dave liu dot com

WatchMouse: Facebook is Worst-Performing Social Networking Site - Facebook scored a 6629 on the WatchMouse Site Performance Index (SPI)–earning it the title of worst-performing social networking site in terms of user perception of speed and availability. MySpace scored a 923 and “loaded well and recorded few errors,” but Twitter and Windows Live Spaces fared worse–with SPIs of 1476 and 1386, respectively.                                                    

MySpace Launches Celebrity Hub - In an effort to better exploit today’s moment-to-moment celebrity gossip craze, MySpace has launched an online hub for fans to stalk and connect with their favorite stars. At a time when blogs like AOL’s TMZ.com and the independent PerezHilton.com are dominating celebrity gossip, MySpace is hoping its new hub will cement its unique position with users and advertisers. MySpace’s uniqueness is the fact that it is one of the few communities where celebrities are willing participants.

Online Video Sites Benefit From Hollywood Strike - Online video sites have more than doubled their traffic since the Hollywood writers strike began at the end of October, according to Nielson Online. With so many popular TV programs off the air, U.S. consumers have sought out alternatives like YouTube, whose traffic has spiked 18 percent in the last two months. Newer video sites have also found success. Startup Crackle said its audience doubled from 1.2 million at the end of October to 2.4 million in November and December. “That is greater growth than you would normally see in such a short period, and the strike could be a possible factor,” said Nielsen analyst Alex Burmaster.              

Downsizing Of Music Industry - 2007 was a bad year for Big Music; 2008 could be even worse. Physical album sales across the world fell between 10 and 20 percent in most countries (19 in the U.S.), and while digital download sales grew tremendously, they did not begin to make up for the loss of revenue from CDs. Worse, the growth of digital downloads appears to be slowing. Where do the major record labels turn to now? So-called “comes with music” packages might be the answer. Social network Imeem is a good example. The ad-supported site offers free streaming music and is backed by all four major record labels, which take a cut of ad revenue.

Yahoo Better Match For EBay - Blogger Scot Wingo from eBay Strategies reports that Yahoo is bidding against Microsoft for online auctioneer eBay. Yahoo, apparently, is the favorite to win with a bid of $40-$41 per share. eBay shareholders would end up owning most of a combined Yahoo-eBay (eBay has a bigger market cap than Yahoo). Moreover, Yahoo’s misfiring management team might not do any better running eBay than eBay’s own management team.                 

Travel Search: Yahoo Unveils FareChase, Challenger to Kayak-SideStep - Yahoo has finally brought its FareChase price search engine out of stealth mode, making it one of the default options on the Yahoo Travel homepage. Users can search for flights, hotels and vacation packages and compare prices right within the main window. It’s a calculated move that was likely spurred by the industry buzz that surrounded Kayak’s recent acquisition of rival travel search engine SideStep, as Yahoo has had the FareChase technology since 2004.            

IAC Close To Buying Movie Recommendation Site Flixster: Report - The Flixster deal talks have been going on for a while, and IAC (NSDQ: IACI) has been in and out of discussions with the movie recommendations site/application. Now WSJ’s Deal Journal is reporting that the deal is close to being done, but the price would be less than the $150 million the San Francisco-based company has been asking suitors.                      

Monster Worldwide Acquires Affinity Labs - After roughly nine months on the job, Monster Worldwide Inc. chairman and CEO Sal Iannuzzi continues his effort to revive the online employment company. Monster on Friday, Jan. 4, said it would acquire Affinity Labs Inc., operator of a portfolio of professional and vocational Web sites for people in specific occupations, for $61 million in cash. The company is led by Christopher Michel, founder of Military.com, a portal for military personnel and their families that was acquired by Monster in 2004 for $38 million. Among Affinity’s Web sites are NursingLink.com, FireLink.com and TheApple.com and ArtBistro.com, which cater to education and art professionals, respectively. Affinity had financial backing from venture capital firms the MayField Fund and Trinity Ventures, both of Menlo Park, Calif., which combined invested less than $10 million in the company in 2006.

