Microsoft nearly doubled Google’s offer to power Verizon’s search on its phones:

Another challenge was balancing the phone talks with ongoing negotiations on a separate search deal. Verizon was looking for a search engine to feature on its phones and was nearing a final agreement with Google. In November, Microsoft Corp. put in an offer of about $600 million for its Internet search engine, nearly doubling Google’s offer, according to people familiar with the deal.

via Google, Verizon Deepen Ties – WSJ.com.

Online gaming market size:

Yet in 2009, all these online offerings are expected to account for just $9.4 billion of the $55 billion market for video games

via Video games move online: A giant sucking sound | The Economist.

Mark the date-  November 6, 2009

Yes, That Is an Ad on Google’s Homepage – ClickZ – News and expert advice for the digital marketer since 1997.

CEO Eric Schmidt told you that Google is poised to become the first $100 billion media company. So it’s official: Google now defines itself as a “media company”?

Auletta: Yes, and the media companies that wail about Google’s power attest to this as well.

via Ken Auletta – I Want Media.

Travel Ad Impressions Up Nearly 30% in September – ClickZ.

Epic post by Dennis Yu on the shady side of Facebook advertising.  The one thing that is “wrong” about his post is this:

I finally came to this realization: People on Facebook won’t pay for anything.

That’s not endemic to the Facebook network.  That’s pretty much the entire internet.  The three tricks work outside of Facebook too:

They don’t have credit cards, they don’t want credit cards, and they are not interested in shopping. But you can trick them into doing one of three things:

* Download a toolbar: It could be spyware (such as Zango) or something more legitimate, such as Webfetti or Zwinkys.

* Give up their email address: You’ve won a “free” camera or perhaps you’ve been selected as a tester for a new Macbook Pro (which you get to keep at the end of the test). Just tell us where you want us to ship it.

* Give up their phone number: You took the IQ Quiz, so give us your phone number and we’ll tell you your score. Never mind that you’ll get billed $20 a month or perhaps be tricked into inviting 10 other friends to beat your score.

via How To Spam Facebook Like A Pro: An Insider’s Confession.

I wonder how many shady players are pissed off now that Dennis basically shined the mainstream blog media flashlight into this corner of the industry.  Publishers will be more careful and newbs will make things more competitive, making it harder to turn a profit on this platform.

Another article on the shady side of marketing– this time on free credit reports:

But while the government has taken issue with the ads, it has had little to say about credit monitoring services themselves, a rapidly expanding niche approaching $1 billion in sales for which millions of people have signed up, often unwittingly. The problem, say critics, is that most people really don’t need it.

via Ads Stoke a Battle Over ‘Free’ Credit Scores – NYTimes.com.

Thirty million active users is big time. And don’t think that this happened organically.  Google marketed the heck out of it using the reach of their existing properties.  It’s basically Google’s analog of bundling Internet Explorer with the Windows operating system.

via Google’s Chrome Browser Is Now 30 Million Users Strong.

From: @nikiscevak Sent: Nov 1, 2009 5:33p Prescient http://bit.ly/42uvhz RT @arrington @TechCrunch Social Media Scams http://bit.ly/Hqw5u

via Twitter / Rob Leathern: From: @nikiscevakSent: Nov ….

Everyone who reads this blog should be familiar with the subject of Arrington’s rant in his recent post.  As Markus Frind notes, this stuff has been going on for years.  It’s just that mainstream bloggers haven’t covered it.  I have a feeling that this stuff will die down and things will go back to the way it was.  The one rule that seems to persist in this space is that offers will always go away, but new ones always seem to come around.

Who knows, maybe Arrington can kick start enough momentum to usher some reform into the industry.

I’m surprised it took this many years to be reported by the “media”. These kind of scams have been going on for years and I get several emails a month from these vendors promising to make me millions of dollars a month. I’ve no doubt I could make millions a month off these scams, but they are scams and will eventually bring government regulations. Michael mentions tattoo media look up tatto media sued on google and you will see all the government agencies sueing them.

via Two Companies That Said No To Social Media Scams.