From the wonderful world of bizarre consumer studies: the American Consumer Satisfaction Index says consumers aren't as satisfied as they used to be with the Web's biggest companies--and Yahoo's rating has taken the biggest plunge since last year. Even the almighty Google saw its user satisfaction decline, compared with 2005's ratings. Still, the Mountain View, Calif. media and search outfit is still tops among Web portals--with 81 out of 100 possible satisfaction points, according to the study, compared with 82 last year. Yahoo lost five points since 2005, and now has 76; MSN now has 74 instead of 75; and …

In Washington, a CPA represents the newest measure of lobbying power. No--not that kind of CPA, but rather, cost-per-advocate, which is now the standard measure of trade groups hunting for legislative supporters. The average CPA is roughly $5, and it represents the amount the Moveon.orgs of the world have to pay to recruit a new back-home volunteer. You can depend on these people to send emails, make phone calls, or even make a house call to their Congressperson's home. These little budding networks of outside-the-Beltway lobbyists have been a longtime staple of the practice, but the Web now makes recruitment …

It's hard to ignore Secondlife.com, that amazing virtual world where retailers, marketers, artists and entrepreneurs are clamoring to sell their products and services to more than 400,000 active participants. Like real life, Second Life is free after downloading the software, which provides users with tools for their online personas, or avatars. Recording artists, in particular, are taking advantage of the site's loyal user base to host virtual concerts in virtual outdoor stadiums. Suzanne Vega is the latest real world artist to make the virtual crossover. Her youthful-looking avatar, with short hair and bangs, appeared on stage and sang before 100 …

News Corp.'s MySpace has struck another savvy deal with a technology vendor. Level 3 Communications, a fiber network operator, has signed a multi-year agreement with Fox Interactive Media to transmit Internet content, including video, to MySpace. It's unclear whether the deal also covers Fox's other Web media sites, like Rottentomatoes.com and IGN.com. Level 3 offers Internet capacity in 82 markets; its fiber-optic cable network allows Web sites to transmit more data more quickly. "We selected Level 3 because of the proven performance of its network, and Level 3's ability to support increasing high bandwidth demand," Aber Whitcomb, CTO of MySpace, …

Don't you hate it when you find out you paid $600 for your flight to San Francisco while someone else paid $300? What about the guy who paid $1,000 for the same flight? This is the world of airline ticket pricing, and it's frustrating. Some new travel sites promise to shed light on this bizarre process to help consumers figure out when it's best to buy. "I once spent six hours combing through different Web sites," says Robert Metcalf, who created flyspy, a travel site that uses fare data from Northwest Airlines. "I ended up compiling all the data I …

AOL has raised $20 million in sponsorship revenue prior to the launch of its new online reality show Gold Rush. Its sponsors thus far include Best Buy, Chevrolet, Coca-Cola Zero, T-Mobile and Washington Mutual. Product placements and brand integration are at the core of these deals. The Mark Burnett-produced show involves groups of contestants competing for cash and gold valued at more than $2 million. As part of their agreement, each sponsor will run an ad campaign across AOL's network of sites. The ad packages, which are still being designed, may also include spots within the show's video content. The …

It's all about AOL today. The company, which has a growing and some might say unsettling image as a PR disaster, is being publicly called out by Web Diggers (as in those who dig Digg.com) for "spamming" their beloved site. Digg.com, for those who don't know, is a site where users tag (or Digg) articles across a variety of categories, so users can see the most popular links of the day, week, or month in a given category. For example, this author peruses Digg.com for the most popular stories in the "technology" category every day; that's how he found this …

Online retailers are moving into new territory: ad sales. Just last week Amazon.com, the Web's largest retailer, quietly rolled out display ads on its home page, selling ads to companies like Ford Motor Co. and Fidelity Investments. A month ago, Home Depot announced it would run ads on its site. Wal-Mart has been selling space on its main page for some time. On it, you can find ads for everything from Motorola cell phones to Kleenex tissues. Frankly, it's a smart way for retailers to exploit their heavy traffic. That traffic, coupled with the fact that most retail-site visitors are …

CNN's Paul R. La Monica worries that big media companies like CNN parent Time Warner will repeat the mistakes made at the beginning of the new century in the latest new-media land grab. Following News Corp.'s successful purchase of Intermix Media, owner of MySpace, everyone seems to want a social network. The problem, however, is that the price of social networks has skyrocketed after that acquisition. Plus, the others don't have anything approaching the usage or member-base of MySpace. Facebook, for example, recently turned down a $750 million buyout offer after management requested $2 billion; British social network Bebo.com recently …

Google thinks using its name as a verb is detrimental to the brand. They want "I googled you" to stop. A company rep says it's important to distinguish between using the word "Google" to describe a Google Internet search and using the word "google" to generally describe searching the Internet. "It has some serious trademark issues," the rep added. Linguists who spoke with CNET say they understand. "The prestige associated with a trademark is lost if people use it generically, so I do see Google's point," says Julie Coleman, a linguist from the University of Leicester in England. "They also …