Does the Web Deserve The Power It Gained To Influence Politics?


Considering how Barack Obama is one of YouTube's biggest stars -- the video of his Philadelphia speech on race is just the latest involving the senator that, by Web metrics, went platinum -- you'd think he would be one of the site's most unalloyed fans. The other day, though, he was vigorously ambivalent.

Those enlessly played clips showing Rev. Jeremiah Wright making controversial racial statements, Sen. Obama told an interviewer, aren't representative of the man. "I don't want to suggest that somehow, the loops you have been seeing typifies the services all the time," Sen. Obama said. "That is the danger of the YouTube era. It doesn't excuse what he said. But it gives it some perspective."

As with Nixon going to China, it might take an Obama, with solid youth-tech cred, to suggest any downside to the online world. Considering the rapidly growing number of Americans who rely on the Web to follow the election and judge its players -- even if mostly via mainstream-media sites -- it's a good time to look at all the Web does very well with politics, and at what it messes up.

Web videos, especially on YouTube, are a good place to start. They have been called the death of the TV sound bite, for the way voters can experience lengthy realities without the filters of a news show constrained by time limits and commercials. The 37 minutes of Sen. Obama's race speech quickly became one of the most widely downloaded.

Less clear is whether YouTube will be just as bad, or worse, at blurring the line between a fair point and a cheap shot than newspapers or TV ever were.

Elected officials, especially those in small communities, have complained since the invention of the camera that one sure way to get their picture into the paper is to fall asleep at some legislative event, even one that has lasted all night. But if a dozing politician thinks being in the day's newspaper or the night's newscast was a problem, wait until the clip gets viewed eternally online.

Montana Republican Sen. Conrad Burns had plenty of other problems when he ran for re-election in 2006, but the campaign wasn't helped when he was caught shutting his eyes for a few seconds at a Senate hearing on a farm bill.

Videos like these may enjoy the popularity they do because they confirm ideas already held about the politicians involved, in which case blaming YouTube confuses cause and effect. But there is a danger that our politics might be shaped by insignificant events that assume an importance merely by having been caught on tape.

It's not just video that is being refashioned in the Internet age, but words, too, through blogs and other widely democratized forms of expression. Blogs are enormously useful, if only because of the way they allow communities with similar politics to follow the ups and down of a campaign as a group.

When Hillary Clinton or John McCain give major policy speeches, commentators feel compelled to have their thoughts online within a few hours -- even those who work for weekly newsmagazines. And, in keeping with the conventions of blog posts, which rarely go on for more than a screenload of type, they were often expressed in just a few hundred words.

Blogs then, make possible an amazing diversity of lucid ideas, but those ideas tend to be quickly considered and briefly expressed before everyone moves on to the next topic du jour.

Discussion such as this one about the Web and politics usually involve the newest and most glamorous parts of the Internet: the participatory, Web 2.0 neighborhoods, like blogs and YouTube.

One of the biggest electoral impacts of the Web involves one of its earliest applications: email. It's an easy and effective way for people to share ideas with friends about what might be going on with the candidates. By operating person-to-person and under the radar, email can have an enormous and injurious influence before anyone even notices.

The Obama camp learned this earlier this year when emails making false statements about the candidate's religion started showing up in millions of in-boxes. Old-fashioned whispering campaigns usually work only in relatively small, cohesive communities. With email, though, they can be national and nearly instantaneous.

Suggesting that there is both good and bad with the Web and politics isn't to say they exist in equal amounts. Say what one will about the shortcomings of blogs, I can't imagine going back in time to a world where a relatively small number of newspapers and magazines -- even though by and large they were very good ones -- had an effective monopoly on what did and didn't get printed about a campaign.

The Web isn't going away, and so its boosters should no longer feel defensive when its inanities are pointed out. The YouTube political debates where voters submitted video questions, from January, for example, were described as a singular chance for citizens to question candidates directly, which sounded good until one of the questioners presented himself as a snowman.

Because it's such a vastly powerful network, the Internet has the ability either to elevate or to debase the political discussion. Both will be occurring between now and November, though with a little luck, not in equal amounts.

