The Deals space is so hot, yet there are many unanswered questions about it. We know it will be big, but who really knows what it is going to look like 18 months from now?
With that in mind, we have developed a brand-new addition to our regular conference schedule: Deals 3D, a day-and-a-half event taking …

Last week, the latest spree of entrants forayed into the deal-a-day arena, with AT&T and The New York Times announcing group buying platforms that appear to be almost identical to those popularized by Groupon and LivingSocial. The most interesting of the newcomers, however, could be Microsoft Bing, which opted for an aggregated approach through The Dealmap’s …

The 360-degree views of real estate listings were remarkable for their time, but are giving way to new technology that lets users look at many things at once, says Microsoft Live Labs Technical Fellow Gary Flake, who was speaking last week at Inman’s Real Estate Connect in San Francisco.
“We’re used to Web navigating from one …

The default strategy for many start-ups is to plan to be acquired by Google or Microsoft. But the M&A scene is much more complex than that. Jordan, Edmiston Group Co-President Tolman Geffs, speaking today at IAB’s Annual Leadership Meeting in Carlsbad, California, joked that Google is set to buy Oregon, Washington and Canada “just to …

Zvents, the events lister, is reporting 35 percent year over year growth with over eight million unique visitors, largely due to its powering events for 285 local media brands, including  major newspapers and the NBC owned-and-operated TV stations.
CEO Ethan Stock cites Quantcast data showing Zvents Media Network as the 250th most used net on the …

Scott Moore, who is back at Microsoft as GM and executive producer of the U.S. content business after four years at Yahoo, told paidContent he had been hoping to launch an ad-supported local news/info service. Apparently, Microsoft seemed like a safer bet.

Spot Runner announced that it is laying off 115 people, or less than 30 percent of its staff. It confirmed that a big chunk of the layoffs are coming from its local sales division, formerly known as Weblistic.
Company officials say they are getting mean and lean for the recession, but that Spot Runner has significant cash …

This just in: Microsoft’s flagship search engine unveiled a new home page interface that will include rotating background images with embedded “hot spots” that direct users into various vertical searches when moused over.
This is essentially a visually driven discovery engine for various topics of interest. Live Search now more explicitly blends search and discovery — …

As speculated, Microsoft today announced the acquisition of natural language search technology developer Powerset. The acquisition is hoped to help Microsoft better serve search results, based on a natural language analysis of user queries, and better index of Web content.
These parallel goals come with the assertion that current search algorithms fall short in determining user …

Is there room for a new, locally oriented social network if it is more practical than Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, LinkedIn, et al? That’s what Norwest Partners and Keynote Ventures are betting $6.5 million on with the launch this week of Center’d, formerly known as FatDoor.
The service is headed up by former Yahoo! Marketplaces head Jennifer …

In a new WashingtonPost.com video, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer talks on a wide variety of topics, including the future of print. “In the next 10 years, the world of media companies will be turned upside down,” he says. “There will be no newspapers or magazines delivered in paper form. Everything will be delivered in electronic …

Microsoft today expanded Search & Give, a program that rewards searches in the form of money sent to a preferred charity. After a user signs up for the program, a penny is donated for every search to a choice of about 100,000 schools and 900,000 charities.
The max is 500 searches per user per month, meaning …

There has not been all that much fresh coverage of the rumor, reported earlier this week, that Microsoft may acquire Yell Group, the U.K.-based international publisher with operations in the United Kingdom, the United States, Spain and Latin America. We have not been able to pick up much to support the rumor, though circumstances might suggest …

Reuters is reporting a rumor that Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer has set his sights on Yell Group as his next acquisition target, which has led to a bump in Yell’s share price.
We don’t know if this is true. It is, after all, being reported as a “rumor.” However, this isn’t the most implausible rumor we’ve heard. …

Microsoft will announce a new Live Search product today at Advance08, which gives cash back to users who purchase products through the system.
The aptly named Cashback feature will place dollar sign icons throughout paid search results wherever there are deals available. Users who purchase these items will then have cash amounts transferred to a new …

Neal Polachek and I had the opportunity this morning to sit down with Mike Galgon, cheif advertising strategist for Microsoft. Galgon was brought on board as part of Microsoft’s $6 billion acquisition of aQuantive, which he cofounded in 1997.
The $6 billion price tag was was roughly 2x premium at the time of purchase, 10X revenue, …

One big takeaway from the NAA Marketing show last week in Orlando was that newspapers are ready to build up a zillion niche products that allow them to leverage their editorial talents. But not much progress, or even attention, is being paid to local search. It makes you wonder if newspapers are really serious …

The New York Times‘ David Pogue writes this morning about some of the outcroppings of new innovation at Microsoft, apparent through the newest version of Office Live for Small Business.
The product takes the “Webification” issue to heart by allowing tech illiterate SMBs to get up and running with a suite of tools for developing and …

Amid all the noise about Microsoft and Yahoo!, one of the unanswered questions has to do with MS’ intent toward the recruitment business – a business that actually has some relationship with Microsoft’s core enterprise solutions (as opposed to its less established interests in social networking and arguably, search).
As Ken Doctor points out, HotJobs comes …

Today’s big news is Microsoft’s unsolicited takeover bid for Yahoo!. The $44.6 billion bid represents a 62 percent premium on Yahoo!’s closing stock price yesterday, which was affected by Yahoo!’s depressing earnings announcement, in which Yahoo! said it would lay off 1,000 workers to “re-accelerate” growth.
For 2007, Yahoo! reported a net profit of $660 …