In an incremental but important step for Twitter’s ad business, Dick Costolo’s company is going to start letting marketers place ads in front of people who haven’t asked to see them. Users won’t have the ability to opt out of the ads, either.

This is technically an extension of the ad product Twitter started selling a month ago. That one helped marketers place ads in front of users who were already following their brands’ Twitter accounts. The new twist to the plan will let advertisers place ads in front of Twitter users who are similar to ones following their Twitter accounts.

In discussions with ad buyers, Twitter is describing the concept, which will roll out to a small subset of users by the end of September, as “Promoted Tweets to users like your followers.”

That means that users who aren’t following Virgin America on the service might still see an ad for the airline in their “timeline” — if Twitter thinks they have things in common with people who do follow Virgin.

This marks the first time that Twitter will show ads to users who didn’t take some direct action to trigger them, either by following a specific account or by searching for a term on the service.

The company has always said it would get around to targeting users this way, but it has moved very slowly since it introduced its first ad products in April 2010. The company has ambitions of building up a big ad business — a la Facebook, if not Google — but it’s been incredibly cautious about the way it rolls out new ideas.

Twitter won’t comment specifically about the new ad plan, but offered up this statement via spokesman Matt Graves: “We’re always talking to marketers about ways they can get more value out of Twitter. While we have nothing to share about the way that the business might develop this fall, I can say the last month of testing for Promoted Tweets in the timeline has gone extremely well.”

Messages that Time Warner’s HBO sent out to fans of its “True Blood” show, for instance, were retweeted “nearly 1,000 times,” Graves said.

Twitter won’t tell buyers how they’ll determine which users are like other users. But the service already does something like that now, when it offers up Twitter users that are “similar” to ones you’re already following.

Like the “Promoted Tweets to Followers” that Twitter started selling this summer, the new ads will only appear on Twitter.com. And Twitter still can’t guarantee that Twitter users will see a marketer’s message — like its other ads, it will sell them using a modified auction, and only some buyers will get a chance to deliver their ads.

The big picture here is that Twitter is steadily trying to increase the number of places where advertisers can get their message across, without spooking users who generally think of Twitter as an ad-free zone. Twitter may generate more than $100 million in ads this year, but that’s not nearly enough to support an $8.4 billion valuation. Get ready for more.

Yahoo turned in another weak performance in the second quarter, with yet another decline in revenue.

This time it was five percent, compared to last quarter’s six percent. In other words, at least things are looking up as they go down!

While earnings per share rose smartly, Wall Street is still looking for strong sales growth from the Silicon Valley Internet giant, which seems unable to provide it.

Blamed most this time for the revenue fall: Yahoo’s changes in its display sales operations in the key Americas region, reasons for which were largely unspecified in the initial company press release. (You can see the damage in this slide deck from the company here.)

Maybe Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz will explain it all in its upcoming conference call with analysts (or she could try the I-don’t-know approach taken by News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch in PhoneGate hearings in Britain earlier today!).

2 pm PT: It starts with the usual regulatory blah-blah, which I always enjoy.

Bartz gets right into it, opening with the key problems with China’s Alibaba Group, as well as its display and search revenue weaknesses.

The fight with Alibaba is over its Alipay payments unit, which was spun out of the Chinese company without Yahoo’s say-so. Yahoo is a big shareholder.

Bartz says that the company was working on a settlement night and day.

But she quickly gets onto how display did not perform as expected in its key Americas arena. “Obviously, I am not happy,” she said.

Obvi! Neither are shareholders, Carol.

She says it was not about new competitive development. It was not about the economy. It was not about engagement.

So what was it? Changes in its sales leadership and organization, says Bartz, which has included talent walking out the door in droves.

A lot more than Yahoo expected, but no surprise to anyone who has been paying any attention to the brain drain at the company.

Bartz promises a new approach to sales, part of its endless turnaround, which is beginning to feel like a digital version of “Waiting for Godot.”

Search revenue, though, says Bartz, was better than expected.

2:11 pm: CFO Tim Morse is on now, running through the numbers and the display shortfall in the Americas region.

“We simply did not have appropriate coverage,” says Morse, noting consumer products, tech and autos as weak spots in the advertising market.

Thank goodness, then, for the guarantees from search revenue in the Microsoft partnership deal.

More numbers and then it is back to Bartz to talk about search, which is going better than the last quarter, when it was the culprit for the revenue decline.

