A new study from NeoEdge finds that ads on casual gaming sites lift brand awareness. According to the results, ads NeoEdge ran for Zappos resulted in 56% of users having a favorable impression of the brand while having a three to five times increase in awareness for Zappos new offerings in men's clothing. "There is a receptiveness to these type of ads because (consumers are) getting to play the game for free," said Peter Manickas, director of research at Frank Magid Associates, which conducted the study for NeoEdge. "It really improved people's impressions." The NeoEdge study collected 2,000 responses from …

Serial entrepreneur Steve Perlman's latest tech company idea, unveiled this week at the Game Developers Conference, "is a doozy" that just might change the video game business forever, says Forbes writer Brian Caulfield. The idea is simple enough: Move video games online and give players access to the latest games on cheap computers and even cheaper "microconsoles", which Caulfield says would be no bigger than a pack of cigarettes. Perlman claims that OnLive, his new company, would be able to deliver high quality games on any TV with one of these "microconsoles" or on any laptop via a broadband connection. …

In a blog post, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone compares its "Suggested Users" list to a series of "staff picks" at a local bookstore, but later reveals that the process of choosing the list is a great deal more complicated than that. It all starts with an algorithm created by Twitter's chief scientist. Then, Stone and some members of Twitter's product team filter out anyone that shouldn't be on it. The list then goes through one final "gut check" before being sent out to users. So, what can Twitter users do to be picked up by the algorithm? "Really, it seems …

More revenue for Twitter is on the way, The Wall Street Journalreports. The microblogging service is finally confirming the age-old theory that it will start selling commercial accounts to "power users" or companies using the service. In the report, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone notes that the company recently hired a product manager to develop these new corporate accounts. "This makes perfect sense," says Silicon Alley Insider's Dan Frommer. "There's a lot of stuff companies would pay Twitter for, such as a way to verify the company rep's legitimacy; to more analytics and information about who is reading their …

Facebook was forced to respond to widespread criticism over its latest redesign by saying it will make yet more changes in an attempt to appease angry users. As VentureBeat's Eric Eldon points out, the scale of the dissatisfaction with the redesign hasn't been clear, although more than 1 million users have expressed opposition. Facebook has nearly 200 million users worldwide. Yesterday's announcement doesn't mean that Facebook will revert back to the previous design, however. But, as Eldon says, the changes "should make some new features more accessible to most users." Significantly, Faceboook will refine what information appears in users' news …

A new study from IBM says there's a "growing rift" between advertisers, consumers and content owners, fueled by media companies' struggle with new digital demands from users and advertisers. As such, report author Saul Berman, IBM's global leader for strategy and change consulting services, is calling on content owners to "fundamentally" change the way information is delivered to audiences. He writes: "To succeed -- especially in the current economic environment -- media companies will need to develop a new set of capabilities to support the industry's evolving demands which include micro targeting, real-time ROI measurement and cross-platform integration." Berman cites …

Last year, TWiT.tv founder Leo Laporte quit Twitter. Soon, he found that "walking away from a megaphone that big" just wasn't good business, so he begrudgingly returned. "They kind of have you," Laporte tells the Los Angeles Times' David Sarno. "The same way that Facebook has you: because you have to go where the community is." Sarno argues that Twitter, which grew more than 1300% last year, has essentially become its own medium, "taking its place alongside Web pages, e-mail and maybe even television." And while the company may not exactly be Fortune 500 size, "one company shouldn't have a …