Google announced the planned opening of the Google Video Store, the first open video marketplace enabling consumers to buy and rent a wide range of video content from a major television network, a professional sports league, cable programmers, independent producers and film makers. 'Google video will let you watch lots of high quality video on the web for the first time. You can search and browse, and we make it fast and easy for you to watch,' said Larry Page, Google's co-founder and president, Products. 'For video producers and anyone with a video camera, Google Video will give you a platform to publish to the entire Google audience in a fast, free and seamless way.'

Yahoo CEO Terry Semel outlined the company's vision and new agreements in a wide-ranging keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, and now a vidcast of this speech is available online.

Go Mobile is designed to combine real-time connectivity with community, information and content services from across the web, Semel said. 'It integrates the company's familiar communications services with the phone's built-in e-mail, messaging, address book and calendar applications, giving consumers one reliable source for the information they find most vital. For example, if a user loses his or her mobile phone their contact information will not be lost -- it will still be available on the web and could be easily synched with a new mobile phone.'

Speculation about the announcement of a $200 PC from Google that won't be running Windows is setting technology industry speculation into the highest gear it's seen since, uh, Google's IPO. One analyst has emerged from the pack to make a bubblesque prediction of Google's stock going to $600 on the anticipated announcement, which could be made by company co-founder Larry Page at the CES show in Las Vegas.

A six-month investigation into 'pay-per- click' programs by Kessler International has revealed shocking results.

'Real-time communication solutions like instant messaging are powerful collaboration tools that create a new attack vector for threats to enter an enterprise network and new forms of digital communication with the same government, legal, and business requirements to retain and retrieve as email,' said Enrique Salem, senior vice president of Security Products and Solutions, Symantec. 'With the best-of-breed instant messaging management and compliance software from IMlogic, Symantec will be the first and only vendor to offer a complete security and archiving solution to help customers manage all their messaging requirements.'

The Cyber Giving Week sponsored by Yahoo had collected $2.7 million as of 7pm west coast time on January 30. By the week's end, the final tally rose to more than $4.1 million. Although that specific program has now ended, the Network for Good remains open to donations, and sponsors a wide variety of organizations.

McAfee has been providing security services to MSN since 2002, and recently announced that it was extending its agreement dial-up users. Both MSN and AOL now offer McAfee VirusScan and Personal Firewall products, and AOL offers two versions of McAfee's firewall products: Firewall Express and a deeply co-branded product called Privacy Wall.

New Year's Eve 2006 revelers from all around the world now have the opportunity to experience nonstop streams covering New York City's Times Square New Year's Eve countdown event in real time via an exclusive webcast from MSN(R) Video. MSN Video is the exclusive online provider of the official Times Square New Year's Eve 2006 celebration, and revelers can begin their New Year's Eve journey now at http://msn.com/newyears .

'McAfee is delighted to work with MSN to help protect a new set of customers using MSN Dial-Up,' said Todd Gebhart, senior vice president of worldwide consumer and mobile sales at McAfee. 'Security remains a troublesome issue for consumers, but with McAfee's award-winning VirusScan and Personal Firewall Plus, MSN Dial-Up customers will be better protected against increasingly complex Internet threats.'

Since Google is being sued by RTI, they were likely approached by Rates Technology and refused to pay the requested amount. It should be noted that company spokesperson Jerry Weinberger says that RTI does not negotiate, for if they negotiated their fees it would not be fair to the other companies that paid the full amount. There is no ongoing licensing fee for the RTI patents, rather RTI charges a one-time fee based on one of five tiers, each according to highest parent company's worldwide sales. They do not deviate from these tiers. In exchange you get a covenant protecting you from a lawsuit.

Rates Technology Inc. (RTI), a company 'with a patent portfolio currently being used to persuade VoIP equipment and service vendors to pay a fee in exchange for protection from a patent infringement lawsuit,' according to telephony commentator Rich Tehrani, is suing Google in its latest action against a host of companies that are perceived to be infringing upon RTI patents.

Yahoo said that is kicked off what it calls 'Cybergiving Week' on Christmas Day. The company said its search engine will work with the Network for Good, an online charitable resource, and launch a site that provides donation links to a number of charities as well as resources about how much and where to donate.

The new 'alliance' between Google and AOL is moving forward, to the apparent chagrin of suitor Microsoft, but the early analysis of the deal shows a concern by at least one major AOL investor over what the deal portends. Is this a disaster?

A detailed agreement between Google and AOL hinges on Google acquiring 5% of the Time Warner subsidiary for $1 billion. Early analysis shows Google the winner in this round of its battle with Microsoft over search leadership. But the story appears to be more complex than that.

iProspect, the Original Search Engine Marketing Firm, revealed that online shopping conversion rates and conversion volumes for the holiday season peak ten days prior to Christmas. As a result, online retailers are advised to adjust their paid search advertising bidding strategies accordingly.