She says that Microsoft and Yahoo were working together to improve the issues.

“We’d like to be further down the road,” says Bartz about the goal of search revenue per search growth, as well as settling all the other problems, such as the Asian issues.

And, by further, I am presuming she means actual forward movement, which is what roads are actually for.

2:27 pm: Q&A time, the part of our program where Wall Street analysts do not ask the questions that need asking (and where I win fancy journalism awards for pointing this delta out!).

Therefore, Bartz is first thanked for providing “color” about the display disaster and is not asked about more specifics of the disaster itself.

The second question still does not get to it either, but she does note Yahoo’s sales force has to sell beyond “Gee, we’re big” and come up with better ad solutions.

“The issue is we did not have enough sales people in front of the big clients,” says Bartz.

That’s because all those former Yahoos are now working at Groupon, LivingSocial, Facebook and on down the line and now in front of big clients for those hotter companies.

2:34 pm: Question about its Asian assets. Yahoo’s talks with Yahoo! Japan and Alibaba are separate, says Bartz, although I would add that they have non-movement in common.

And also a question about Yahoo’s interest in the acquisition of the Hulu premium online video service.

Bartz winks verbally and says nothing, which translates into: Of course, it is interested.

More on the reasons for the display fall-off, which Bartz makes clear is not due to big competitive threats, but internal issues.

Maybe she’s saving big competitive threats as the reason for a revenue decline in the third quarter!

I look forward to the quarter I get the finger pointed at me for causing revenue to fall, due to my snarky posts.

Now, we are into softball questions about improvements in engagement. It’s up, but no one asks why Yahoo is still not doing anything very cutting edge in product innovation compared to competitors.

I believe Google has launched at least 14 new social networks since this Sunday, along with its strong quarterly performance last week. And Apple, well, blew away its quarter today as it is about to release more cool new stuff later this week.

And that might be the crux of the issue for Yahoo, which might not solve its woes by throwing a more focused sales army at the issue.

That’s because Yahoo’s products are simply not nearly has social as Facebook or even Google right now, which might be the true problem as old customers move on to new advertising solutions.

Whatever the reason, Yahoo clearly needs a refresh of its ad products and how it sells them, especially in its fast-growing mobile, video and communications products.

Bartz talks about getting better expertise, a tighter regional focus and other issues of going to market, which is perhaps something she might have realized many, many quarters ago.

After all, she’s been in charge for a while, and these issues are not new.

In fact, in an earlier quarter, Bartz was stressing “tentpole” events and anchor media properties and the power of the size of Yahoo as a selling point.

This was in April, in fact, in the first quarter of this year.

As I wrote then:

“CEO Carol Bartz excited was the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s traffic gusher for big tentpole events such as the Super Bowl and the Oscars. In fact, Bartz practically sounded like a gushy “Entertainment Tonight” flunky when talking to Wall Street analysts about Yahoo’s Oscar news, games and other offerings. She proudly noted the site’s efforts generated more than a billion pages views.”

Now big is out! Moving on!

The last question is another about Yahoo’s talks with its Asian partners.

“It’s complex,” says Bartz.

You can say that again.

Then again, it’s been headed that way for quite some time–it’s just that News Corp. (which also owns this Web site) is now being that much more forthright about it. News Corp. COO Chase Carey said today that the company is “actively engaged” in discussions about “strategic alternatives”.

Which is exactly what the company said a few weeks ago, shortly after laying off several hundred workers.

The only difference today was that Carey said it in an earnings call, not via a public relations proxy, and it seemed clear from his tone that the company is done with the social network.

When an analyst asked about his projections for Myspace’s losses for the remainder of the year, you could hear the surprise in his voice, when he reiterated that the “focus is on strategic options.” And asked again about timing for a decision, he said that the company was “actively engaged” in discussions.

That is: Make us an offer.

For the record, News Corp.’s $275 million charge on its digital operations, announced today, breaks down this way: $107 million of that is for the restructuring, and the remaining $168 million is a writedown, presumably focused on Myspace.

And for those who care, costs for the Daily are being assigned to News Corp.’s publishing group: $7 million of the $30 million it has spent so far were assigned to this quarter.

EARLIER:

It’s an all-News Corp. kind of day around here. Jumping on the company’s earnings call, where we’re certain to hear about the just-launched Daily tablet newspaper, along with details about the company’s $275 million writedown on its digital businesses.

