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NYSE May Allows Real-Time Quotes; Google, CNBC To Provide Data Without Charge; WSJ.com To Sit out – The New York Stock Exchange plans test a program to allow real-time quotes to be published on financial info website with virtually no delay. If the proposal is approved by SEC, NYSE will sell to sites for $100,000 a month the ability to publish trade prices instantaneously. NYSE is keeping some data close to the vest, including the size of trades, and the quotes at which investors are willing to buy and sell shares. 

Study: Most Marketers Plan To Boost E-Mail Efforts – Eighty-five percent of marketers and marketing service providers expect that their budgets for online direct marketing will increase in 2007, according to a new study by Alterian, a marketing software provider. The majority of respondents said they specifically planned to increase e-mail spending. 

Yahoo and Akimbo Partner For Internet Video – Yahoo and Video On Demand firm Akimbo have partnered to bring Internet video to television, the companies announced this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Akimbo will offer selections from the Yahoo Video service to its subscribers, allowing them to watch videos submitted to the Internet on their living room TVs. 

Social Network Indicates Buying Choice – The use of data from user-generated content is a growing theme among marketers, and why not–the more data, the less advertising waste, right? Perhaps nothing tells a marketer more about a consumer than their social networking profiles, their friend’s social networking profiles, and the content they produce. The study “Network-Based Marketing: Identifying Likely Adopters via Consumer Networks,” from Wharton professor Shawndra Hill and NYU Stern professor Foster Provost shows that data mined from social networks–like chat or email conversations between friends–allows companies to find more likely targets for their products and services. Who you associate with is a great indicator of what kinds of products you’re likely to buy: No form of advertising is more powerful than word of mouth. 

Social Features Improve Yahoo Local – “We’re spending a lot of time thinking about social media at Yahoo,” said Frazier Miller, director of product management at Yahoo Local. You might be wondering what those social features are exactly, since Yahoo has often been criticized in the press for its failure to enter (in any significant capacity) the burgeoning social-networking market. In its own way, user contributions to Yahoo Local have actually become a significant way to mine data–their contributions add to the richness of the product and give Yahoo more user information to sell to advertisers. 

CBS Partners For Future – As expected, CBS Corp. Chief Les Moonves appeared on stage with Sling Media, maker of the Sling Box, and Linden Labs, creator of the online universe Second Life, during his keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show to announce two partnerships with Second Life and Google’s YouTube. Many feel that partnering with two companies that appear to pose a threat to CBS’ core business is either forward-thinking or aggressively stupid. 

Yahoo Expands Display Ad Deals With Morris Newspaper Group – Morris Communications, owner of 27 daily newspapers in 15 states, is the latest news media company to enter into a partnership with Yahoo. (A WSJ article the other days hinted at something imminent in that area.) The AP says the deal will allow Morris newspapers to deliver search, graphic and classified advertising to more consumers on the Internet. As is the case with the others, Morris’ sites will feature Yahoo HotJobs.

Hearst Buys Youth Social Networking Company eCrush – Hearst has finally made a move in the online M&A market, after its venture arm has been investing heavily in digital media startups (Sling Media, Brightcove and others): it has bought out teen and youth focused social networking company eCrush. Terms were not disclosed, but Hearst said the company had an EBITDA of $1.4 million in 2006.

eBay Buys Online Tickets Marketsplace StubHub For $310 Million – Updated: eBay has officially issues the release: it has bought StubHub for $310 million. The pending acquisition is expected to close before the end of March. Official release here. Original post: Not necessarily digital media, but shows how eBay is trying to get back on track on its acquisition strategy, after its huge Skype acquisition didn’t turn out as well as expected. 

Yahoo Buys Networking Site For Blog Junkies – Yahoo Tuesday confirmed rumors that it has acquired MyBlogLog, a fast-growing social networking site that lets blog readers connect with each other. The move is the latest in a series of purchases Yahoo has made over the last 18 months to expand its social media offerings. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it was reported to be worth about $10 million by Forbes.com. 

