Hours before Google's DoubleClick acquisition passed the European Union's antitrust sniff test, Tim Armstrong, the search giant's North American president for advertising and commerce, said the company would be "disappointed" if it didn't have "a very significant position" in display advertising by 2008-2009. Speaking at the Bear Sterns Media Conference, Armstrong described online video sharing site YouTube as "the brightest light" for Google's display advertising potential, adding that the company's ad platform would evolve over time to the point where it wouldn't distinguish between search and display ads. The acquisition of DoubleClick gives Google the ability to make …

Yahoo plans to join Google's OpenSocial, possibly as early as this week. OpenSocial is an alliance that aims to develop common standards so developers can create programs that run across many social networks and other Web sites. Yahoo, with its enormous user base, offers "a counterweight" to social networking giant Facebook's own closed platform. The Google-led alliance already includes MySpace, Bebo and several other social networking sites. Yahoo confirmed that it was evaluating OpenSocial, but would not say when or if it planned to join the emerging standard. A company spokeswoman said, "Yahoo has a rich history of …

AOL is now officially on the table for a deal, after Time Warner CEO Jeffrey L. Bewkes revealed that he was open to combining the beleaguered Web giant with another company in "whatever configuration makes it the strongest and the most valuable." Meanwhile, sources tell The Silicon Alley Insider's (link: http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/3/jeff_bewkes_s_private_hell_twx_) Henry Blodget that Bewkes isn't merely "open" to a deal, but is actively talking to Yahoo and possibly others about making one. We may be nearing the end of Time Warner's AOL hell. It's an unhappy situation, especially after the abrupt sacking of Curtis G. Viebranz, head …

Fears of an online ad recession couldn't come at a worse time for Yahoo. If Yahoo is to have any negotiating power at all in its bid to stay free of Microsoft, the Web giant can't afford to show any signs of weakness when it announces first quarter results on April 22nd. We know that that plan isn't going to include News Corp., as Rupert Murdoch revealed earlier this week that his media conglomerate wasn't prepared to compete with Microsoft for the struggling Internet portal. It's only other alternative, it seems, would be a deal …

News Corp. on Monday officially bowed out of the race to buy Yahoo, severely narrowing the options for the Web giant as it attempts to stave off a hostile buyout from Microsoft Corp. Yahoo and News Corp. explored the possibility of the media giant owning 20 percent of Yahoo in exchange for cash and assuming the whole of its Fox Interactive Media division, which houses the massive social network MySpace. Yahoo was exploring this and other options, including a merger with AOL, in order to block Microsoft's $40 billion-plus bid for the company, which Yahoo rejected a …

AOL is using penguins, a vastly old and unoriginal marketing vehicle, to explain ad targeting. The Time Warner company will roll out the new education campaign in the next couple of weeks. When asked to explain the impetus, AOL chief privacy officer Jules Polonetsky said it's hard to explain ad targeting to users because it's so "technical." So AOL opted for penguins. In any event, the real news came from a comment posted by Mathew from Toronto, who noted how useless or annoying online ads are. He adds: "If there were a form I could fill out stating in what …