Yahoo! has pulled out of the race for a stake in Time Warner's America Online, the Wall Street Journal reports, leaving Google and Microsoft to fight over a piece of the Web portal. Always the least likely of the big three to make the buy, Yahoo! said it approached Time Warner Chief Dick Parsons in late October but decided to pass once he laid out the terms of the deal. According to a few anonymous tips, Google and Microsoft are neck and neck in the discussions; Time Warner is expected to select its new partner as early as next week. …

Unlike most small to mid-size online publishers, a panel of bloggers speaking at the Ad:Tech conference in New York said they're very picky about the ads they'll accept. Nick Denton, head of Gawker Media, publisher of several tech and media gossip sites, said he would reject an approach by Wal-Mart and other big brands that wanted to buy advertising on his site, because it doesn't fit with Gawker's hipster image. Other brands like Sony and Nike apparently do, as Gawker Media has run ads from those brands before. In fact, Gawker and other blogs actually encourage feedback from their readers …

TheDeal.com published a rant yesterday telling traditional media moguls to get over their control issues with respect to consumers and employees. The editorial says the ages-old top-down process of decision making is too slow and lumbering for a big corporation to stay apace with companies like Google and Yahoo! New efforts to buy into new media--such as News Corp's recent spate of online company acquisitions--are short-sighted and desperate. For those old media companies able to transition to a wired world, there is an irony: the media mogul at the top will have had to cede his heavy-handed, top-down power in …

Friendster has been making enemies recently. According to a Cnet report, the social networking site sent out an e-mail blast to people who did not respond to a Friendster invite a year or more ago, asking them again to join but implying that the e-mails were coming from friends, when in fact, they came from the company. It is an irony indeed when a social networking site built on the premise of community and word of mouth compromises its own brand equity by pulling an amateur stunt like this. However, the underhanded move, which is not sitting well with bloggers …

Fraudsters will take $2.8 billion from large to midsize online retailers this year, according to a new survey. The overall rate of fraud loss stands at 1.6 percent of revenue, says the survey from Mindwave Research. Retailers selling between $5 million and $25 million in goods saw losses rise to 1.8 percent from 1.5 percent last year. Those selling more than $25 million saw losses increase to 1.2 percent from 1.1 percent. Smaller retailers selling less than $5 million in goods saw their fraud rates decline from 2.1 percent last year to 1.6 percent. JupiterResearch expects online sales this year …

The New York Times' TimesSelect program appears to be bearing fruit. According to Mediaweek, 135,000 people have now subscribed to the program, which already adds up to nearly $6.8 million for the company. In September, the Times began charging consumers $49.95 per year for access to its daily Op-Ed columns, which also includes access to its extensive archives, in an attempt to monetize the site's considerable reader base. The maneuver to charge for premium content initially drew criticism from consumers and pundits alike, but according to the company, 90 percent of those who signed up for the free 14-day trial …

The Wall Street Journal today has an interesting article about the meticulous and tedious task of scanning library books for digitization. Scanners literally pluck one book at a time from library shelves, bring them to the six-foot tall, five-foot wide machine, placing the book on a V-shaped tray with two digital cameras looming over the right and left side. Once the picture is taken, the human scanner makes the necessary adjustments and then turns the page. This is part of a huge effort by the Internet Archive to digitize the world's books. The nonprofit has received funds from Microsoft, Yahoo!, …

An Ad:Tech panel Tuesday said that privacy has become a major watchword once again for Internet advertising companies as search providers rely more heavily on personal data to deliver relevant ads to users. Two biggies in particular, Microsoft's AdCenter and Yahoo! Search, have the ability to combine keyword data and user demographic information collected from registration data, which could be problematic if search providers start displaying ads that indicate knowledge of a consumer's personal buying history. One panelist pointed out that consumers are fine receiving car ads when they're in-market, for example, but search guru John Battelle noted that privacy …

Hollywood Reporter columnist Diane Mermigas points out that the focus on creating quality content has taken a backseat to the push to connect absolutely every device in the world via the Internet. Nearly every major media company in the world is focused on the "take-anything-anywhere explosion," as she calls it, rather than on creating content for specific devices, which vary greatly in terms of interface and what they are capable of technologically. The major companies involved in this great race, she says, must work together to be relevant and competitive in the broadband revolution. While Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo! are …

Yahoo! is reportedly testing Ingenio's pay-per-call service on Yahoo! Local according to a report from SearchEngineJournal, which cites a post in a Search Engine Watch forum. Apparently, the member who leaked the information received verbal confirmation from Yahoo! that it was indeed testing Ingenio's pay per call service. Ingenio already provides the service to America Online. Many in the local search industry believe pay-per-call could open up the local search market to small businesses, which may find it easier to understand than other paid search options. Pay-per-call listings work like paid search listings with custom phone numbers on them; advertisers …