Oversee.net Buys Comparison Site LowFares.com – Online ad firm Oversee.net acquired travel-fare-comparison site LowFares.com, the companies announced Thursday. The deal was completed last Friday for an undisclosed amount. LowFares’ advertisers–including Priceline.com, Hotwire.com, Expedia.com, and Orbitz.com–provide travel leads. 

Gannett, Tribune and McClatchy To Jointly Sell Online Ads Across Properties – The nation’s three largest newspaper publishers are gearing up to sell advertising jointly on their newspapers’ Web sites, believing their survival depends on seizing new online revenue. Gannett Co., McClatchy Co. and Tribune Co. are planning to offer advertisers one-stop shopping for display ads on Internet sites. The goal is to attract big advertisers such as car makers and phone companies that want to reach a nationwide online audience but don’t want the hassle of negotiating ad deals with each company or newspaper.

Media M&A In 2007: Pace to Increase – So says an 8-page PDF report by media investment bank DeSilva & Phillips…the report says that 2006 has turned out to be “not merely strong, but also a year of extraordinary deal-making in both quality and quantity. A dollar volume of $20.5 billion in media transactions makes 2006 the strongest year since 2000, and close in volume even to that year’s total.” And why would 20007 continue this? “The outlook for M&A in 2007 is as good as we’ve ever seen.

Glam.com, Meez Partner For Social Net Avatars – Fashion portal Glam.com has partnered with consumer avatar service Meez.com to power customizable user avatars that can be posted on online profiles, blogs, e-mails, IM accounts, and mobile phones. The avatars can be obtained through Glam’s social networking platform, GlamSpace.

CBS To Air User-Created Video On Superbowl Sunday – CBS Interactive and Youtube are teaming for a campaign that draws on consumer-created content. For the campaign, CBS is asking viewers to post 15-second inspirational messages on YouTube. CBS plans to select at least one video each quarter for broadcast, with the first airing during the day on Feb. 4, Super Bowl Sunday.

Dell Taps BazaarVoice For Consumer Reviews – Computer giant Dell has tapped consumer review technology firm Bazaarvoice to power consumer reviews on its site. The reviews will be hosted on Dell.com, and will cover both Dell products as well as non-Dell peripherals sold on-site. 

2007 Is Year Of Localization – 2007 will be the year of localization for the media business. What exactly does that mean? The closer integration of local products and services into our everyday media consumption. For instance, how useful would it be if your default home page brought daily news and weather and interfaced with your social-networking profile, individual electronic payment services, daily schedule, budgeting, shopping suggestions, email list?

Video Is Future King Of Media – With hundreds of millions of people watching Google’s YouTube and other online video sites, will today’s big-budget Hollywood production become a thing of the past? Big-budget productions will become “a crapshoot” at best, that could either become a hit or a big waste of money. The result is that big media companies will gamble less on blockbusters and distribute more amateur and low-budget content, while taking on a long-tail-oriented revenue stream. 

The Demise of Digital Rights Management – Despite Apple’s announcement today that it’s sold 2 billion songs on iTunes, Digital Rights Management is on the decline. Consumers, in fact, are so frustrated with the restrictive software they’ve sued companies like Apple and Universal Music Group from using DRM on their music, citing antitrust law.

Presidential Candidates Launch Blog Campaigns – The next U.S. presidential election is 22 months in the future, but at least two hopefuls have already started online campaigns. Former Senator John Edwards and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney have both recently started running ads on political blogs. 

Execs Bullish On Meredith Buyout Of Digital Shops – Meredith Corp.’s acquisition of two digital shops likely heralds a wave of similar deals, some industry insiders predicted Wednesday. “There’s no question we’ll be seeing a lot more M&A activity focused on interactive agencies,” said David Clark, a managing director with investment banking firm Jordan, Edmiston Group, Inc

Online Media M&A Volume Up 55% – The number of mergers and acquisitions involving online media companies last year shot to 181 from 117 in 2005, but fewer blockbusters meant a total dollar value 26.3% less than the prior year at $8.9 billion, according to data compiled by The Jordan Edmiston Group

Web Retailers Plan To Upgrade Visuals – Most e-commerce sites intend to boost rich media efforts this year, with a particular focus on high-quality visuals. That’s among the main findings of a report released Wednesday by Internet technology firm Scene7. 

