Silicon Alley Insider's Nicholas Carlson says that a big reason that AOL's sales were down 20% in the first quarter is that AOL's sales people rely too much on Advertising.com, AOL's low-priced advertising network, instead of pushing clients into higher-priced premium display advertising. Why? For starters, due to AOL's many acquisitions over the years, sales people have to work with as many as 6 to 13 systems to manage a premium ad campaign. One source says the number is actually closer to five, but that's still way too high, considering an Ad.com campaign requires just one system. Even …

"It was unkind irony that just as MySpace was reshuffling its leadership with the hope of reviving its fortunes, Yahoo quietly announced the end of GeoCities," says GigaOm's Kevin Kelleher. Indeed, according to Kelleher, MySpace is, in fact, GeoCities 2.0. "Like GeoCities, MySpace sold out to a bigger media company that ended up a caretaker for its long years of decay. And now MySpace is slowly becoming, like GeoCities, an abandoned amusement park on the Web," Kelleher says.So, can newly-named MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta keep it from becoming GeoCities 2.0? Kelleher, for one, thinks it unlikley, since …

At Google, Paul Buchheit built the first versions of Gmail and AdSense. Now, he's working on FriendFeed, a company that he believes is bringing to market flowing, multi-person, real-time conversations that will eventually replace email. FriendFeed, for those that don't know it, says Read Write Web's Marshall Kirkpatrick, is a combination of an aggregation tool bringing in information from around the Web, a big public conversation, and a publishing tool for original content. The service aggregates feeds from the different social networks you participate in, allowing your FriendFeed friends to engage with you on those networks whether they belong to …

The Guardian reports that WPP is looking for a replacement for Sir Martin Sorrell. Not that he's being fired or has any immediate plans to step down, but it turns out that under the terms of his renegotiated contract, Sorrell can leave the company "at will" with no statutory notice period. It also means that WPP can let him go at a moment's notice. In its annual report, WPP says that a comprehensive review "directed to the group's chief executive position" has taken place. The company says that Sorrell and non-executive members of WPP have exchanged views …

Twitter has rolled out a new interface that features "Trending Topics" in addition to real-time search on its main page. Trending Topics keeps track of hot items people are searching for right now on Twitter. As you can imagine, "swine flu" is currently the No. 1 topic. A new feature also allows users to save searches so they can update results in real-time. In a blog post, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said, "Every public update sent to Twitter from anywhere in the world 24/7 can be instantly indexed and made discoverable via our newly launched real-time search. With this newly …

Associated Press CEO Tom Curley made comments this week that suggest the talks between the AP and Google about content and compensation issues can't be going too well, says Forbes' Dirk Smillie. In an interview, Curley warns that if the two sides don't strike a deal soon, "[Google] will not get our copy going forward." Last month, the AP announced a content protection initiative in which it threatened legal and legislative action against news aggregators, but it didn't mention Google News. That's because the AP needs Google's help directing users to original AP news stories and away from secondary sources …

PaidContent.org's Staci D. Kramer interviews Anne Sweeney, co-chair, Disney Media Networks and president of the Disney/ABC Television Group, following the announcement that Disney would take an equity stake in Hulu, the joint video venture from NBC and News Corp. Asked whether the move indicated a change in direction from the company and a shift to trying to control the end-user's experience, Sweeney said, "We don't consider it a change in any way. If you look back starting with the the iTunes deal in October 2005, that was a very bold and gutsy move. That was really the deal and the …

The deal between Hulu and Disney yesterday doesn't bode well for YouTube's revenue sharing business model, says Dow Jones' Scott Morrisson. The search giant is under mounting pressure to add more professional content to YouTube in order to attract more advertisers. Google was dealt a further blow on Thursday when the news spread that Disney would take a 27% stake in Hulu and put full episodes of its ABC TV shows on the site. Hulu can now distribute content from three of the top four U.S. television broadcasters, making it the runaway leader in the market for professional video content …