Even if Google was planning to become an ad-supported cellular provider, it won't get there by winning a piece of the 700 MHz spectrum up for auction this January.Which is why Google's near-term focus is on developing ad-supported wireless services--the other big piece of the infrastructure pie if Google's vision of cell phones is to become a reality. Google Maps, Google Talk and even Gmail may be popular mobile apps, the main deterrent to a Google wireless services revolution may be the carriers themselves. Why? Because mobile ad platforms make them nervous, especially when they are built around search …

Facebook has expanded beyond its college roots since Mark Zuckerberg and company decided to open membership and software development to any and all comers. As a result, the social network's fastest growing demographic is those over 25, many are working professionals using the site at their jobs. In fact, Reuters says there are already "thousands of business networks and communities" for them to choose from. Is this a good or bad thing? Good, certainly, if you're in the Web business. Bad, perhaps, if you're simply whittling away the hours looking for something to keep yourself occupied. Indeed, there are …

Remember that Facebook rate card published by Valleywag earlier in the week? Well, those rates are from February--eons ago. The company's June rate card was exactly twice what it was six months ago. While no one believes Facebook's clients actually pay face value for sponsorships, multiply 150 group sponsorships by $300K and you get $180 million; that's before both home page sponsorships and the $200 million three-year display deal with Microsoft. Not long ago, Facebook investor-director Peter Thiel (a co-founder of Mozilla's Firefox Web browser) said the company was on pace to do $150 million in revenue this year, …

Yahoo has been getting killed in the Web 2.0 department, as rivals like Google and Facebook steal users and bring them to stickier social media and broadband video services. Yahoo needs to ramp up its social networking efforts through some kind of acquisition, but its online video division has also been badly in need of an overhaul. Now, Yahoo says its adding to Yahoo Video, bringing all of its broadband video content together under one roof. The new site is adding content such as music videos, movie trailers, television shows and sport highlights from its pre-existing content partnerships. The …

Thanks to the iron grip telecommunications carriers have on wireless apps running over their networks, the mobile Web is widely regarded as a mess by technology analysts and critics. Indeed, cell phones come with browsers designed to take users to specific Web sites-usually carrier-run portals or Web apps designed by their partners. In some cases, carriers even block access to competing sites. But most consumers agree: The mobile Web experience should be the same regardless of the phone you have or the carrier you use. New rules devised by the Federal Communications Commission in an upcoming spectrum …

A group of Japanese media companies slammed Google's YouTube, accusing the online video site of not doing enough to rid itself of copyrighted videos. Calls were made for the company to make wholesale changes to its site; the coalition was also skeptical that a new video recognition technology would sufficiently guard against copyright infringement. "YouTube has to stop how it runs its site, and get rid of the illegal clips. We want them to reset the service," music composer Hideki Matsutake told reporters in Tokyo after the group's second meeting with YouTube executives in a year. "We …

Taking a page from the Google playbook, Microsoft on Wednesday said it would start offering a free, ad-supported version of Works, its basic spreadsheet and word-processing software, as part of a testing program with computer manufacturers. The free Works would be a rival to Google Docs and Spreadsheets, which is Web-based, although Works is not. That means ads would be stored in users cache folders, refreshed each time a user logs onto the Web. Microsoft is yet to disclose its partners for the new software, which used to go for $40. Desktop productivity software still has certain …

Jerry Yang's reign as Yahoo CEO is yet to have any impact on the company's poor stock performance, but Bear Sterns analyst Robert Peck, in a 22-page report, has a few ideas for him. Peck says the priority No. 1 for the ailing Web giant should be to address its woefully under-developed social-networking strategy. A recent report from the Web traffic monitor comScore says that social sites account for 60% of the world's Internet users. For a company that once thrived on its ability to attract the masses, it's unbelievable that Yahoo has failed to jump on …

X-Play host Morgan Webb has launched a new video blog similar to Rocketboom, called WebbAlert. Like Rocketboom, each show will be no longer than 5 minutes and will focus on major breaking technology and gaming news. Shows will run Monday through Thursday. The first episode is interesting and compelling. The X-Play host was voted the 51st sexiest woman in the world by FHM. She's also a one-woman show; she creates and produces the content, working out of an at-home studio, which has a professional feel to it, as do its news segments. WebbAlert's first episode carried an ad …

Contrary to popular belief, Susan Wojcicki, Google vice president of product management for advertising, said the company is not interested in so-called behavioral targeting, in which a network operator tracks a user's various online actions and dumps them into a single profile. Rather,the company seeks to understand user behavior through the keywords entered during a given search session. "Nothing is stored, nothing is remembered. It all happens within that session," Wojcicki told reporters. Google is expected to make some $16 billion this year from the sale of keywords on its search engine and across AdSense, its vast publisher network. …