Hollywood Reporter columnist Diane Mermigas postulates that Bill Gates' recent proposal that Microsoft share a piece of its ad revenue with consumers in order to draw more search traffic could have implications for all media--not just Internet search. She says such a move could accelerate the Internet gold rush, thereby affecting ad spending on other media. Under the proposal laid out by Gates at a gathering in India last week, the incentive for consumers to use MSN Search would be something like sweepstakes, free content, free content, or even cash rewards. Meanwhile, Mermigas wonders how this might affect the ongoing …

Howard Stern is over-hyped, said an analyst at Bank of America, who downgraded the company's rating for Sirius Satellite Radio from neutral to a sell. Analyst Jonathan Jacoby said the stock has gotten ahead of itself amidst all the hype surrounding Stern's move to Sirius, which occurs in five days. In a note, Jacoby said that field checks show that Sirius isn't poised for the "blowout" subscriber growth it expected this quarter in anticipation of Stern's move, something the current stock price discounts. Further, he adds that the Stern show's 18 percent ratings nosedive this summer shows that the impact …

Following Steve Case's formal coming out this weekend as Carl Icahn's newest and most powerful supporter in his crusade against the Time Warner board, Icahn has demanded that the media giant's board give a detailed explanation why it rejected the proposal led by Case and others to split the company. Icahn says that investors deserve the right to know "what level of debate actually occurred at the board [and] what type of analysis was conducted." Icahn and his band of dissident shareholders have hired the investment bank Lazard, headed by Bruce Wasserstein, to determine whether Time Warner should be split …

Analysts say online retailers should be "pleasantly surprised" with the turnout this holiday shopping season, according to the Associated Press, and with three days to go before the end of guaranteed free shipping by Christmas, many online retailers are now stepping up their promotions. Because of high oil prices, many retailers began the holiday push several weeks before Thanksgiving weekend this year, and it looks as though the jump start has paid off. As retailers enter the final stretch, consumers should be on the watch for two-for-one deals, one-day-only sales, and other promotions all over the Web. For the 39-day …

Of the new TV shows this season, NBC's "My Name is Earl" and Fox's "Prison Break" are receiving the most buzz, according to Brandimensions, a research firm specializing in online word of mouth. For the study, Brandimensions used its crawling technology to gather written comments from Internet chat rooms, message boards, and blogs in order to determine which new shows received the best and worst buzz from online consumers. The results found that "Earl" received the best buzz, followed by Fox's "Prison Break," and a string of new CBS shows: ""How I Met Your Mother," "Ghost Whisperer," and "Threshold." The …

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services gives a grim outlook for the media and entertainment industry in 2006, calling traditional advertising an area of slowing momentum after a sub-par revenue performance in 2005. Since September, the stock ratings company has downgraded its 2005 outlook to 4 percent from 4.7 percent growth, citing Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and high oil prices, and predicts just 5 percent overall growth in 2006. This pegs ad spending growth at about 1 percent higher than expected GDP growth. Major concerns in 2006 come from automakers and the retail sector, and from an expected downturn in consumer …

In an attempt to attract more search traffic and more ad dollars, Microsoft is exploring the possibility of compensating users of its search engine. Last week, Chairman Bill Gates said Microsoft would dole out rewards in the form of cash, free content or software in order to lure more users to MSN Search, which was a distant third to Google and Yahoo! in the latest Nielsen/NetRatings search poll. The idea, of course, is that more users mean more advertisers, but paying off consumers to use a search engine could create all sorts of problems, such as clicking on ads with …

Because of its unusually rapid growth, Google, Inc. has been granted a waiver that will allow it to be included in the Nasdaq 100 after being publicly traded for only a year and a half. Normally the waiting period is two years. Google, which is currently worth about $121 billion, will lead a number of new Internet tech stocks that are to be added to the index on Dec. 19., when the Nasdaq 100 will be reconstituted. The index is made up of the largest and most liquid nonfinancial stocks traded on the Nasdaq. Other new entrants include Exepdia, Monster, …

TiVo, the Video iPod, and mobile phone TV present the next big challenges to television research and ratings giant Nielsen Media Research. To be sure, the game is changing for Nielsen, who for years has been rating television programs by giving a representative panel of U.S. consumers a diary to keep track of their TV viewing habits. But now companies like TiVo, a purveyor of digital video recording services, can provide exact usage numbers to TV networks and advertisers--calling into question the quality of panel data in an age of real-time data reporting. That said, Nielsen is expanding its tools …

Philadelphia , San Francisco, and New Orleans are all confirmed to offer municipal Wi-Fi to consumers in their respective metropolitan areas, and New York City lawmakers are now reportedly taking a look at municipal broadband in their city, too. However, connecting New York is a much more complex challenge, primarily because it's a much bigger city than the other three. According to Cnet, the New York project can't really be called a project yet, because the city is still trying to get a commission together to look at the issue. A state bill is currently being revised that would create …