As amazing as paid search has been -- and just pull up the numbers that Google and Yahoo! have been posting lately -- you don't really hear too much about the flip side of the equation. After all, if websites everywhere are taking to contextual ad blocks, doesn't logic suggest that graphic banner ads and affiliate marketing are being pushed off the page?

The final chapter of the Star Wars saga has gone over to the Internet's dark side. "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" has been leaked onto a major file-sharing network just hours after opening in theaters, at a time when Hollywood is increasingly concerned about online piracy.

We've written before about how search engines want to tap into local markets and include those small businesses that aren't even online in search results. It's a big challenge I recently saw illustrated firsthand.

Yahoo late Tuesday will introduce a test version of its instant-messaging software that promotes VoIP and the company's new social network. Yahoo, whose No. 2 instant-chat service, Yahoo Messenger, has an estimated 65 million users, will offer a free update during the software's test phase. In addition to letting people send standard instant text messages, the new version is designed to make it easy to call friends free via computer, send a short text message to a mobile device, share photos and post content to a personal Web log.

Google Inc. late on Tuesday released a desktop search product for businesses with the aim of helping workers more quickly find information on the Web, in their computer hard drives and e-mail inboxes, as well as on corporate intranets.

In the absence of radio play, garage bands all across America are establishing a presence on MySpace, a social-networking site popular with young adults. According to MySpace, more than 240,000 artists of every kind -- from unsigned amateurs to international rock stars -- are using MySpace as a way to market themselves and build a fan base.

The New York Times Co.'s decision to charge for online access to Op-Ed and news columnists should not be seen as a first step toward placing even more articles behind a subscription wall, a Times executive said Tuesday.

Napster Inc. does not plan to cut the price of its online music subscription service despite new competition from Yahoo Inc., Chief Executive Chris Gorog said on Monday.

In a modern twist on the hot rodders of old, Firefox users are pimping the web, one browser at a time. They've added a delete button and permanent search folders to Gmail, made their browsers show only print pages of online news stories, reconfigured all the content on a popular music website and removed Reuters stories on the Michael Jackson story from online newsreader Bloglines.

A new variant of the Sober spam worm is being blamed for the deluge of German spam messages carrying right-wing or neo-Nazi messages flooding in-boxes around the world this week. Once the attachment is opened, the worm uses its own e-mail engine to send itself to addresses harvested from the infected computer.