Transit officials in New York and San Francisco have launched a copyright crackdown on a website offering free downloadable subway maps designed to be viewed on the iPod. IPodSubwayMaps.com is the home of iPod-sized maps of nearly two dozen different transit systems around the world, from the Paris Metro to the London Underground.

The Microsoft Corporation will unveil today its own system for selling Web advertising as it struggles to compete with Google and Yahoo in the expanding Web search business. The system, to be used by MSN, is meant to improve on those of Microsoft's rivals by allowing marketers to aim ads on Web search pages to users based on their sex, age or location.

Lloyd Braun, the television impresario hired last year to oversee Yahoo's media operation, aims to build the studio of the future.

After reinventing online advertising and shaking up traditional media companies, Google wants to be partners with the giants of Madison Avenue. In the past year, Google has held more than 100 training sessions at agencies, such as Carat's Fusion unit and Foote Cone & Belding's FCBi, to help them better understand the mechanics of search marketing.

Warner Music Group Corp. has signed a licensing deal with Viacom Inc.'s MTV Networks to start offering wireless music-video programming for cell phones and other gadgets in a first-of-its-kind agreement. Under the agreement, MTV will create and distribute videos with Warner artists for cell phones

At one point or another, everyone thinks they have a brilliant advertising idea. The problem is that it's impossible to get that idea to the right ears. Now a new website will act as the middleman between companies looking for fresh ideas and would-be advertisers.

A Chicago-based company is set to launch technology that will compete with Google Desktop Search and its Sidebar customization feature. Watson 2.0, to be launched on Friday by Intellext, is designed to understand the context of the text a computer user is reading or creating and automatically offer relevant news articles, Word documents and other Web- or PC-based information--without the privacy concerns Google's service has raised--and in real time.

The sweeping organizational changes announced by Microsoft Corp. earlier this week mean more than just executive changes and renaming and consolidating divisions. It points to a wholesale shift on the computer giant's business empahsis and brand image -- from software product vendor to software services provider.

Google's mammoth initial public offering has netted its two co-founders an interesting side benefit: an entree into the upper echelons of Forbes magazine's list of the 400 richest Americans. Bill Gates, Microsoft's co-founder and chairman, was the nation's wealthiest person for the 11th straight year with a net worth of $51 billion, followed again by Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO Warren Buffett's $40 billion, according to Forbes, which released its annual rankings yesterday.

Jumpstart Automotive Media will begin selling ad inventory on sites outside its network through a deal with behavioral targeting firm Revenue Science. The agreement should thrill auto marketers, as it has the potential to increase the amount of inventory available to reach in-market car buyers.