IPhone 3G users are lining up to complain about how not-so-fast the device downloads data over AT&T's wireless network. Without warning, the phone will sometimes switch between AT&T's faster 3G network and its older, slower EDGE network. Sometimes it just drops the signal altogether. Twice as fast as the old iPhone? Hardly, says Wired's Brian X. Chen. While Apple and AT&T remain mum on the issue, iPhone unrest is growing in forums across the Web. Their denial of the issue has led publications like Cnet to crowdsource (link: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10014633-37.html?tag=cnetfd.mt) the issue; other activist users have started blogs to collect …

Cnet's Charles Cooper is a little freaked out by Fire Eagle, Yahoo's new geolocation service. While third parties line up to cut deals, Cooper says the concept of a service that follows you around to tell your friends where you are at any given time is kind of creepy. "Sometimes it's comforting just being off the grid," he says. "I don't think I missed something growing up in a Fire Eagle-less world, and I'm in no hurry to change now." However, from a business perspective, Cooper says Yahoo probably has a winner here. "This is another signpost of a future …

Google CEO Eric Schmidt appeared on CNBC yesterday afternoon and proclaimed that mobile ads were a bigger opportunity for the search giant than the desktop, and this would be the year that its mobile efforts start paying off. "We can more money in mobile than the desktop eventually because the mobile computer is more targeted," Schmidt told CNBC's Jim Cramer. "Think about it: You carry your phone everywhere. It knows all about you...over time we will make more money from mobile advertising." Henry Blodget of Silicon Alley Insider thinks that's a pretty dubious claim. For Google to make more …

The New York Times reports that sites aimed at women are hot, having grown 35% in the last year, according to figures from comScore. In fact, no other sector besides politics has grown so fast: In July, women's sites had 84 million visitors, 27% more than the same month last year, the research firm said. Naturally, advertisers are following, having purchased 4.4. billion display ads on women's sites in May--more than children, teenagers or families--comScore said. "Moms are the decision-makers of the household as far as purchases are concerned," said Chris Actis, vice president and digital director at MediaVest. …

The Associated Press reports that Yahoo shelled out $36 million in the first half of '08 to outside advisers to help the company sort through the Micro-hoo mess and the ensuing proxy fight with Carl Icahn. Yahoo retained Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Moelis & Co., and the law firm Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom following Microsoft's $45 billion offer on Feb. 1. The $36 million price tag amounts to about 5% of Yahoo's profit in the first half of the year, according to the AP. It also doesn't account for what the company spent in July, when Icahn and …

The Wall Street Journal reports that Yahoo is set to unveil former Viacom CEO Frank Biondi and former Nextel Partners CEO John Chapple as its two newest, Carl Icahn-appointed board members. Barring any resistance from the company's other board members, the appointments will be announced formally on Friday. Biondi and Chapple would fill two new board slots created as part of Yahoo's agreement with Icahn, the billionaire activist investor. In exchange for Icahn backing out of his proxy challenge, Yahoo agreed to create two new board seats, in addition to replacing one of its existing members with Icahn. Meanwhile, it's …

Facebook last week switched its metric for measuring engagement on its applications from daily to monthly usage. The move forces developers to shift their ad-selling focus to the long-term. It also forces them to develop applications that retain users' interest for a longer period of time. Brandweek notes that research firms comScore and Nielson Online already report engagement on a monthly basis, so the move by Facebook is perhaps a step toward standardizing monthly engagement as a universal metric. "The more data perspectives the better," says Peter Blackshaw, evp, Nielsen Online Digital Strategic Services. "There's certainly something to be …