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Online Video Will Give Rise To New Semi-Professional Class - Will the future of online video be dominated by user-generated or professionally produced content? The answer is “yes,” according to a panel of execs talking about performance metrics during the OMMA Video conference in Hollywood on Wednesday. They issued this prediction when asked how online video can accumulate enough inventory to compete with network television.                             

OMMA Panelists Discuss Video Advertising On Internet - Can advertising video hit its Internet target? Not exactly–and not right now. OMMA Video panelists noted that while contextual marketing and behavioral marketing are key to the growth of the video advertising on the Internet, all this is still a long way off for grabbing much of traditional TV advertisers’ attention.               

Online Video Threatens Traditional TV Spots - Online ads are poised to disrupt the traditional TV ad business, say panelists at the OMMA Video conference. What’s more, the entire production process costs one-eighth of a traditional TV spot. Many online spots are now migrating to television.

Online Video Ads Score Well With Users - Online video ads are doing better than pop-ups and pop-unders, with only 31% of those surveyed taking a strongly negative view of video versus 55% for the latter. But that’s an easy win against infamously annoying ad formats. To put it in perspective, only 18% of consumers have a strongly negative view of banner ads, 21% for skyscrapers and 27% for “advergames.” But the honeymoon is over, and consumers do take a negative view of some tactics.                      

Ten Marketing Ideas Whose Time is Now - Few marketing programs completely fulfill one’s hopes. In the new year, marketers should avoid over-hyped opportunities to focus on measuring success one satisfied customer at a time. The following key trends may be worth considering: Gaming, Mobile, Social Networks, Widgets, Roll Video, Behavioral Targeting, Interactive Brand Experiences, Going Green, Outdoor Advertising and Marketing as a Service.

Report: Recession Won’t Bother Web Advertising, Much - A market meltdown would likely do the most damage to online advertising revenues of Yahoo and AOL, according to a report. “We think the brunt of any hardship to come will be borne disproportionately by the weakest players, namely Yahoo and AOL, in a pattern that is already starting to emerge,” Bernstein Research analyst Jeffrey Lindsay wrote on Wednesday. The report said the same won’t be true for Google, MySpace, and Facebook, whose year-over-year advertising revenues in the third quarter of 2007 gained 62 percent, 135 percent, and 200 percent, respectively. That compare with same period growth of 16 percent for Yahoo and 10 percent for AOL, well below the U.S. industry average of 25 percent.                

OpenSocial Invites Hackers - Social networks are trying to out-friendly each other in the eyes of developers. Facebook, MySpace and now Google have all pushed the “open” development card, but Google has taken the idea to the extreme with OpenSocial, an alliance that offers a universal development platform to programmers, so they create software that runs on multiple social networks. MySpace and Bebo, the No. 1 and No. 3 ranked social networks are among those that have signed up for the Google initiative.                                          

Updated: Verisign’s Pruning To Start; May Divest Off Mobile Messaging and Content Delivery Services - Updated: This has been officially announced: Among the divisions it will divest: communications, billing and commerce. it will now focus on its Web site-naming and Internet security services. More details in release, but still unclear: if the mobile messaging and broadband content-delivery units will also be divested.

AOL Renews Casual Gaming Focus - Results of an Associated Press-Ipsos poll conducted for AOL drove both the redesign of and offerings by Games.com, which will include 20 new games, bringing the total to about 400. The poll of more than 2,000 adults surveyed in mid-October found 44% of all online adults who play games said they play versions of them online.           

EC Extends Review of Google Merger - The decision to extend the review shows the Commission has serious doubts about whether the merger meets antitrust standards The European authorities appear especially concerned with Google’s AdSense network, which serves contextual ads on other publishers’ sites.                  

Newspapers Form Alliance with Zillow.com - In their latest bid to counter shrinking print revenues, a group of major U.S. newspaper companies has formed an alliance with Zillow.com to extend their classified ads to the popular real estate site. The Zillow partnership comes a year after many of the same publishers forged an alliance with Yahoo, focused on giving newspapers the ability to place local help wanted ads on the Internet portal’s HotJobs career site.                        

Recorded Music Sales Hit a Downbeat - The global recording industry is struggling in a rapidly changing marketplace. “Digital formats such as online downloads, ringtones, mastertones, full tracks delivered to mobile handsets and Internet and mobile subscription services are providing new and growing revenue streams,” says Paul Verna, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report Recorded Music: Digital Falls Short. “But these new revenue streams are simply not enough to pick up the slack from free-falling CD sales,” he adds.                          

Ask Gains Search Traction - By now, you must have seen at least one of IAC/InterActiveCorp’s commercials for Ask.com, asking “Can your search engine do this?” and then proceeding to show off the virtues of Ask 3D in all its video-playing, image-thumbnailing, related-searching glory. It would be interesting to see how much IAC has spent on this Ask ad campaign, but according to Compete’s October search data, the company is already getting a solid ROI in traffic. Search queries increased 14% from September and while Ask’s overall market share of 3.9% is still down from last year’s 4.3%, this is the second straight month of gains. And as Jeremy Crane notes, Ask could well usurp that number next month if the growth trend continues.                                             

Google And Go Daddy Get Hitched - Well, it’s not an acquisition (yet), but Google and domain-hosting service Go Daddy have inked a new deal that will automatically give Go Daddy customers access to Google’s suite of Webmaster tools. Go Daddy will also ensure that its customers’ sitemaps get submitted to Google without any extra effort on their part.