By Lee Gomes
Wall Street Journal; March 26, 2008

Testing Souped-Up Search Functions


Two Web Services Use Visual Cues; YouTube in 3-D


Search, by nature, doesn't need to be overly exciting stuff. It usually involves typing a word in a box, pressing enter and reading results to find the best one -- and this style works well for plenty of people, as is evidenced by Google's success. But many would like to see search become smarter, more intuitive or even visually stimulating.

This week, I tested two applications that turn searching into feasts for the eyes. Instead of showing search results in lines of text, these results are visually based. One, called SpaceTime, displays search results in three-dimensional views that make images look as if they are flying onto the screen. The other, an actual search engine called Searchme, spreads image results out in fan-like patterns. Both SpaceTime and Searchme encourage people to search by choosing what looks visually familiar or accurate, rather than trying to discern what the text in a link might mean.

The idea of improved search isn't a new one. Many have tried, ranging from Ask.com's media-rich result pages to Mahalo.com's human-powered search engine. But Google's simplicity and experience have made it hard to beat, and competitors know the importance of relevant and reliable results. Rather than comparing these sites with the big G, I looked at them as add-ons that could be especially useful for certain searches.

Searchme, a search engine built from the ground up, is technically in private beta -- meaning that it is still a work in progress and users must be invited to use it. The company gave me access to the site and created a link so that readers of this column could also use it: www.searchme.com/wsj. This Web-based tool works on Windows and Mac operating systems and in any major browser, and it tries to improve search by asking users to choose a category for their search terms.

For instance, when I typed "US Open" in the Searchme box, categories appeared to the right, including Tennis, Squash, Gambling & Casinos and Golf. Since I was looking for the tennis-related grand slam, I chose the Tennis category and saved myself some typing. The more I used Searchme, the more I came to rely on these categories for faster, more-refined results.

Searchme's visual search works by displaying snapshots of Web sites, each of which has the search term highlighted on its page. These pages fan out from the center to look like Cover Flow in Apple Inc.'s iTunes, visually sorting images like album covers in a jukebox so they can be flipped through until the best Web page is found.

By moving a cursor along a horizontal scroll bar below these pages, I skimmed through 10 to 15 Web sites in a matter of seconds, quickly weeding out unwanted sites. But these pages don't allow interaction like scrolling down or playing of embedded videos. A button below these images reveals a list-view where text and links relating to the images are listed, but I kept this option hidden more often than not.

Though Searchme's categories are helpful and I liked using visual searching, I did notice many more results, overall, while performing searches through Google and Yahoo. A Google search for the Regency Hotel in New York City returned accurate links to the hotel's Web site -- and a map. Searchme's first result was a defunct Web page for the Regency, and the younger search engine doesn't yet have maps, news or stock quotes like Google.

Settings can be adjusted for Searchme, including one option to filter out adult content and another to open up new windows whenever a Web page is selected, so as not to lose the current page.

SpaceTime (www.spacetime.com) differs from Searchme in that it doesn't try to be its own search engine. Instead, it is a browser that works with established search engines and Web sites. It isn't Web-based, like Searchme, and must be downloaded to a Windows PC (it doesn't yet work on Macs). The intense 3-D graphics of this program work best on a computer with at least one gigabyte of system memory and 256 megabytes of dedicated video memory.

At first glance, SpaceTime appears to be a normal browser. It has the usual URL line where specific Web sites can be entered and a search box at the top right that can be set to search Google, Google Images, Yahoo, Yahoo Images, eBay, Flickr, YouTube, RSS feeds or Amazon.

But using this search box starts the fun of the product. Search results appear as images lined up on the screen, floating through space and descending into the distance in a 3-D visualization akin to that of Windows Vista's Flip 3D. SpaceTime's dark background gives it a dramatic edge, and each object is reflected in an artistic, glass-like surface. Results can be tweaked, turned, magnified and moved within this 3-D space.

When I performed normal Google or Yahoo searches, the returned results appeared as images of each Web site on which the searched term appeared. When I searched for images on Google, Yahoo or Flickr, the results came back in image-only fashion -- not images embedded in Web sites -- that looked stunning lined up in 3-D. Searches of eBay are especially useful on SpaceTime because each item up for bid zooms onto the screen as its own object along with its current price, number of bids and remaining auction time. YouTube searches return videos lined up in SpaceTime's 3-D environment.