BBC Can Spend $680 Million On M&A, Including Social Networking, But Will It? – That money would have bought them MySpace two years ago…BBC can spend up to $680 million on social networking projects including local and international M&A in the sector, Guardian reports. Though that is very sensationalist: the amount is the money BBC Worldwide, its commercial arm, has at its disposal for expansion, into just about anything it desires, including social networking. The idea is to develop social networks around its main branded shows, like Top Gear and BBC Good Food. Also, BBC’s magazines show there is an appetite for internet communities based around the corporation’s top shows, BBC says.

After eCrush, Hearst Revs Up Digital Moves – Hearst Magazines may have been too cautious in the past when it came to building up its website properties (for instance, the not-so successful strategy with iVillage), but the company is hastily playing catch-up, said the division’s president, Cathleen Black at a breakfast conference in NYC. Hearst is pursuing five goals for the digital arena, AdAge reports. As we reported, Hearst just made one of its bigger digital plays with the acquisition of eCrush.com, an entertainment and community network for teens and young adults. 

comScore Networks Reports Total Non-Travel E-Commerce Spending Reaches $102 Billion in 2006; up 24 Percent Versus 2005 – comScore Networks, a leader in measuring the digital age, today released a report on consumer online non-travel (retail) spending at U.S. sites during 2006, including the holiday season (November 1, 2006 – December 31, 2006). For the full year 2006, online retail spending reached $102.1 billion, marking a 24-percent increase versus 2005. Online holiday e-commerce accounted for $24.6 billion, up 26 percent versus last year.

Harper Collins Invests in NewsStand; To Launch Digital Books Services – Harper Collins (part of News Corp), which has recently made the right noises about digitizing and selling its books catalog online, has invested in the Austin-based electronic editions company NewsStand. As part of the deal, Harper will work with LibreDigital, a division of NewsStand, to “create, market and operate digital services for the publishing industry.”

Disney.com Revamps With Personalized Content – As expected, Walt Disney Company has unveiled the next phase of its digital offerings–the long-awaited revamped Disney.com Web site. Speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas yesterday, Bob Iger, president/CEO of Walt Disney Co., said the new Disney.com will allow users to personalize content–including sharing of videos, TV shows, and other Disney video content as well as listening to music, and playing video games.

Comedy Central Kicks Off New Broadband, Web Lineup – Comedy Central is expanding its web presence, adding 11 new original broadband shows and 25 original Web shows in 2007. Among the new broadband shows launching is “The Watch List,” the first series to feature a lineup of exclusively Muslim-American comedians and “Judge Fudge,” another first. It’s a Web series developed from a character in a successful network show, “Drawn Together.”

What Happened to Skype? – eBay Chief Meg Whitman has been widely tipped by industry prognosticators not to make it through the year. One reason, among many, is eBay’s inability to integrate voice over IP provider Skype, which the auctioneer purchased in 2005 for $2.6 billion in cash and stock. At the time, Whitman said, “By combining the two leading e-commerce franchises, eBay and PayPal, with [Skype], we will create an extraordinarily powerful environment for business on the Net.” Whatever its performance targets, Skype certainly isn’t getting much help from eBay, as the two companies still remain more or less mutually exclusive. As Laura Martin, an analyst with Soleil-Media Metrics says, “Strategic questions remain about Skype. It’s still unclear how it benefits the core eBay platform. And monetization [on eBay's investment] has been slower to occur than we had hoped.”