(Once again: News Corp. also owns this Web site. I don’t think we’ll get mentioned during the call, though.)

4:34 pm: And we’re off. Here’s the link to News Corp.’s earnings release, so you can play along at home.

4:35 pm: On the call: COO Chase Carey and CFO Dave DeVoe. No Rupert Murdoch, which is odd since he appeared happy to answer questions this morning during the Daily unveiling.

4:36 pm: Carey on that digital charge. Also included in that number, if I understood him correctly: Losses from sale of Jamba, FAN digital display network.

4:39 pm: Now time for some context: Cable is doing nicely, as it always does for News Corp. Ad sales up 17 percent, affiliate fees up 11 percent. And that includes the one-month blackout we had with EchoStar, which cost us about $30. million.

4:39 pm: Film: We’re down, but part of that is because we had a great quarter a year ago, comparatively. But “Black Swan” is great!

4:40 pm: TV: Up, due in part because of political ads. NFL ratings and prices are up, which is good because the World Series wasn’t as good as it could have been.

4:41 pm: [If you're interested in News Corp.'s satellite business, I'll direct you to the earnings report. Back shortly.]

4:42 pm: Publishing: Down from last year. Advertising is up across the board, but Harper Collins is down, and we invested in the Daily [so that $30 million charge is *not* included in the $275 million?]

4:43 pm: “Other”: Pretty much Myspace at this point, which is a mess. A loss of $156 million, which is $31 million worse than last year. Myspace results are “worse than our expectations.”

[Apologies, that was DeVoe.THIS is Carey:]

4:44 pm: Ad markets up at all our cable businesses, but we’re not dependent on that, because we have this great revenue stream from subscriber fees.

Fox News beat all other news networks combined. It’s the No. 4 channel in basic cable. All our affiliate deals are coming up, and we’re going to get a lot more from the cable and satellite guys for the rights to that channel.

4:47 pm: Ad market strong for broadcast, too. “Absolutely thrilled” with “American Idol”‘s performance. Fox Sports doing great, too. NFL was best ever, and Super Bowl will be great. NASCAR may be down a bit, though.

And don’t forget that we’re now starting to get paid by cable guys for our Fox broadcast, too, which they used to get for free. “We’ll be taking this business to a whole new level of profitability.” Will generate $1 billion annual operating income in a couple of years.

4:50 pm: [Satellite talk, which makes me drowsy yet again.]

4:51 pm: TV studios doing great. Making a pile from “Modern Family” reruns. “Glee” a money maker, too.

Film studios not as strong this year, but that’s the nature of the business.

And don’t forget “Avatar” 2 and 3!

4:52 pm: On the Daily: Rupert is still giving briefings on this as we speak–exactly the kind of thing we should be doing.

On Myspace: Completed “rebuild” of business, and “right-sized it.” And “now is the right time for News Corp. to consider strategic options for the business…and we’re “evaluating strategic alternatives.”

Time for Q&A: First question was about retrans fees, which I missed. But retrans worth “hundreds of millions of dollars.” Carey says.

Q: Color on ad market, please.

Carey: “It’s really good, solid growth” across all platforms. Print not as much as TV, but everything’s strong.

Q: What do you think of TV Everywhere?

Carey: “I prefer to call it “authentication.” But “it’s a good thing…it’s struggled to get going” because cable systems have been resistant. But “at the end of the day, success has got to be built on making it a good experience for consumers or they’ll find another way….At the end of the day, consumers are going to migrate” to good experiences. “It hasn’t gotten very far.”

Q: More on authentication, please.

Carey: I don’t think that the right way to do this is to say, “You can watch something on cablecompany.com or Fox.com”–you should be able to watch it when you want, where you want.

[A lot of "you know"s in Carey's last answer.]

Q: Please talk about how you will monetize Fox content. Disney just did a Netflix deal, and most of that value comes from ABC content. What do you think about doing something similar, and making old shows available online, and do you think “Modern Family”‘s value has decreased because of online exposure, as Turner said?

A: Two different values–delayed access to current content, and library content, which is what Netflix is doing. Netflix is competing for library rights, generally. We’re a buyer–at FX–and as buyer, I wouldn’t want to pay a lot of money for syndicated TV and have it also show up at 20 million homes at Netflix. In general, TV businesses have been selling their product too cheaply. “We need to make sure we’re getting fair value for our product, no matter what the distribution channel is.”