With all of these images flying in and out of the screen, things can get a little overwhelming. One pile of search results is called a stack, and each stack is automatically saved in a dock at the bottom of the screen, labeled with a thumbnail image of where you last left off. Searches can be saved and snapshots of screens can be captured and saved in the dock.

To return results as fast as possible, SearchTime says it will pull up just 10 at a time for image, product and video searches, or five pages at once for content-heavy sites. But in my tests, using two different Vista computers with 2GB of RAM each, I usually never saw more than five results at a time. The next five or 10 images can be retrieved by choosing a "Next Set" button at the bottom of the screen.

On-screen Web sites and objects are interactive, meaning that I could scroll down within a Web page or play a YouTube video within the SpaceTime screen. A clever magnifying glass pops up on the screen to pinpoint the original search term on each page.

SpaceTime allowed me to rapidly flip through tens or even hundreds of images and Web sites in a very short time, but it wasn't perfect. Some search results took a while to load, only displaying the first object while the other lined-up objects appeared as empty frames because they were still loading. YouTube seemed sluggish and wasn't as easy to navigate as some other searches, and Flickr was especially slow to load in a few of my tests.

SpaceTime is working on a Web-based version that won't rely so heavily on each user's PC specs, and Searchme is still in its testing phase, working to return more relevant results. But for now, these two sites turn search into a different, much more visually stimulating experience. After using these programs for a little while, I started to search differently -- moving through results faster and clicking on fewer links that returned unwanted results. Though I'll still rely on Google for basic searches, visual search can save time and turn searching into a fun process.

By: Katherine Boehret
Wall Street Journal; March 26, 2008

In Real Estate, Think Global, Not Local

The mantra that all real estate is local looks more suspect than ever, now that a national home-price bubble has burst. In today's interconnected marketplace, real-estate trends might follow a global pattern, with overseas housing markets following the lead set by the U.S.

In Europe, slack lending policies and low interest rates helped drive up property values just as they had in the U.S. In 2006, home prices rose at a double-digit pace in Ireland, Spain, France and Norway, according to Moody's Economy.com. They shot up in the United Kingdom, too, after briefly flattening out in 2005.

The air now looks like it is leaking out of Europe's housing balloon. Prices in Ireland fell 6% in the fourth quarter of 2007, after gaining 13% a year ago. In the U.K., prices gained 4.8%, compared with a gain of 10.5% a year earlier. Spain's 4.8% gain compares with an increase of 9.1% the previous year.

The International Monetary Fund said in a recent report that a slowdown in credit growth in Europe is emerging as "several countries face housing markets considered overvalued." It expects gross domestic product in the euro zone to grow by 1.6% in 2007, down from 2.6% in 2007.

Consumers are feeling it. In the fourth quarter, real European consumer spending fell at an annual rate of 0.3%, compared with a 1.9% annualized increase in the U.S., according to Citigroup.

It's not just Europe. In Thailand, prices for detached homes were down slightly in the third quarter from a year earlier, according to Thailand's central bank. Townhouse prices have flattened.

The upshot: The housing engine that helped drive the global economy is running out of gas, more evidence that a recovery could take longer than many expect.

By SCOTT PATTERSON
Wall Street Journal; March 25, 2008

Do You Need to Work Faster? Get A Bigger Computer Monitor

Working late? Blame your computer screen. A new study finds that bigger monitors make people more productive.

Researchers at the University of Utah tested how quickly people performed tasks such as editing a document and copying numbers between spreadsheets while using different computer configurations: one with an 18- inch monitor, one with a 24-inch monitor and one with two 20-inch monitors. Their finding: People using the 24-inch screen completed the tasks 52% faster than people who used the I8-inch monitor; people who used the two 20-inch monitors were 44% faster than those with the I8-inch screens.

The study concluded that someone using a larger monitor could save 2.5 hours a day. But James Anderson, the professor in charge of the study, said to take that result with a grain of salt: It assumes that someone will work nonstop for eight hours, which no one will, and that the tasks they perform will benefit from a larger screen, which isn't always the case. Still, tasks such as moving data between files are ideally suited to bigger or multiple screens. Mr. Anderson, who uses a computer with two 20- inch screens and one 24- inch screen, recommends that businesses take the time to match employees with the proper screen size based on job requirements.