Citizen Journalism Adds To Media Mix – The Internet public has also shown it has an appetite for user-produced content, in the form of video, blogs or social networking pages. On Web sites like YouTube, MySpace or even CNN, citizen journalism is on such a rapid rise that it may one day change the news business forever. The New York Times and CNN may choose material from a vast pool of user submitted-videos and stories instead of hiring full-time staff. With the rise of the Web, the barrier to entry gets lower and lower everyday.

‘Time’ Marches On to New Web Strategy – It remains to be seen whether Time’s highly touted revolution within the past week – primarily issuing the magazine on Fridays instead of Monday and website relaunch today – will give Google News, Drudge or Digg a run for their money, which are the stated goals of the magazine’s executives. In an age where consumers value the ability to customize their content, especially when it comes to deciding “what the most important news,” a part from the cosmetic changes, Time seems to be standing still by relying on long opinion pieces by the likes of William Kristol, Walter Isaacson, Andrew Sullivan and Michael Kinsley. 

Viacom’s Paramount To Add Movies To iTunes; Catalog Titles Only; Second Studio After Disney – So the WSJ is reporting: Viacom will be brave enough to join Disney on the iTunes store, selling movies from its studio Paramount. But in an effort to not ruffle Wal-Mart and Target’s feathers, the deal will only cover Paramount’s back catalog, including titles such as “Forrest Gump,” “Mission: Impossible” and “The Truman Show.” 

P&G Extends Social Networking To Women’s Health and Entertainment – Major marketers take note, as advertising bellwether Procter & Gamble unveils two social networking sites: one devoted to women and another devoted to making the People’s Choice Awards an everyday event. The packaged goods giant insists that actual advertising on the women’s issues site— Capessa (Latin for “striving to reach a place”)—will be fairly light. The main focus of Capessa, which is the product of a partnership with Yahoo and digital brand builder ZiZo Group, is to mine female consumers’ habits and interests in connection with health and career concerns.

Chernin: News Corp Digital Media Revenues Already Off Charts – News Corp. president and chief operating officer Peter Chernin said Tuesday that he expects his company to exceed its goal of $500 million in digital revenue for the current fiscal year and that online video advertising has the potential to be “the single best (business) story” for media companies in 2007. He also said the digital operations will be profitable for the fiscal year even when including the cost for management retention and amortization, which the company had said would have to be excluded to write black ink.

IAC/InterActiveCorp Planning New Content – IAC/InterActiveCorp Chief Executive Barry Diller, who is best known for organizing a fourth network at Fox that challenged dominant players ABC, CBS, and NBC, said Tuesday that IAC will announce several new content initiatives within the next two to three months. Now is an ideal time to pursue such plans given the rise in use of video online, Diller said. 

Bubble, Bubble, Bubble – The startup ranks are starting to thin. We’ve added three companies to the TechCrunch DeadPool in the last week (Raw Sugar, FilmLoop and Browster). Even Google got into the spirit of things when they shut down Google Answers at the end of the year. And over on the Forum users are asking “Who’s Next?” But this doesn’t mean we’re in a bubble. In fact, I think the exact opposite. I think a few failures are direct evidence that we are not in a bubble and that the private venture markets are actually in the process of letting off a little steam to keep things rational. Story: http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/01/07/bubble-bubble-bubble/ Immigrants Driving Force Behind Tech Start-Ups – Immigrants have become such a driving force behind Internet startups that at least one in four technology and engineering companies launched in the last 10 years had at least one foreign-born founder, according to a study released last week. The report, from researchers at the University of California-Berkeley and Duke University, found that these founders came mostly from India and China, and have helped start hundreds of companies with a combined estimated sales of $50 billion. 

Google Exec Defends “Frienemy” Slur – Are media companies whose content is freely distributed across the Web being held hostage? Google may not be out to create content, but it looks like it wants to force those who do to use its delivery services. Eun has been in charge of getting that ball rolling. His team struck the MTV deal last year that would let AdSense publishers display MTV and other Viacom content on their sites in exchange for a cut of ad revenue. He also got CBS and Universal Music Group to allow their content to be distributed on YouTube for another slice of ad revenue. “Our whole business model is structured around partnering,” Eun says, and he’s right: Google shelled out $780 million Google to its partners last quarter. 