OpenSocial And Facebook And Bebo, Oh My! - With the explosion of social networking “platforms” in the past few weeks, and the increased convergence of search, social media and overall Web site optimization, figuring out which platform works best for which audience, advertiser and ultimately for your search marketing efforts will be an ongoing task. Marshall Kirkpatrick serves up an at-a-glance view of the top five social networking platforms, including Google’s new Android and the content storage model of Box.net, and also provides a brief description of each one and how they benefit developers.                            

Bebo Strikes Revolutionary Content Deals - Bebo on Tuesday became the first social network to invite major media companies to make their content available to its 20 million-strong user base. The site’s users can now legally post music and video files to their profile pages. The initiative, called Open, has an impressive list of launch partners, too: Viacom’s MTV, CBS Corp., Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN, Yahoo Inc., Sony Pictures Entertainment Co.’s Crackle and JibJab Media Inc.                               

Google, Yahoo Plan Social Home Pages - Both Google and Yahoo aim to turn their email services into social networks. Both plan to introduce social features that keep people using their applications for longer. The idea is to turn iGoogle and MyYahoo into a more central hub that serves the triple purpose of being a personalized home page, an email inbox and a social networking profile.        

Google’s Road to Ubiquity - Google’s recent moves-OpenSocial, Android and the Open Handset Alliance, and enhancements to Google Maps and its Gmail email service-indicate the Web giant is on the path to ubiquity. The company wants all Internet users to do everything online, and store everything they do online, from sharing digital pictures to creating spreadsheets.. The company calls it “cloud computing,” which refers to the ready accessibility of Google’s vast database of information from any device, anywhere across the globe.

No Need For “Do Not Track” List - Rumor has it the Federal Trade Commission is seriously considering a “Do Not Track” list that would let Web users opt-out of data tracking. Consumer privacy groups have suggested as much, saying the marketing practice is out of control and that industry self-regulation is no longer effective. To the layman, it might sound as though there is no self-regulation at all, and that consumers are powerless to do anything about the backlog of data being collected about them.                                                 

What if Google Bought Sprint? - Things have been looking down for telecom giant Sprint Nextel for some time. Following the resignation of CEO Gary Forsee, the company’s WiMAX plans are up in the air. Investors see WiMAX as a huge risk, particularly for a company that’s recently been under-performing so badly. Last week, Sprint announced it was halting its joint venture with Clearwire, citing Forsee’s departure and the complexity of building a nationwide WiMAX network.                                

First Great Battle for the Future of Web Advertising - The Web advertising industry is at a crossroads: Nobody pays any attention to display ads, classifieds are ruled by Craigslist, which is free, and search continues to be the industry’s main driver. Aside from search, a direct marketing tactic, “there’s scant evidence that online ads are finding their mark.” Meanwhile, money continues to pour into the Web. Facebook Ads vs. OpenSocial (the Google alliance) is “the first great battle for the future of advertising on the web.” With Facebook Ads, we have the first attempt by a large social network to leverage the substantial power of interpersonal word of mouth advertising. Indeed, Facebook is trying to turn brand marketing into “something people could actually use.”              

Marketers Threaten To Put Majority Of Budget Online - Big-name brand marketers are fed up with traditional media channels and are threatening to shift the lion’s share of their budgets online, according to one speaker at the Interactive Advertising Bureau conference on Monday. The increased spending on online ads is coming from a mix of additional allocations and budget shifts from other media, and TV may be in for the largest losses.          

Proposed Piracy Law Targets File-Sharers - The Intellectual Property Enforcement Act of 2007 would authorize the Department of Justice to file civil lawsuits against file-sharers. It would also create a new FBI unit to focus on enforcing intellectual property laws and award $20 million a year to the FBI and Justice Department to investigate computer crimes.            

Ad Growth Spurs Free WSJ? - News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch today told shareholders in Australia that he plans to end subscription fees for The Wall Street Journal online. “We are studying it and we expect to make that free, and instead of having one million (subscribers), having at least 10 million-15 million in every corner of the earth,” he said, according to the Associated Press. News Corp. this summer agreed to purchase Journal parent Dow Jones for $5.6 billion. The deal is expected to close before the end of the year. News that the site will likely become free isn’t entirely unexpected, as Murdoch has previously touted the potential ad revenue to be gained by making WSJ.com free. Currently, the site draws about 1 million subscribers who pay a total of around $50 million a year for access.

New Facebook, MySpace Ad Programs Prompt FTC Complaint - Advocacy organizations Center for Digital Democracy and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group plan to file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission over new ad programs on social networking sites. The groups specifically question whether these programs–Facebook’s, as well as MySpace’s expanded targeting–inappropriately focus on minors.                                      

Facebook Quietly Opens New York Office - So where exactly are Facebook’s New York digs? A recent post on the Silicon Alley Insider blog identified 551 Fifth Avenue as the location of Facebook’s New York outpost, where it rents 5,350 square feet at $65 per square-foot. A Facebook spokesman wouldn’t confirm those details, but says the office is located on Fifth Avenue.                