5:06 pm: Q: What about moving up windows, etc. for video on demand?

Carey: Creating an early window “is very important for us.” Getting that window properly priced is important, and I think you’ll see people moving forward with it in the first half of this year.

[Sorry missed a question, and next one is about satellites. Even Carey is yawning as he answers.]

Q: What are your expectations for Myspace losses for the year “or earnings”?

“Focus is on strategic options” [as in, who cares? We're selling this dog. Do you have a dollar?]

Q: How does Hulu fit into your vision about monetizing content at Fox, etc.? Also, what’s up with TV syndication dollars? Still strong? If so, why?

A: “Hulu…they’ve done a great job.” Glad they’d doing subscriptions. And “I think the digital marketplace is going to continue to evolve…not going to speak for their strategy” etc. [i.e., non-answer].”

Meanwhile, “TV continues to prove itself…as second to none” in terms of value to consumers, advertisers.

Q: What are economics of the Daily? When will you break even, and what does it mean for newspaper strategy in general?

Carey: “The Daily is not a newspaper. It’s a news product” so don’t think about it as part of our newspaper business, or part of our television business.

By the way, we should do that with all brands and content. Not ruling out the Web, but for us, the digital play is figuring out how to leverage “the content brands that we have.” And digital is great because “for a pretty modest investment” you can create great stuff.

Five hours into our launch, I won’t talk about breaking even.

DeVoe: Like we said, we spent $30 million so far, and another $500 thousand a week going forward.

Q: Your prices and subscriptions for digital are based on household, not per connected device – ie, charge familes more, single people less. Wouldn’t that cut down on piracy, too?

Carey: DirectTV does charge per box, actually, and I think cable guys are doing that too, based on number of TVs. But “I’m not sure there’s a lot of upside” in that for cable networks, etc.

[Apologies, have to duck out of this for a few minutes]

[Back now, thanks]

5:30 pm: Sigh. Another Sky question!

5:31 pm: Color on timing of Myspace decision, and premium VOD launch?

Carey: Actively engaged in Myspace discussions now.

Finished. Apologies for multitasking during this one. Need an extra pair of hands, eyes, ears and another mouth today.

The bigger picture is that Armstrong’s turnaround is still in progress. Ad revenue was down 29 percent in the last quarter, though that number is worse than it looks. A big chunk of the decline comes from moves AOL has intentionally made that will cut revenue in the short run in return for more profitable sales down the road.

A more representative data set for Armstrong are his display ad sales, which are down 14 percent overall and 8 percent in the U.S..

The bad news is that the rest of the Web ad industry is well into rebound mode; the good news is that AOL has trained Wall Street to expect numbers like these. If you’re waiting to see positive sales numbers, Armstrong said during AOL’s earnings call this morning, wait until the second half of this year.

“2011 looks a lot like 1984,” Motorola says in the ad, which features an image of the Earth surrounded by Apple’s white headphones. “One authority. One design. One way to work. It’s time for more choices.”

The ad then touts some of the Xoom’s features, such as its dual-core chip, HD video playback, front- and rear-facing cameras and its ability to play Flash.

The tablet wars are clearly heating up, with all the players staking out their space. RIM also posted a video on its Web site, touting the business capabilities of its yet-to-be-released PlayBook tablet. The video shows the PlayBook being connected to a BlackBerry and using a Flash-enabled dashboard from SAP’s Business Objects unit. RIM plans to talk more about its developer plans at an event on Thursday in San Francisco.

Meanwhile, Google is hosting an event on Wednesday to go deeper into its tablet-oriented Honeycomb version of Android. The Xoom, which debuts next month, is to be the first device running Honeycomb.

Mobilized will be on hand to provide coverage of both the RIM and Google events.

Here is Motorola’s Super Bowl teaser ad:

For those who need a refresher, here was Apple’s Super Bowl spot introducing the Macintosh:

So says Twitter, which is publicly calling out a MediaPost report published yesterday in which writer Laurie Sullivan said she had gotten a look at a test version of the platform, via Clix Marketing, an online ad buying shop.

Twitter says what Sullivan actually saw was the dashboard tool that Twitter provides all of its advertisers to give them an update on how their ads are performing and allow them to make tweaks to their campaigns. But Twitter ad buyers still have to work with humans, for now, either directly at Twitter or via intermediaries that do so, like Clix.