Liberty Media Acquires Controlling Stake in Bodybuilding.com For $100 Million - Liberty Media has acquired a controlling stake in online retailer and fitness website Bodybuilding.com for $100 Million. Bodybuilding.com sells a broad range of fitness supplements, clothing and supplies as well as offering general fitness articles and a social networking service where over 100,000 users swap exercise goals or post pictures. According to comScore, Bodybuilding.com had around 2 million unique visitors in November, and according to Liberty sales are expected to top $100 million in 2008.                        

Investors Said to Seek a Takeover of CNet - CNet Networks, one of the original online media companies, would typically write about all the gossip and speculation at the Consumer Electronics Show this week in Las Vegas. Now, however, the company is likely to be the one talked about. A consortium of prominent investment funds has amassed a 21 percent stake in CNet and is seeking to oust the company’s directors and take over a majority of its board, according to people briefed on the proposal. The consortium sent a letter about its plan to the CNet board two weeks ago, these people said, which the company has yet to disclose.

Isobar Races To Finnish Line, Acquires White Sheep And Suddenly Re-Brands It - Aegis Group’s Isobar unit this morning announced yet another acquisition expanding its dominance as the world’s largest interactive advertising services network. Aegis said it has acquired White Sheep, a five-year-old, full-service digital marketing and design shop in Finland that services clients such as Valio, Bayer and Fazer.

Digital M&A Market Gets Off To FAST Start, Microsoft Acquires Enterprise Search Firm - Coming off a record year in terms of mergers and acquisitions of digital marketing services, 2008 already looks like it could excel that pace. With Google’s $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick still pending for later this year, Microsoft this morning announced a deal to acquire Oslo, Norway-based Fast Search & Transfer (FAST), a leading provider of enterprise search solutions, in a deal valued at $1.23 billion. The acquisition will give Microsoft a customizable online search business whose clients already includes giants such as Deutsche Telekom and the United Parcel Service Inc., and gives it another wedge against chief search rival Google.

London Bay Capital has acquired Selling Source LLC - London Bay Capital LLC (”LBC” or “London Bay”) announced today that a newly-formed affiliate of LBC has acquired Selling Source, LLC (”Selling Source” or the “Company”), the leading Internet marketing business focused on the specialty finance sector. The transaction valued Selling Source in excess of $130 million. Selling Source provides online customer acquisition services, real-time identity verification and fraud prevention services, consumer communication and financial software processing applications. Its customers include most of the leading online specialty financial services businesses in the US. Revenues in 2007 exceeded $125 million with pre-tax income of approximately $21 million, representing an organic growth rate of more than 50% compared to 2006.

Shutterfly Buys Group Sharing Site Nexo For Less Than $15 Million - Shutterfly, the online photo printing and sharing service, has bought online groups and personal publishing service Nexo Systems, for less than $15 million in cash and stock. Nexo, based in Palo Alto, CA, launched last year at Demo. Its service combines personal website creation, integrated e-mail communications, social networking and group collaboration features, something many other services do as well in various bits and parts.

Seevast Sells Domain Management Unit Moniker To Oversee.net; Will Focus On Ad Networks - Seevast Corp., an operator of online ad networks, has sold its Moniker domain management unit to internet marketer Oversee.net. New York-based Seevast said it unloaded Moniker, acquired in 2006, to concentrate more on running ad networks Pulse 360 and Kanoodle. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Report: Wall Street Journal Online Begins Scrapping Paid Content - Just weeks after being acquired by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., Dow Jones & Co has begun opening access to some previously paid content at the Wall Street Journal Online, Reuters reports.                       

AP Allows Affiliates To Upload And Monetize Content - The Associated Press has launched a new tool for affiliate news sites to upload and monetize their own content. The service is designed to attract local viewers and advertisers, both of whom are responding well to relevant content like high-school sports, local events, and breaking state news.

Belo And Yahoo Partner For Video Sharing - Broadening its online distribution, Belo Corp. will power local news video on Yahoo exclusively in 13 markets nationwide, including Houston, Portland and St. Louis, the two companies said Wednesday. Under the agreement, Yahoo News will offer dozens of news videos daily from Belo-owned television stations and the companies will share ad revenue generated by the clips. The deal covers all of Belo’s TV markets except Dallas and Boise.             