Social Researchers Get Brands to Leverage Info - A survey reveals that about 65% of shoppers are social researchers–or consumers who “always” read reviews before making a purchase in-store, online or via catalog, and invest a significant amount of time in the process. They read reviews “always” or “most of the time” prior to making product decisions. “Social researchers are making their decisions based on info from other consumers, not what the manufacturer or retailer spoonfeeds them,” the research firm president says.           

Publicis Chief Warns Against Relying On Internet Ad Revenues - Too many new media companies are chasing too few advertising dollars, one of the advertising industry’s most senior executives warns, reported The Financial Times Limited. “Everyone is seeing advertising as the manna,” says Maurice Lévy, chairman and chief executive of Publicis, one of the world’s largest marketing groups. “Far too many people are building plans based on advertising, and they may well be disappointed because there is not enough money for everyone.”                    

Analytics Widely Adopted Across Industries - While the digital revolution is applying tremendous pressure to certain industries–forcing changes in the processes of print media organizations, for example– it is also contributing to the rise of others, analytics being a prime example.                      

Online Ad Growth Rate Ebbs In Q3, But Continues To Outpace All Major Media - The rate of online ad spending growth continues to ebb, but continues to outpace that of every other major medium, expanding at 25.3% - or by $1.1 billion - during the third quarter of 2006, according to figures released this morning by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. While marketing a slowdown from the third-quarter 2006’s 33% rate of growth, online ad spending continues to expand on a sequential basis, with third quarter 2007’s ad dollar volume rising nearly 3% over the second quarter of 2007.                     

Facebook Ads: Old, New Or Irreverent? - Everything old is new again: Facebook’s advertising system is a new take on an old concept. Paul Lazarsfeld and Elihu Katz, authors of the influential 1955 media classic “Personal Influence” argued that marketers actually target certain individuals in their media messages, called “opinion leaders” rather than mass audiences. These individuals are today referred to as “influentials” because it is they who virally disseminate information.                     

Is Facebook Building a Search Engine? - Facebook has a new search bar allowing people to search for advertising pages. VentureBeat says the development marks “a steady creep in search options,” suggesting Facebook aims to challenge Google’s sacred territory. For now, no. Facebook search only includes tabs for searching people, groups, events, applications, and anything else you can find only within its network. The social network is not indexing the Web. Where would it get the search results? Microsoft.                             

Diller: We’re Interested in AOL - Last week, CEO Barry Diller announced that he was splitting IAC, the Internet empire, into five separate public companies. Critics said the move was proof that the media conglomerate approach doesn’t work in the digital age. Ticketmaster, Lending Tree, home-shopping channel HSN and time-share travel business Interval International are branching off on their own. The rest, which includes search engine Ask.com, dating site Match.com and CitySearch, will continue to fall under the IAC brand.

Oversight A Must For Continued Growth Of Ad Exchanges - Earlier this year, Web giants like Microsoft, Yahoo and Google took part in an online feeding frenzy, gobbling up independent ad exchanges. As it turns out, concerns about marketplace competition, transparency and regulation were valid. “The three largest exchanges are now owned by the three largest sellers of online media,” noted one ad:tech attendee. “Should there be some kind of auditing or regulation?”                                         

Wal-Mart to Reveal Holiday Promotions Online - Walmart.com CEO Raul Vazquez estimates many of the 10 million people who visit Walmart.com on Thanksgiving Day will end up in the store on Friday. “The same behavior driving Google’s growth reflects the increase in visitors we see on our Web site traffic,” he says.                      

Has Facebook Cracked the Code for Social Network Ads? - Marketers are considering the implication of Facebook’s new advertising platform. The social networking site’s expansion of “conversational” marketing opportunities for marketers will help turbo-charge the field, one marketer observes, because “a friend-to-friend recommendation is really about the strongest sales pitch a company can possibly have.”                         

Quigo Purchase Completes Strategy Shift for AOL - AOL on Wednesday completed the final piece in an ad network puzzle totaling $1 billion worth of acquisitions. The Time Warner company on Wednesday acquired Israel-based Quigo for an estimated $340 million, according to The Wall Street Journal, furthering its shift from a dial-up Internet service provider to an advertising services company. Quigo, a search and contextual advertising firm, is the fourth company AOL has bought this year and the third ad network. Mobile advertising firm Third Screen media and the behavioral targeting firm Tacoda are the other two.

Google Improves Site Targeting, Readies In-Game Ads - As ever, Google has a few announcements today, including an interesting tweak to the way it targets AdWords ads to Web pages. The search giant will now let advertisers choose specific subsections of sites that they want to target. As a result, Google is renaming its “site targeting” tactic “placement targeting.” Introduced a few years ago, so-called “site targeting” enabled advertisers on Google’s content network to target ads by site and demographic. Now, advertisers can choose specific sections of larger sites, like the sports pages of a news agency like Reuters, in addition to choosing a specific ad unit (such as a block of Google ads) on a particular Web page.                      

