The Internet is supposed to be the most quantifiable medium, but publishers don't keep track of users in a uniform manner, creating discrepancies everywhere. Even video can be hard to track. Different video sites have different definitions for what constitutes a viewing. For instance, each click counts as a view at vSocial, a seller of premium video services to businesses, while at Revver--the video site that shares ad revenue with producers--a view is only counted if a user watches an entire clip and an ad that has to be downloaded at the end. YouTube, the Web's most …

A Brazilian court has ordered the shut down of YouTube in the country after a clip showing Brazilian model Daniela Cicarelli having sex on the beach was distributed across the popular video-sharing site. Cicarelli, an ex-wife of soccer star Ronaldo, has now sued YouTube. The government has responded by complying with her request to shut down the video site until the case, which has dragged on for months according to Reuters, is resolved. For several days, the video was the most viewed in Brazil. Cicarelli seeks $116,000 in damages for each day the clip remains up. A …

Big media has gone to great lengths to keep consumers and Web publishers from violating their copyrights, but now a small group of individuals is attempting to turn the tables. One San Diego resident is suing Apple Computer for unfairly restricting how iTunes customers can use legally purchased music. The iPod maker uses digital rights management software to restrict iTunes songs from playing on other media players (and visa-versa). The plaintiff argues that the company is behaving like an over-aggressive monopoly. A separate lawsuit filed by an Arizona resident against several major record labels also contends that use …

Around this time last year, we were hearing sweeping pronouncements about the imminent demise of big media, but 2006 belonged to the old media firms. As they adjusted, they dipped their toes into new media with smart acquisitions and savvy new strategies. Wall Street responded very favorably, as old media generally posted impressive turnarounds across the board. Disney, News Corp., and Time Warner led the way in 2006, with 44.3%, 34.7% and 26.3% rises respectively. CBS Corp., considered the "old media" arm of the newly split Viacom Corp., rose 22.3%, while the supposedly younger and lighter new Viacom …

Online movie distributor Intertainer Inc. has sued Apple Computer, Google and Napster for "willful and deliberate" patent infringement. Intertainer issued a complaint in federal court in Marshall, Texas, that Apple, the maker of the ubiquitous iPod music player, Google, the world's biggest search engine, and Napster, a distributor of online music, have infringed on its patented technology for distributing digital entertainment over the Internet. The small movie distributor, whose backers include Microsoft and Intel Corp., is requesting an order to halt the companies' digital distribution services as well as cash compensation, claiming irreparable harm. In August 2005 Intertainer received …

This year will be another record-breaker for Web advertising. We're getting used to hearing that, and we're also getting used to hearing Google outperform Wall Street's estimates with more phenomenal search growth. However, there can't be many more years of outrageous search growth, since there are only so many total Web users and searches they can conduct per day. Ad system overhauls notwithstanding, search will inevitably hit a wall one day. And then what? Likewise, Web sites' audiences can only grow so much. There are ways to improve monetizing that traffic and selling remnant inventory. But in …

Apple Computer has done its utmost to shield CEO Steve Jobs from any legal trouble in light of his knowledge and profit from improperly backdated stock option grants, but four other former executives may not get off so lightly. Shareholders filed a suit charging that Apple exercised the option to buy almost 1 million shares of company stock for four executives the day before the computer maker announced a $150 million investment by Microsoft in 1997. The Los Angeles Timesreports that big no-no was common at Apple for years when the computer maker was struggling. Apple conceded as …

Perhaps the biggest hurdle the mobile-marketing business faces is that nearly three-quarters of Americans are annoyed at the thought of receiving marketing messages on their phones. That's according to a new Forrester Research report entitled "Is the U.S. Ready for Mobile Marketing?" Marketers, carriers, tech vendors and phone makers would all say "yes" to that question but consumers, at least 79% according to Forrester, say "no." And just 3% say they trust text ads. "We've grown up with this...ad-equals-interruption mind-set," said Christine Spivey Overby, the Forrester analyst who co-authored the study. Thus, text ads are an area …

Toyota, the Japanese automaker that's currently crushing just about every American competitors, is betting that users of its hybrid model car want to meet each other online. The assumption is that hybrid owners are eco-lovers passionate about curbing U.S. oil consumption. On Toyota's redesigned Web site for hybrid owners, users can create their own pages that include basic information, hybrid color and reasons why they drive hybrid. Wal-Mart once tried this with teenagers, getting them to explain why they loved the fashions at Wal-Mart at personal Web page--and it was a resounding failure. It would be shocking …

Google's efforts to make nice with the media giants whose content is being freely distributed across the Web by YouTube, its new video service, have received a setback. YouTube is failing to complete the anti-piracy software it promised, the first line of defense against piracy on its Web site. The so-called "content identification system" is supposed to track down and prevent unauthorized copyrighted music and video from being uploaded to YouTube. It was supposed to be ready by the end of last year, but the company confirmed that it was not, and was unable to give a date …