Time.com Adds Blogs, News Feed – Time magazine today is again reinventing itself online, this time by revamping its site to emphasize breaking news and blogs. The latest online iteration of Time–a work-in-progress since the company launched its Pathfinder site in 1994–also strives for a cleaner look to better showcase photography and afford more space for advertisers. 

CNN.com Taps Inform For News Search – CNN.com has tapped Inform Technologies to provide an on-site search engine, which allows users to search other news sources without leaving the CNN site. The service aims to discourage Web users from clicking away from news publishers’ sites to visit search engines like Google and Yahoo.  

Pew: Most Teens Create Social Networking Profiles – Several years ago, social networking sites were all but unknown to the general public, but today the majority of online U.S. teens–55%–have profiles on such sites. MySpace is far and away the leading such site, with 85% of youngsters ages 12-17 reporting they use the service. 

Acclaim Taps IGA for In-Game Ads – Video game publisher Acclaim has partnered with in-game ad firm IGA Worldwide to monetize six massively multiplayer online games with targeted spots. The deal encompasses “BOTS!!,” “9Dragons,” “2Moons,” and “DANCE!” in addition to two as-yet unannounced titles. Prior to signing with IGA, Acclaim had a deal with its competitor, Massive Incorporated, to serve in-game ads into BOTS!!, which has now expired. 

Second Life to Go Open Source – Aiming to take advantage of its already-impressive momentum, San Francisco’s Linden Lab, developer of the Second Life virtual online world, will announce Monday that it is taking the first major step toward opening up its software for the contributions of any interested programmer.

Linden Labs Releases Real Numbers for Virtual World – Roughly 1.5 million “unique people” have logged into Second Life at least once (differentiated from the 2.3 million “residents” claimed in the game) and roughly 252,000 people have logged in more than 30 days after their account creation date. Monthly growth in that figure appears to be greater than 20 percent. 

Online Retail Spending Surges To $102B – E-commerce spending in November and December reached $24.6 billion–a 26% increase from last year, according to a new report by comScore. For the entire year, online retail spending soared to $102 billion–up 24% from last year’s $83 billion. iVillage Bows New Health Portal – In a significant expansion, womens’ online network iVillage Thursday unveiled a souped-up new health portal. The site, iVillage Total Health, adds 13 new “condition centers” covering topics ranging from cancer to skin and hair. It also offers new tools for identifying causes of illness symptoms and for a Healthy Living diet program. 

CMOs Look for Blended Agencies for Contemporary Marketing – According to a recent study of senior marketing executives by Evalueserve for Sapient, just over half of Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) believe that traditional, large advertising agencies are ill-suited to meet online marketing needs. Instead, the majority of senior marketing executives show a strong preference for blended firms – firms with roots in technology that can also offer creative and traditional print expertise. Some Google Advertisers Exit – Google keyword prices are soaring, returns are diminishing and click fraud is still an uncontained problem. So many small-to-midsize advertisers say they plan to do less business with Google than in years past. Some plan to reduce spending significantly. For example, retailer eBags.com, which depends on search engines and shopping-comparison sites to drive traffic to its site, spent between $5 million and $8 million with Google last year, with more than 75% of that figure going to the search giant. Said CEO Peter Cobb, “The Google percentage has got to go down.”

Tracking Anomalies Pervade Web – The Internet is supposed to be the most quantifiable medium, but publishers don’t keep track of users in a uniform manner, creating discrepancies everywhere. Even video can be hard to track. Different video sites have different definitions for what constitutes a viewing. For instance, each click counts as a view at vSocial, a seller of premium video services to businesses, while at Revver–the video site that shares ad revenue with producers–a view is only counted if a user watches an entire clip and an ad that has to be downloaded at the end.  

