The San Francisco Chronicle chronicles the rise and fall of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign through online video, from the announcement of her candidacy to the campaign's ending earlier this week. As writer Joe Garofoli says, "each of the videos was viewed enough to dominate the news for at least a day." Ultimately, political analysts claim that what hurt her campaign most was its inability to harness the power of online video to soften the New York Senator's image with voters. "It's like the Clintons, both of them, had sort of a 'Sunset Boulevard' thing going on. They were …

Just in case you crawled under a rock yesterday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the curtain off Apple's new 3G iPhone, which surfs the Web faster (we've been told it operates at near-broadband speeds), deploys Global Satellite Positioning technology, and retails at the new, seemingly cut-rate price of $199 (the iPhone launched nearly one year ago at $499). Of course, in exchange for the discounted price, you also pay $10 more per month for data service. But the biggest news of all was what Apple didn't say, says The New York Times' Saul Hansell. Rather, AT&T, the iPhone's carrier, …

Lawyers representing two Detroit pension plans are suing Yahoo over the employee severance plan that was put into place to insulate existing workers who might lose their jobs in the event of a Microsoft takeover. The plaintiffs claim that the plan, which would have cost Microsoft an extra $2 billion or more, has become a major roadblock to a potential takeover. Most shareholders want a Microsoft takeover because it would immediately add value to the company's under-performing stock. The plaintiffs are moving to hold a trial to determine the fate of the severance plan before the company's Aug. 1 shareholder …

Bold Web publishers are diving feet first into the arena of public opinion, says BusinessWeek, as a growing number of marketers rely on the wisdom of crowds to help promote their brands. Of course, the flip side of depending on the public for publicity is that the tactic might backfire; so confident brand marketers need only apply. EBay's StumbleUpon is one such service that allows users to recommend sites they've visited. It also recommends sites to its users based on the community's rating. Almost a year after its purchase, StumbleUpon's ad revenues have more than quadrupled. Advertisers are allowed to …

The Financial Times' Chris Nuttall reports that "lifestreaming" is gaining traction in Silicon Valley, as startups increasingly allow users to aggregate and organize their online social activities from multiple touch points. FriendFeed, a service founded by the creators of Google Maps and Gmail, is one of the leaders of this latest Web 2.0 movement. Nuttall points out that in many ways, FriendFeed's success comes at the expense of Facebook and MySpace. For example, FriendFeed allows users to aggregate all of their online social networking activity into one continuous feed, so users can receive messages from Twitter, photos from Flickr and …

Everyone in tech wants what Microsoft has: A software platform like Windows that so thoroughly dominates its market, that software developers are compelled to create programs for it. But now that the platform wars are moving to the Web, Time's Josh Quittner believes that several contenders will emerge; choosing a winner between Apple, Google and Facebook's might be a little like saying 'which one dominates the food market: chicken, beef or lobster? Why? Because thanks to the Web, the winners of the next platform wars stand to make billions selling everything from devices (Apple) to online advertising (Google and Facebook) …

The New York Times reports a shocking turn of events in the accounting scandal that followed the disastrous Time Warner-AOL union in 2001: Joseph A. Ripp, the man who helped uncover fraudulent transactions between AOL, Time Warner and the now-defunct accounting firm Arthur Andersen six years ago, was indicted by the Securities and Exchange Commission three weeks ago along with seven other former AOL executives in a lawsuit alleging financial fraud. "I think it's fair to say that everyone at Time Inc. is completely shocked by this. Joe Ripp is as far from being a crook as anyone you'll ever …