Web rivals Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have all identified mobile wireless as an important new territory for them. But right now, the biggest obstacle to growth isn't the competition, it's wireless network operators like AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile. Chad Stoller, a mobile executive at ad agency Organic, says phone companies "want to control every aspect of the relationship between the consumer and the phone." Verizon Wireless' decision to open its network is encouraging, but it's a bit early to assume that even Verizon would give up the kind of data control that allows advertisers to buy ads across …

Has Apple missed a golden chance to do for Web video what it did for digital music? Apple's iTunes might sell about 20 percent of all music sold in the U.S., but it's not going to do the same with video. Let's be honest: the iPod became a sensation mostly because consumers could fill the device with their entire CD collection. But you can't fill your iPod video with movies, because you can't download movies to iTunes. Worse for Apple, NBC Universal, its biggest provider of television content, is defecting. Despite constituting 40 percent of video sales …

News Corp. this week added the spirituality portal Beliefnet.com to its online properties, but that's just the beginning. Take a look at chairman Rupert Murdoch's track record: first MySpace and IGN, then Scout, RottenTomatoes, Photobucket, WSJ.com and finally, Beliefnet--all in about two years. So who's next? Article-voting site Digg.com, game publisher Take Two Interactive Software, movie-based social network Flixster and LinkedIn, the social network for professionals, are all attractive takeover targets. Perennially-for-sale Digg has been piling on the features and upgrades recently, including new partnerships with News Corp.'s Photobucket and The Wall Street Journal for integrating photos and …

Time might have been a little premature in proclaiming "You" its Person of the Year in 2006. According to a new report from Nokia, one-quarter of all entertainment will be created, edited and shared within peer groups by 2012. The consumer electronics giant reached its conclusion after surveying so-called "trend-setting" consumers about their digital consumption habits. Nokia picked users from its massive 900 million-customer base across 17 countries for the study. "The trends we are seeing show us that people will have a genuine desire not only to create and share their own content, but also …

The early death of Facebook has been forecast, following widespread criticism and a backlash from its own customers over a new advertising system. If Facebook's not careful, a rival is bound to come along and finish it off. It's a first in the annals of fast-rising tech companies that fail. The funny thing is: the site is attracting more users than ever before and has all but solidified itself as the Web media darling of 2007. However, the majority of its 60 million-plus users are no doubt unaware of the privacy invasion nightmare that is the Beacon advertising …

The Activision-Vivendi Games merger comes at an important time for video gaming, as the retail-based sector transitions to a Web distribution model. "What is historically a packaged-goods business is now an exploding market with online connectivity that gives those products a huge lifespan," says DFC Intelligence analyst David Cole. World of Warcraft, Vivendi's subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game, gives the new Activision Blizzard's an important toehold in online gaming, positioning it more favorably for the future than rival Electronic Arts. The merger is designed "to take Activision's catalog online," which means we may soon see "Guitar …

Now that Google is close to securing the Federal Commission's blessing for the DoubleClick merger, the search giant has come out saying it's looking for more partners to expand its growing advertising empire. Speaking at a recent conference, Tim Armstrong, the company's president of advertising and commerce for North America, said that Google's foray into print, radio and television is all about realizing a single system for selling ads across all media. "We're intent on bringing more and more scale to the digital dashboard space," Armstrong said, by using Web-based systems to buy and sell media inventory. He …

Google's $1 billion investment in AOL, which valued the Time Warner company at $20 billion, might not have been the most financially prudent in its history. However, the companies announced a cross-instant messaging partnership that will allow GoogleTalk users to have IM conversations with their AOL Instant Messenger buddies inside Gmail, Google's email service. IM is one of the few areas of the Web where AOL could claim market leadership. Which makes it a particularly landmark move for Google, because Talk hasn't been nearly as big a hit. Even after the search giant integrated the app into …

The Guardian commissioned Web godfather Vint Cerf, now chief strategist at Google, to edit the British daily's media section. Cerf took the opportunity to ask some of the industry's leading minds about what will happen in their respective fields in the undefined future. Social networking pioneer Chris De Wolfe, co-founder of MySpace, says "these evolving online social destinations are laying the groundwork for the new social Web, which we believe is becoming infinitely more personal, more portable, and more collaborative." The term "social network" would come to more broadly define open development initiatives, like Google's OpenSocial. …

In a Web 2.0 variation of MTV's Unplugged, MySpace today is inviting musicians across the globe to return to the studio and rerecord videos of their songs for distribution on MySpace. The News Corp. site will sell the performances through a special Web page devoted to the recording session, allowing musicians to sell the songs for a price that they set, while keeping most of the revenue for themselves. Financial terms were not disclosed, but rev-shares will be negotiated on a case-by-case basis. The deal is a departure from Apple's iTunes media store, which charges …