Here’s the official statement from spokesman Matt Graves: “Reports that Twitter is testing a self-serve ad platform are inaccurate. Our self-serve ad product will launch later this year.”

I’ve reached out to MediaPost for comment.

UPDATE: MediaPost’s Laurie Sullivan argues with Twitter over the definition of “self-serve.”

So says Adobe. Which, of course, is in the iPad magazine business, via publishing tools it provides for companies like Condé Nast.

No need to belabor the link. But if you want, you can read a study that supports Adobe’s argument, conducted by a professor at the University of Connecticut’s Communications department, using the inaugural edition of Condé Nast’s Wired iPad app. Here’s a chart!

And really, there’s nothing wrong–or at least nothing new–about a company promoting research that supports its sales pitch. Happens all the time.

The problem the research doesn’t address, and which Adobe can’t really do much about, is that so far iPad magazine apps simply haven’t been that popular. Which means that advertisers who sponsor them aren’t getting their message in front of enough eyeballs, receptive or no.

Maybe that will change if the publishers and Apple can work out their subscription logjam. Or maybe Google, supported by a gazillion new Android tablets, will help make these things a hit.

It’s early days, still. I can say that with confidence, and I don’t even have a Ph.D.

The Pasadena, Calif.-based company also acquired the independently developed BlackBerry application UberTwitter, adding to its acquisition of Echofon (the Twitter client for iPhone and other Mac devices) at the beginning of the month and Twidroyd (Twitter for Android) in September. Update: On Monday UberMedia said it had acquired an additional company, Mixx, the former competitor to Digg that now curates social media channels for brands.

UberMedia, despite its seemingly perpetual identity crisis, has particular notoriety because its founder and CEO, Bill Gross, first popularized paid search advertising with his company GoTo.com in the late ’90s. When Gross first launched the company last April, he said he’d do the same thing for Twitter.

Since then, Twitter has launched its own ad system and tightened up on permissions for rival ad networks.

UberMedia has let its Twitter account recommendation widgets languish, but says they will be relaunched soon as a new product called FollowMe. Meanwhile, the Twitter clients the company has acquired have a combined three million active users. They are some of the leading independent options, despite somewhat precarious positioning now that Twitter has launched its own official clients for most every platform.

Gross is traveling in Europe this week, but UberMedia COO Jon Kraft got on the phone with NetworkEffect over the weekend to say that there is indeed a method behind all this name-changing and client-acquiring madness. Here’s an edited transcript:

NetworkEffect: Why the name UberMedia?

Kraft: Obviously we’re very excited about the acquisition of UberTwitter, and we felt like our mission had expanded a bit since we first launched. It was really all about this paid search platform, and PostUp was a great name….

And before that you had another name, TweetUp.

Yes, but as we started to grow our business on the client side, we saw ourselves increasingly as a media company. We’re not crazy about the fact that we’ve changed our name twice now, but hopefully we’ll build a company around that brand.

How did this acquisition strategy come about?

We first bought Twidroyd seven months ago, and we really loved what we learned about the way consumers use Twitter.

What is the involvement of the founders of the companies you bought? Are they all running their respective apps?

Obviously a big part of what makes those companies exciting is the passion of the founders, so we encourage them to operate fairly independently.

Who is the staff of UberMedia?

We have some business development to create partnerships, but the vast majority is engineers. We have a little over 40 employees as a distributed team.

And what’s happened to the sponsored Twitter accounts and tweets?

We’re still very excited about what we’re doing with the marketplace, but there are a number of other innovations that we’re planning. The bigger vision is to innovate inside the Twitter ecosystem.

What does that mean in the context of Twitter competing within its ecosystem, especially through Twitter clients? That doesn’t seem like a category other start-ups and investors are investing in as much today.

It’s not easy to organically grow a new Twitter client from scratch, it’s a real challenge. But I think the Twitter platform is still greatly under-leveraged, and there’s surprisingly low penetration of Twitter users today.

But it’s not as if Twitter allows application makers to just make whatever money they want on its platform.

Twitter has been understandably conservative about wanting to protect the user experience across their platform, so we’re being conservative as well and thinking of other ways to innovate and monetize.

What is your company’s relationship with Twitter?

It’s a great relationship. I can’t talk details about what we’re discussing, but the relationship is quite good.

Are you raising more funding? [UberMedia, which launched out of Gross's Idealab, had previously raised $3.5 million from Index Ventures, Betaworks, Revolution, First Round Capital and others.]

