Next year's presidential race is already being called the first "YouTube election." The proliferation of online video clips--particularly as email forwards--proved the downfall of several candidates for congressional positions during the 2006 elections. For the 2008 presidential race, candidates have learned that viral technology is both a threat and an opportunity if leveraged properly. It's also an inexpensive medium for addressing the public. Tonight, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), who announced her candidacy for president just a few days ago, is set to participate in three live online chats, soliciting questions she'll respond to on her Web site. …

Project Panama is out now, and while many advertisers are excited by a more efficient way to buy search advertising with Web giant Yahoo, smaller advertisers are already reporting trouble making the leap from the old to the new system. Indeed, Yahoo had repeatedly delayed Panama's launch due to the mammoth task of porting hundreds of thousands of advertisers over to the new system. National advertisers are more familiar with it, as Yahoo debriefed major ad and search-marketing agencies on the new system long ago. Many are excited about the prospect of a system that in …

Remember SpiralFrog? The much-ballyhooed online music provider was supposed to be the first free, ad-supported music service to collaborate with the major record labels. The site was also supposed to launch last year, but it never did. CNET reports infighting among SpiralFrog's board led to the company's failure to launch. Late last year, Robin Kent, the former chief of Universal McCann Worldwide, was ousted as the company's CEO. At least five members of its executive team and three board members followed. The company's marketing, strategy and operating officers--those said to have the closest ties to the music industry--were …

In yet more groundbreaking research, JupiterResearch finds, unsurprisingly, that consumers prefer video content that's both free and without ads to services supported by ad or a la carte models. More significantly, the Jupiter report paints a limited picture of the growing-and slowly settling-online video market. Jupiter's results say 37 percent of consumers with high-speed Web access watch online video, while roughly half look for full-length programs, live broadcasts and additional media footage rather than short clips. Just 21 percent of respondents said they prefer ads to paid content; the article doesn't say how many prefer paid content …

Google continues to test its new video advertising network, now posting ads alongside video content from music partners Sony BMG and Warner Music Group across its AdSense publisher network. The four-week test is to see how the video ads play with consumers who watch Google Video on its third-party publisher network. Ad revenues from those video views would be split between the record label, Google and the publisher. The test with Warner and BMG follows tests conducted earlier for music videos from Viacom's MTV Networks. During the tests, advertisers have been billed on a CPM (cost-per-thousand) basis. …

2007 could be the breakout year for the mobile phone advertising industry. Consumers don't like to pay for their media, and while all those mobile Web and video services are cool, a monthly fee usually stands in the way. Enter mobile advertising. If mobile ads can take away those fees--and even better, lower their cell phone bills and improve service--consumers will be all over them, analysts say. All the biggies, Verizon, Sprint, and the new AT&T, are widely testing ads on mobile phones; by next year, they say mobile ads should be common. The question is, …

Google, the Web industry's much-maligned "frienemy," is now pursuant to online payments, the domain of eBay's PayPal. Google Checkout, the new online payment system for merchants has got eBay spooked. In July, the online shopping giant banned eBay merchants from using Checkout. Last week, eBay reiterated that new sellers must offer PayPal or credit cards as payment for their products. It's reasoning: PayPal is the safest way to pay. In response to the significant seller promotion Google offered for Checkout over the holidays, eBay issued a counter offer: the ability to sell goods to other countries …

No coincidence that print media has fallen on hard times, while Internet ad revenues continue to climb. Now the rest of the traditional media sector is seeing audience erosion and revenue declines. But new media isn't a safer bet at the moment either. The only way to invest smartly in the media space is through Web access providers (cable and telecom companies). Investors should stay away from any company whose fate relies solely on advertising. Jim Cramer of TheStreet.com agrees. He says seasonality dictates that the first quarter is often a tough time in general for the …

Wall Street will be paying close attention tomorrow when Yahoo presents its fourth-quarter earnings, especially after the management shakeup and refocusing that resulted from an internal memo leaked to the press last fall. The so-called "Peanut Butter Manifesto" contended that Yahoo's business was spread thin, like peanut butter over bread, offering too many services at the expense of value. Tomorrow, investors get their first taste of how the changes are affecting the Web giant. These include a narrower focus on Web search, advertising sales and content, some new blood in management, and the official unveiling of the long-delayed …

This is cool: last month, scientists gathering at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco showed off programs they created, thanks to a new Google-developed language called KML, or keyhole markup language, that allows programmers to create models using Google Earth. In one of the presentations, John Bailey, a project leader on the volcanic activity in Alaska's Aleutian islands, demonstrated how to prevent a potential Vesuvious-style eruption in the region using a program he created from Google Earth that analyzes data, assesses threat levels and displays results all at once. Geologists have traditionally used …