In an exclusive interview with MediaPost's Online Media Daily, newly fired former AOL CEO Randy Falco insists he's accomplished what was asked of him in his time in charge of the Time Warner company. Among other things, Falco eliminated $2.5 billion in cost, including this week's 10% work force cut, and made 16 strategic acquisitions worth $1.6 billion (Bebo alone cost half that) during his two-and-a-half year tenure. Falco claims that he was already contemplating leaving the Web giant when Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes abruptly replaced him with Tim Armstrong, Google's former SVP of sales, on Thursday. "I have …

Following a 21-month delay, Google is now ready to launch Google Voice, a service that provides users with a universal phone number for all their phones. The idea is that even though phone numbers change throughout the course of a lifetime, your Google Voice number will remain the same. The mostly free service (users only pay for international calls, much like Skype) was constructed using the platform for GrandCentral, which Google acquired in 2007 for $50 million-plus, and it has a number of new features, notes TechCrunch's Leena Rao. Among them: text messaging, voice mail transcription, friend settings, a …

Things have looked better for MySpace, the one-time king of social networking. Having lost its crown to Facebook, MySpace's user growth is now flattening out, key executives are leaving to start new companies, and ad revenue for 2008 is expected to come in well below the company's stated goal of $1 billion. Amidst the turmoil, BusinessWeek interviews MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe, who is also rumored to be on his way out. Nevertheless, DeWolfe "is in full spin mode" for the interview, says BusinessWeek's Robert Hof. He starts by touting MySpace Music, the six-month old joint music venture with the major …

Google launched its behavioral targeting advertising program Wednesday, a move that was widely expected once Google completed its $3.1 billion purchase of DoubleClick a year ago. Soon thereafter, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy watchdog, issued its response. "The issues with behavioral advertising have been with us for over a decade (DoubleClick was founded in 1996, and privacy issues soon followed), and have grown as more people use more services online and more information has become available about your online behavior," writes the EFF's Kurt Opsahl. One of the main problems he has with data collection through cookies, is that …

CNet checks in with MySpace Music, the joint venture from MySpace and the big four record labels, which is now more than five months old. In an interview, President Courtney Holt summarizes the first five months thusly: "Our traffic is huge. Our usage is very high. People are doing a lot of different things with music on our platform." For example, more than 100 million playlists have been created so far, and it was only a matter of days before the service recorded its billionth stream. MySpace Music is still evolving, however. Recently, the site has improved its search features, …

EBay has finally admitted that it has no way of integrating Skype, the Voice Over Internet Protocol provider, into its ecommerce business. The online auctioneer bought Skype for $2.6 billion in 2005, promising that the Internet calling company would help users buy and sell goods. As it turns out, "We were wrong," eBay Chief Executive John Donahoe said Wednesday during a meeting with analysts and investors. "We thought it would reduce friction in commerce and payments." And yet, despite admitting that this was a misguided acquisition, eBay wasn't shy about talking up Skype's prospects as a stand-alone business. In fact, …

"Online display advertising sucks," says Ad Age contributor Noah Brier. He argues that all the attention on display advertising not working has been focused on "everything but the ad itself" -- that is, the creative, which he thinks has been generally poor. "First off," he says, the creative is "hardly ever aware of the content it is hanging out with. I'm not talking contextual ads here, just saying that display advertising needs to be aware of where it lives. At least it should know what site it's on and what people are there for." Brier laments that the planning process …

Display ads may not be getting much respect these days, but several major Web publishers are hoping to spark new interest in the tactic as part of the Online Publishers' Association's unveiling of three new display ad formats, as reported Tuesday in Online Media Daily. The main goal is to engage readers more fully, and allow publishers to charge advertisers more. BusinessWeek says the initiative is supposed to offer an alternative "to the increasing encroachment of cheap ads served on their sites by advertising networks, which many premium sites think are devaluing their ad space." The three new units …