Traffic To Video-Sharing Sites Double Year-Ago - On a typical day near the end of 2007, the share of Web users going to video-sharing sites like YouTube was nearly twice as large as it was in 2006, according to a new data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. What’s more, in December, nearly half (48%) of Internet users reported visiting a video-sharing site, up from 33% at the end of 2006.                  

Survey: Search Pros Managing Massive Budgets Have Little Experience - About a third of all in-house search pros are managing budgets of more than $200,000 per month–and some 40% of these budget bigwigs have three years of experience or less, according to stats from the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization’s (SEMPO) inaugural In-House SEM Salary Survey.               

MTVN In 5-Site Syndication Deal - MTV Networks struck deals with five new Web sites to expand the legal online distribution of its content. They are: online video sharing sites Dailymotion, GoFish and Veoh, music sharing site iMeem, and interactive TV guide MeeVee. As part of the deal, MTV will provide video clips, widgets, and other online content to these sites from its 10 cable and broadband networks.

Print Yellow Pages Likely To Bleed More Dollars Online - This year will be pivotal for the global Yellow Pages industry, according to a new report by The Kelsey Group. The local advertising research firm is pegging the falloff in usage of newspapers and print Yellow Pages to reach 10% this year–much higher than the 2%-3% fade rate seen in past years.

FCC To Probe Comcast’s Alleged Blocking Of File Sharing - The Federal Communications Commission will probe complaints that Comcast Corp. interferes with traffic to file-sharing sites as well as allegations that wireless companies prevent some groups from sending text messages to consumers, Chairman Kevin Martin said Tuesday.                                             

Copyright Protection Stymies Online Archive - A campaign to make it easier to create online archives of books, films and software was dealt a setback this week by the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear a case about the copyright law’s constitutionality. The case challenged the copyright protection given to so-called “orphan” works, or material for which the owner can’t be found. Currently, if Web companies post such material, but the owner later steps forward and sues, the companies can’t defend themselves on the ground that they couldn’t locate the owner.                       

Study: Social Media Impacts Speed and Tone of News Reporting, But Not Quality - A majority of journalists say that blogs and other forms of social media are not affecting the quality of traditional news–for better or worse–but that the blogosphere is definitely having an impact on the speed, tone and editorial direction of their reporting.                                  

10 Things You Need to Know About Social Networking - Next year $1.38 billion is expected to be spent on ads on social networks - here’s the bang for the buck and the pitfalls.           

CBS, Digg Team For ‘08 Race - CBS News has teamed up with Digg, the social news site that lets members decide which stories get priority treatment. The two companies will work together during the the 2008 presidential race. As of Tuesday, CBSNews.com began featuring links to various election news stories on the Web that Digg’s community favors. In turn, Digg.com will distribute CBS News’ “Campaign ‘08″ video content. Also, CBSNews.com’s own stories will be “diggable” — readers can rate them and submit them for possible placement on Digg.com.  

Online Publisher Geosign Splits Up; Investor Getting Cash Back: Report - Here’s something you don’t see very often: a VC investor getting some cash back after a deal gone sour. In March, we reported on the $160 million funding at Ontario, Canada-based online publisher Geosign. A report from TheStreet.com explains that things haven’t gone so well. Soon after the deal, reports claimed that the company laid off a big chunk of its 230 person workforce and recently the company split into two.

Ten Key Online Predictions for 2008 - The beginning of the new calendar year is the perfect time to get out the crystal ball and give it a polish. The analysts at eMarketer have issued their predictions for 2008 in key online areas, including advertising, videos, social networks, e-commerce and entertainment. Insert sigh of relief here: The forecast finds online advertising will ride out potential economic storms in the U.S.                                     

Online Ad Business Recession-Proof, Analysts Say - Despite the likelihood of a U.S. economic recession, Piper Jaffray remains cautiously optimistic about the performance of Internet companies in the new year. “Whereas Internet advertising budgets were the first to be cut during the market crash in 2000, we believe the proven high ROI of online advertising today will make online advertising resilient even with a recession in the United States,” according to a report released Monday.                                   

Online Media Sees 69% Spike In M&As In 2007 - Leading all sectors with 306 transactions in 2007, online media saw a 69% increase in the number of mergers and acquisitions and a 33% rise in value over 2006 levels, investment banking firm The Jordan, Edmiston Group reported Monday.                    

