovered from its “wobbly” second quarter and announced a 46% year-over-year increase in Q3 earnings, beating many analysts’ expectations.                

Viacom Opens Door To Complete Daily Show Library - On its own terms, Viacom has decided to give fans of “The Daily Show” on-demand access to every minute of every episode since Jon Stewart took over in 1999. AT&T, Hyundai and TiVo are among the launch sponsors.       

Media Giants Team On Content Piracy Measures - Banded together by a mutual fear of Google and YouTube, a group of digital media heavyweights on Thursday issued a set of guidelines on copyright protection. Included are Viacom, Disney, Microsoft, News Corp. and NBC Universal.           

Eyeblaster Releases Scalable Video Ad Solution - Intent on simplifying the delivery of video advertising online, Eyeblaster has released a new scalable and integrated solution dubbed Channel Connect.

Dow Jones Revs Up 19.6% In 3Q, Thank The Web - Dow Jones saw revenues jump 19.6% to $493.3 million in the third quarter of 2007 compared to 2006, due largely to big increases in Web advertising revenue, the company reported on Thursday. Better: Web revenues may offset print losses.

Irrational Exuberance And Facebook’s Social Graph - A new fad has taken hold in Silicon Valley, but it lacks substance. We’re not necessarily talking about the astronomical valuations placed on companies that don’t warrant them–we are, but only indirectly. It’s the open platform and the social graph, two ideas popularized by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg when he announced in May that third-party developers could create programs for his site.

Will Social Features Work for Email Providers? - Social networks, focusing instead on email providers like Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL, have started encroaching on the territory of MySpace and Facebook. If social networking is all about loyalty and personalization, then email and instant messaging are–in theory–the perfect place to mine that data. So why not combine all these services and let users stick a profile on their account? Google’s Gmail, it seems, is already headed in that direction, allowing its users to chat with contacts from inside their in-boxes. 

EA Calls For Open Video Game Platform - Electronics Arts, the world’s largest third-party developer of video game software, called on hardware makers Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo to abandon the console wars and help build a common gaming platform. EA believes that an open video game platform would not only drive innovation by enhancing competition, but help developers cut costs. Third-party software makers currently have to develop three versions of the same game to reach as many gamers as possible. Hardware makers, meanwhile, typically lose money on consoles, anyway, as most of the revenue is recouped through software sales.

Big Three Fatigue? Try One of These Alternative Engines - Yes, Google rules the search world (and just released ridiculous earnings), and yes, Yahoo and MSN just launched major upgrades to their crawlers. Let’s not forget about Ask.com, the search engine that seemingly gets no credit for the whole “Universal Search” craze … But searchers are constantly exploring the Web, and while the big three (or four?) engines snag the majority of traffic, there are an infinite number of choices users have for search — and getting listed with these “alternative engines” can give one site a previously unknown advantage over competitors.

Discovery Does Its Biggest Online Buy: HowStuffWorks For $250 Million - Discovery Communications (NSDQ: DISCA) has made its biggest online acquisition till date: it is buying Atlanta-based online reference site HowStuffWorks.com for $250 million. The purchase also includes a number of digital properties, such as a map database and ConsumerGuide.com, owned by HSW, which isn’t yet profitable, reports WSJ.

Local Business Directory Site Smalltown Acquires Local2Me - San Mateo-based Smalltown, a directory site for local businesses, has acquired seven year-old Local2Me, which offers community-based user forums (via VentureBeat). The purchase allows Smalltown to solidify its position in the Bay Area, where Local2Me has an active, though small, userbase (VentureBeat says it has about 8,000 users across the country). The goal is to build up synergies between the user community and business directories. Smalltown, which raised $3 million last year from Formative Ventures, also said that the move will help it gear up for a national launch of its service. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.                  

Private BuyOut Of Ancestry.com For $300+ Million - Today it was announced that privately owned The Generations Network is being acquired by Spectrum Equity Investors for $300 million. The asking price was $500 million. The Generations Network is the company that runs Ancestry.com, MyFamily.com and other geneology web sites. It’s based in Provo, Utah. The company is pulling in $150 million or so in yearly revenue and is hugely profitable according to our source.

DoubleClick Teams With Visible World For Dynamic Video Ads - DoubleClick has enlisted video-targeting technology from Visible World to launch Dynamic Video–a new feature for DoubleClick Rich Media ads, which combines interactive design, ad-serving and reporting capabilities with the power of dynamically generated, flexible, customized video messages.                                        

NielsenConnect, ESPN Deal Paves Way For Holistic Media Buys - NielsenConnect’s new deal with ESPN to measure media consumption across all of the sports giant’s properties moves the industry a step closer to truly holistic media buys.               

Widget Marketing: Sure Hype We Get It Right - Here’s a nugget that came from an Instapoll of the audience during the ANA Masters of Marketing Conference over the weekend: What trend is the most overhyped from the perspective of a major advertiser? 1. Widgets (31%) 2. Mobile platforms (30%) 3. Social Networking (22%) 4. Paid Search (11%) 5. Video (6%).

MySpace, iPhone Open To Developers - When it opened its platform to third-party developers in May, Facebook started a Web-wide trend. Today, both Apple and News Corp announced they would open their software development kits to outsiders: Apple for its iPhone handset and News Corp. for its Facebook competitor, MySpace. The latter’s move was expected, but Apple was a surprise because the iPod maker is a notoriously closed-door company.

Group Agrees To Copyright Guidelines - A group of major traditional and Web media companies today entered into a pact to fight rampant copyright violation on the Internet. The consortium, which includes Microsoft, NBC Universal, News Corp., Viacom, Walt Disney Co. and the video sharing company Dailymotion, agreed to a set of guidelines protecting copyright holders.

Google Unveils Health Plans - Google on Wednesday unveiled plans for its long-awaited health initiative, which is now set to appear in early 2008, said Marissa Mayer, the company’s head of search. Mayer said Google hopes to enhance the way medical records are stored and organized; she pointed out that its search engine is already the starting point for the majority of health-related searches on the Web.

What’s On The Internet Tonight? - Americans have not abandoned their televisions, but some are moving their viewing to a different screen. About 16% of US Internet households watch TV broadcasts online, according to The Conference Board and TNS. Respondents said that TV on the Internet had replaced news programs as their most widely viewed online content. “Although online TV viewing is still not a widespread phenomenon, the proportion of users has increased since 2006 and is likely to increase over time, given consumers’ love for entertainment,” said Lynn Franco, director of consumer research at The Conference Board, in a statement.

Whither The PPC, Again? - Rich Ord recaps blogger Steve Rubel’s recent post on 5 reasons why PPC advertising is in trouble — and asks WebProNews readers if they agree (or disagree, of course). Rubel argues that Google’s AdSense has made text ads so ubiquitous that users are becoming blind to them — essentially driving CTRs for sponsored links way down. (Sounds oddly familiar to what happened when the Web became full of banner ads, right?). Together with decreasing or flat conversions (not just CTRs) and the influx of video, some would say that this signals the death knell for paid search advertising.