A caveat: The study was funded by NEC Corp., which makes computer monitors. Mr. Anderson said it was vetted by his university's research board.

by Ben Worthen
Wall Street Journal; March 25, 2008

Google Asks. U.S. to Open TV 'White Space' for Web

Less than a week after emerging as the "happy loser" in the latest U.S. wireless-spectrum auction, Google Inc. renewed a pitch to use TV "white space"-unlicensed and unused airwaves-to provide Internet service.

In a letter to the Federal Communications Commission, the Internet search giant pressed the government to open up the white space for unlicensed use in hopes 6>f enabling more widespread, affordable Internet ac. cess over the airwaves.

"As Google has pointed out previously, the vast majority of viable spectrum in this country simply goes unused, or else is grossly underutilized," Richard Whitt, Google's Washington telecom and media lawyer, wrote in the letter.

Google said the white space, located between channels 2 and 51 on TV sets that aren't hooked up to satellite or cable services, offer a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to provide ubiquitous wireless broadband access to all Americans."

In addition, opening up the spectrum would "enable much needed competition to the incumbent broadband service providers," Mr. Whitt wrote.

The FCC wasn't available for comment. A majority of FCC commissioners, including Chairman Kevin Martin, previously have indicated that they support the use of white-space spectrum, as long as the technologies deployed are sufficiently robust to prevent interference with TV broadcast signals.
Although it wasn't the first time Google urged the FCC to open up TV white space, the company's public letter was notable, given Google's involvement in the just-ended government auction of radio spectrum. In the auction, Google was outbid by Verizon Wireless, ajoint venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and VOdafone Group PLC, but the Mountain View, Calif., Internet company had already convinced the FCC to grant an openaccess provision that will allow customers to use whatever phones or software they wish on a portion of the spectrum.

Google is developing mobile phone software, known as Android, that several device makers are using to power their coming handsets. In a conference call, Mr. Whitt said Google had no plans to submit a prototype device that would work on "white spaces," but he noted that the unused spectrum would be a "very nice match" for Android phones, which currently don't "have a home for spectrum."

TV broadcasters oppose the use of white space, fearing it would cause interference with television programming and could cause problems with a federally mandated transition from analog to digital broadcasting signal next year.

But Google in its letter urged the FCC to adopt a series of overlapping technologies, including "spectrum sensing," designed to prevent signals from interfering with each other. "Google also would be willing to provide, at no cost to third parties, the technical support necessary to make these plans happen,". Mr. Whitt said.

by Scott Morrison; Andrew Edwards contributed to this article
Wall Street Journal; March 25, 2008

New Routers Catch the Eyes of IT Departments

Multifunctional Boxes Keep Business Networks Humming, Curbs Sprawl

Information-technology professionals like Jeff Young want to cut down on the sprawl of networking equipment in their company's computer rooms. In the process, they are being drawn to a new type of product coming out of the technology-networking industry.

Mr. Young, chief technology officer at financial data company FactSet Inc., used to buy a different piece of networking equipment to handle each different technology task. That meant he purchased one piece of gear to deal with email spam, another piece for Internet-traffic filtering, and yet other equipment for firewalls. Overall, his Norwalk, Conn., company had more than 300 "routers," the back-office networking gear that helps to direct and shape Internet traffic.

Having so many routers was expensive and took up space. So late last year, Mr. Young began testing a new type of router from networking company Cisco Systems Inc. Called the ASR 1000, the router crams multiple functions -- including speeding data through computer networks and filtering out unwanted Internet traffic -- into one box. Cisco officially launched the product this month.

"The consolidation component of this gear is compelling," says Mr. Young. He adds that for every five of FactSet's old routers, he plans to replace them with one of Cisco's new routers. Mr. Young expects the rollout to be finished in a year, but declines to comment on how much the deployment will cost.

As IT pros like Mr. Young clamor to deal with "box sprawl," networking companies from Cisco to Juniper Networks Inc. to Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson's Redback Networks are introducing new routers that can stuff more services into their boxes. Apart from its new ASR router, Cisco unveiled a multifunction router known as the ISR in 2004. In 2005, Redback Networks introduced a multifunction router called the SmartEdge, which can facilitate Internet telephone calls and filter Internet traffic. That same year, Juniper launched new routers dubbed the M-series, which boast Internet-telephone features and can block unwanted Internet traffic.