Major Online Recruiters Look To Buy As Niche Sites; Social Nets Emerge As Competition – In the past six months, visits to the big three online recruiters, Monster, Yahoo’s HotJobs, and CareerBuilder dropped by 23.7 percent, 18.4 percent, and 7.1 percent, respectively, Hitwise reports. The reason, BusinessWeek reports, is the rise of social networks and job sites dedicated to matching employers and job seekers in very specific pockets of the job market – sites where musicians looking for work on cruise ships, for example. To cope, The Big Three have been embarking on series of partnerships with newspaper chains.

Photo Sharing Site BubbleShare Bought By Kaboose For up To $3 Million – Toronto-based online photo sharing site BubbleShare has been bought out by Kaboose, the family focused online media company, also based in Toronto. The price is about $2.25 million upfront and another $0.75 million based on future performance. BubbleShare allows user to upload photos and add voice and video captions to photos. Story: 

Performancing Deal is Off – After much discussion and heartache PayPerPost decided to walk away from the Performancing deal. They listened to their Posties and other Metrics users, dug into the Metrics platform and regretfully found that it wasn’t what they were looking for right now.

Music Downloads Hit Unexpected High Last Week - A stronger-than-expected Christmas for music downloads as U.S. digital track sales reached an all-time high last week, with 30.1 units sold, Nielsen SoundScan reports. The increased downloading just before New Year’s represents a 51 percent rise from the 19.9 million digital songs sold during the same weekly period in 2005. Internet Portals Fighting For Relevance – Internet portals are fighting to avoid going the way of ISP portals, with some people arguing that more and more people are customizing their homepage and using search to get where they want (and probably bookmarks as well) so the idea of one site offering everything for everybody is becoming obsolete. Aside from the portals themselves (which are backed by some huge companies, both internet and media) the biggest effect would be on advertisers—if the big portals stop being a one-stop-shop for tens of millions of consumers, they stop being a one-stop-shop for advertisers as well. 

Turner Finds Success With Online Ventures Large And Small – Successful web sites are nothing new to Turner, with internet offerings that include CNN.com; CNNMoney.com (Turner-Time Inc. effort); CartoonNetwork.com; sports sites NASCAR.com, PGA.com and PGATour.com; and others. But the list of Turner efforts from the last 18 months or so is impressive: CNNPipeline, GameTap.com, VeryFunnyAds.com, broadband players LaughLab (TBS) and DramaVision (TNT), ACCSelect, the upcoming SuperDeluxe.com for comedy shorts. Merrill Issues Pessimistic Ad Outlook Overall; Online Still Looking Up – Expect anemic ad spending in 2007, Merrill Lynch says in a report issued today. The forecast by analyst Lauren Rich Finle charts an ad spend rise of 2.9 percent (or, 2.7 percent excluding direct mail) and to lag the U.S. economy’s projected 4.5 percent growth rate. Despite those differences, Merrill views “total consensus” on the outlook for Internet ad spend: the company expects online spending to increase 22.9 percent – an estimate Merrill suggests may be conservative. 

Virgin Digital Closes Music Service; Pushing Napster; Naps Numbers Exceed – Virgin Digital, the digital music service in U.S. from Virgin Group, has closed down after no traction and a rash of management defections over the last year. The site/service now directs to Napster, who will take over the Virgin subscribers. Meanwhile, Napster has increased its guidance: it expects to report more than $28 million in Q4 quarterly revenue and 566,000 paid worldwide subscribers, while it previously expected its Q4 revenues to exceed $27 million. Also, Napster reported that its subscribers downloaded 500 million songs and over 700 million music streams in 2006.

CBS Study Finds More Digital Connections Lead To More Primetime Viewing – It might sound contradictory, but CBS Research has found that individuals who are heavily involved in using digital media are also more likely to watch primetime television. Among the findings: 56 percent of those surveyed were aware that you could watch network television programs by streaming them over the Internet. Also, the segment of the population with both a broadband and a digital television connection at home has grown from 22 percent in the fall of 2005 to over 30 percent this fall. 

