Does it make any financial sense for Google to move in the mobile wireless industry? Financial analysts have expressed reservations about the search giant moving into the complicated and expensive wireless world. It shouldn't come as a shock that Google will participate in the FCC's wireless spectrum auction in January; after all, the company's participation is tied to the FCC's agreement to "open" a portion of the spectrum per Google's request. This means that at the very least, we will see a minimum bid of $4.6 billion from the Web giant. Even if Google wins the bid at that …

A Web-only show is making the giant digital leap from the Internet to network television. "Quarterlife", the creation of "thirtysomething" producers Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, is on its way to NBC starting in February or March, after its run on the Internet ends. Quarterlife is about a young woman who publishes a video blog to the Web that gets her into trouble with friends. It's a 36-part series and social-networking forum, with each episode running about eight minutes. You don't often see something produced for the Web wind up on TV; "Quarterlife" is among the first scripted shows …

Hot on the heels of Google's Android announcement (commonly referred to as the "Gphone"), G's next move will be to bid on open wireless spectrum set to be auctioned off by the FCC in January. The move is a logical step forward for a company whose mobile future depends on scale. Google's wireless network would free consumers from the exclusive contracts binding them to certain handsets on certain mobile networks. Having its own network would also give the search giant leverage in negotiating deals to let its software run on rival carriers' networks. Google's open software initiative, which centers …

Microsoft's Kevin Johnson, president of platforms and services, was in a bullish mood yesterday as he outlined the company's Web advertising goals for the next three to five years. In something called the "10, 20, 30, 40" plan, Microsoft aims to increase its share in Web search, page views, time spent per user and percentage of ad dollars. The software giant currently trails Google and/or Yahoo in each of these categories. Johnson said Microsoft wants its MSN and Windows Live properties to increase their current 6 percent share of all Web page views to 10 percent. It also …

Microsoft's so-called "10, 20, 30, 40" plan may have left you scratching your head in disbelief-and for good reason: a 30 percent search share and a 40 percent Web advertising share sound like impossible goals for the next three-to-five years considering where the company is today. Sure, the $6 billion acquisition of aQuantive will help boost Web revenues, but not to such an extreme extent. Short of calling Microsoft's Kevin Johnson "a moron," Silicon Alley Insider's Henry Blodget assumes that Johnson was dropping a serious hint that Microsoft is planning to scoop up beleaguered Web rival Yahoo in …

The latest social networking numbers don't jive with comScore's findings or the companies' own internal data, but nevertheless, October growth figures from Nielsen Online reaffirm what other traffic firms know: Facebook continues to outpace News Corp.'s MySpace in the growth department. Year-over-year, Facebook's October traffic surged 125 percent, from 8.6 to 19.5 million. But that's still light-years away from MySpace's monster numbers: 58.8 million users for the month, up from 49.5 million a year earlier, representing 19 percent growth. Facebook added nearly 11 million users in October, only slightly more than MySpace, which added 9.3 million. You …

Earlier this week, News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch announced that he was officially going to stop charging for access to the Wall Street Journal Online. The Journal was largely considered an online subscription success, although Murdoch obviously feels that a wider audience and greater ad revenue can be achieved by opening it up. Murdoch's decision follows a trend among other well-known daily papers and business journals. Online versions of the Economist, Financial Times and The New York Times have all ditched the paid subscription model in recent months; The L.A. Times and The Washington Post's own Salon and Slate …

PayPal co-founders Peter Thiel and Max Levchin cashing out to eBay five years ago and have put their money and energy into everything from investment firms to solar-power companies. Thiel's early $500,000 investment in Facebook is now worth an estimated $1 billion. Levchin, meanwhile, founded Slide, a company that develops mini-programs (or widgets) for Facebook, which has quickly become the social network's biggest third-party developer. Thiel in particular "displays the relaxed self-confidence of Michael Corleone." In fact, Thiel and Levchin even refer to themselves as "the PayPal mafia." Indeed, many hot Web properties can trace their ancestries to …

Somewhat lost in the hype surrounding Facebook, is the fact that the company stands at an important crossroads: Tts future almost completely hinges on the success of Facebook Ads. If the hyper-targeted advertising and social recommendation system doesn't deliver as promised, Facebook will go down as the biggest bomb in Web 2.0 history. However, it would really be a shame if the program turned out to be a non-starter. At present, legal concerns loom over Facebook Ads. New York privacy law requires written consent before a company can use the name and likeness of another person in endorsing …

Financial analysts are readily throwing out the "R" word these days, but most believe that Internet advertising, a recession. However, Bernstein Research analyst Jeffrey Lindsay says that Web companies would feel "the brunt of any hardship" in display advertising. That's bad news for Yahoo and AOL in particular, which are heavily dependent on display revenues. The Web giants already have a history of under-performing compared to average industry growth, which was 25 percent in the third quarter. During the same period, Yahoo delivered 16 percent growth, while AOL reported a comparatively dismal 10 percent. A downward trend "is already …