WebSourced, a subsidiary of CGI Holding Corporation, and the world leader in search engine optimization, has signed a yearlong pro bono agreement with Laughlin Marinaccio and Owens Advertising, Arlington, Va., to significantly improve the Army National Guard's presence and recruiting efforts on the Internet by optimizing the Guard's national website, www.1-800-GO-GUARD.com.

Alexa notes that 'the first and perhaps most difficult and expensive piece of (developing a new search idea) is a good Web crawl. Your crawl will need to access a high-speed internet connection, it will need to pull down thousands of pages per second. It will need to manage thousands of connections and process pages to extract links. Then you will need to store hundreds of terabytes of data.' The company aims to fix all of this through a new service.

MSN Search has announced its intention to launch MSN Book Search, which will support MSN Search?s efforts to help people find exactly what they?re looking for on the Web, including the content from books, academic materials, periodicals and other print resources. MSN Search intends to launch an initial beta of this offering next year. MSN also intends to join the Open Content Alliance (OCA) and work with the organization to scan and digitize publicly available print materials, as well as work with copyright owners to legally scan protected materials.

The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) today announced that MSN has become a Platinum sponsor for the next fiscal year's activities. 'MSN values SEMPO's mission to provide current, relevant information about search engine marketing to the advertising community,' said MSN's Mari Kim Novak. 'We look forward to working together.'

Prime Visibility, a leading search engine optimization firm specializing in achieving top rankings and increasing online visibility, revenue and traffic to clients' websites, introduces a new Client Center as part of their new value-added website design. This free online service provides clients with up-to-date information about the status of their Internet projects being handled by Prime Visibility. The Client Center keeps clients completely informed about current and specific improvements being made to their website in addition to other Internet-related activities taking place on their behalf.

In a recent survey of British air passengers commissioned by Google and conducted by independent market research firm Tickbox.net, 50% of those surveyed said they had nothing better to do in airport terminals than eat, drink and shop. However, 71% of respondents stated that they would like to use this time to find out more about their destination. Enter: Google Space.

Oneupweb, the trusted leader in search engine optimization and marketing, has announced the launch of StraightUpSearch.com, the company's blog. StraightUpSearch is a forum for Oneupweb's SEO and SEM inside experts to provide industry insight and present a clear view of search engine optimization and marketing best practices. The blog is named for its behind-the-scenes, unvarnished perspective, free of puffery. The bright clean design supports the editorial tone.

SEO in China will never be the same as Google's James Mi, Adverted's Stephen Noton and IBM's Bill Hunt teamed up at Ad-Tech Shanghai. For the first time in China both SEO experts and the industry leader, Google, came together for a combined presentation on Search Engine Optimization.

Google has announced the launch of Google Base, a free online service where users can submit all types of online and offline content that Google will host and make searchable online. Google Base is an extension of Google's existing content collection efforts.

These seem to be coming out quicker that I can blog them! This one is called J2MEMap and you can get the JAR from here, and the jar from here.

EasyNet Search Engine Marketing has added to its client base two major brands.

SearchForce, a provider of on-demand paid search marketing solutions, has formally launched its flagship product that optimizes online advertising campaigns.

Who's Calling, a leading provider of customer intelligence, has announced that its ClickPath solution has been selected by 4 of the industry's leading search engine marketing firms.

Pro Design Labs, a technology-based solutions firm specializing in web design, search engine optimization, and strategic marketing, redesigned and launched Website for Bandit Lures.

Oneupweb, a provider of search engine optimization and marketing solutions, has announced growth across many departments.

Convera has announced that its Excalibur Web search technology is set to launch as the index now contains more than 4 billion pages.

The loose diamonds search engine was designed to give consumers an easy way to compare available diamonds with similar, and in many cases, identical specifications.

The SuperCity, an expanded version of AOL CityGuide's local coverage with integrated commerce built in, features localized editorial, user-generated content and advertising support. Vegas.com supplies content listings and integrated commerce.

Thetus, a developer of knowledge discovery software, has announced a collaborative integration with Spotfire, a provider of interactive visual analytics solutions.

AOL has announced new RSS feeds from partners for its video search engine. These new partners include Blastro.com, EVTV1.com, Forbes.com, GameTrailers.com, PC World and Time4 Media properties.

IBM has announced a new plug-in for its enterprise search technology that will allow it to integrate with Google Desktop for Enterprise, a free downloadable application that enables companies to provide employees with the ability to search for information on their computer.

'Google KAI: Our Lovely Boy was born on September, 12th 2005 in Kalmar, Sweden,' says the newly created Website which opens up with 'Ads by Goooooogle' above the fold and the page follows with baby Google Kai's photos at the Google-Kai.com Website.

Codase, a leading source code search company, has announced the alpha version of its advanced source code search engine.Codase is a new kind of search service for open source code.

NewGate Internet, the search engine marketing (SEM) agency, has announced Merchantize, an enhanced campaign management and optimization technology platform for high-performance marketing.