Microsoft on Tuesday eliminated 3,000 jobs as part of the promise it made in January to cut up to 5,000 jobs over the next 18 months. The January wave of cuts affected 1,400 workers. Although still 600 shy of the 5,000 total, Cnet's Ina Fried says that any additional job actions would have to come in a new round of cuts.In a memo to the troops, CEO Steve Ballmer indicated that further cuts were a possibility. "As we move forward, we will continue to closely monitor the impact of the economic downturn on the company and if necessary, …

There seems to be nothing but bad news these days for those in the online advertising industry. Display advertising's share of total online spending has plateaued at around 20%; video and social media, which are supposed to be the hot new platforms, have failed to find a tried and true monetization formula; and financial services, retail and auto advertisers continue to reign in spending across all media. Yet, despite the doom and gloom, Nielson Online's Charlie Buckwalter notes there are some positive developments, particularly around the globe. For starters, "the online population is looking more and more like …

Mobile advertising may have slowed sharply over the past few months, but it's expected to reaccelerate next year, says a new report from Magna's Brian Wieser, who is Global Director of Forecasting. Dow Jones' Scott Morrison says the market would be boosted by a growing number of cell phones built with Google's mobile operating system software, Android, According to Wieser, U.S. advertisers will spend $229 million on mobile ads this year, up 26% from 2008. That's a significant downward revision from the 43% increase that Magna forecasted last July, but Wieser still thinks that despite the slowdown, mobile spending should …

Google, Apple, Microsoft and News Corp. are all poking their noses around Twitter, reports Kara Swisher. "Because this is America, a bid for Twitter could come at any time and in any amount." But Twitter's co-founders don't want to sell, she says. "There is a sense when you talk to its founders and investors that they truly believe they are onto some very important interactive communications paradigm shift in the Internet arena with their start-up." Twitter's co-founders may not seem like they want to sell, but if Google, Apple, Microsoft or News Corp. were to table a hefty …

A Microsoft-Yahoo partnership, once described once described as being in "hot and heavy" talks by Kara Swisher, is now "closer than it has even been," according to one of her sources, who adds, "we're finally talking about the how rather than the if." Said another: "It's meaningful. The fact that there is even progress and engagement, after so many failed attempts between us, says a lot." Others said a deal could be struck in the next few weeks. How would such a deal look? The latest thinking, according to Swisher, is that Yahoo would take over both …

Market meltdown notwithstanding, restaurant reservation company OpenTable is still poised to go public, having filed its intention to do so back in January. The company filed its first quarter earnings with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, and they were decent, says TechCrunch's Sarah Lacy: $366,000 profit on revenues of just under $16 million. Last year's first quarter came with an $87,000 loss on revenues of $13.2 million. OpenTable is really a software-as-a-service company. It doesn't have an ad model. Its customers are actually restaurants using its reservation software and paying monthly subscription fees. As a …

Noted tech venture capitalist Fred Wilson thinks the end of the IPO drought is nigh, possibly as soon as the end of this year. He cites five reasons why this will happen: 1- VCs "have been in the penalty box" for nearly a decade now, and it's time to come out (hey, the investment bankers who helped take all those Internet startups public got out much, much earlier) 2- There are some solid startups out there right now, waiting for the right time to go public. 3- Many of these companies are not ad-supported; …