We’re not talking about our funding right now, but obviously you have to raise money in order to grow aggressively.

Will you keep acquiring? It seems like you have Twitter clients for most of the major platforms now.

It is possible, but not top of our priority list.

One things you have not had is a problem with agility.

That’s a concise way to put it.

What about Bill Grosss involvement? Is he still CEO or is he doing other Idealab stuff?

Absolutely. He’s head-down 100 percent on this project.

According to Mashable, Google is close to launching “Google Offers,” a service that will compete with Groupon, LivingSocial and their hundreds of clones.

In a fact sheet sent to Mashable, it says users will receive a daily email offering a local deal, and as with other sites, the discount will be activated once enough people have made the purchase. The deal will be promoted throughout Google’s ad networks.

Google confirmed the service at a very high level: “Google is communicating with small businesses to enlist their support and participation in a test of a pre-paid offers/vouchers program. This initiative is part of an ongoing effort at Google to make new products, such as the recent Offer Ads beta, that connect businesses with customers in new ways.”

To be sure, early providers have proven that the business can scale.

For instance, just yesterday LivingSocial sold 1.3 million $20 Amazon gift cards for $10 each to ring up a one-day sales total of $13 million. Groupon’s run rate is close to $2 billion, although about half of that is passed on to merchants.

It’s not surprising that Google is kicking off the service without acquiring a company in the space. Groupon would rather seek an IPO than sell, and LivingSocial has already teamed up with Amazon–and after those two, it’s slim pickings.

Google’s challenge won’t be in attracting a large audience but in executing the business.

Traditionally, Google has focused on a self-service advertising model, where merchants can go online to buy an ad without having to interact with a salesperson. But Groupon and LivingSocial have approached the business differently and have put hundreds of feet on the street. Groupon has roughly 3,000 employees, while LivingSocial has about 600–and both are growing extremely fast.

Google could try the approach it knows best, by automating the process and putting at least some of it online. After all, one of the reasons it was reportedly willing to pay so much for Groupon was for its local sales force.

So far, Google’s local track record has been spotty. Getting mom-and-pops interested in buying keywords online has been notoriously hard, as they have continued to prefer working with other mediums like newspapers and yellow pages (which do have local sales forces).

But if it is successful at automating any part of the process, Google could take a smaller cut of the deal than others do today, which could push down margins for everyone.

Photo Credit: Mashable.

The street is looking for revenue to jump more than 20 percent, and profits to grow at just a slightly smaller pace. If you’re a bottom-line person, the consensus calls for net revenue of $6.05 billion and earnings of $8.07 a share (or more–some “consensus” numbers I’ve seen go as high as $6.06 billion and $8.09 a share).

Those numbers reflect the strength of Google’s core search business, but as usual, Wall Street would also like to hear about mobile, video and display ads.

And, as usual, it shouldn’t expect much: Last quarter Google made a big point about unveiling a few limited metrics for those businesses. But they were…limited.

Still, it’s always worth listening to Google’s call, which I’ll be doing this afternoon. Check back then for a link to live coverage.

And who knows, the Google guys might tip their hand! Last quarter, analysts asked what the company thought about daily deal sites like Groupon, and product SVP Jonathan Rosenberg allowed that the industry was “a very exciting and hot space.” Turns out it was $6 billion–but not more–worth of exciting!

And as always, here’s the helpful “cheat sheet” that Citigroup’s Mark Mahaney thoughtfully provides. Click to enlarge:

The catch here is that the capability, which will be offered on Apple’s iPad as well as tablets running Google’s Android, will only work inside subscribers’ homes.

So you still can’t watch a live episode of “Two and a Half Men” on your iPad in the airport, but you will be able to watch it in your kitchen, while your better half watches “Frontline” in the living room. Or whatever.

It’s worth noting that Verizon announced its own version of this feature (with the same limitations), for its FiOS TV subscribers last summer, but has yet to roll it out.

Comcast will be demoing the feature later today at a Citigroup investors conference, but won’t be providing details about timing, or if there will be any programming restrictions on what you can watch on your tablet.

It’s possible there could be some holdouts, but the cable giant ought to be able to offer just about everything, since there’s no issue with carriage rights or ad loads, etc.–tablet watchers will be watching whatever’s already on live TV.

The killer feature, of course, would be the ability to do this on-the-go, but we’re not there yet, and it may take awhile to get there. Mobile rights for video–especially live video–are a whole different ball game.