AzoogleAds Settles With Florida AG Over Online Ringtone Ads - AzoogleAds came to the attention of the Florida Attorney General’s office as part of a larger investigation into mobile services marketing. State authorities there continue to probe a host of other companies, including Think Partnership, Intermark Media, Media Breakaway, Traffix, W31 and Verisign’s m-Qube. The company promises that future online ads will clarify that the ringtone service it markets isn’t actually free.

Google Gives AdWords Branding Power with Placement Targeting - Google’s AdWords users can target individual sections of sites, such as the college basketball pages of a sports site or a chosen celebrity on a gossip site, in addition to the demographic targeting added in 2006. Users can purchase the ads on both a cost-per-click and the original cost-per-impression basis.

Online Travel Up, Customers Down - The number of North American consumers who take leisure trips is falling even as online travel revenue continues to climb, according to Forrester Research data cited in The New York Times. Forrester found that 9% fewer people will book travel online in 2007 compared to 2005. eMarketer senior analyst Jeffrey Grau said that the drop in online travel customers could prompt change in the industry.

OpenSocial Is Far From Open - Tech guru Tim O’Reilly loses his respect for Google’s so-called OpenSocial initiative following a conversation with Patrick Chanezon, the project’s developer advocate for the program. Incidentally, “open” is a misnomer, he says, because the API does not allow for data exchange between social networks. In other words, when you download an app for MySpace, you’d have to download it all over again at Bebo, and reenter the data. The applications do not communicate. You might ask: what, then, is the point of OpenSocial?

Facebook Ads Could Lead To Friend Cutback - In another New York Times piece on the advertising developments at Facebook, Laura Holson raises a good point about the potential for backlash when “friends” broadcast their favorite brands and purchases: it could very easily lead to people deleting friends, which by extension means fewer page views for Facebook.

Why the Republicans Are Snubbing GoogleClick - Google’s $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick continues to hit roadblocks. This week, twelve Republican members of the House sent a letter to the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection demanding a public hearing on the proposed deal, because they worry that “The privacy implications of such a merger are enormous.”

Will PE Money Return to Big Media & Entertainment Deals - The flow of PE-led buyouts in the media and entertainment field have certainly come to an abrupt halt, fueled by increase in deal multiples and the ongoing turmoil in the high-risk subprime mortgage space and this summer’s global credit crunch. But will the money start flowing back again? THR has a detailed story on it, ahead of the parent company Nielsen’s Media & Money conference in NYC this week (we will have detailed coverage from it). Deals are expected to resurface in 2008, but things will never be quite the same both in terms of deal size and buyout targets, the story suggests.

Quigo to be Acquired by AOL for $300 Million - Quigo, a New York/Israel-based company that specializes in ad targeting, is in the process of being acquired by AOL, according to a report in Haaretz, an Israeli daily newspaper. Time Warner Inc. is purchasing Quigo for $300 million in an attempt to better compete with Google and Yahoo.

PlattForm Holdings Inc. Acquires Beauty Inter-Network Co - PlattForm Holdings Inc., an Olathe, Kansas-based provider of Internet marketing and enrollment solutions to the post-secondary education industry, has acquired Beauty Inter-Network Co., a recruitment and enrollment lead generation company that publishes beautyschools.com and other websites for the education industry. No financial terms were disclosed. PlattForm is a portfolio company of Arlington Capital Partners.

LookSmart Announces Sale of FindArticles.com - LookSmart, Ltd., an online advertising and technology solutions company, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell the Company?s FindArticles.com property to CNET Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:CNET) in an all cash transaction valued at approximately $20.5 million.

Forbes Media Acquires Majority Stake in RealClearPolitics.com - Just in time for the upcoming stampede to the White House (aka, the presidential election), Forbes Media has acquired a 51% stake in RealClearPolitics.com. The Web site selects and publishes choice commentary, news, polling data, and links to important resources from all points of the political compass. RPC joins a growing Forbes digital network, which already includes Forbes.com, ForbesTraveler.com, ForbesAutos.com and Investopedia.com.

TechTarget Inc. has acquired KnowledgeStorm Inc - TechTarget Inc. (Nasdaq: TTGT) has acquired KnowledgeStorm Inc., an Alpharetta, Ga.-based provider of qualified leads for IT vendors. The deal is valued at approximately $58 million, including $52 million in cash and 359,820 shares of unregistered TechTarget common stock. KnowledgeStorm had raised over $16 million in VC funding since 1999, from firms like Apex Venture Partners, LiveOak Equity Partners, Sterling Partners, Imlay Investments, Gefinor Ventures and Total Technology Ventures.

Forbes Media has acquired Clipmarks - Forbes Media has acquired Clipmarks, a New York-based developer of an online service that lets users clip and share text and other content from Web pages. No financial terms were disclosed. Forbes Media was formed last summer by Forbes and Elevation Partners.          

Behavioral Targeter AdKnowledge Buys Online Ad Network Media Run - Adknowledge, a Kansas City, MO-based behavioral targeter, has acquired the UK and Australian divisions of online ad network Media Run for an undisclosed sum. In those areas, Media Run will operate as AdKnowledge, while remaining under its original name in Italy and Asia. Overall, the company claims 3-plus billion ad impressions per month.

