According to new JupiterResearch, advertisers will almost double their use of behavioral targeting in the next year. Currently, about 13 percent of advertisers use behavioral targeting in their campaigns, but a Jupiter survey says that 25 percent plan to deploy the marketing tactic this year. This begs the question: is behavioral targeting still in the early-adopter phase? It would seem so, especially given the high satisfaction rate among advertisers that have done business with BT firms such as Tacoda, Revenue Science, BlueLithium, and Tribal Fusion. Eighty-eight percent of agencies that used behavioral targeting as part of a campaign were "very …

The Recording Industry Association of America certainly knows how not to make friends. Project Opus reports that the organization responsible for suing scores of unsuspecting teenagers for illegally downloading music from Internet file-sharing sites is now lashing out at harmless YouTube users for posting video of themselves lip-syncing to copyrighted music on the homemade video-sharing site. In other words, when there may be money to be made, and technology isn't allowing that to happen, you can expect that someone's going to receive a court order from the RIAA. And it's not just YouTube--these music videos are popping up on Google …

Google Chief Eric Schmidt responded to criticism that Google's forthcoming payment service, dubbed "GBuy," resembles eBay's PayPal, the Web's most popular online payment service. When asked about GBuy at a recent conference, Schmidt denied its similarity to PayPal, saying: "It makes no sense for us to go into businesses that are occupied by existing leaders...We want to solve new problems in the payments space." Schmidt confirmed the service--which had been discussed in an investment analyst's research note but not officially announced or even given a name--but offered no details, Reuters said. Interestingly, the report claims that Schmidt said the system …

Google's got a secret HQ? The New York Times says the not-so-hidden complex sitting on the Columbia River is the laboratory for Google's next secret weapon. From above, it looks a big factory or a nuclear plant, and it isn't situated in a particularly desirable area, either. That's barren desert land out there, on either side of the Columbia at the Oregon-Washington border--the Times calls it "the intersection of cheap electricity and readily accessible data networking"--but it's also ground zero for Google's war with Microsoft for dominance of the Internet. The other guys (Yahoo and Microsoft) are building tech fortresses …

Do big media productions matter in the online world? Marketwatch's Bambi Francisco says no. If you go to Google Video and look at the 100 most popular clips, the majority aren't made by professionals. Video-sharing sites abound on the Web: YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo Video, AOL's UnCut Video, etc. Of all the sharing sites out there, you'd expect Google and Yahoo to be the right platforms for big brands, but aside from a few high-profile distribution deals, including CBS, Google Video and others are mostly full of small-time clips. Why? Consumers don't want to pay to watch TV. They'll pay …

What happens when you combine online maps with a collection of photos and a set of real estate listings? You get a real estate Web site, perhaps. And you could set up one of these so-called "mash-ups" in about an hour. They're called "mash-ups" because they let you "mash" together map data from Google and Microsoft with just about anything you want. At a recent Web 2.0 conference, Forbes.com reports, you could find scores of entrepreneurs who wanted to do things like attach longitude and latitude coordinates to digital photos or give every street address in the world a Web …

eBay is finally taking steps toward integrating Skype into its e-commerce sites. The world will be interested, because the Skype acquisition was one of the most curious moves in the M&A market last year. Skype was always an undoubtedly promising target--but one that most observers felt was more suited to a telecom company or Web portal. The online auctioneer bought Skype for an expensive $4.1 billion; many thought eBay wanted to make it easier for buyers and sellers to communicate, removing the communications issues that sometimes prevent deals from closing. Nearly a year later, the oddness of the Skype deal …

The entertainment industry is no longer fighting the losing battle of global piracy alone: the U.S. government is now said to be joining forces to stop the proliferation of ripped-off content distributed on the Web for free. And what, exactly, is the U.S. government going to do? Urge foreign governments to crack down on piracy, or they "risk incurring trade barriers," the Washington Post says. Last year, efforts to crack down on piracy in Sweden worked out; Sweden changed its laws, made it a crime to swap copyrighted content, and Swedish authorities were able to shut down several illegal file-sharing …

The Financial Times says Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation are on the hunt for a technology company that could help it place ads in its Internet properties. Peter Chernin, News Corp.'s chief operating officer, confirmed the company's interest in an advertising technology, saying the company needed to find a better way to monetize its incredible online traffic. MySpace has shot up like a weed since the company acquired parent Intermix Media last year--growing from 30 some-odd million users to 75 million. Chernin also said that News Corp. was looking into a possible search advertising partnership; he suggested a search contract …

Google has sidestepped suggestions that its moves into graphical display advertising have been disappointing. "I think it's fair to say we have basically just started," said Sheryl Sandberg, Google's vice president of global online sales. Like most everything else Google produces, its display ads program remains in beta testing. It seems as though there are dozens of Google products in beta; one wonders if the company plans to finish any of them. Recently, Google unveiled "click to play" video advertising last month. Sandberg, speaking at an investors meeting, declined to specify whether Google was planning to move into other traditional …