The Wall Street Journal (sub. req'd) has a piece today about the mainstreaming of VoIP through handsets that look and act like traditional cordless phones: A slew of new phones are heading to stores aimed at the millions of people…
In addition to the announced button on Motorola phones, BlackBerry says it will support Google Talk IM (among others) and Google Local Maps. Separately, Google filed a patent application in the mobile space that appears to be about delivering calls…
Spot Runner launched today. It presents itself as an ad agency, but it's really an Internet-based TV ad buying network. It's totally local, and it's potentially revolutionary (yes, that's what I said), offering spot cable buying for small businesses. It's…
There are a number of interesting things I ran across today. Given my schedule this morning, here's an abbreviated roundup: Fast Search & Transfer's Stephen Baker points me to a results page on the Denver Post site to show FAST's…
Rupert Murdoch has announced the integration of downloadable video, VoIP and IM to MySpace, which News Corp. acquired for $580 million in July. These moves are intended to drive use of the wildly popular social networking site and boost ad…
SEW reports that IAC/InterActiveCorp has launched a comparison shopping service called Pronto. Check it out and let us know what you think. We'll do the same. More on this later.
This came out today. Here's what they had to say about it in Mountain View at "the plex." Today is the 10th day of January and I'm counting four product announcements (or their equivalents) so far—ahead of last year's pace.
BusinessWeek has an interesting take on the benefits of spin-offs, which is apropos given the likelihood that Verizon will go the spin-off route with its Information Services directory publishing unit. A BusinessWeek study conducted by Dealogic found that " ...the…
MIVA, formed from the combination of FindWhat and ESpotting, was the first network to adopt PPCall and is a marquee player abroad, but it has stuggled in the U.S. of late. The company has now apparently retained Deutsche Bank to…
Today Fast Search & Transfer (FAST) announced a major deal to be the platform for MediaNews Group, which publishes 50 dailies and 121 other publications in 12 states (with combined daily and Sunday circulation of 2.1 million and 2.4 million,…
Google, again pushing beyond the browser, announced (per a story in MediaPost per Forbes) that it would be working with Volkswagen to develop an automotive nagivation system based on Google Earth: VOLKSWAGEN AG AND GOOGLE HAVE entered into a deal…
Thanks to PaidContent for pointing us to a TheDeal.com story (reg. req'd) about bidders for Knight Ridder. Potential suitors include: Thomas H. Lee Partners, Bain Capital, Texas Pacific Group and Hellman & Friedman Blackstone Group, Providence Equity Partners and Kohlberg…
As Charlene Li points out about Google Pack in her recent post—and this similarly struck me when when I downloaded it—Google and Yahoo! are developing direct channels onto the desktop in a way that, really, only Microsoft has done before.…
Google and Yahoo! have been grabbing the video headlines recently. But in what appears to be something of a coup for America Online and a quick out for a start-up, AOL said it was buying new video search engine Truveo:…
PaidContent has an exclusive interview with Marco Boerries, SVP-Connected Life, Yahoo!. With the recent media storm over content and online video (stepped up even further by last week's CES conference and this week's Macworld expo), an important question is: When…
According to The Wall Street Journal (sub. req'd), Yahoo! will be testing free Wi-Fi at two Starwood-owned hotels: Seeking new ways to distinguish their respective brands, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. and Yahoo Inc. said they will begin a…
It seems like everyone and his second cousin has an online advertising forecast these days. We're working on ours, expanding it to include more categories this year. But here's a nice write-up by Chris Sherman of the recent SEMPO survey…
Kudos to SiliconBeat for unearthing TurnHere.com, which is posting local videos from all over the U.S.—watch a couple of them and you'll immediately see the local biz advertising and travel implications. Here's what the site says: TurnHere.com, a new Internet…
Here's a piece on a Wi-Fi "cell" phone, introduced at CES, that can split calls between cell and Wi-Fi networks. This comes on the heels of the new Skype-Netgear Wi-Fi phone . The article talking about UTStarcom's new GF200 (discussed…
... for November are here. Here are the highlights: Google Sites —39.8% Yahoo! Sites— 29.5% MSN-Microsoft Sites —14.2% Time Warner Network— 8.7% Ask Jeeves —6.5% According to comScore, Google and Ask.com were the only gainers. Also: Americans conducted 5.15 billion…
