Here’s some weekend reading from links that I’ve collected in the last week:

• Three Peer-Reviewed Takes On Armstrong and AOL – John Battelle’s Searchblog – No one doubted AOL needed new leadership, here's some anonymous opinion on whether Tim Armstrong is the right man, and whether AOL can be saved at all.
• New projections show lower internet ad spend | Blog | Econsultancy – In case you've accidentally been happy recently, this should get you back to a more normal state of misery.
• adCenter Analytics Beta To Close – adCenter Analytics Blog – Shutting down services is all the rage amongst the search engines. Now it's Microsoft's turn – farewell to their analytics product.
• YouTube music video row heats up – BBC News – Will Feargal Sharkey be so hard to beat? He takes on Youtube over PRS payments.
• Google gives up on Google Checkout | Blog | Econsultancy – Another Google product fades into obscurity. Although it's not being axed, Checkout's fee are being increased and brought into line with Paypal. Not the best strategy for taking market share.

Here’s some weekend reading from links that I’ve collected in the last week:

• Google needs to grow up and pay a dividend – Telegraph – Apparently Google has $16bn of cash in the bank. Time to give some of that to its shareholders?
• Aaron Greenspan: Why I Sued Google (and Won) – Adsense publishers – don't let Google push you around.
• StatCounter Global Stats – Another tool to look at search engine, browser, OS etc share.
• Technology & Marketing Law Blog: Utah Trying to Regulate Keyword Advertising….Again!? Utah HB 450 – Utah's lawmakers are at it again.

Here’s some weekend reading from links that I’ve collected in the last week:

• Google Is Commercializing Google News. Sh*tstorm to Follow? – John Battelle’s Searchblog – Google is now showing ads on Google News. Expect trouble from the newspaper industry.
• Google Turns Off Radio Ads – Another of Google's alternative revenue streams bites the dust along with Print Ads. A sign of the times that Google is shutting these services down.
• Q1 PPC Benchmark Data: Ouch! – Gloomy figures of search retail spending from RKG.
• Antitrust Pick Varney Saw Google as Next Microsoft – Bloomberg story about Google being a monopoly that the Obama administration has its eye on.

Here’s some weekend reading from links that I’ve collected in the last week:

• Yahoo attracts mixed response over Rich Ads in Search model – NMA – Brief quote from me on Yahoo's new rich search ads.
• Hitwise Intelligence: “Money Saving Expert” Martin Lewis the most searched-for personality in the UK – Unbelieveable, Martin Lewis beats Barack Obama. There must be a recession going on.
• Budgeting Search? What’s the point? – Investment analyst: "So, do you see CPCs going up, down or staying the same right now?"
  Me: "Well, you know average CPCs can be an incredibly misleading statistic."
  IA: "Right, right. So is it up, down or the same?"
  Me: "Oh, it's up usually. But when it isn't it's down, unless it's the same."
  IA: "Interesting, thank you."

Here’s some weekend reading from links that I’ve collected in the last week:

• News | Google closes radio advertising arm – NMA – First Print, now Radio. Google's ambitions in the offline world continue to fall away.
• Interview with web entrepreneur Shakil Khan – An insightful and funny interview with the one and only Shak.

Here’s some weekend reading from links that I’ve collected in the last week:

• Bobbie Johnson: Why I’m finished with ‘social media’ | Technology | guardian.co.uk – A plea for people to talk less about social media and just get on with it.
• Chris Anderson re-evaluates the economics of ‘free’ | Econsultancy – Mr Long Tail's most recent thesis about the business of 'free' is looking absurd. The ever straight talking Drama 2.0 wields the coroner's scapel.
• French court fines Google over trade marked keywords • The Register – Google falls foul of the French courts once more. It looks like later this year the ECJ is going to lay down a ruling that will settle trademarked bidding once and for all across Europe.
• Google Executives Face Jail Time for Italian Video – Bits Blog – NYTimes.com – The law is un asino, as demonstrated in Italy where 4 Google executives are being charged in a criminal court for an unpleasant video uploaded to Youtube.
• What Will *Really* Break If Google Switches To AJAX…? | Smackdown! – Google has been testing AJAX versions of search results. If they went to this for all SERPs, the consequences could be extremely serious for 3rd party tracking and analytics products. Let's hope they don't.
• Et Tu Google? Then Fail, Net Safety | Weblog Tools Collection – Google's free services (Gmail, Docs, Reader etc) are great until something goes wrong. Here's a story of the support you can expect if you have problems: none.

Here’s some weekend reading from links that I’ve collected since January 28th:

• Yahoo hemorrhaging search ad market share in the UK | Econsultancy – Econsultancy pick up on the Q4 report, including a quote from me. I don't remember speaking to Econsultancy about it, but fortunately I do agree with what I said.
• Google Content Network takes money from rivals as traffic grows by 300% – NMA – New Media Age covers Efficient Frontier's Q4 report for UK search spend. For me the most interesting part is the stellar growth of Google's Content Network.
• Updated: A Year Later, AOL Is Contemplating A Bebo Sale – The recession is taking the gloss off a lot of social media properties. Bebo is beginning to look to AOL how Robbie Keane looks to Rafael Benitez.

Here’s some weekend reading from links that I’ve collected in the last week:

• Google AdWords used to distribute malware | Econsultancy – However much the Internet is part of everybody's lives, a large part of it is still the Wild West. Hopefully Google can stop this criminal nonsense before consumers get scared.
• Is One-Stop Media Buying a Failed Model? – Search Engine Watch (SEW) – Another view on why Google Print Ads has been canned. Perhaps a good example of why a good product isn't necessarily enough to be successful.
• Google shutters Print Ads: are its ad domination dreams fading? | Econsultancy – After years of trying, Google still doesn't have a decent revenue stream other than Adwords. Looks like it's given up on print and it makes you wonder which initiative will get the axe next.
• The Extreme Presentation(tm) Method: Choosing a good chart – Paid search throws out so much data, it's often hard to know where to start when creating a chart. This cut out and keep decision tree is a great little helper.

Here’s some weekend reading from links that I’ve collected in the last week:

• Recession collides with "Amazon Tax" | Econsultancy – Amazon screwed by its own affiliates on state sales tax.
• Is a little context needed on flight search plummet stories? – The Travolution blog takes a look at whether Hitwise's flight search numbers were as bad as they seemed.
• Marketing Week – Supplements: 09 The Year Ahead – Marketing Week supplement from last week. I wrote an article on SEM that features on page 28.
• Web 2.0, Revenue Models and Profitability : The Drama 2.0 Show – Yet again Drama 2.0 spikes the Web 2.0 punch with a shot of brutal reality.