Pudding Media is introducing an Internet phone service that will be supported by advertising related to what people talk about. The Web-based phone service is similar to Skype's online service -- consumers plug a headset and a microphone into their computers, dial any phone number and chat away. But unlike Internet phone services that charge by the length of the calls, Pudding Media has no toll charges. The trade-off is that Pudding Media is eavesdropping on phone calls in order to display ads on the screen that are related to the conversation. Voice recognition software monitors the calls, …

Microsoft Corp. is waging a quiet campaign to convince all interested parties to oppose Google Inc.'s acquisition of DoubleClick Inc., in part via its public-relations firm. Burson-Marsteller pitched media outlets and Internet companies on the dangers of the deal, which would bolster Google's already strong presence in online advertising. Burson cites the deal as part of a larger discussion of "fair and free competition" in Internet-search and privacy rights of consumers. In Europe, Burson urged Internet companies to become signatories on an online petition for a more "transparent and competitive Internet," according to the pitches. It directed the companies …

If share of budgets matched share of mind for online video advertising, it would be worth a lot more than eMarketer's $775 million 2007 revenue estimate. But much of the attention paid to the ad channel is because there are still so many unknowns. The latest parties to research the space are two of the Web's giants, AOL and Google, which have teamed with TNS to produce a study of video-viewing habits. They found that online-video viewing steadily increases throughout the day, peaking in the evening, but that the heaviest viewers also watch in the afternoon. As for …

Media and marketing research giant Nielsen Company opened the beta for its new "Hey! Nielsen" social network to the general public. And based on what's happening on its pages, the site is destined to be a monitor of pop culture, ranging from TV to music to online media content. Based on the initial conversations from 2,720 members -- mainly Nielsen employees -- TV is generating the most buzz. Shows like CBS' "Jericho," NBC's "Heroes," and ABC's "Ugly Betty" are the buzziest.

After discreetly disappearing from Advertising.com more than a year ago, 33-year-old founder and former chief product officer John Ferber has emerged in Florida with a string of new ventures. At first glance, it's not exactly what one might expect from the onetime Owings Mills whiz kid, who built a wildly successful Baltimore company based on game technology he created in college, then sold it to AOL for $435 million. (AOL has since rebuilt its own business strategy around the company, Advertising.com, whose technology places relevant ads on Web sites). In 2005, the Federal Trade Commission determined that Ferber had …

Television executives are convinced that the bigger opportunity for their industry is not digital downloads but streaming their programs over the Internet with advertising. The networks began to experiment with streaming video last year. An ABC survey in August 2006 found that 84% of viewers believed they were getting "a great deal" by being allowed to stream programs for free, even if it meant advertisements could not be skipped. The network also found that 87% of respondents were able to recall which advertisers had sponsored particular episodes. Other studies indicate that giving people more outlets on which to watch …

WiMax is coming, seriously, this time. Chip maker Intel, whose invested hundreds of millions into the technology, is so sure that WiMax will go live in 2008 it's pumping its next-generation semiconductor technology with a new Wi-Fi/WiMax module called Echo Peak. What does any of that mean? On a larger scale, notebooks powered by the technology, called Montevina, will process information faster and be low-power, but they'll also support the new mobile WiMax standard being developed by Sprint Nextel and Clearwire that you've heard about for nearly five years. According to a recent Intel announcement, 150 million …

"Don't be Evil." You knew that motto would come back to haunt any company with enormous growth aspirations like Google. Evil--or something approaching it--is exactly what Microsoft and AT&T worry about in Google's bid to acquire the display advertising giant DoubleClick. The prospect of marrying cookies to search data is just a little too scary, they say--mostly for Google's competitors, which would be at the Web giant's mercy when it comes to establishing online advertising rates. Google was interested in buying DoubleClick in 2005, but backed out. It "decried the use of cookies," which involves collecting user surf …

Earlier this week Yahoo completed the $350 million purchase of Zimbra, a provider of Web-based email (among other things), Firefox maker Mozilla spun off its free, cross-platform email client Thunderbird, and Xobni, a company that pledges to "take back" the inbox ("Xobni" is inbox spelled backwards), made its "impressive" launch. A study that shows there are 1.2 billion email users and 1.8 billion people worldwide. Given that, could email--if better protected--become the foundation for a social network? It really should, particularly because younger generations rely on social networks more than email for personal communication. Email, they say, is for …

News Corporation's Fox Broadcasting unit has struck a deal with Apple to distribute seven premiere episodes from the network's fall lineup on iTunes. To be sure, the cross marketing partnership is aimed at attracting more viewers--particularly 18-34s--to Fox's TV shows in the hope that they'll watch following episodes on TV or download them via iTunes. "Prison Break", "Bones", "American Dad", and "K-Ville" are among the shows premiering for free on the Apple media store. Walt Disney Co.'s ABC on Monday announced a similar distribution deal through Time Warrner's AOL, a Web portal. NBC, three weeks after pulling its content …