Microsoft To Allow Xbox 360 Owners To Download Network Shows - Through partnerships with several top media companies, Microsoft plans to allow Xbox 360 owners to download network shows directly to their game consoles. On board are Walt Disney’s ABC, CBS Corp.’s Showtime Networks, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios. Microsoft said last year that it would sell an Xbox 360 console that doubles as a TV set-top box.

Advertising And Its Discontents - Client discontent reached an all-time high last year, as $27.5 billion went into review last year. The figure represents a 57 percent increase over 2006 and a $5 billion increase over the previous record of $22 billion in 2005. The number of clients that switched ad agencies was also up 20 percent to 153, compared to 128 in 2006. The data was compiled through an analysis of accounts totaling over $20 million.

ComScore Expands Widget Measurement - Social networking sites like MySpace could reach $1 billion in ad sales by the end of the year, but widget makers won’t be seeing much of that revenue. For all their traffic, social networks still aren’t properly monetized. Part of the problem for widget makers, which aim to make money by developing software for social networks, is a lack of reliable data about how many people use their products. ComScore, sensing a big opportunity for advertisers, wants to fill that void. According to the Web measurement firm, nearly 586 million Internet users viewed embedded software in November 2007, a massive figure when you consider that the population of the United States is 300 million. Meanwhile, ad spending on widgets was a mere $20 million in 2007.

Media Execs: Forget Paid Downloads - Hollywood executives revealed that advertising has become the digital revenue model of choice for its productions after years of pithy revenues from paid downloads. During a panel at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, executives overseeing digital distribution for ABC Disney TV, Fox, Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures. Most of the talk centered around high-quality streaming on-demand video.

Yahoo to be more social under CEO Yang revival plan - Chief Executive Jerry Yang on Monday highlighted his vision for reinvigorating the pioneering Web company and solidifying Yahoo’s role as the essential starting point for Web users. In the co-founder’s first major speech since taking over as CEO in June, Yang told an industry conference about inroads Yahoo is making in putting Web services on mobile phones and provided a glimpse into its evolving overall strategy. He said services would be more social, making it easier for users to update friends automatically on their Web activities.

Comcast Takes On BitTorrent, Others With Streaming Video Service - Comcast today is set to enter the growing field of companies offering online streams of TV shows online with the launch of Fancast. Like AOL’s two-year-old In2TV, Fancast is offering a host of old programs like “Hill Street Blues” and “Remington Steele.” The site also has a slate of current programs including “Bones” and “The Office” from NBC/Fox’s Hulu.com, CBS and Viacom.

Optimism Declines Among Ad Execs, All Media Impacted, Even Online - Advertising executives have grown somewhat more pessimistic about their plans for increasing the shares of their advertising budget for all media, but some media - especially online - seem to be holding up better than others. The finding, which comes from the latest wave of Advertiser Perceptions twice annual survey of advertisers and agency media buying executives, indicates a marked drop in the percentage of ad executives who expect their share of ad budgets to increase over the next six months for all the media measured.                                                          

‘08 Online Display Ad Spending To Grow 14.4%, Outpace Overall Industry Growth - Online ad spending will grow at nearly four times the rate of the overall advertising economy during 2008, according to new projections released this morning by advertising tracking firm TNS Media Intelligence. The forecast, which is based on macro economic data as it relates to the major media tracked by TNS MI, calls for online ad spending to rise 14.4% this year, marking the only major medium to grow at double-digit rates. TNS MI’s forecast for total measured media spending calls for an overall growth rate of just 4.2%.                                                        

DoubleClick Unveils New Reporting Tool, Puts Spotlight On Rich Media - With advertisers spending more on a growing range of display ad options, DoubleClick Monday unveiled a new reporting tool to help marketers determine the effectiveness of individual rich media metrics. Spotlight for Rich Media will enable advertisers and agencies to measure conversion rates for various actions taken within rich media ads, including rollovers, ad expansions, multiple click-throughs and video plays.                              

Gates Outlines ‘User-Centric’ Digital World, His Life After Microsoft - In one of his last addresses to the business world, Microsoft’s Bill Gates talked about a wide range of topics–everything from a new ‘user-centric’ digital world to what a self-proclaimed, wealthy technology geek job search may look like.                   

