Advertising and marketing

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--Yahoo showed its vision for what its Yahoo Open Strategy makes possible, demonstrating how it hopes to engage users more by enabling its existing sites to grow beyond their current confines.

Ash Patel, head of Yahoo's Audience Products Division, showed an example that endowed the company's home page, search, and mail sites with the ability to deal with the Netflix video rental site.

The home page was endowed with a new Netflix application that showed movies Patel has ordered and those recommended for him. A search results, augmented with SearchMonkey technology, let him add new movies … Read more

Google's share price hit a new 52-week low Wednesday and continued its downward trek in early-morning trading Thursday.

The search giant's stock fell as low as $409.68 a share on Wednesday, breaking past its previous 52-week low of $412.11 in mid-March.

Google's shares have been sustaining a beating since mid-August, falling even further Thursday in early-morning trading to as low as $406.38 a share.

That price pushes its shares back to a level where the stock was trading in October 2006. … Read more

A Wall Street analyst cut Yahoo's 12-month price target to $24 a share on Wednesday, citing a worsening economic climate and storm clouds on the horizon for future earnings growth.

Previously, Yahoo's 12-month price target was set at $26 a share by Jeffrey Lindsay, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., based on the controversial Yahoo-Google advertising search deal going through.

That report did little to cheer Yahoo's stock, which fell as low as $17.25 a share in early morning trading.

In the Sanford report, Lindsay said:

Our new valuation is based upon our pessimistic … Read more

AOL on Wednesday unveiled a new e-mail feature designed to allow users to access multiple e-mail services from one location on the site.

The e-mail service is part of AOL's plans to debut new features to the site over the coming weeks; the features aim to provide customization and give users more control, such as adding Web links to the main navigation bar and accessing custom feeds from a variety of sites from AOL.com's main page.

The new features follow efforts earlier this year to shore up the company's user traffic by revamping the design of its Web sites, … Read more

Microsoft announced Wednesday that it's planning a quick hand-off in its pending acquisition of Greenfield Online, selling Greenfield's online Internet survey business to ZM Capital.

Microsoft's acquisition of Greenfield, a consumer shopping sites operator, and the hand-off of Greenfield's survey business to ZM Capital's ZM Surveys are expected to happen simultaneously in the fourth quarter. But the software giant noted its Greenfield deal is not contingent upon the side deal with ZM Surveys.

Greenfield's Internet survey solutions (ISS) business collects, organizes, and sells consumer and business survey data to market research firms as well … Read more

Google, Liberty Global, and HSBC are backing a start-up called O3b Networks named for its ambition to bring Internet access to the "other 3 billion" people who lack it today.

The effort has begun initial production of 16 low-cost satellites that collectively will provide an Internet backbone to places lacking high-speed networking cable, including emerging markets in Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East, O3b said. The satellites will link with ground stations such as cell towers or WiMax stations that actually reach the customers.

"The O3b Networks system will completely change the economics of telecommunications … Read more

Giga Omni Media founder Om Malik has penned a new chapter to life, adding the role of venture partner to the mix.

Malik, who recently transferred the CEO role of his company to Paul Walborsky, has signed on as a venture partner at True Ventures, a firm that is an investor in Giga.

In a a blog post, Malik notes that he will continue to write about issues he holds dear from major technology trends to the underpinnings of the Internet. But, he notes, by signing on as a partner with True Ventures, he'll also have a front-row seat … Read more

Google is partnering with NBC Universal to act as broker for TV advertising times on some NBC cable channels.

NBC Universal will offer advertising time from several of its cable networks for Google to sell through its Google TV Ads service as part of a multiyear advertising, research, and technology partnership, the companies announced Monday in a joint statement.

"With the addition of NBC Universal inventory, advertisers using the Google TV Ads platform can reach NBCU Cable's national audience and gain access to viewership data at an unprecedented scale," NBC Universal and Google said in a statement. … Read more

Google's share price took a beating Monday, pushing it down nearly 5.5 percent despite a sudden lift in the broader markets as the government stepped in to bail out mortgage lenders Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

Google, which enjoyed a long run as an Internet darling with a soaring share price following its IPO, has lost 17.6 percent of its value since mid-August, with nearly a third of that loss occurring Monday.

Google closed the regular trading session down 5.47 percent to $419.95 a share. Earlier in the day, the Internet giant's share price … Read more