The algorithm is taking over! Wired'sDaniel Roth explains how Demand Media uses a three-part algorithm that uses search terms, ad market key words, and content from other available media to decide on a variety of topics that people will be searching for, and then turns out "stories" to rank highly in organic search results. Demand serves up 4,000 videos and stories a day designed to attract consumers and advertisers. By next summer, Demand expects to be publishing one million items a month. But is Demand's answer and news factory, which cranks out answers to questions that are just …

Google is about to enter the smartphone market with an Android phone of its own. The search giant is working with a smartphone manufacturer to have a Google-branded phone available this year through retailers and not through telcos, Northeast Securities analyst Ashok Kumar tells TheStreet.com. The move would fulfill Google's pledge to bring a new generation of open-standard mobile Internet devices to consumers. By bypassing the carriers, who keep tight controls over the features and applications that are allowed on phones, it looks like Google will offer a device that lets users determine the functions. Both the Chrome …

Twitter is on track to earn $4 million in revenue this year, according to Wired magazine. Not a mind-blowing figure, but not bad for a company that at least feigns utter naivety. "If there are three sentences I'd use to describe Twitter," co-founder Biz Stone tells Wired, "One of them would be 'I don't know.'" The company has serious international ambitions, which it intends to realize through deals with telecoms that build Twitter into browsers or texting options. How's it going to start raking in the cash? In no time at all, Twitter is going to have verified …

The revolution might not be televised, but it most likely will be tweeted. In the wake of new financing and a $1 billion valuation, the micro-blogging service just surpassed 5 billion tweets. To put that number into perspective, the service only reached its billionth Tweet last November, and was only up to 1.6 billion in April. That means the remaining 3.4 billion Tweets were sent in just six months, which suggests massive growth. There is some debate about who sent the 5 billianth tweet on Twitter, ut it appears to be one Robin …

If any company was unconcerned about net neutrality, we figured it would be Twitter. Really, how much bandwidth does a tweet require? Yet, along with Facebook and Digg, Twitter is getting involved in an issue that, for better or worse, is likely to fundamentally alter the entire digital landscape."We believe a process that results in common sense baseline rules is critical to ensuring that the Internet remains a key engine of economic growth, innovation and global competitiveness," the group of 24 CEOs and Internet company founders, including Twitter's Evan Williams, wrote in a letter to be delivered to …

All heck is about the break loose now that EA has debuted its Mobile Rock Band game on the iTunes App Store. No, the iPhone's 320×480 pixel touchscreen isn't exactly reminiscent of a Stratocaster, but that isn't dampening early buzz around the extension. Its long-term success, however, remains in question. "Without the faux-instruments, Rock Band for iPhone offers an unavoidably watered-down game-play experience," the Appleblog.com writes. "It loses the original feel of Rock Band ... Instead, it becomes a clone of the hugely popular Tap Tap from Tapulous, which was first released in the App Store way back in September …

Google has partnered with Virgin America to provide free WiFi on every Virgin America flight between November 10 and January 15. For Google, this is a smart marketing move because it generates tons of good will among everyone who flies Virgin America, according to TechCrunch. But Google is really giving a gift to Virgin America in the form of yet one more incentive to fly its planes over competitors'. Furthermore, TechCrunch suggest that Virgin would be wise to give WiFi away for "free" to everyone on board regularly, while perhaps charging more per flight. For the moment, however, the question …

Abu Dhabi Media Company has purchased a stake in Vevo -- the music industry's version of Hulu -- from owners Universal Music and Sony. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but MediaMemo reports that the joint venture is being valued at $300 million. Google's YouTube isn't an owner in the JV but will share revenue in exchange for lending Vevo its massive distribution platform. The site, which will exist both outside YouTube and within YouTube as a branded channel with its own player, is scheduled to launch later this year. Vevo has been seeking an outside money source for …

This weekend, The Times ran a long and less-than-optimistic story on Microsoft and its head, Steve Ballmer. "While it still commands a prominent and profitable position in computing, brand experts say consumers stumble when trying to define what the company stands for and whether it can create a grander technological future," the paper says of Microsoft. "It remains too fixated on its old-line, desktop-based franchises, (critics) say -- too slow, too predictable and too, well, Microsoft." Still, with this week's launch of Windows 7 and a host of complementary, "slick" computers, Microsoft is trying to undermine its far sexier rival, …

For all those Mac guys out there, a new Mac OS X desktop client for Google Wave has just come out named Waveboard. According to Search Engine Journal, it practically mimics the Google Wave environment on the Web, minus the use of the Safari, Firefox or Chromium browser. Basically, it's a straight out port of Google Wave as it appears on your web browser, including the same interface, the same content, and the same window as your Google Wave account as rendered on your web browser. In addition, the software developers are also prepping up a Waveboard iPhone app. For …