These new multifunction routers are intended to appeal to IT departments that want to minimize the space devoted to networking equipment, replacing older gear with more efficient products that consume less energy. Unlike typical routers, which may perform just one function, the new gear can be customized to carry out a variety of tasks, such as securing a network and ensuring important files have the proper bandwidth to reach their destinations. Prices of the new routers vary according to the different mix of services that companies add to them.

For companies that adopt these multifunction routers, there are cost savings to be had. Most of the savings will come in a company's data center, the huge back-office computer warehouses where Internet and communications companies and businesses link to each other's computer networks. Companies typically lease space in data-center facilities based on the amount of square feet that their equipment occupies. A spokesman for Cisco, San Jose, Calif., says its ASR router uses between two to four feet less in a datacenter than a bundle of networking gear delivering the same features, saving customers $4,000 to $20,000 in data-center-setup fees.

Some data centers also lease space based on the amount of power that computer equipment consumes. A Redback spokesman says its SmartEdge router consumes 61% less energy than a competitor's single-function box that is used to deliver Internet-telephone and data services. That translates into savings of about $3,000 a year in energy bills, says the spokesman.

Companies need to weigh such potential cost savings against the front-end expense of these new routers, however. Because the multifunction gear packs in more services than typical routers, they can be four times as expensive at the outset as typical routers that cost about $20,000 apiece. Cisco has said its new ASR router costs between $35,000 and $400,000, depending on what functions a customer decides to add to the box.

Still, "while clearly the equipment is more expensive, in some cases the cost savings and reduction in energy can offset the pricing," says Ray Mota, an analyst with Synergy Research Group Inc., a Reno, Nev., market research firm.

Some corporate customers may not like the multifunction routers for other reasons. Mr. Mota says some IT managers feel safer having a dedicated router performing a single task, thereby ensuring service for that one task is optimal.

Manoj Leelanivas, a senior vice president at Juniper who oversees the unit that mainly produces routers for cable and telephone companies, adds that some corporate customers may avoid the new routers because of the way their companies' IT is structured. He notes, for instance, that some corporate IT departments have separate groups managing communications, networking and security and don't want to introduce equipment that would overlap.

This isn't the first time networking companies have offered multifunction routers. Early this decade, networking concerns such as Crescent Networks Inc. and CoSine Communications Inc. introduced routers that could perform several tasks, but those boxes were often faulty. Equipment manufacturers have since developed specialized processors and software to improve the performance of such routers. Redback Networks, for instance, has spent about $250 million since 2005 on developing special processors. Cisco says it spent $100 million and obtained 42 patents for the semiconductor it is now using in its new ASR router.

Mark D. Krupinski, who oversees networking for WesBanco Bank Inc., turned to multifunction routers to control the box sprawl at his Wheeling, W.Va., bank. In 2006, after several acquisitions, WesBanco had 80 different phone systems spread across 82 bank locations. The extensive network included dozens of specialized call-routing boxes and other equipment.

So Mr. Krupinski decided to consolidate all the confusing systems into a single network. By early last year, the massive array of routers serving the different phone systems had been replaced with a single server and an ISR multi-function router from Cisco. Mr. Krupinski declines to say what the bank spent on the conversion, but says the move saves it $1 million a year in maintenance and telecommunication costs.

"It's a headache to have to worry about maintenance and power consumption for loads of equipment if you don't have to," he says. "The costs savings we saw more than justified our consolidating."

By Bobby White
Wall Street Journal; March 25, 2008

Pleasing Google's Tech-Savvy Staff

Information Officer Finds Security in Gadget Freedom of Choice


How do you run the information-technology department at a company whose employees are considered among the world's most tech-savvy?

Douglas Merrill, Google Inc.'s chief information officer, is charged with answering that question. His job is to give Google workers the technology they need, and to keep them safe -- without imposing too many restrictions on how they do their job. So the 37-year-old has taken an unorthodox approach.

