In the annals of consumer electronics, certain devices have proven so compelling, they've created consumer cults. You know, Mac heads. Palm freaks. TiVoholics. Among the white-collar crowd, though, one particular gizmo has earned a street nickname all its own: CrackBerry. That's a reference to the RIM BlackBerry, an addictive wireless palmtop that displays your e-mail in real time, as it arrives.

Fans of Star Trek will have the chance to explore the final frontier in a multi-player online game based on the hugely popular TV series.

Google has pushed to expand the reach of its paid listings on content pages and entice more of its search advertisers to try them, as its content listings become more important for the company's growth.

As search engines offer analysis into the performance of marketers' keyword ad campaigns, some search marketers worry Google and Yahoo obtain too much information about advertisers' businesses.

An emerging wireless communications technology called WiMAX, which can blanket entire cities with high-speed Internet connections, will rival DSL and cable as the preferred way to connect homes and businesses to the Internet, Intel Corp. said on Tuesday.

Most experienced web surfers will tell you that the most annoying aspects of life on the internet are pop-up ads and spam.

You won't find Web advertising on mobile devices, at least not yet. But it's coming.

These two worlds are as different as private and neighborhood golf clubs. Recently, I got a cold call from one of those hip "news-meets-soft porn" magazine sites for guys. They were hot to have my cool online music client run cost-per-thousand (CPM) in their trendy publication. Bestowed with such an honor, I immediately offered, "cost-per-action (CPA) only." At that point, it became clearly evident the rep was looking down his nose at me.

Netflix and Tivo ushered in an age of couch-potato bliss. Netflix lets its customers browse through its huge movie catalog on the Web and rent DVDs through the mail without having to worry about late fees. TiVo lets people digitally record their favorite shows and zoom through the ads. But now couch potatoes are perched on the cusp of true paradise. Soon they won't even have to stand up to trudge to the mailbox; fat broadband pipes will let them directly download movies over the Net to their television.

Under assault from the biggest names in telephone and cable networks, Internet-phone-service pioneer Vonage Holdings Corp. is putting its marketing money where its business is: on the Web.