AOL on Wednesday completed the final piece in an ad network puzzle totaling $1 billion worth of acquisitions. The Time Warner company on Wednesday acquired Israel-based Quigo for an estimated $340 million, according to The Wall Street Journal, furthering its shift from a dial-up Internet service provider to an advertising services company. Quigo, a search and contextual advertising firm, is the fourth company AOL has bought this year and the third ad network. Mobile advertising firm Third Screen media and the behavioral targeting firm Tacoda are the other two. Clearly, AOL's strategy is to become a giant digital advertising network. …

As ever, Google has a few announcements today, including an interesting tweak to the way it targets AdWords ads to Web pages. The search giant will now let advertisers choose specific subsections of sites that they want to target. As a result, Google is renaming its "site targeting" tactic "placement targeting." Introduced a few years ago, so-called "site targeting" enabled advertisers on Google's content network to target ads by site and demographic. Now, advertisers can choose specific sections of larger sites, like the sports pages of a news agency like Reuters, in addition to choosing a specific ad unit (such …

"The rhetoric was raw," says TechCrunch as Congress this week made an example of Web giant Yahoo for its willingness to comply with Chinese law in its operations inside the country. Yahoo on several occasions provided the government with information on the activities of political dissidents on its Web sites, leading to the arrest of a human rights and democracy advocates. Politicians on both sides of the spectrum castigated the Web firm for its actions; San Mateo Democrat Tom Lantos, the hearing chair, provided the key sound byte: "morally, you are pygmies," he said. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) likened Yahoo's …

Reuters reports that a Swedish Web site dealing in the proliferation of illegal-swapping is on the verge of deploying new software that would make it even easier to swap media files over the Web. The Pirate Bay, as the ad-supported company is called, is powered by file-sharing software from BitTorrent. BitTorrent, of course, is its own company, and has taken great strides recently to find a workable middle ground with major media companies. Under the open-source software initiative, BitTorrent software is free for anyone to copy and use, which is why The Pirate Bay doesn't have to pay BitTorrent a …

Shares of Chinese Web firm Alibaba.com skyrocketed in its first day of trading, opening at more than double the B2B firm's initial public offering price and making it the largest technology debut since Google in 2004. Alibaba's IPO raised $1.5 billion at $1.73 per share; yesterday its stock soared to $4.58 per share and figures to go even higher today. The B2B portal is now trading at 281.5 times its 2007 earnings per share, making it far pricier--pound for pound--than, say, Google, whose shares trade at 58.8 times this year's earnings. So what does Alibaba.com do? Simply put, the company …

Google clearly aims to reform the mobile wireless industry with Android--its new mobile software platform--and the so-called Open Handset Alliance, by making the mobile Web experience more like surfing the traditional Internet. To be sure, it's a worthy, lofty goal--but it won't be so easy, says CNET. For one thing, Android, still more than a year away, will be one of many mobile operating systems on the market. For the Open Handset Alliance to be effective, Android will have to become nearly ubiquitous. Even if the Google OS is far and away the best offering on the market, it will …

Facebook yesterday revealed its new three-pronged advertising strategy to mixed reviews. The most common reaction among bloggers was one of confusion--particularly with regard to Beacon, the program that "empowers" users to become product endorsers. Advertisers pay to put a little piece of javascript on their site that sends user interaction information back to Facebook. The user has to agree to allow the Web site to do this, and if they do, their purchase information is sent to their friends via a Facebook news feed. GigaOm's Om Malik calls the initiative a "privacy disaster waiting to happen," because it gives the …

Time Warner reported disappointing third-quarter earnings on Tuesday, citing a 38 percent drop in revenue from its Internet unit, AOL. The company lost 851,000 dial-up subscribers as part of its ongoing transition into a free, ad-supported online services company. However, not all is going according to plan, as ad revenue grew just 13 percent in the quarter. Overall, Time Warner's net income sunk more than 57 cents a share to $1.09 billion, from $2.32 billion a year earlier--although that met most analysts' expectations. There is cause for optimism, however: big changes are afoot at Time Warner, starting with Jeff Bewkes, …

Is AOL completely reinventing itself? Either way, the Web giant's ad network binge continues: according to the Israeli news service Haaretz, AOL is on the cusp of buying Israel-based Quigo for $300 million. The deal has not been confirmed, however. The addition of Quigo would be AOL's fourth ad network acquisition this year, after behavioral targeting firm Tacoda, mobile ad network Third Screen Media and the Europe-based network AdTech AG. Quigo's two main advertising products are AdSonar, which provides targeted search and contextual listings similar to Google's AdSense, and FeedPoint, a search marketing and optimization tool. This doesn't mean that …

Yahoo on Monday launched another social network, but this one is aimed at a more targeted audience: college students, alumni and job recruiters. The idea is to get college graduates their first jobs in the real world. Scott Gatz, senior director of Yahoo's Advanced Products, says "it's a professional network with a purpose--to help college students and recent graduates build a professional network." The social network is called Kickstart; it launched on Monday. Yahoo thinks Kickstart can carve a little niche for itself by being a kind of anti-Facebook, as the site is focused on career advancement, not fun, says …