As it expands into new ad mediums, including radio, print and TV, Google is no longer enjoying the favorable opinion of many brand advertisers. They feel its approach to ad-serving is actually more limiting than expansive. "If I've got a brand campaign and a tenth of the campaign is running through Google, in my mind it takes away the advertising efficiencies," Jeff Marshall, managing director and vice president of media agency Starcom IP. But Google doesn't control display, a world that includes a growing multitude of significant players. In the end, its closed-off stance hurts the …

Apple's iPod and iTunes Music Store dominate in Europe, but a series of new developments here are aimed at breaking up what's rapidly turning into a monopoly. Earlier today, Norway's ombudsman of consumer products concluded that iTunes breaks its consumer-protection laws because it doesn't allow downloaded songs to be played on music devices other than its iPod. The Ombudsman set an Oct. 1 deadline for Apple to take away its DRM codes and make the iPod available to other music files. If it doesn't, Apple will be taken to court, fined, and eventually forced to shut down operations in …

What does it mean if Google buys the video and online gaming ad-server Adscape? That Google is gearing up for the future. Many gaming analysts believe "World of Warcraft," with 10 million monthly subscribers worldwide, sets a precedent for the growing world of massively multiplayer online gaming. Second Life is another such game, with nearly 3 million users. Fantasy games like Warcraft offer little in the way of advertising opportunities, but Second Life, as a world built by its users, offers marketers unique opportunities to engage them. Still, Second Life's numbers are small potatoes for advertisers, …

Like Yahoo, eBay needed big fourth-quarter earnings to hopefully set the tone for a better year than last year. And like Yahoo, it also delivered, sort of. The performance of eBay's PayPal online payment service next to Google's Checkout and Google Base was a big consideration point for Street analysts and reporters this term. PayPal dominates the online payment market, and it grew a hefty 29% over the holiday quarter, besting analysts' expectations by a half-billion dollars. PayPal's full-year growth was even higher, at 31%. Accordingly, eBay shares skyrocketed 13%. Over at eBay proper, more product listings …

What exactly happened to SpiralFrog, the ad-supported online music service that was once touted by major market newspapers as the possible future of the online music industry? Analysts now say the company's inability to sign a major music label other than Universal Music Group led to the significant management shakeup that saw three board members and five executives leave the company before its launch. Another problem was that the service planned to force users to looks at ads for 90 seconds prior to downloading songs. Consumers won't. The last big question mark was the decision to implement …

Young consumers are more comfortable with digital media, they'd rather watch YouTube than television, they'd rather talk to friends on IM and social networks than on the phone, they carry their iPods and phones with them everywhere. They can't sit still for long. The interesting difference between the youngest digital generation--those born after 1981--and, well, the rest of us, is they're more "Generation We" than "Generation Me." How so? This is a generation that's grown up being instantly in touch with one another and at earlier ages. This means they have a more global outlook at …

Presidential hopefuls for 2008 already consider the Web to be one of their most potent media weapons for reaching voters, but adoption of the Web as a political ad medium is still experimental. For next year's race, the Web will continue to be more of a distribution tool, a way for voters to proactively retrieve more information about candidates. It's more likely the Web will have a profound impact on the reallocation of political advertising dollars to the Internet in the next decade. Indeed, like traditional media companies, candidates for political office will have to learn how …

This is kind of incredible: research firm Gartner predicts that global spending on mobile music will hit $32.2 billion by 2010, spurred by consumption growth in the Asia-Pacific region and Japan. Perhaps even more incredible: Gartner says music spending on mobile phones this year will be $13.7 billion worldwide. When you juxtapose these numbers with the $2 billion sales "milestone" set by the online music industry last week, you get an idea of where the market is heading. Many analysts expect that online music devices will be completely replaced by the mobile phone in the coming years. Apple's …

All in all, the news from Sunnyvale was good: Yahoo's fourth-quarter sales rose 13%, but the 19 cents per share profit beat analyst's expectations by 7 cents. However, the Web giant's tepid 14% sales growth initially sent the stock down. But then CEO Terry Semel came on the call and announced that the full-scale commercial roll out of Project Panama, Yahoo's new search advertising system, was running a month ahead of schedule. That news solidified investors' belief that the worst must now be over for Yahoo, and the stock shot up more than 5%. Panama is supposed to close …

A little more than a year ago, billionaire investor/hostile takeover master Carl Icahn set his sights on uprooting Time Warner's executive board, with the goal of breaking up the beleaguered media giant in order to boost its value for shareholders. He said Time Warner's stock, stuck for a long time at around $17 per share, should be closer to $22 or $24 per share. Well, Icahn's takeover bid failed, but a year later, Time Warner is now out of the rut, and its stock price is now hovering at about $22.50. In August 2005, Icahn announced …