Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker -- who achieved fame (and infamy) during the first Internet bubble -- is now predicting that Internet advertising is on track to hit $50 billion. Oh, and mobile commerce is going to outpace traditional ecommerce. Christened "Queen of the Net" by Barron's in 1998, Bloomberg/Businessweek says Meeker and her bullishness is "back in demand." Apparently forgetting the precipitous plunge that her portfolio took at the turn of the Century, "Investors are scouring her research anew for would-be Web winners." Indeed, "We are trying to invest in the kinds of companies she'll mention …

Merging its Goggles visual search service with Madison Avenue, Google has announced partnerships with Buick, Disney, Diageo, T-Mobile and Delta Airlines. About a year old, Google Goggles is a highly experimental mobile feature that tries to match pictures of real-world objects with relevant search results. Billed as a "marketing experiment," the five partner brands have "Goggles-enabled" existing print advertising, including posters and other media. Translation? When a Goggles mobile user takes a picture of their ads and uploads it to Google's Goggle database, they'll receive additional branded content and marketing materials. "Should this be successful," The Next …

That's it?! That was Apple's big game-changing announcement?! The fact that Steve Jobs finally got his hands on the Beatles catalog?! "Thank goodness that is out of the way; now we can focus on important developments," jokes Forrester's Mark Mulligan. "The fact that securing the content of a band old enough to be most young music fans' grandfathers (and then some) is a sad reflection of the state of the digital music market." Sure, the music will sell and sell well, but, as Mulligan adds: "That's just further depressing evidence of the old geezer skew of digital …

Call them threats to traditional publishers or the industry's greatest hope, e-readers and the apps that inhabit them are on the rise. The New York Times takes a closer look at a maker of one such app, Pulse News Reader, which lets users build a personal newsfeed with newspapers, magazines and blogs of their choice. "Spirits are high here because the app has been one of the top-selling news iPhone and iPad apps since its debut in May," The Times writes of Pulse's Palo Alto headquarters. What's more, the app's initial success "suggests that the people behind …

Former Digg CEO Jay Adelson has found a new home at SimpleGEO. As CEO of the location startup, Adelson will help SimpleGeo spread adoption of its developer tools, including APIs, which pack tons of location data into concise formats so that developers can build location into their apps. The appointment, as The Next Web writes, "puts a CEO that oversaw significant growth at another venture backed company (Digg of course)." SimpleGeo's current CEO and co-founder Matt Galligan, is moving over to the Chief Strategy Officer position. The startup's other co-founder, Joe Stump, was previously the lead engineer …

Not to be outdone by Facebook and Apple, Google is planning its own major announcement this week. Rumor has it that at a press event on Wednesday, Google will unveil a new way to buy clothes using technology from its recent Like.com acquisition. According to Frockwriter, Google will be populating the boutique.com domain with a visual clothing search engine. As Fortune suggests, "This could be something they've pulled from their like.com visual search acquisition earlier this year." Furthermore, sources tell Fortune that Google's fashion initiative will feature online boutiques selling merchandise offered by various designers and …

Former Facebook exec Dave Morin and Napster creator Shawn Fanning unveiled their latest project this weekend. Named Path, it's a service that lets people share photos of important moments, but with no more than 50 of their closest friends and family. "Think of it as a place for the memories along your path through life," Morin wrote in a blog post. "No following, no friending, just sharing with the people who matter most." As the San Francisco Chronicle notes, the 50 person threshold came from "Dunbar's number," which is based on research from Robin Dunbar, Oxford …

Socializing its casual gaming strategy, Microsoft on Monday debuted a "Gaming Hub," which includes social networking features built around individual games and spread across its three online gaming properties, including Bing Games, MSN Games, and Windows Live Messenger. "More than anything, the feature has been created to unify the social gaming experience on each of those sites," CNet writes in reference to the new social networking capabilities. As CNet notes, the launch follows earlier social experimentation within Games for Windows Live, Xbox Live, and gaming on Windows Phone 7. Included in the so-called hub are friends list, …

Marking another major milestone, Facebook's worth is believed to have surpassed eBay's to become the third most valuable Web business in the United States. According to it's value on SecondMarket, an exchange for shares of privately held companies, the social network is now worth about $41 billion -- more that eBay's $39.3 billion valuation on Nasdaq. (Google, valued at $192.9 billion, and Amazon, worth $74.4 billion, still lead the way.) Suggesting that the valuation is valid, Forrester analyst Augie Ray tells Bloomberg: Facebook "has in fairly short order -- just a couple of …

Here's something to scratch your head over this weekend. Microsoft is bringing back its hugely unsuccessful Kin "social phone." That's according to Engadget, which describers the move as "against all odds and better judgment." Critically, the new phones won't be "smart" (not that they ever were). In other words, as Engadget writes: "We're hearing that the revised phones will be totally, completely debundled from data services." Originally, the Kin was criticized for its pricing model, which was clearly out of reach for most of the tweens, teens, and twentysomethings that is was meant for. Of note, new …