Yahoo Opens Mobile Platform - Web giant Yahoo on Monday announced that it was opening up its mobile software and services to outside publishers and programmers. The idea behind the “open” strategy, which has been deployed many times and in different variations by numerous companies over the last six months, is that the software developing masses can help create more and perhaps better mobile software than Yahoo. The move falls in line with CEO Jerry Yang’s mission to make the struggling Internet giant the “starting point for the most consumers” on the Internet.                

Gates Unfazed By the Economy - Prior to his final CES keynote as Microsoft chairman and chief software architect, Bill Gates discussed the road ahead for the software giant. He doesn’t think the recent slowdown in the U.S. economy will weigh heavily on the company’s future. “I don’t think the fate of Microsoft depends as much on … the economy as it does on the getting the breakthrough innovations from Microsoft Research into the products and staying ahead,” he said.

Wikia Gets Poor Marks - Web guru Michael Arrington gives a scathing review to Wikia, the community-powered search engine that went live over the weekend, calling it “one of the biggest disappointments I’ve had the displeasure of reviewing.” After playing with the new search engine for four days, Arrington says Wikia is “barely a search engine at all.” The poor review from TechCrunch, one of the Web’s most influential technology blogs, is a real blow to creator Jimmy Wales’, who for more than a year has touted Wikia as the real Google killer.

Report: Apple Close to Movie Deals - Just when you thought media vendors were starting to turn their backs on Apple’s iTunes, Apple CEO Steve Jobs is close to securing content deals with “most of the big [movie] studios.” Film and television haven’t proved to be nearly as big a hit for Apple and its suite of portable electronics devices as music was.

Napster Moves to MP3-Only Music Download Format - Napster Inc, one of the largest digital music retailers, said on Monday it would start selling downloads in the MP3 format from the second quarter of this year in the latest blow to copy protection for songs bought online. Napster had sold songs protected with Microsoft Corp’s Windows-based digital rights management (DRM) to prevent buyers from illegally making multiple copies or distributing songs to other users.

Owner of JDate Web Site Considers Sale: Source - Spark Networks, home to popular Jewish online dating site JDate.com, is looking for a buyer and talking to leading social networks and Web dating communities, a source familiar with the talks said on Friday. Spark shares rose more than 14 percent to $5.56 after the New York Times reported earlier in the day that the company could fetch as much as $185 million, based on analysts’ estimates. That would represent a premium of nearly 40 percent to its closing price on Thursday.

Sony to Provide Content to YouTube - Sony Pictures Television said Monday it’s agreed to provide five-minute versions of several of its most popular TV shows for viewing on the YouTube video-sharing Web site. The announcement was made during the annual International Computer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Sony Pictures Television said the short versions of programs such as “Married With Children” and “Newsradio,” known as “minisodes,” will help expand the brand for the shows to the online universe. Some 21 shows will be available at the Minisode Network. After the Minisode Network, the Sony unit plans to launch other channels on YouTube, including some that will include original content.

GroupM: Internet Overtakes TV In Sweden, The U.K. Will Be Next - The U.K. next year will become the first major economy in which the Internet overtakes television as the No. 1 advertising medium, according to a new forecast from WPP’s GroupM unit. The new prediction follows a report released last month by GroupM, the world’s largest buyer of media, which estimated that the Internet would become the dominant ad medium in Sweden during 2008, and that the U.K and Denmark were “likely to be the next in line.”                         

Out With Diaries, In With Web Logs: Nielsen’s Latest Foray Into Social Media Is A Blog - The name Nielsen may be most closely associated with the medium of television, but it is the Internet–especially social forms of online media–that is having the greatest influence on the way the research and publishing giant delivers its own messages to the public. In its latest foray into online publishing, the Nielsen Co. has quietly launched the “Nielsen Blog,” a new Web destination featuring the waxings and musings of its array of experts on marketing and media research topics.               

YouTube Named Official Online Partner For Grammys - It’s clearly a new day when the Recording Academy names YouTube as the official online partner of the Grammy Awards. Continuing their love/hate relationship, the Academy has tapped YouTube to relaunch its “My Grammy Moment” CGM initiative for the upcoming 50th annual Grammy Awards.          