10-Q Watch: CNET: 15.6 Million Spent on Three Q3 Acquisitions - CNET (NSDQ: CNET) spent $27.4 million on seven acquisitions through the first nine months of the year, according to its 10-Q filed with the SEC Monday. (The breakdown: $24.6 million cash, $0.6 million in direct acquisition costs and $2.2 million in deferred consideration costs.) At the midpoint of the year, the company said it had acquired four companies for $11.8 million, meaning it’s spent $15.6 million on three deals since then. Though not mentioned by name in the filing, the three reported deals this quarter were sports video game site Sportsgamer.com, Chinese fashion site OnlyLady and the TechTracker family of IT-related sites.          

High School Sports Social Net BeRecruited Gets Acquired By RVS Ventures - High School sports social net BeRecruited.com has been acquired by PE firm RVS Ventures. Financial terms were not disclosed. The investment company is headed by Raymond Sozzi and he will take the post of CEO of BeRecruited. As we’ve noted with last month’s purchase of online athletic community Schedule Star by Gannett, this past year has seen increased investment and acquisition activity for these kinds of high school sports social nets.                

10-Q Watch: Yahoo: Q3 Acquisitions; Alibaba.com Stake - Through the first nine months of the year, Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) spent $58 million on four deals described as asset acquisitions, according to the company’s latest 10-Q. As of Q307, the company had spent $54 million on three such acquisitions, with $4 million in spending unidentified. This may have been BuzzTracker, a news aggregator purchased in September. Yahoo also did two bigger deals, described as business combinations, worth $108 million during the quarter. Though unidentified, one of these deals was likely college sports network Rivals.com, which went for $100 million. Right Media also closed in the quarter, although that is mentioned separately.

Facebook Unveils New Advertising Program - With all the hype and secrecy surrounding a New York fashion show, social networking site Facebook unveiled its new advertising program at a high-toned affair on Manhattan’s West Side. Standing before a packed room of top media and ad executives, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg told audience members the media industry was on the cusp of a once-in-a century change because of the myriad interconnections among people made possible by the Internet.                                   

Congress Calls For Hearing On GoogleClick Deal - Republican Congress members Tuesday called for a hearing into whether Google’s proposed $3.1 billion buyout of DoubleClick would compromise Web users’ privacy.                

Microsoft Lifting the Lid On Windows Live - Microsoft is set to embark on an aggressive marketing campaign for its Windows Live services from McCann WorldGroup and released research indicating that 60% of the service users are ages 18 to 34.                    

Internet Users Also Watching TV - People who use the Internet are increasingly layering their online time with other kinds of media consumption, according to an online survey of 2,700 Web users ages 18 and up conducted by Burst Media in October.

Online Advertising on a Rocket Ride - eMarketer projects that US online advertising will more than double as a percentage of total media, rising from only a 6% share of total media in 2006, to slightly more than a 12% share in 2010. In roughly the same period, online spending will nearly triple, rising from $16.9 billion in 2006 to $42 billion in 2011.                     

Internet User Attention Often Divided - More than eight in 10 Internet users also do some offline activity while online, according to Burst Media. Burst found that nearly three out of five Internet users watched television while online. “TV and the Internet have long been multitasking buddies,” said Debra Aho Williamson, senior analyst at eMarketer. “It makes sense to create ad messages that resonate across media.”        

Ad Exchanges To Take 30 Percent Of Current Ad Spend By 2011: Report - Over the next five years, online ad exchanges, like the ones run by Google, (NSDQ: GOOG) Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) and AOL, (NYSE: TWX) are expected to take about 30 percent of the share currently spent on traditional media, according to a global survey of more than 2,400 consumers and 80 ad executives by IBM Global Business Services.            

Alibaba: Biggest IPO Since Google - Shares of Chinese Web firm Alibaba.com skyrocketed in its first day of trading, opening at more than double the B2B firm’s initial public offering price and making it the largest technology debut since Google in 2004. Alibaba’s IPO raised $1.5 billion at $1.73 per share; yesterday its stock soared to $4.58 per share and figures to go even higher today. The B2B portal is now trading at 281.5 times its 2007 earnings per share, making it far pricier–pound for pound–than, say, Google, whose shares trade at 58.8 times this year’s earnings.               

Google Mobileverse Still Several Years Away - Google clearly aims to reform the mobile wireless industry with Android–its new mobile software platform–and the so-called Open Handset Alliance, by making the mobile Web experience more like surfing the traditional Internet. To be sure, it’s a worthy, lofty goal–but it won’t be so easy, says CNET.

Facebook’s Beacon Raises Privacy Concerns - Facebook yesterday revealed its new three-pronged advertising strategy to mixed reviews. The most common reaction among bloggers was one of confusion–particularly with regard to Beacon, the program that “empowers” users to become product endorsers. Advertisers pay to put a little piece of javascript on their site that sends user interaction information back to Facebook. The user has to agree to allow the Web site to do this, and if they do, their purchase information is sent to their friends via a Facebook news feed.  