Unlike many IT departments that try to control the technology their workers use, Mr. Merrill's group lets Google employees download software on their own, choose between several types of computers and operating systems, and use internal software built by the company's engineers. Lately, he has also spent time evangelizing to outside clients about Google's own enterprise-software products -- such as Google Apps, an enterprise version of Google's Web-based services including email, word processing and a calendar.

Mr. Merrill, who has surfer-length hair and follows a T-shirt dress code, studied social and political organization at the University of Tulsa in Tulsa, Okla., and then went on to earn master's and doctorate degrees in psychology from Princeton University. His education in IT came largely from jobs as an information scientist at RAND Corp., senior manager at Price Waterhouse and senior vice president at Charles Schwab & Co. He joined Google in late 2003.

We sat down with Mr. Merrill to talk about Google's approach to IT. Excerpts:

The Wall Street Journal: What's the structure of the IT organization at Google?

Mr. Merrill: We're a decentralized technology organization, in that almost everyone at Google is some type of technologist. At most organizations, technology is done by one organization, and is very locked-down and very standardized. You don't have the freedom to do anything. Google's model is choice. We let employees choose from a bunch of different machines and different operating systems, and [my support group] supports all of them. It's a little bit less cost-efficient -- but on the other hand, I get slightly more productivity from my [Google's] employees.

WSJ: How do you support all of those different options effectively?

Mr. Merrill: We offer a lot more self-service. For example, let's say you want a new application to do something. You could take your laptop to a tech stop [areas in Google offices where workers can get technical support], but you can also go to an internal Web site where you download it and install the software. We allow all users to download software for themselves.

WSJ: Isn't that a security risk?

Mr. Merrill: The traditional security model is to try to tightly lock down endpoints [like computers and smartphones themselves], and it makes people sleep better at night, but it doesn't actually give them security. We put security into the infrastructure. We have antivirus and antispyware running on people's machines, but we also have those things on our mail server. We have programs in our infrastructure to watch for strange behavior. This means I don't have to worry about the endpoint as much. The traditional security model didn't really work. We had to find a new one.

WSJ: You depend in large part on open-source software or software that's built internally. What are some examples? What are the benefits?

Mr. Merrill: We do buy software where it makes sense to -- for example, we have a general ledger [accounting software] from Oracle; Oracle did a good job. Where it makes more sense to buy, we'll buy; where it makes more sense to build our own, we'll build. An example: Our [customer-relationship management] software is tightly integrated with our ad system, so we had to build our own.

We also believe there should be competition -- for instance, in operating systems, because different operating systems do different things well. We run search off of Linux. We run the Summer of Code where we pay college students to work on open-source projects that they think are useful.

WSJ: What's driving the "consumerization" of tech in the enterprise, where companies are borrowing tech ideas from the consumer Internet?

Mr. Merrill: Fifteen years ago, enterprise technology was higher-quality than consumer technology. That's not true anymore. It used to be that you used enterprise technology because you wanted uptime, security and speed. None of those things are as good in enterprise software anymore [as they are in some consumer software]. The biggest thing to ask is, "When consumer software is useful, how can I use it to get costs out of my environment?"

Google Apps is hosted on my infrastructure, and [the Premier Edition] costs roughly $50 a seat. You can go from an average of 50 megabytes of [email] storage to 10 gigabytes and more. There's better response time, you can reach email from anywhere in the world, and it's more financially effective.

WSJ: When you make that pitch to other CIOs, what are they most skeptical about?

Mr. Merrill: When I talk to Fortune 100 CIOs, they want to understand, "What is your security model? Is it really as reliable? What's the catch?"

The answer is, I had to build this massive infrastructure to run Google, so adding all the enterprise data isn't a big deal. I already had to build security standards because search logs are really private. Very few [Google employees] have access to consumer data, [and those who do] have to go through background checks. We have a rich relationship with the security community -- so when people find problems, they tell us. We have more than 150 security engineers who do nothing but security. We don't have a security priesthood: Every engineer is trained. We use automated tools that check every engineer's code.

We're able to invest in information security in a way that most people aren't. We did it because of search. In some sense, Google Apps is just a byproduct.

