Revenues increased 7 percent over first-quarter 2006 (or $200,000 better than guidance) to $3.4 million. Local search revenues were $1.7 million for the second quarter, representing growth of 46 percent (or $100,000 better than guidance) versus the previous quarter. The national search distribution network revenues fell to $1.7 million in the second quarter from $2.1 …

The upgrade of the popular MSN Spaces, renamed Windows Live Spaces, had a bumpy start. According to the official blog: "We know we disappointed a bunch of you with the issues we had in our rollout last night. There was a period of over 12 hours where Spaces at best were extremely slow to render, …

AP and BusinessWeek are reporting that newspaper groups including Gannett Co., McClatchy Co. and Tribune Co. have agreed to increase their ownership percentage in CareerBuilder.com, ShopLocal.com and Topix.net.
The deals place the following valuations on each of the respective businesses:

CareerBuilder at $1.55 billion

ShopLocal.com at $85 million

Topix.net at $72 million …

A new social networking site called Eons.com launched earlier this week. The concept: a Web site for 50-plus Americans. It includes an obituary database and alert notification when someone, well, passes.
Jeff Taylor, the founder of Eons.com, told Reuters, "The death business is growing." He cited data revealing that the number of deaths in …

Sallie Mae announced that it has signed an agreement to purchase Upromise. Sallie Mae services more than 10 million customers totaling US$130 billion in loans. Upromise launched in 2001 and has grown into one of the largest direct marketing companies for the popular 529 college savings plan. Currently, it administers more than …

CNET ran a report stating Google ads are running on a Detroit-based radio station. This is part of the strategy revolving around the dMarc acquisition last year. Other portals and ad networks have not been shy in suggesting that they will also pursue offline ad opportunities. This naturally suggests, given the acquisitive nature of …

Two deals were announced to distribute Hollywood studio content this week. The first, reported by MSNBC, involves the sale of the episodic television show "Arrested Development" to Internet portal MSN and cable networks HDNet and G4. (Read: Warner and Apple here).
This is the first time a Web portal has purchased first-run …

Apple is now offering Warner Bros.' television content through its popular iTunes store. Television shows like "Friends," "Babylon 5," "The Jetsons" and the never before seen pilot episode of "Aquaman" are now available. (Calls to agent Ari Gold were not returned.)
Apple has already sold 35 million videos through its iTunes storefront, which clearly puts it …

In a big change for the music industry, Yahoo! and Sony BMG have started selling Jessica Simpson's new single without Digital Rights Management (DRM). This marks this first time labels with any market clout have opted to sell unprotected digital songs. Generally, the music industry blames piracy for slumping music sales. The limited test releases …

AT&T and MetroFi submitted a joint proposal to operate a municipal Wi-Fi network in Riverside, California, that covers 65 square miles. The proposed project has similarities to the Google-Earthlink partnership for San Francisco. The AT&T MetroFi network will be supported in one of two ways. First, advertising will be inserted into Web pages that users …

MSN plans on spending US$500 million on AdCenter, Windows Live and other online services this year to bolster its competitive edge. Advertising revenue on the network declined 3 percent from the same period last year. In fiscal 2006, the unit posted a US$2 million profit. Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell forecast revenue for the …

MediaPost reported some interesting comments from Karen Crow, director of sales and operations for Google: "We’ve been doing a lot of linking with advertisers’ back end to find out, for example, what specific products their local store has, and which of those products are in stock. We’re trying to figure out how to work with …

Reuters reported that an Arkansas court handed Google a victory last Friday "over disgruntled advertisers who had sued the search engine giant accusing it of trying to drive up fees through so-called click fraud." An independent report was commissioned as part of the settlement. "Based on my evaluation, I conclude that Google’s efforts to combat …

In an exclusive interview with Billboard magazine, Microsoft announced that it is launching a new portal music player and integrated music service under the umbrella brand Zune. According to Billboard: "The first implementation of this will be the portable music player and digital music service, in what is the company’s strongest effort yet to rein …

According to Nielsen/NetRatings, Google grabbed 49.9 percent of searches in June, up 31 percent from the previous year. Yahoo! served 23 percent of searches, up 29 percent from a year earlier, followed by MSN at 10.3 percent, up 3 percent. AOL grew on par with MSN at 3.6 percent, serving 6.9 percent of searches. Ask …

MSN released some numbers that claim 25 percent of users in Britain are writing blogs. Not surprisingly, the study also suggests the demographics of blog writing skew younger. Forty-two percent of people under 25 regularly update a blog compared with only 13 percent of users over 45. This suggests there are likely interesting comparisons to …

The Australian Age reported that Publishing and Broadcasting LTD has hired Tony Faure as chief executive running to run its Nine-MSN Internet property. Mr. Faure most recently sold HomeScreen Entertainment, the online DVD rental he founded, to Quickflix. Previously, Mr. Faure was general manager of Yahoo! Australia and New Zealand rising to regional vice president …

Interchange announced that it achieved a positive return on ad spend for the month of June. This goal was highlighted during the company’s last earnings call. It means that directionally Local.com is growing traffic and revenue while maintaining costs. CEO Heath Clarke told TKG: "We believe this is a good indicator that we’re on the …

LiveDeal announced record growth in June. The site recorded more than 1.4 million unique visitors, with traffic up 34 percent from May. ComScore reported the following growth rates for the Directories/Resources>Classifieds category: Craigslist.org (+11 percent), apartments.com (+8 percent), AutoTrader (-2 percent) and Yahoo! Classifieds (-16 percent).
"June's record number of unique visitors attests to the fact …

Google announced the results for another stellar quarter today. Second-quarter net income rose 110 percent to US$721 million from US$343 million a year earlier. Revenues increased 77 percent to US$2.46 billion. Google's financial performance was highly anticipated, given the softness of other Internet sector stocks, including eBay and Yahoo!. The tech-heavy NASDAQ edged higher before …