AOL Ads Up Thirteen Percent - Time Warner reported disappointing third-quarter earnings on Tuesday, citing a 38 percent drop in revenue from its Internet unit, AOL. The company lost 851,000 dial-up subscribers as part of its ongoing transition into a free, ad-supported online services company. However, not all is going according to plan, as ad revenue grew just 13 percent in the quarter. Overall, Time Warner’s net income sunk more than 57 cents a share to $1.09 billion, from $2.32 billion a year earlier–although that met most analysts’ expectations.

Google Unveils Mobile Vision; An Open Platform Named Android - Hoping to spur the growth of the mobile industry as it did the Internet, Google announced the launch of a new mobile software platform aimed at opening up and simplifying the creation of applications and services for the cell phone. Its name: Android.                       

Experts Weigh Impact Of Google’s Android - Industry analysts agree Google’s new open platform will help accelerate expansion of the mobile Internet and pose a serious challenge to carriers’ “walled garden” strategy.                        

MySpace Extends Targeted Display Ads To Smaller Budgets - Giving marketers of modest means access to targeted display advertising, MySpace has launched an ad platform for small business owners, brands, and politicians to purchase, create and analyze the performance of ads throughout its social network.                 

Ask.com Renews Google Search Deal, IAC To Split Into 5 - Google will continue to power the search ads on Ask.com (and much of IAC/InterActiveCorp’s other Web properties), in the renewal of a deal that analysts have said is worth about $3.5 billion to IAC. Meanwhile, IAC will be split into five separate companies.                    

Is the Internet Becoming Rich Media? - At one time it was commonly held that no one could sell high-priced items online. That time has come…and gone. Affluent users are not only online, as a percentage of the total Internet population they are growing. In fact, eMarketer projects that the number of affluent users in the US will increase from 43.7 million in 2006 to 57.1 million in 2011.                         

Privacy Mavens Leery Of Latest Targeted Ad Launches - A flurry of online advertising initiatives unveiled this week have some privacy advocates renewing calls for government regulation. Social network Facebook is expected to offer a new program that will allow marketers to serve ads to members based on information in their profiles, while MySpace is expanding its behavioral targeting offering. In addition, Monday saw the official launch of NebuAd, a start-up that partners with Internet service providers to serve ads to people based on both their search queries and the Web sites they’ve visited.                   

Facebook to Add Shopping Service to Its Menu - Lots of people find the next books they plan to read by browsing the New York Times or Amazon best-seller lists. Others count on referrals from friends and colleagues. But what if you could eye a hot title as it began to climb the best-seller list within your Facebook network? You’d be alerted: “Thirty-one people in your network have bought ‘Microtrends.’” A scenario like this soon will play out on Facebook, as the company is about to unveil plans to make shopping part of its social network.                      

With So Many Start-Ups, Only You Can Save Web 2.0 - Nearly every online start-up you can think of is basing its business model on advertising. It’s as if your digital budgets are a bottomless pot of money with more than enough to go around for everyone. Ask any of them how they plan to stay solvent, and they all fire off the “a-word”: advertising. The conventional wisdom in Silicon Valley is that as all advertising goes digital, there will be plenty of money for every business. Further, they argue, it doesn’t take much to make a start-up profitable. The cost of starting, scaling and operating a Web 2.0 site is a fraction of what it was during the Web 1.0 era.                  

IAC Splits Off Four Divisions - Barry Diller is banking his IAC — a newly slimmed-down version — on the fast-growing, quickly changing online. The company will spin four of its divisions into separate, publicly traded companies: Ticketmaster; Lending Tree; home-shopping business HSN; and time-share travel business Interval International. What’s left — including Ask.com, Match.com, CitySearch and CollegeHumor, among many other businesses — will be part of an internet media and services company that will claim more than 50% of its revenue from web advertising. At present, the media and advertising unit accounts for only 9% of IAC’S total revenue.

Yahoo Launches Social Network For Graduates - Yahoo on Monday launched another social network, but this one is aimed at a more targeted audience: college students, alumni and job recruiters. The idea is to get college graduates their first jobs in the real world. Scott Gatz, senior director of Yahoo’s Advanced Products, says “it’s a professional network with a purpose–to help college students and recent graduates build a professional network.” The social network is called Kickstart; it launched on Monday.                          

Google-Facebook: Open vs. Closed - GigaOm’s Om Malik considers the implications of Google’s OpenSocial platform, comparing the search giant’s approach to social networking to that of Facebook. Malik points out that Google’s entire business model depends on information being public–search is just a tool used to glean more information about us so the company can serve more targeted advertising. The idea behind OpenSocial is more of the same: provide free tools for (developers in this case) to create free, open software and then help developers monetize their programs through AdSense. Therefore, Google doesn’t really have to get into the social networking game.                    

Radiohead Results: 38% Forked Over $6 Average - Now, preliminary results in from comScore show that about six in 10 downloaders didn’t pay anything for the album since it was made available online on Oct. 10. Worldwide, 1.2 million people visited the album’s Web site last month, with a “significant percentage” downloading the record, according to comScore estimates. Thirty-eight percent of downloaders worldwide paid something for the album, while 62% downloaded it for free. Between the “freeloaders” and paying downloaders, overall revenue came to an average $2.26 per album.