In Praise of Ad Networks – This year will be another record-breaker for Web advertising. We’re getting used to hearing that, and we’re also getting used to hearing Google outperform Wall Street’s estimates with more phenomenal search growth. However, there can’t be many more years of outrageous search growth, since there are only so many total Web users and searches they can conduct per day. Enter the ad network. The amount of inventory out there is growing and will continue to grow in a long-tail sort of way. Ad networks have access to an enormous amount of inventory, and can connect advertisers to Web sites they wouldn’t otherwise find. Plus, they’re cheaper.

On Wall Street, Old Media Humbled New in ‘06 – Around this time last year, we were hearing sweeping pronouncements about the imminent demise of big media, but 2006 belonged to the old media firms. As they adjusted, they dipped their toes into new media with smart acquisitions and savvy new strategies. Wall Street responded very favorably, as old media generally posted impressive turnarounds across the board. Disney, News Corp., and Time Warner led the way in 2006, with 44.3%, 34.7% and 26.3% rises respectively. CBS Corp., considered the “old media” arm of the newly split Viacom Corp., rose 22.3%, while the supposedly younger and lighter new Viacom grew a scant 2.5%. Other heavy-hitters in 2006 included cable giant Comcast Corp., whose shares jumped 64.7%, and Dreamworks SKG, which advanced 20.1%.

After Digitas, Ad Agencies Look To Next Big—Or Even Small—Digital Acquisitions – With Publicis Groupe’s $1.3 billion offer to buy interactive shop Digitas old news by now, the ad industry is now focused on the next big independent digital agency purchase. For one thing, not satiated by the pending Digitas purchase, Publicis and its agencies (Leo Burnett, Saatchi & Saatchi and Fallon) are said to be looking for additional acquisitions opportunities in the digital space. Other ad holding companies, like Havas, are also looking to fit a creative interactive agency within their walls.

Downloaded Digital Sound Tracks Up Two Thirds – Nielsen SoundScan reports that through the first 49 weeks of 2006, sales of individually downloaded digital tracks are up more than 67% over the same period in 2005, accounting for more than 525 million digital downloads; already 173 million more than 2005’s annual total. 

YouTube Delays Anti-Piracy Software – YouTube is failing to complete the anti-piracy software it promised, the first line of defense against piracy on its Web site. The so-called “content identification system” is supposed to track down and prevent unauthorized copyrighted music and video from being uploaded to YouTube. It was supposed to be ready by the end of last year, but the company confirmed that it was not, and was unable to give a date as to when the technology would be in place.

Predictions: Mixed Year For Internet Bellwethers – John Battelle, one of the Web industry’s better prognosticators, gives his 2007 predictions. Among them: Yahoo, AOL or IAC will be scooped up by Microsoft this year, as the software giant realizes it can’t build its way into a better online media position. If it doesn’t buy AOL, Yahoo will, he says. Failing that, AOL will go public, but the IPO will receive a lukewarm review.

New Amazon Web Site Sells Shoes and Bags – The online retailer Amazon.com said Wednesday that it had started a shoe and handbag Web site called Endless.com to tap into the growing footwear and accessories market. The new Web site will carry more than 250 brands for women and men, including Donald J Pliner, Enzo Angiolini, Reebok and Columbia Sportswear. It will compete with online rivals like Zappos.com, Onlineshoes.com and Shoes.com, which all offer free standard shipping and returns. 

AOL Founder’s Next Startup: Revolution Health – AOL Co-founder Steve Case, who left Time Warner (AOL’s parent company) in 2005, has effectively launched his next startup – Revolution Health. Revolution Health is a health-related portal site and social network. Users are urged to ask questions and answer other users’ questions, rate their doctors, participate in online discussions and otherwise contribute content.