By Vauhini Vara
Wall Street Journal; March 18, 2008

Forbes Is Planning Web Ad Network

Traditional media companies trying to stem the flow of advertising dollars to Google and other large Internet companies increasingly are building ad networks of their own, anchored by their brands. The latest, Forbes Inc. was set to announce Monday that it will start selling ads this spring for about 400 financial blogs. In recent months, Conde Nast, Viacom Inc., CBS Corp., and other major media companies have unveiled topic-specifi ad networks. But these media networks - some linking fewer than a dozen handpicked Web sites - may have a tough time competing with the networks of thousands assembled by Google, Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp., and Time Warners Inc.'s AOL.

-Associated Press

Microsoft Denied Bid To Stop Suit

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Microsoft Corp.’s bit to stop an antitrust lawsuit brought by Novell Inc. Novell sued Microsoft in 2004 over 1990s practices by the software giant in the word-processing and spreadsheet software markets. The Supreme Court rejected Microsoft’s appeal, allowing the case to proceed in a federal court. Microsoft has already paid almost $5 billion relating to the government’s antitrust case.

CBS TV Stations Start Up An Online Ad Network

Television stations owned by CBS Corp. are launching an online advertising initiative with local bloggers and social media sites, the company announced. The ad network will involve CBS-owned TV stations generating online modules called “widgets” which individuals can easily add to their Web sites. The widgets will contain local news as well as advertising, which the CBS stations will sell. The online partners will receive a share of the revenue, but specific financial details weren’t disclosed.

- Associated Press

Meet Bob the Blogger

Two or three times a month, Elise Martin checks in on a colorful character online who is always meeting up with real celebrities in faraway places and offers tips on hot industry trends.
His name is Bob Archer, and he blogs at www.meetbobarcher. com. But he's not real.
He's the creation of Archer Group, a small Web-marketing agency in Wilmington, Del. The blog helps Archer stay in touch with clients and get them tolhink about ways to use the Weband the firm's services.
Each post puts the mythical Bob in an interesting place, with an interesting person, talking about an online-marketing concept. A recent entry had him schmoozing with Danny DeVito at the actor's restaurant DeVito South Beach in Miami.
Here are edited excerpts from an interview with Archer cofounder Lee Mikles:

WSJ.COM: How did Bob's blog get started?
Mr. Mikles: Bob's story goes back to when we founded the coJv.pany. We wanted a name that sounded like it had been around for a while but wasn't pretentious, so we called it the Archer Group. It was kind of an inside joke that there was this person Bob Archer.
When [Archer decided to do a blog, it wanted] to stand out and offer something [people] were actually going to read. So we decided to bring Bob Archer to life.

WSJ.COM: Why use celebrities?
Mr. Mikles: They're people we can ,connect with, and it also adds to the perceived stature of Bob Archer.

WSJ.COM: What are the biggest challenges?
Mr. Mikles: Coming up with something interesting. I try to dedicate an hour or two a week. Everybody in the office feeds me ideas.

WSJ.COM: What's readership like?
Mr. Mikles: We're getting between 40 and 60 visitors a day. We have an active client list of about 50 firms.

Read more of the interview with Archer's Mr. Mikles online, at WSJ.com/SmallBusinessLink.

Quattrone's Return

Frank Quattrone's new advisory firm, Qatalyst Partners, marked one of the investment-banking world's great comebacks, not the least because ofthe tech-world heavyhitters that have thrown their support behind Mr. Quattrone. The statement about Qatalyst's founding includes supportive quotes from Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who gushed about Mr. Quattrone's experience and "unparalleled industry knowledge."

Other tech mavens who showed up were Bill Campbell, chairmain of Intuit, Jim Breyer of Accel Partners, and Gideon Yu, the chief financial officer of Facebook, former CFO of YouTube and former treasurer of Yahoo. The long list of tech companies that its bankers have advised include: Adobe, Agilent, AOL, Apple, Amazon.com, Applied Materials, and Ascend. And that's just the "A"s.

Such big names go a long way toward confirming Mr. Quattrone's star status in the technology industry. Mr. Quattrone's founding group doesn't (yet) include some of his longtime associates, like star bankers Bill Brady and George Boutros, who are still where he left them at Credit Suisse Group.

The first people to join him are former Credit Suisse vice president of Internet banking Frank Quattrone Jonathan Turner and the former general counsel of the Credit Suisse technology group, Adrien Dollard.

