Google is testing interspersing alternate listings that appear to be commercial in nature into its natural, or organic, search results. A recent search for "on demand," for example, returned an area delineated off from natural results, occupying the above-the-fold sixth through eighth positions in the organic results area of the page. Within the clearly demarcated but unlabeled space were three listings for Comcast services.

Celebrities go for their own clothing lines, perfumes, energy drinks and even iPods. Now, they're doing their own cellphone services. A new generation of wireless providers - so-called mobile virtual network operators - are looking to partner with celebs, luxury brands and big names to do just that. These providers, dubbed MVNOs for short, allow brands and individuals to market their own "private label" services without having to go through the trouble and expense of building a network.

A new marketing application from Kraft is leveraging the iPod phenomenon in a way that goes beyond podcasting. Owners of the ubiquitous device who download the company's "Greatest Hits of Summer" widget can carry a library of over 100 Kraft-inspired recipes with them wherever they go. The download, promoted at kraftfoods.com, offers grilling ideas, desserts, and additional recipes featuring Kraft ingredients. Users can browse recipes using the iPod's scroll wheel and look up ingredients while at the grocery store.

Students at Empire High School here started class this year with no textbooks - but it wasn't because of a funding crisis. Instead, the school issued iBooks - laptop computers by Apple Computer Inc. - to each of its 340 students, becoming one of the first U.S. public schools to shun printed textbooks. School officials believe the electronic materials will get students more engaged in learning. Empire High, which opened for the first time this year, was designed specifically to have a textbook-free environment.

Google has launched a blog explaining the ins and outs of its AdSense program to publishers. The outreach effort comes as Google faces its first direct competition from another mass-reach contextual ad network, Yahoo!'s Publisher Network (YPN), along with pressure from many publishers to make AdSense's workings more transparent.

Although there's no way to know what percentage of clicks on keyword ads on search engines are fraudulent, estimates range from single digits -- that's what the search engines say -- to 20 percent to as much as 35 percent. Click fraud could even threaten the paid search industry's entire business model. At least that's what George Reyes, Google's chief financial officer, said last year in widely publicized remarks.

Internet search company Google Inc. on Thursday filed with regulators to sell up to 14.16 million shares of class A common stock, which would be worth $4.04 billion based on last night's closing prices. Its shares fell as much as 4 percent in preopening trade on Inet after it announced the news.

It's debatable how big a deal any specific news event is compared to all the other human mayhem that occurs each day. Journalists, editors, historians and the guy at the end of the bar could probably never agree. A news mapping service introduced on Thursday by Akamai Technologies Inc. promises to give unprecedented insight into the relative hunger that millions of Internet users have to learn of breaking events minute-by-minute.

Most people aren't likely to be happy summer is quickly drawing to a close -- unless they work in media buying. We're just one short month away from TV's fall season premieres. That's exciting news for offline and online marketers alike. Why should Internet media buyers get excited about a new season of TV programming? Cross-media advertising's popularity makes TV programming rampant with interactive marketing possibilities. The companies behind some of today's hottest shows increasingly turn to online promotion. For at least one such organization, IM is one of the main attractions.

Feedster is floating a new top 500 list of blogs, ranked according to their accumulation of inbound links. Media buyers say they're watching the list, but they disagree on its value as a consideration tool for ad placements in blogs. The "Feedster 500," which challenges the long-standing Technorati 100 list and claims to contain "the most interesting and important blogs," will no doubt stroke the egos of many bloggers who appear on it.