Yahoo has been busying itself with trying to attract more advertising dollars. To recap, the Web giant is revamping its search advertising system, (codenamed "Project Panama"), last week it entered into a display advertising partnership with eBay, yesterday it unveiled changes to Yahoo Video, and now the Web portal is said to be eyeing social networking. Yet despite these changes, which certainly seem to be for the better, Yahoo's share price is down 19 percent this year. The Wall Street Journal takes a look at different investment firms' bull and bear perspectives for the Web giant's stock price. Piper Jaffray …

EBay's Chief Executive Meg Whitman let fly with a national e-mail blast urging its vast customer base to contact their local politicians in support of a net neutrality law, Cnet reports. "The telephone and cable companies in control of Internet access are trying to use their enormous political muscle to dramatically change the Internet," she wrote. "It might be hard to believe, but lawmakers in Washington are seriously debating whether consumers should be free to use the Internet as they want in the future." EBay has never before used its list for political ends, and you might wonder whether the …

For the first time, World Cup matches will be broadcast simultaneously on the Web as well as on television in Britain. The service, being offered by the BBC to UK broadband subscribers, will mirror terrestrial coverage, using the same commentary and camera work, and includes an additional four-minute highlight package from every game that will be available on demand. The BBC has broadcast soccer on the Web before, but nothing to the magnitude of the World Cup. Bandwidth could be a big problem, especially as billions of consumers around the World will be working when games are broadcast live, which …

Google atypically held a conference call with analysts this week in which it discussed efforts to move into display or "branded" advertising--the longtime territory of Yahoo, Inc. The search giant turned Web portal (sort of) said it hoped to launch experiments in display over the next year. Eric Schmidt, the company's CEO, said Google is looking to integrate the targeting and measurement components of its search advertising system, for display and video, which is "likely to take considerable time to develop," the Financial Times said. During the call, Schmidt said the company is not considering acquisitions as a way to …

If Hollywood is suddenly so enamored with making its products available on the Web, why are five of the industry's biggest studios looking to get out of the digital download business? Business Week has learned that Movielink, the movie-download site jointly owned by Paramount, Sony, Universal, Warner Bros. and MGM, has been on the block for months now. The site, which has been around since 2002, isn't drawing significant traffic or downloads--about 75,000 per month according to a video research firm--and now the studios want out. Last year, Movielink's board barely rejected an offer from Blockbuster for about $70 million--presumably …

InterActive Corp.'s Ask.com is integrating blog and RSS feed results from its Bloglines service into its search engine, Information Week reports. The search site is adding "Blogs" and "Feeds" tabs to its search tools menu, and is also putting relevant results from these categories into its regular search results. Why is this cool? Because consumers want relevant information--it doesn't matter whether that comes from a blog, an RSS feed, a respected news publication or a MySpace page. Personally, I don't want to have to go between Google, Technorati and social networks to find the information I want. Ask.com execs are …

In an effort to attract more users to its video service, Yahoo is copying YouTube, the Internet video start-up that continues to grow by leaps and bounds since it launched last year. Like YouTube, Yahoo will now store homemade videos on its own site, separating them into different categories like "most-watched" and letting users browse and rate the clips they see. Up until now, Yahoo Video has focused on indexing clips available on other Web sites. The Associated Press says this is clearly an attempt by the Sunnyvale, Calif. giant to chip away at YouTube's early lead, but questions arise …

Macromedia founder and current Brightcove CEO Jeremy Allaire said pre-roll video commercials and online video banners are becoming "trivial," according to Ad Age. Hmm, they may very well become trivial one day, as online video advertising becomes more exciting, but for now, these formats account for a huge and growing chunk of rich media spending. Speaking at New York's Streaming Media East conference last week, Allaire, whose company distributes online video programming and sells formats like pre-rolls and banners, told the audience that online video would quickly move into a "realm of very unique formats and sponsorship opportunities." What does …

Sony launched an online music store two years ago, and if that's news to you, you're probably not alone. In the two years since Sony hired Sheryl Crow to announce its online music store on a jet at 30,000 feet (I know, I don't recall hearing about this either), Sony Connect has cornered less than 3 percent of the digital music market. Phil Wiser, the Sony executive in charge of this massive failure to launch, is now expected to leave Sony Connect at the end of the week--but this could be a good thing. As everybody knows, once upon a …

Vonage Holdings Corp., the Internet telephony company whose shares have plummeted since its IPO last week, has responded to yesterday's Wall Street Journal story, claiming it will pursue legal action against customers who promised to buy shares that don't come good on their pledges. Yesterday, the Journal reported that Vonage, through its SEC filings, decided to take on the risk of a customer IPO share purchases itself, meaning the VoIP firm--not its underwriters--will be solely responsible for collecting funds from customers who default on their promise to buy shares at the initial share offering price of $17. The move to …