Album Sales Plummet In 2007 - The music industry had an awful 2007 as total album sales plunged 15 percent to 500.5 million units, according to tracking data from Nielsen SoundScan. Online album sales barely rose at all, up 2.4 percent to 30.1 million units; growth was 19 percent in 2006. The figures represent the lowest total and the steepest decline since Nielsen began measuring music sales in 1993. Experts (predictably) blamed piracy for the declines, but they also cited competition from other entertainment sectors like videogames.       

China Imposes Huge Restrictions On Video - China extended the reach of its Great Web Wall on Thursday by announcing that it would only allow state-controlled Web sites to post video to the Web and by requiring Internet providers to delete and report certain kinds of content. As yet, it’s unclear how the new restrictions will affect sites like Google’s YouTube, which depend on its users to upload pieces of video. However, a YouTube spokesperson said the new rules “could be a cause for concern, depending on the interpretation.”

Sony Goes DRM-Free - It’s a move that marks the end of a digital music era, as Sony BMG Music Entertainment becomes the last of music’s Big Four to free its music from digital rights management software during the first quarter. Long the scourge of music lovers and device makers alike, DRM protection restricts song distribution across multiple platforms and devices. The idea is to guard against illegal duplication.             

Kayak.com And SideStep.com Agree To Merge - On Friday, Kayak said it had raised $196 million in financing led by Sequoia Capital, which is enabling its merger with SideStep, along with future expansion and intentions to enhance its services for travelers in search of rates and availability data.           

Isobar Extends Search Prospects, Acquires Extenseo, Merges With iProspect - Aegis Group’s Isobar network, already the largest digital advertising services group in the world, just got bigger. Aegis this morning said it acquired Extenseo, the No. 1 search marketing agency in Belgium from Belgacom Skynet.

Customer Acquisition Network Snaps Up E-Mail Marketing Firm - Customer Acquisition Network announced that it has acquired Options Media Group (and parent company Options Newsletter), adding e-mail marketing solutions to its roster of performance-based Web advertising services.

Online Display Ad Market To Hit $8.6 Billion, Yahoo Will Dominate - Get ready to pay more for both premium and remnant display ad inventory. JP Morgan is forecasting the U.S. graphical ad market to hit nearly $8.6 billion this year– 20% increase from 2007, with much of that cash flow being driven by costlier CPMs.                              

Spyware Guru Charges ComScore Panelists Victimized - Online research company comScore came under attack this week, as spyware researcher Ben Edelman charged that the company’s tracking software is being installed without adequate notice to users. In a report Edelman published Tuesday, he accused retail giant Sears Holdings–which installs comScore’s software on some Sears.com users–of burying crucial information about comScore’s program in fine print that many people never see.            

In Uneasy Environment, Monster, CareerBuilder Unleash Ads - With U.S. employers fighting off economic headaches, Monster Worldwide is appealing to the inner passions of job-seekers, unleashing “Your Calling is Calling,” a new brand effort. The global marketing campaign is from BBDO Worldwide–which won the account back in September, and is “evolving our brand beyond just a marketplace for jobs,” the company says in a release announcing the new effort.                   

Scripps Launches Web Site For Shuttered Newspaper - In what may be a first for American newspapers, a new Web site is being launched to continue the reporting of an expired print newspaper–The Kentucky Post, closed by E.W. Scripps at the same time as its sister pub, The Cincinnati Post. In another twist, the new ad-supported site–KYPost.com–will be hosted by WCPO-TV, a Scripps television property in Cincinnati, drawing heavily on the station’s video news for online content.              

For Facebook, An Important Year Ahead - If 2007 was a breakout year for Facebook, then 2008 will be a testing one. After drawing praise and publicity for opening its doors to third-party software developers in May, the company and its 23-year-old founder Michael Zuckerberg ended 2007 on a low, as the media questioned the impact a new advertising system would have on the privacy of its 60 million-plus users.           

