Remember that girl in grade school who always insisted she'd flunked the last exam -- until, without fail, the teacher would return her perfect grade. What ever happened to her? She turned into Marissa Mayer, Google's VP of location and local services, who tells Fortune that, in her heart of hearts, she believed Google had a 98% chance of failing when she joined to company in 1999. Sure, 2% odds of success were far greater than what she bet on other start-ups at the time, but come on! Mayer was also drawn to Google for the fact that she …

Under new ownership, Myspace is reportedly making the rounds at Advertising Week with investor Justin Timberlake in tow. What Myspace's new pitch? The Specific Media-owned site wants nothing less that "to become the No. 1 online community music destination," while its mission is "to feed the energy of youth culture everywhere," All Things D reports, citing an official pitch deck. Myspace traffic has "steadied," according to the company -- though, as All Things D notes, the charts in the pitch deck only extend till July of this year. "The core of their pitch centers on Myspace's pre-existing music deals," …

Like many a media company before it, Showtime just debuted a streaming video portal dubbed Showtime Anytime -- and "just in time for the return of everyone's favorite serial killer," Engadget writes in reference to "Dexter." Showtime Anytime offers online access to the network's library of movies, TV shows and other content. As Multichannel News reported, AT&T U-verse subscribers were the first to gain access to Anytime, although, as Engadget notes, similar content had already been streaming on Comcast's Xfinity TV wWeb site and app. So, how does the new service shape up? Well, "It's no HBO Go …

It's been on-again off-again for Groupon and its IPO plans. The latest word, from Bloomberg, is that the deal site still plans to go public, but may have to scale back the offering amid "management gaffes, restated results and regulatory scrutiny." As a result, the valuation might need to drop to $3 billion to $5 billion to attract shareholders, Josef Schuster, founder of IPO investor IPOX Schuster, tells Bloomberg. "That's a fraction of $25 billion that was said to be discussed as a potential valuation when Groupon met with underwriters earlier this year," it notes. Schuster adds: "Interest …

Facebook is partnering up with security firm Websense in an effort to protect users from dangerous links that lead to malicious Web sites and malware sites. "Going forward, when a Facebook user clicks on a link, the new system will first check the link against Websense's system to determine whether or not it's safe," according to TechCrunch. "If it's not, a message is displayed warning the user that the link is potentially harmful and suggests you return to the previous page." Powering the system is Websense's "ThreatSeeker Cloud," the security firm's classification and malware identification platform. According to …

The Huffington Post Media Group says it surpassed 1 billion page views in August -- a milestone that Kara Swisher at All Things D marks with her best Dr. Evil impression: "HuffPo at one biiiilllliiion monthly page views." The AOL-owned property has also bought online grassroots platform Localocracy. "The price for the site, whose key execs will join the AOL content unit, is under $1 million," Swisher reports, citing a source close to the deal. Meanwhile, The HuffPo also sad it was hiring Lisa Belkin from The New York Times to be a senior columnist covering parenting and …

While 62% of marketers and agencies planned to spend more money on social media compared with six months ago, only 12% think it works in an ad campaign. That's according to new data from ad tech firm Collective, as reported by Forbes. What's more, one-quarter of respondents said they don't even understand the value of social media. "Ask marketers why they're shoveling money into fan pages and ads on Facebook, and many will admit they're still fuzzy on what they're getting," Forbes writes. In response, Facebook is expected to use this year's Advertising Week an as opportunity to …