WPP Group's Kantar Media, which provides insights into online marketing and advertising, has acquired AdGooroo to expand on its insights into global digital media. The acquisition of AdGooroo gives Kantar Media tools focusing on competitive keyword and budget analysis, ad creative pieces, back-link data, campaign statistics, as well as the ability to compare monthly amount spent on paid search ads. The technology also tracks changes to algorithms and impressions.

For the fourth year in a row, Facebook was the most search term in the U.S. in 2012, accounting for 4.13% of all searches, a 33% increase from last year, according to new data from Experian Marketing Services. The firm said four variations of the term “facebook” were among the top 10 terms and accounted for 5.62% of searches overall, a 27% increase from 2011. YouTube was again the No. 2 search term, with craigslist moving up a notch to third place. Yahoo, eBay, MapQuest and Amazon.com and eBay also made the top 10. New terms entering the top …

Amanda Richman has been named president of investment and activation at Publicis Groupe's Starcom, part of the Starcom MediaVest Group, effective with the New Year. She replaces Mike Rosen, who is headed to a senior post at Telemundo. In her new role Richman will be responsible for the agency's activation and investment spanning all traditional and digital media. The shop places about $9 billion worth of ads annually for clients, which include Bank of America, General Motors, Kellogg's and Mars/Wrigley. Richman will also serve on Starcom's executive management board and will report to Starcom CEO Lisa Donohue.

Facebook on Wednesday began testing a new version of its product-showcasing Collections feature, doubling the number of retailers and adding new features. Collections allows retailers to post large product photos with “Want,” “Collect” or “Like” buttons and links to buy items through their sites. Now Facebook is also testing other terms including “save” “Wishlist” and “add” with different groups of users to see which work best at driving interaction. Facebook ran an initial month-long test of Collections in October among people were already fans of participating retailers including Michael Kors, Pottery Barn, Wayfair, Victoria’s Secret, Neiman Marcus, Smith Optics and Fab.com. That …

E-commerce spending for the first 46 days of the holiday season is up 13% to $35 billion compared to the same period last year, according to the latest information from comScore. Last week (Dec. 10-16) marked the first weekend online spending has ever surpassed $7 billion, with four individual days so far exceeding the $1 billion mark. However, sales for the season so far are below comScore’s projection of 16% growth. “This current week, which kicked off with Free Shipping Day on Monday the 17th, will be critical in making up some ground on a season-to-date growth rate that …

It was a short reign. Lisa Gersh, who was named CEO of Martha Stewart Omnimedia in July, has "stepped down" per the company, The Wrap reports. Company directors are searching for a successor. The company’s shares have lost 45% of their value over the last 12 months, and fell about 1.2% in initial trading today. Omnimedia's Whole Living magazine was also closed this year. Gersh had served as Omnimedia president and COO since 2011. 

Aegis Group restructured its senior media management team, creating a new "network brand board," and also unveiled a new unit that will consolidate all of its online display media buying under a new centralized unit dubbed Amplifi. John Murray, who has been president of Aegis' Digital Action Group and existing agency trading desk AMNET, was named president of Amplifi, as well as a member of the new network board.

The timing of the backlash against Instagram over changes to its terms of service that allow it to use subscriber’s photos in ads for itself and other businesses without compensation couldn’t have come at a better time for Yahoo. The controversy erupts only a week after Yahoo rolled out an upgraded iPhone app for Flickr, its own photo-sharing app overshadowed in the last few years by the rise of Instagram and other photo apps. Now Flickr has a fresh opportunity to capture Instagram users abandoning the service over its updated terms of service. Wired even posted instructions today for …

The Federal Trade Commission plans to announce new children's privacy regulations at noon on Wednesday.

Look out Facebook, Twitter may be gaining on you. The microblogging service on Tuesday announced it now has more than 200 million active users worldwide, up from 140 million in May. Twitter's growth got a lift from the quadrennial events of the U.S. presidential election and the Summer Olympics, pushing more people from passive to active users. The service has more than 500 million registered users overall, but most aren’t tweeting away like its most avid users in media and entertainment circles. A comScore report in September found photo-sharing app Instagram had more daily active U.S. users than Twitter. …