In Praise Of Wikia - After years of delays, the Wikia search engine is set to go live next week, and tech blog Boing Boing uses the pending launch as an opportunity to slam Google and Yahoo, whose algorithms “are treated as trade secrets and high-risk tactics that have to be guarded from spammers.” First, the idea behind Wikia is openness–the kind espoused by Google’s recent OpenSocial and Open Handset Alliances. Wikia hopes the open approach will help fight spam by promoting the most relevant search results to the top. To make money, Wikia will adopt a similar keyword advertising system to Google’s AdWords.               

Yahoo Acquisition in ‘08? - Is Yahoo acquisition material? The Web giant has seen its market capitalization tumble from $52 billion in 2005 to roughly $33.5 billion today, still few companies could afford Yahoo at the reduced price. Despite being dwarfed by Google in just about every category in which the two companies compete, Yahoo’s revenues are still growing, and its co-founders, Jerry Yang and David Filo, are determined to turn around the company’s fortunes.           

Social Ads May Have Privacy Concerns - Amid the hubbub over Beacon, the privacy implications of Facebook’s other advertising platform, Social Ads have been almost overlooked. The Palo Alto-based social network has reserved the right to let businesses use your image in their ad campaigns. That’s right, your name and profile picture could become part of a brand’s pitch once you opt to take a “social action” involving a brand.

Kiddie Virtual World Is Exploding - “Get ready for a total inundation” of kiddie-oriented virtual worlds, says eMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson. Webkinz, Club Penguin and the like have been a smashing success where adult-oriented counterparts Second Life and There.com have not. According to comScore, Disney-owned Club Penguin attracts seven times the traffic of Second Life. Webkinz, a site where children create and care for virtual stuffed animals, has seen its traffic soar 342 percent in the last year. In all, eMarketer estimates that 20 million children will be part of a virtual world by 2011, up from 8.2 million today. Disney, for example, plans to follow Club Penguin’s success with virtual worlds for “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Cars.”                                                                

JPMorgan: ‘08 Online Ad CPMs Set To ‘Accelerate,’ Search Will Hit $30.5 Billion - In the first major Wall Street outlook for the Internet sector of the New Year, the equities research team at JPMorgan predicts the major publicly traded Internet publishers, portals, commerce sites and search engines will continue to outpace the performance of the overall stock market by wide margins through 2008. While revenue growth for the online sector is expected to “decelerate” slightly, JPMorgan analyst Imran Khan and his team predict the earnings of Internet companies will grow more than four times faster than those of the overall stock market during 2008.                                  

AOL Retires Netscape Browser - Marking the end of an era, AOL has decided to retire the Netscape Web browser after nearly 14 years of operation. As a result, AOL has decided to throw its weight behind Mozilla’s Firefox browser.                    

MTV’s Web Sites Push Music Videos - They don’t play music videos on MTV anymore–but they do on its Web sites. Viacom’s three big music video sites–MTV.com, VH1.com, and CMT.com–grabbed more than 1.2 billion video streams in 2007. That’s up 30% from the year before. MTV Networks’ Music Group now says it attracts 30 million unique visitors to its site every month.            

As Web Spending Increases, How Will Startups Fare? - Web advertising looks set to continue its double-digit growth in 2008, but a big question mark still hangs over the startups hoping to make money from the sale of online ads. Just how big is the market for software embedded in Web sites? The answer is: nobody knows, but companies like Freewebs and Clearspring are pioneers of the emerging space. Uncertainty aside, former executives at successful Web companies like Google, AOL and PayPal founded many of these startups. Social news site Mixx, for example, is the brainchild of the former general manager of Yahoo News.

Web Advertising Trends For ‘08 - With an economic downturn or worse, a recession looming, marketers will “likely drive more money to the Internet,” which is more cost effective than other media. Some of the biggest spenders may be large multinational advertisers, few of whom have spent more than 5% to 10% of their budgets online. Merrill Lynch believes Web spending will grow 18% in 2008, while Publicis Groupe’s ZenithOptimedia expects it to surpass radio this year and magazines two years later.         

Bandwidth Real Threat For ‘08 - The Economist peers into its crystal ball and sees a significant slowdown for the Web in 2008. Not necessarily an economic slowdown–although the paper forecasts that for the greater economy–but a slowdown in the actual speed of the Internet. Such an occurrence would undermine all those reports of a 20 percent uptick in Web sending as a slower Internet means fewer pages viewed, less time spent per page, and less time spent surfing the Web.