Contrary to reports in England and across the blogosphere, News Corp. is not negotiating a buyout of LinkedIn, the social network for professionals. A partnership could add social media services to News Corp.'s new property, WSJ.com. The media conglomerate plans to close its acquisition of Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones before the end of the year. LinkedIn, the sixth-biggest U.S. social network, registered the most growth among its peers in October according to Nielson Online. The professional social network attracted 5 million U.S. visitors in October, up from 1.7 million a year earlier. Company executives claim an …

Apple's iPhone, with approximately 1.4 million sold, represents little more than 0.5 percent of the U.S. cell phone market, but its advanced mobile applications and access to wireless hot spots have already presented marketers with a unique opportunity to reach consumers on the go. Ad Age reports on the success of iPhone-specific campaigns run by auto maker Land Rover and 20th Century Fox. The former's agency, Mediaedge:cia, sought out affluent consumers for the launch of the Range Rover Sport. The campaign connected iPhone owners using Google Maps with contact information and directions to the nearest …

A week after announcing the decision to open its platform to mobile software developers, Verizon Wireless said it plans to support Google's new platform for cell phones and other mobile devices. The move represents a significant business strategy shift for the telecom giant. Indeed, Verizon's support was conspicuously absent when Google announced its Open Handset Alliance in early November, but in an abrupt about-face, Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam says: "We're planning on using Android...Android is an enabler of what we do." So how did this come to pass? McAdam says that Verizon has been planning the change …

The Federal Trade Commission is on the cusp of approving Google's $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick--and without any conditions, according to a lawyer involved in the merger review. The FTC believes that antitrust concerns can be addressed post-merger, and approval could come as early as this week. The announcement would end nearly eight months of delays, after the deal was declared on April 13. It also spurred a frenzy of like--acquisitions by competitors Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL; each has been approved. The biggest of the rival deals was Microsoft's $6 billion acquisition of aQuantive, which owns DoubleClick competitor AtlasDMT. …

Goldman Sachs' Anthony Noto issued bad news for the media sector in a recent analyst report, saying that a U.S. recession-a 50/50 chance, he says, would lead to a downturn in advertising by as much as 10 percent. Of course, that doesn't include Web advertising, which many expect to rise more than 20 percent next year--but it may include more experimental forms of new media advertising, such as cell phones and perhaps, Web 2.0 sites like YouTube and Facebook. "Clearly, the fringe areas would be much more impacted [by a recession]... the newer areas that have less of …

Vivendi Games and Activision are combining to create the world's biggest third-party maker of video games. The creation of the new company, called Activision Blizzard, comes at a time of record game sales for both developers. Activision expects 2007 revenue of $1.7 billion. Vivendi's strength, meanwhile, is massively multiplayer online gaming, particularly World of Warcraft, with more than nine million worldwide subscribers who each pay $15 per month. The deal is a complicated one: Activision will be assuming Vivendi Games, as the latter is converted into 295.3 million new shares of Activision common stock, valuing the Vivendi …

Computer maker Dell has awarded its massive advertising account to London-based ad holding firm WPP Group, worth $4.5 billion over three years. The companies will combine to create an entirely new marketing and communications agency with Dell as its principal client. Rumor (http://battellemedia.com/archives/004123.php) has it the unnamed shop will be based in Silicon Valley, suggesting a digital slant. It will hire more than 1,000 employees. The move represents a major departure for the world's second-largest computer maker, which used to have more than 800 agencies working for it worldwide. The idea was to eliminate inefficiencies, said Casey …

The Googleplex, it seems, has become something of a compulsory stop for the 2008 Presidential candidates. Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Edwards, John McCain, Bill Richardson, Mike Gravel, Ron Paul and now, Barack Obama, have all paid a visit to HQ. Others will surely follow, as Google represents the future of technology, making the Googleplex an unmissable photo-op for the presidential hopefuls. It should also be the perfect backdrop for them to lay out their technology initiatives, although Senators Obama and Edwards are the only candidates to do so. Each of the Google candidate sessions--between 45 …