Is Google destined to become the next Microsoft with regard to antitrust issues and its attempts to fend off the next generation of Web startups? "Hopefully we won't repeat the mistakes that Microsoft made 10 years ago that ultimately led to all these things that happened to them," chief exec Eric Schmidt tells Neil Cavuto on Fox Business News. What about the potential for Twitter and Facebook to take momentum away from Google among younger Internet users, similar to how companies like Google came along to trump Microsoft? On the contrary, users of the social networking services are actually using …

According to The Journal's Digits blog, the health of U.S. online shopping is truly in the eyes of the beholder. To wit, comScore just reported that national online spending in the third quarter slipped 2% to $29.6 billion versus last year -- which represents the first time since comScore began tracking the figures that online spending has shrunk for two quarters in a row. Earlier in the week, however, Forrester Research concluded that online sales in November and December are likely to grow 8% year-over-year. Moreover, a survey Forrester conducted with the National Retail Foundation found that online retailers reported …

Despite Apple's best marketing efforts, Microsoft's new Windows 7 operating system is being well received, according early reports. At retail, the software giant sold more than triple the number of units of Windows 7 in the first few days on the market in late October than it had the previous Vista version, according to research firm NPD Group. "Microsoft's program of early low-cost pre-sales, high visibility marketing, and aggressive deals helped make the Windows 7 software launch successful," said Stephen Baker, VP of industry analysis at NPD. "In a slow environment for packaged software Windows …

Despite better-than-expected third-quarter earnings last week, RealNetworks, which makes digital media software and tools, is reportedly planning to lay off 4% of its workforce -- or about 70 people out of its 1,700-person staff. The move comes on the heels of layoffs of another 800 employees at Seattle-area neighbor Microsoft. Citing unnamed sources, Boomtown's Kara Swisher says reasons for the layoffs at RealNetworks are to realign its workforce after the recent economic downturn, and to control costs. RealNetworks, however, will likely hire back some of the laid-off employees, as other parts of the company are expanding, according to …

Google has launched a new enterprise search product for etailers. For a fee, Google Commerce Search will overhaul and organize a retailer's available online merchandise so shoppers can more easily find desired products by filtering search results by category, price, brand and other attributes. The goal is to increase conversions and sales, increase sales of specific products within search results, allow etailers to conduct cross-sale and promotional offers, and help them scale their offerings without glitches due to traffic spikes. Of course, all of these results will be delivered alongside Google's analytics offerings.

Fortune takes a close look at the evolution of Steve Jobs -- perhaps the closest thing we have to a tech deity -- and "his outsize impact on everything he touches." How's this for a bold statement: "The past decade in business belongs to Jobs." Well, the man has already "radically and lucratively reordered" four markets -- computing, music, movies, and mobile telephones. As are result, since 2000, Jobs has grown Apple from a $5 billion company to one worth about $170 billion. Yet, what really inspires this piece is clearly the fact that Jobs was feared a …

And in related news: rather than connecting humankind, Pew asks whether proliferating digital and mobile technologies are likely disconnecting people -- and in particular U.S. consumers, who since 1985 have been found to be more socially isolated, while the size of their discussion networks has declined, and the diversity of those people with whom they discuss important matters has decreased. To date sociologists had argued that the type of social ties supported by new technologies are relatively weak and geographically dispersed -- not the strong, often locally-based ties that tend to be a part of peoples' core discussion …

As it turns out, the soft-spoken, good-natured "Mac Guy" from Apple's TV ads might bear little resemblance to real-life Mac users -- or at least iPhone owners. According to a less-than-authoritative study cited by Gizmodo, one in five iPhone owners admit to "frequently" watching "adult material" on their phones -- twice as many as BlackBerry owners; one in three said it would be a turnoff if their partner had an out-of-date gadget; one in four admit to breaking off relationships because their partners spent too much time on their mobile device; while one in three admit to breaking off a …

In the name of transparency, Google has launched a Dashboard service, which is essentially a page where users can get a sense of all the data it stores about them in any of 23 different Google-run services. Despite the approval of privacy advocates, industry watchers seem less than impressed. The LA Timescouches the move by saying that "questions about how the company uses consumer data continue to mount," before shooting it down thusly: "Though much of the concern about Google's data storage revolves around precisely how and what the company does to analyze and profit …

Writing in the Times, author and analytics novice Colson Whitehead employs Google search data to prove his theory that our country has officially entered an era of "postraciality." Noting that journalists, in his opinion, employ Google searches to lend credence to trend articles, he compares recent hits on the word "postracial" with those of a previous year. What year? 1982. His finding? "There have been more than 500,000 online mentions of postraciality this year, as opposed to absolutely zero in 1982." Boom. Case closed. Oh, and Whitehead would like to nominates himself Secretary of Postracial Affairs.