A new worm and a phishing scam are targeting members of the America Online and Yahoo instant messaging networks, security companies warned Tuesday. In both cases, people receive an instant message with an apparent reference to the newly released "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith" movie, encouraging them to click on a link, said Jon Sakoda, chief technology officer at IMLogic, an instant messaging security company.

These days, the hype about blogs is off the charts. And you know what that usually means: Run for cover, because a bubble is going to burst and make a big mess.

Reuters Group PLC, the news and financial data provider, said Wednesday that it has appointed Dean Wright, the editor-in-chief of MSNBC.com, to head its digital media business. Reuters said Wright will take up the new post of senior vice president and managing editor for consumer services in New York, where he will lead the editorial operations and programming for the company's consumer media services, including the online, mobile, and interactive television platforms.

A Web site touting Paris Hilton's racy television spot for burger chain Carl's Jr. crashed for four hours as Internet surfers raced to see the seductive swimsuit-clad socialite doused in suds. The 30-second commercial, which features the hotel heiress washing a Bentley and chomping on Carl's Jr.'s Spicy BBQ Burger in a stringy black swimsuit, has generated media attention since hitting the TV airwaves last Thursday.

First they reinvented the browser, now they're rewriting the rules of advertising -- Firefox's guerilla marketing has gone straight to video, and it's taking over the web. The collaboratively-written application has now celebrated over 50 million downloads, primarily by word of mouth advertising.

Bill Gates used his appearance at an industry conference here Monday to offer Microsoft's response to Google's latest online offerings, incorporating satellite imagery into location-based search results and introducing a new customizable MSN "start" page.

If eBay wanted to do something radical, it would become the exchange for advertisements. EBay is already an exchange where buyers and sellers meet to trade stuff -- from Pez dispensers, cars to homes. Imagine if it became a marketplace platform where ad buyers and ad sellers transacted business. Think of the cut that eBay would get! Alas, Google is already well on its way to becoming such an exchange.

Odeo co-founder Evan Williams wants his startup to be a one-stop shop, from easily finding podcasts to creating them and selling ads for them.

Four journalists who brought news of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy into U.S. living rooms in 1963 have found a new level of fame by using the Internet to market their book about the experience. They are among a growing group of people exploring the potential of blogs, or Web logs, as a marketing tool and advertising venue.

Whiz kid inventor Bram Cohen and a small cadre of developers and entrepreneurs are in the final stage of launching an advertising-supported search engine dedicated to cataloging and indexing the thousands of movies, music tracks, software programs and other files for download over Cohen's popular BitTorrent protocol. The free search tool will be the first large-scale commercial offering from BitTorrent, a five-person company headed by Cohen that so far has drawn most of its revenue from T-shirt sales and PayPal donations.