Interpublic's Initiative unit is expected to announce as soon as tomorrow that it has named long-time media buying chief Tim Spengler to succeed Richard Beaven as head of Initiative North America. The move follows Beaven's ascent last week to chairman-CEO of Initiative Worldwide, following Alec Gerster's retirement. Persons familiar with the reorganization tell MediaDailyNews that Alan Cohen would also be named worldwide innovations chief, and president of Initiative West, from his current role of executive vice president-managing director of Initiative North America's West Coast operations, and head of its Innovations and Entertainment unit.

Oh, what a difference a smart, aggressive move makes: The Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 futures markets received a bounce in the wake of the news that Microsoft was approaching Yahoo with a $44.6 billion offer to buy the company. The software giant's impressive bid trumped fears of a tech sector slowdown after Google issued disappointing fourth-quarter results on Thursday. Prior to the open, Nasdaq futures surged 27.25 points at 1,875. Before the Microsoft bid, the index was trading down at about 4.75 points at 1,843. The news also boosted the S&P 500 futures 13.70 points at 1,393.30, when …

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed substantial information about the company's finances during a recent meeting. The highlights: Facebook's 2007 revenue will be (no surprise here) $150 million; 2008 revenue should climb to between $300 and $350 million, while the company expands its workforce from 450 to more than 1,000 people. Zuckerberg also said Facebook's projected EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) for 2008--the figure Wall Streeters use to measure operating profit--would be $50 million. Finally, he said that in the following year, the company plans to spend more than $200 million on capital expenditures (servers, …

Is this the end of the line for the Pirate Bay? The online directory of BitTorrent files has been charged with conspiracy to break copyright law in Sweden, according to BBC News. The Web site directs users to locations where they can download audio, video, application and game Torrent files; it supports itself through online advertising. None of the files are hosted on The Pirate Bay's servers. Meanwhile, those servers are located outside of Sweden, which could make prosecution difficult. Nevertheless, prosecutor Hank Roswall declares that in making money through advertising revenues, the company was commercially exploiting copyrighted …

On the day after reports linked Google with a new cell phone being developed by Dell Computer, the Web giant during its (disappointing) earnings call took time to share all kinds of love for Apple's iPhone. Indeed, Wednesday's rumors notwithstanding, it's still an open question whether Google aims to partner or compete with Apple. For one thing, Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO, is on Apple's board of directors. For another, Google has put a lot of effort into making iPhone-specific applications, although industry watchers wonder if this is just a proxy for Google's forthcoming mobile operating system, Android. …

The number of Internet users in China grew an astonishing 50 percent in 2007, ending the year at 210 million users, according to the Chinese government. And there's still a long, long way to grow, as 210 million represents just 16 percent of the Chinese population. More than 70 percent of China's Internet population is under 30. As such, "there is enormous pent-up demand for entertainment, amusement and social interaction," says Richard Ji, an analyst at Morgan Stanley. Chinese Internet companies have seen their share prices rise sharply; their collective market cap is now above $50 billion, having …