Yahoo Dials Rogers For Mobile Alliance - Yahoo and Rogers Communications, Canada’s biggest mobile-phone company, entered into a new multi-year agreement that expands their broadband alliance into the mobile sphere.                                                   

Yahoo Launches Automated Keyword Selector For Cross-Selling - Just in time for the holidays, Yahoo is upgrading its merchant services, enabling better product merchandising and cross-selling based on keyword searches.                         

NameMedia Files To Raise $172.5 Million Through IPO - Domain name company NameMedia has filed for an initial public offering to raise up to $172.5 million. NameMedia makes money through the sale of domain names and by selling advertising on a network of Web sites developed from unused domain names. Overall, it monetizes a portfolio of more than 2 million owned and third-party domain names. The Waltham, MA-based company posted net income of $2.6 million on revenue of $61 million last year, and profit of $160,000 on revenue of $58 million through the first nine months of 2007.                              

Amid Social Media Flurry, FIM Unveils HyperTargeting - Fox Interactive is the first to reveal details of its new HyperTargeting product for MySpace. Over the last several months, the company has been building audience segments based on the information its 110 million-plus worldwide users reveal about themselves. Now, advertisers can buy any of the thousands of audience segments created by HyperTargeting. More than 50 advertisers from P&G to Yum Brands have tested the new system, but they were only capable of targeting ten major categories. Today, 100 subcategories have been added to each of the ten majors.                                    

Facebook Ads To Conflict With Developers? - Ahead of tomorrow’s highly anticipated announcement from Facebook, VentureBeat has a few new details. The new ad platform’s code-name is Pandemic, but this report details a new set of group advertising tools called “Mullets.” Facebook plans to remove its “sponsored groups” section, replacing it with pages advertises can buy allowing them to upload ads or interactive widgets created by Facebook. Many of these sponsored widgets will compete directly with existing third-party applications.                             

Microsoft Defends Facebook Stake - Microsoft Chief Steve Ballmer on Monday defended his firm’s decision to invest $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake in Faceook. Some analysts were outspoken in their criticism of the deal, saying it put way too steep a valuation on Facebook, and that the only way the investment would be worth it is if the social network can transform itself into a central hub for Web activity. “We didn’t make a mistake,” Ballmer told reporters during a conference in Mumbai. “The valuation of Facebook is still to be determined. Certainly today, it’s very, very popular. So for a company like ours that wants to be a preeminent presence in this space, it’s very important for us.”                     

Facebook Joins Open Social, Then What? - Fortune blogger Josh Quittner says it’s “inevitable” that Facebook will ditch its proprietary software development platform in favor of OpenSocial, the “Everybody-but-Facebook Alliance” unveiled by Google last week. Sources tell Quittner the two sides are already in discussions, while Facebook board member Jim Breyer on Friday told the Silicon Alley Insider the company would be willing to work with Big G.                         

Social Search: Do We Really Need It? - Though Hakia has added a “Meet Others” feature, and many other search engines are touting “social” or community-based options, the idea that simple information queries need to be jazzed up or turned into a communal activity hasn’t been completely accepted yet.

FTC Told Regulation Could Harm Online Ad Industry - Google, Microsoft, and Facebook joined a host of other Web companies at an FTC Town Hall meeting Thursday to argue that they already fully protect users’ privacy interests and said that additional regulations could harm the online advertising industry.                                     

MySpace Joins Google’s OpenSocial - Eager to challenge Facebook’s rising star, MySpace has joined the Google-led initiative to court Web developers with an open system for creating social networking applications.                              

Specific Media Will Use $100 Million To Fund Acquisitions - As one of the few remaining independent ad networks, Specific Media would seem to be more the prey than the hunter these days. But with a fresh infusion of $100 million in venture capital funding, the company plans to go on a buying spree of its own.                   

WebTrends Shakes Up Senior Management Team - WebTrends quietly replaced CEO Greg Drew with board member Bruce T. Coleman this week in a management shakeup that comes amid rapid consolidation within the Web analytics industry.              

AOL’s ‘Do Not Track’ Effect - AOL is giving Internet users greater control over the ads they see by offering a service similar to the Federal Trade Commission’s Do Not Call Registry that prevents telemarketers from calling registered consumers at home. The “do not track” service links consumers directly to opt-out lists run by large advertising networks. Signing up does not actually stop ads, but it prevents advertisers from tracking surfing habits. The service also explains the benefits of behavioral targeting.

Web 2.0 Greater in Theory Than Budget - More than three-quarters of US marketing professionals surveyed think that social media marketing—also known as Web 2.0—can give them a competitive edge, according to Coremetrics’ “Face of the New Marketer” study. The same respondents said that only 7.75% of their online marketing spending went to such tactics.                    

Pressure Mounts on Facebook Ad System - As Facebook prepares to wow the world with its new social advertising system, BusinessWeek reminds us of a startling reality: “the truth about online ads is that precious few people actually click on them.” Worse, the percentage of those who do click on standard banners at highly trafficked destinations like Yahoo shrunk considerably in 2006–from 0.75 percent to just 0.27 percent, according to the advertising services firm Eyeblaster. So how, pray tell, does Facebook plan to reverse the trend?                     

