Online auctioneer eBay has struck a deal with Time Warner Cable to let cable customers make Internet bids through their televisions. Time Warner Cable digital subscribers in the Austin, Texas, area will take part in a one-year test of new technology designed to make cable TV more Internet-like.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, on Thursday said it was closing its online DVD rental business and would direct customers to Netflix Inc., the company that pioneered online rentals.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Why are activists such great marketers? We "real" marketers have billions of dollars. They have pennies. Yet activists always seem to get the sky-high return on investment (ROI) when trying to get a message across. Every time an activist trumps, co-ops, or outmaneuvers the "system," I get a weird, insecure feeling, as if I were a marketing phony.

Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons said he'd consider spinning off AOL as a separate stock if the division's latest strategy doesn't pan out, according to the latest issue of Fortune magazine.

Consumers in New York and Michigan are free to have wine from out-of-state wineries shipped directly to them thanks to yesterday's 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn laws in those states.