The more junior bankers include former Evercore Partners vice president Neil Chalasani, former Goldman Sachs vice president Brian Slingerland and Vista Partners associate Brian Cayne.

by Heidi Moore
Wall Street Journal

A New Meaning For 'Unbanked'

Microsoft, Yahoo Shun Their Bank Dream Teams As Talks Over Bid Resume

Why hire a team of high-priced investment bankers if you aren't going to use them?

You might pose that question to Microsoft and Yahoo. The two companies met on Monday to discuss Microsoft's vision for its proposed bid. But there were no bankers in attendance.

On the face of it, the exclusion of the bankers seems odd. Since Microsoft announced its unsolicited bid for Yahoo in January, the two companies assembled teams of top investment bankers, including Jill Greenthal of Blackstone Group and Paul Taubman of Morgan Stanley on the Microsoft side and Janine Shelffo of Lehman Brothers working with Goldman Sachs Group and Moelis & Co. on behalf of Yahoo.

So why did Microsoft and Yahoo keep out all the high-priced, presumably well-prepared bankers when the companies had their first talks since Jan. 31?

It could be seen as a sign of a kinder, gentler, less-impetuous Microsoft that is thinking ahead and trying to win over Yahoo management. The absence of bankers from the meeting seems to indicate that Microsoft wants to start a charm offensive and get to know Yahoo without the anvil of the bid hanging over the two parties.

There are good reasons for Microsoft to soften its approach, the biggest one among them being price. Yahoo will resist a deal until there is a higher price. Microsoft won't sweeten its bid until Yahoo opens its books. And Yahoo won't open its books to people it doesn't like. If Microsoft can humanize its approach and look less like the big bad wolf, the software company presumably will get better cooperation from Yahoo and ease the way for a deal. Not incidentally, it also might stop the massacre in the value of Microsoft's shares, which have fallen 20% since December.

Any of those reasons would bode well for a deal to actually materialize. But there is one thing to keep in mind: The bankers get paid even if they aren't in the room.

By: Heidi Moore
Wall Street Journal; March 15, 2008

March 15, 2008; Page B4

Yahoo paid price for coddling Google

McCLATCHY-TRIBUNE
SAN JOSE, Calif. - Almost eight years ago, Yahoo decided to lend a little start-up a helping hand, featuring its search technology on the Yahoo home page and giving it money at a critical juncture.

In cut-throat Silicon Valley, no good deed goes unpunished.

The start-up was Google, and Yahoo's generosity helped launch the most formidable competitor it had ever encountered. Now facing a takeover attempt by Microsoft, Yahoo is coming to terms with the punish¬ing consequences of its complex relationship with Google, including a futile attempt to copy Google's extraordinarily profitable advertising model at sig¬nificant cost to Yahoo's own business.

Long before the world learned that Google had turned the Internet into an amazing money-minting machine, Yahoo knew.

When Google was still a private company, it sent its financial statements to Yahoo's headquarters in Sunnyvale, California, like clockwork. Google had to because Yahoo was one of its earliest investors.

The statements showed the incredible growth of Google's search advertising business, with sales more than doubling from quarter to quarter.

But Yahoo executives didn't focus on the money; they were interested in how much traffic was being driven by search, recalled Ellen Siminoff, an executive who joined Yahoo in 1996.

In 2000, Yahoo agreed to use and promote Google, which it touted as "the best search engine on the Internet." Google co-founder Larry Page described the pact as a "major milestone."

The following year, Yahoo was even more generous, paying Google $7.2 million for its services. (Google in turn paid Yahoo $1.1 million for promotional help.) Google desperately needed the money, which helped push it into the black for the entire year.

Yet Yahoo was hardly flush with cash. After two years of profit, Yahoo reported an annual loss of million in 2001. The value its stock had collapsed fro $118.75 a share in January 2000 to $4.05 in September 2001.

Meanwhile, Yahoo's promotional push was having an effect on Google "When we were turning th business around in 2001, Google was already becoming the ascendant player in Europe, especially in the U.K., which is one of the most important advertising markets," recalled L. Jasmine Kim, a former vice president for global marketing and sales development for Yahoo.