The holiday shopping season is a nice reminder that Google doesn't dominate every part of the Web. Aside from a cute name, Froogle, the company's comparison shopping site, is mediocre at best, receiving 60 percent fewer visitors than its chief rivals Yahoo! Shopping, eBay's Shopping.com, and E.W. Scripps' Shopzilla in October, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. The irony is that Froogle is free for retailers--unlike the other shopping engines--so why haven't they lined up to use the service? Analysts say that because Google has so few resources devoted to Froogle, the process of getting listed is cumbersome for retailers. Meanwhile, Yahoo! Shopping, …

Nearly 40 percent of the buyers and planners polled by Media Life said they are not optimistic about media spending next year, based on their dealings with clients and what they see as a likely economic downturn. An equally high number of respondents said they don't have any idea how 2006 will pan out, while less than one quarter of respondents were of a different mind completely, saying next year will be a better one. Nevertheless, Internet spending is expected to grow 20 to 25 percent next year; 44 percent of respondents said newspapers are most vulnerable to a budget …

On Thursday, everyone on America Online's Instant Messenger service received two new friends they didn't ask for: a ShoppingBuddy and a Moviefone bot, automated programs that send preprogrammed responses to queries about shopping and movies. The services, which might actually be helpful, fired up many AIM users who complained on blogs and message boards that the move was "uncool" and "intrusive." Said one angry customer: "I don't need some 'shopping buddy' to automatically add themselves and promote buying over their network. Someone missed the ethics boat on this one." AOL reps admitted that response to the bots have been mixed, …

In yet another sign of television content migration to Internet-enabled devices, Microsoft and CableLabs, an industry research group that sets standards for cable TV, data, and phone services, said they are bringing high-definition cable programs to computers and video game consoles. The companies are developing PCs that accept digital cable cards, which are devices that effectively perform the same function as a set-top box. The cards will also be compatible with portable devices and game consoles like the XBox 360. Cable cards today can only be used with digital television sets that have slots built into them. Microsoft said the …

Yahoo! has beat out Google and Microsoft to hire Andrei Broder as vice president of emerging search technology. Broder was formerly the chief scientist for AltaVista from 1999 to 2002, before leaving to be chief technology officer for search and text analysis at IBM Research. High-level search executives are a rare breed, so it turned out to be a particularly tight race amongst the major search companies to hire Broder. Yahoo!'s new recruit says he chose the company because of its ability to utilize both content and user information in improving search.

In a rare hand-holding move, the major television networks have come together to tell the world that they really like digital video recorders--you know, those devices everyone says will ultimately kill the 30-second TV commercial. Far from undermining the commercial value of broadcast television, DVRs are a positive for the TV industry because they boost audiences, CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, the WB, and UPN said, as reported by Cnet. American homes with DVRs (about 8 percent) watch 5.7 hours of TV versus homes without DVRs, who watch 5.1 hours. However, this is not to say that DVRs boost advertisers' audiences, …

As expected, nothing came of the U.N. Summit where several countries challenged the U.S.' control of the domain name system. Under an agreement reached yesterday, ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a California-based nonprofit, will continue to oversee D.N.S, the system that registers domain names and directs Internet traffic. Said U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan: "Day-to-day running of the Internet must be left to technical institutions, not least to shield it from the heat of day to day politics." But not everyone was happy with the decision. Germany's deputy economics minister said the U.S. has won the …

Sony Corp. has entered the voice-over-Internet-protocol (VoIP) race, adding a neat little twist--videoconferencing. The company calls its new service Instant Video Everywhere, or IVE, and like Skype, computer to computer calls will be free, but computer to wire-line phones will carry charges. Sony is offering a premium package for $9.95 a month that lets users call and receive calls from analog phones and cell phones. The videoconferencing feature will be available for download but will also be packaged with Sony's new line of Vaio BX laptops, which come with built-in video cameras. Eventually, Sony hopes to bring videoconferencing to cell …

The Yankee Group, a technology research firm, has been scooped up by private equity group Alta Communications and Emily Green, a former employee of Cambridge Energy Research and rival tech research firm Forrester. Green was named Yankee Group CEO. This is Yankee's fourth owner in a decade, after being owned by Decision Matrix for the previous 18 months, and Reuters Group before that. The technology consulting business is a tough one, because these firms often give much of their research and analyst insight away to the press. Following the dot-bomb implosion, many of these consultancies no longer have customers willing …

Executives at the San Jose TechNet Innovation Summit say the online re-revolution is just beginning (again), once even faster Internet access is made available in the United States and other countries. "Web 2.0 is broadband. Web 3.0 is 10 gigabits a second," Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said at the show (broadband is 2-3 gigabits per second). Crucially, for companies like eBay, the Internet has evolved into a communications service that allows buyers and sellers to conduct business more cheaply and quickly, without the inefficiencies of the supply chain.