FTC Chief Floats Online Ad Restrictions - Federal Trade Commission Commissioner Jon Leibowitz indicated that the organization might be preparing sanctions on the online advertising industry with regard to its user-tracking practices. “When you’re surfing the Internet, you never know who is peering over your shoulder or how many marketers are watching,” Leibowitz said during an FTC online privacy forum. He added that industry self-regulation has been inadequate.                    

Time Warner to Offload AOL Unit - CNBC’s David Faber has the scoop (although by now it’s not necessarily a surprise) that Time Warner is indeed preparing to split apart some of its properties in order to focus more on its media and movie businesses. Among those to be split is AOL, although Faber says Time Warner only plans to offload “parts” of the Web portal/online services firm.            

FCC in First ‘Net Neutrality’ Test - Consumer organizations, it seems, are more concerned with their Web-surfing freedom than seeing too many ads. A coalition of legal scholars and watchdog groups on Thursday filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission over Internet service provider Comcast’s admitted interference with subscribers’ file-sharing.            

Dentsu Buys Digital And Design Shop Attik - Dentsu America has purchased digital and design shop Attik. The San Francisco-based shop is expected to remain a separate operating unit within the Japanese agency’s domestic operations.           

Beyond Media of Pensacola, Fla. has acquired Intent MediaWorks Inc - Beyond Media of Pensacola, Fla. has acquired Intent MediaWorks Inc., an Atlanta-based digital media distribution company. No financial terms were disclosed. Intent MediaWorks has raised over $11 million in VC funding from firms like Allen & Co., SoftBank Capital, Bertelsmann Capital Ventures, Greycroft Partners, Menemsha Capital Partners and IMW Partners.               

IPG Buys Branded Entertainment Agency - Interpublic Group has acquired Translation Consulting + Brand Imaging, a 45-person shop founded by former Interscope Records executive Steve Stoute. Translation’s clients include Chevy, Crest and McDonald’s. Rumored to be between $10 and $15 million. 

Google Takes On Facebook With OpenSocial - Google today will give outside Web developers standardized tools to create applications for social networks including Orkut, LinkedIn and Friendster. With the move, Google challenges fast-growing social networking site Facebook, which unveiled a similar plan in May.                            

Best Buy Unveils Paid Video-Sharing Service - Bucking nearly every trend in online media today, Best Buy this week has partnered with Mydeo to launch a closed and paid service for consumers to share uploaded video online. Prices start at $6.97 for 100 minutes of video hosting and video lengths up to 30 minutes each.

IAC 3Q Profit Dips 4% - IAC/InterActiveCorp. reported strong media and advertising growth in the third quarter, but not enough to offset a 41% drop in LendingTree revenue.           

Online, Newspaper Audiences Up, But Revenue Growth Slows - More people are reading newspapers–online. Roughly 59.6 million people visited newspaper Web sites in July, according to new figures from the Newspaper Association of America released Wednesday. That’s 37.1% of all active Internet users in the U.S., and the number represents a 9% increase over the same month in 2006.           

Google Now Bigger Than Buffet’s Empire - The world’s largest online company at more than $700 per share, is now worth more than Warren Buffet’s massive investment firm Berkshire-Hathaway. The Web giant’s continued growth is staggering, considering that the company went public just three years ago at $89 per share. The company’s share price this year has surged 54% from $460.48 at the end of 2006.              

Online Privacy: What Consumers Think - Ad Age weighs in on the debate about whether consumers really care about online tracking. The trade pub’s answer, more or less, is no — unless privacy groups and bloggers make a big enough stink about a given topic. Even privacy advocates contend there ought to be a bigger consumer outcry over Web tracking. Of course they say there would be if the average consumer understood the process better.             

NBC to Shut Down DotComedy - NBC Universal continues to clean house with online properties that are either no longer necessary or no longer working out. DotComedy is the latest to receive the axe following minimal interest. In the coming months the company says it plans to fold the comedy site’s content into NBC.com. Mediaweek says it’s unclear whether or not the DotComedy brand will retain its own channel.    

Ad Network Spree Opens Door For Specific Media - Few independent ad networks remain after the acquisition tear earlier this year by Google, Yahoo, AOL and MSN, but among the biggest is Specific Media — which according to CEO Tim Vanderhook, thoroughly plans to keep its autonomy. On Thursday the company announced it would put its new (and massive) $100 million round of funding from Francisco Partners toward other ad network acquisitions in anticipation of a future IPO. Specific and its investors think those that cashed out to major Web firms left behind an opportunity worth exploiting: advertisers and publishers alike worry about brokering their advertising transactions through Big Web, opening the door for an independent player like Specific Media.              

Gauging The Effects Of Offermatica And Optimost Acquisitions - The recent acquisitions of site-testing and optimization firms Offermatica and Optimost shine a spotlight on landing pages and their growing importance when it comes to search and online marketing overall. According to Jonathan Mendez, founder and CSO of Offermatica’s OTTO Digital, “You need to strategize around every page as if it were a landing page, because it is.” Sara Holoubek notes that the acquisitions represent a shift in how marketers define the goals and objectives of a Web site - from traffic, to information gathering, to conversions - which in turn affects how search gets included in the media mix from the onset.