Amazon.com’s Investment In Wikia: $10 Million; Developing Wiki-Based Search Engine – We have mentioned this funding before, but the amount came out today through SEC filings, picked up by PEHub: Amazon was the sole investor in Wikia’s second round, and the amount is $10 million. Wikia is the for-profit community wiki company from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, who is chairman. Story:

Will Media Embrace Wikis? – For Web publishers, posting user feedback has become a requisite part of their business. Will wikis be the next step in the content they offer their audiences? Since wikis enable people to edit and contribute to published content, it raises the risk that the information provided could be inappropriate, irrelevant or just plain wrong. As the folks at Wikipedia will tell you, wikis need constant monitoring. This would certainly cost, but would the payoff in ad revenue make it worth the expense for media companies? Absolutely, because wiki content costs nothing to produce. The problem media execs will have is ceding even more control of their content to consumers. 

The Year of the Music Industry – As the predictions for 2007 pour in, Billboard says this should be the year the music industry figures out how to profit from user-generated content. In 2006, record labels like Universal Music Group struck deals with YouTube and Google Video, enabling video users to freely use their copyrighted material in exchange for a cut of the publishers’ ad revenue. As opposed to suing all and sundry–a policy that will ultimately prove both fruitless and futile–these progressive deals represent an important part of the recording industry’s future. 

Online Video Is Effective Publicity – Company got a bad rep? Take a page from the book of Monsanto Co., a producer of engineered crops. The company sent camera crews to the Philippines, Australia and other countries where their genetically modified goods are produced to film testimonial from local farmers. These videos were then placed on the company’s Web site. Companies like Monsanto are often the target of protests by environmentalists, but the use of video helped show how genetically modified crops have actually made the lives of the local farmer better. 

Jimmy Wales’ Google-Killer – Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales believes his next wiki project could become powerful enough to take on Google. Wales’ vision of a totally transparent social search engine could prove to be the ultimate extension of Google’s original vision: Organize the world’s content, and make it searchable. Google ranks its results based on how many links a given page receives–a system that’s prone to trickery and hacking.

2007: Web 2.0 Companies I Couldn’t Live Without – A list of TechCrunch’s favorite Web 2.0 companies with descriptions. 

Mozilla Does Microformats: Firefox 3 as Information Broker – Just before Christmas, Mozilla designer Alex Faaborg published some introductory posts on his blog about where Mozilla is headed with microformats. Quick background: Mozilla is of course the developer of the popular open source browser Firefox; and microformats are (in Alex’s words) “adding semantics to markup to take it from being machine readable to being machine understandable.”  

Updated Disney.com Offers Networking for Kids – CEO Bog Iger talked to the WSJ about the upcoming Disney.com relaunch, describing it as “the single most important companywide strategy Disney is currently implementing.” Added features to the site will include personalization, social networking and subscription services. 

AKQA Named Agency Of The Year – OMMA magazine today announces that digital shop AKQA has won the Agency of the Year award. AKQA took top honors for work on behalf of shop clients like Coke, Diageo’s Johnnie Walker brand, Visa, McDonald’s, and Microsoft. The independent shop is attracting a lot of attention these days, so much so that it’s now shopping itself around, with some reports saying it could draw as much as $150 million. Digitas–which Publicis Groupe just agreed to purchase for $1.3 billion–won the Silver. 

Music Industry Changes Its Tune on Podcasting – After two years of hesitancy, the music industry is finally taking its first steps toward embracing podcasting. When podcasts attained prominence in 2004, amateurs and advertisers alike heralded the downloadable audio programs as the next step in the evolution of broadcasting. But they have failed to make headway in one key area: music programming. 

Wired’s Top 10 Acquisition Candidates – Wired has come out with a list of 10 top acquisitions candidates in this space for 2007: Among them some usual suspects and some not: Facebook, Digg, TechMeme, Zillow, Technorati, Wordpress, 37Signals, Feedburner and Riya.  

Facing threats, Jobster targets profitability in 2007 – Jobster, the job search engine that has raised $48 million in venture financing over the past two years, is undergoing an analysis of the business that could involve layoffs or other changes in the first part of 2007. Jobster employs about 145 people — making it one of the biggest newly created Internet companies in Seattle. A source tells the P-I that Jobster recently instituted a hiring freeze, a sign that the company may have grown too big too fast.