Google might have developed an effective way of searching for Web pages on the Internet, but its achievement pales in comparison to what is possible on the "Web of the future," says Tim Berners-Lee, one of the founding fathers of the Internet. He says the Internet will allow any piece of information, like a letter or photo, to be linked to any other. Social networks, for example, would be superseded by networks that connect all kinds of things through something called the "semantic Web." Berners-Lee says this marks the next phase of the Web's development. "Imagine if …

Blogger Henry Blodget raised new fears for Yahoo shareholders on Wednesday when he portended disaster if the company delivers poor first-quarter results. This would play directly into Microsoft's hands, he says, because if Yahoo blows the first quarter, Microsoft would pull its $44 billion offer, causing Yahoo's stock to collapse and shareholder lawsuits to flow. Once Yahoo hits rock bottom, Steve Ballmer and co. swoop in and buy the company for nearly half of its original offer. Blodget says it's "certainly possible" that Yahoo delivers a weak first quarter: "The economy is tanking. AOL is …

Owen Van Natta, Facebook's departing chief revenue office, defended his company's controversial advertising platform, Beacon, at an industry conference on Tuesday. He agrees that Facebook should have made it clearer that actions taken off the site were being recorded and broadcast to users' friends via the News Feed. Following a user uproar, Facebook altered Beacon. "It was just a matter of making sure they knew when it was happening," Van Natta said. "I think you'll see Beacon expand." Facebook execs point out that its users had the same initial reaction to the News Feed, a service that …

Fears about the Internet clogging aren't so much unfounded as they are misguided. Even if our worst bandwidth fears were realized, the Internet wouldn't simply stop working, although users would experience slowness in downloading content and using certain data-heavy services. "The Internet doesn't collapse, but there would be a growing class of stuff you just can't do online," said Johna Till Johnson, president of Nemertes Research, which projected last fall that user demand on the Web would outweigh network capacity by 2011. Supply is being soaked up by a tremendous increase in amount of information being exchanged …

An unnamed executive from AOL unit Advertising.com claims that new Platform A czar Lynda Clarizio will be cutting around half of AOL's sales force as part of a plan to integrate the company's ad network properties. The source reveals that Advertising.com, which had been running as a stand-alone AOL subsidiary, will now be the central hub of its advertising services business. The sales forces of AOL, Quigo, Tacoda and the Time Warner company's other recent acquisitions will all be integrated with that into Ad.com. According to the source, Clarizio, the former head of Ad.com, plans to put Ad.com …

YouTube on Wednesday announced that it will offer Web developers tools that will help them create their own YouTubes on other sites. The Google video unit is now providing access to its content library, its audience and its video hosting and streaming network. The move significantly expands upon the current means of distribution that involves copying and then embedding selected videos onto another Web page. Allowing users to create their own YouTube means they can upload videos straight to YouTube from their site, as well as fetch video feeds, comments, responses or playlists from the company. The move …