Meantime, though, Comcast is offering a half-step–as previously promised, it will let traveling iPad users start to watch a selection of on-demand content, via its Xfinity TV app.

Comcast says it will offer some 3,000 TV shows and movies that iPad users can watch on-demand, over any network–AT&T’s 3G, or Time Warner Cable’s broadband, or whatever. Once that feature is up and running, which should be shortly, we’ll be able to compare that catalog to the ones that Netflix and Hulu Plus are offering for $7.99 a month.

And that’s the big picture here: Comcast and the other big cable providers, which continue to insist that cord-cutting isn’t real, want to make sure that it doesn’t become a reality, by offering their subscribers access to as much stuff, in as many places, as they can. It’s going to take years to find out whether that works or not, but best to start experimenting ASAP.

The funding comes from Bessemer Venture Partners, Columbia Capital, Charles River Ventures and New Enterprise Associates (NEA).

To date, the Baltimore-based company has raised $65 million. But that hardly seems sufficient when fighting Goliaths like Apple and Google, which both made multimillion-dollar acquisitions last year in the space.

Previously, CEO Paul Palmieri said it was Millennial’s intention to stay an independent company, and therefore aim for an IPO. Is $65 million enough?

The funds will be used for acquisitions in 2011, and to invest in the company’s international business, which is considered smaller than its competitors’, such as Google’s. So far, it has built a team in London, and has begun to expand to the Asia-Pacific region.

Market share statistics are notoriously poor in the space, but in December, IDC estimated that Millennial was the largest independent mobile ad network at 15.4 percent, trailing behind Apple with 18.8 percent share and Google/AdMob with 19 percent share. Millennial’s share was estimated to be larger than Yahoo’s 10.1 percent share.

Millennial declined to give specific numbers, but said it achieved “operational profitability” in 2010, and tripled its revenues during the year.

The Internet-search giant this year has hired several hundred sales representatives to call U.S. businesses such as spas, restaurants and hotels to promote new advertising initiatives, people familiar with the matter said. The effort includes an office in Tempe, Ariz., with around 100 sales representatives, one of these people said.

Since 20% of searches done on Google are for local information, “a strong Web presence can help neighborhood businesses answer those searches and bring in more customers,” said Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of geographic and local services, in a prepared statement. Google’s new local ad offerings “are simple and they work, so we’ve been investing in marketing and sales to support them.”

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So says eMarketer, which predicts that Web ad dollars will hit $25.8 billion in the U.S. in 2010, while newspaper ad dollars, for both print and online, will get to $25.7 billion.

As always, it’s worth noting that because eMarketer’s online numbers include search, these charts are really about Google more than anything else*. In fact, at $28.8 billion, Google’s projected worldwide revenue for 2010 will eclipse the U.S. newspaper business all by itself.

*To be specific: Google’s projected net U.S. revenue makes up 40 percent of eMarketer’s forecast, says senior analyst David Hallerman.

The two companies aren’t handing out details on the new pact, but have made it clear that it’s not going to be anything like the old one, which provided Myspace and the rest of News Corp.’s Web properties with massive guaranteed payments.

But we’ve known that for a long time: The first deal got done when Myspace was white-hot, and Google was competing fiercely with Microsoft to lock up prime real estate.

Now, of course, Myspace is well into a protracted decline, despite News Corp.’s efforts to turn it around (News Corp. also owns this Web site). And Microsoft isn’t nearly as aggressive as it used to be on these kinds of deals.

The real question for Myspace is what happens now. News Corp. has been quite clear that it’s not happy with the site’s performance, and if anyone were willing to pay anything for it, I’m sure Rupert Murdoch would be happy to part with it.

But who wants to buy a shrinking, money-losing Web site? News Corp. may not be able to do that much about the audience decline, and the money-losing part is tougher to fix than it seems from the outside.

That’s because Myspace is still stuck amortizing fees it picked up in the go-go years, like the big settlement/licensing deal it struck with Universal Music Group, which allowed it to start up MySpace Music in 2008.

Those aren’t operating costs, but they’re still real, and they don’t go away. “You start off every year $70 million in the hole,” says a person familiar with the company.

So how else can you cut costs? There are some obvious ways to go, and they won’t be pleasant for Myspace’s remaining staff.

UPDATE: Nature of news on the Web–this story was a scoop for all of about three minutes. Here’s the release–note the news about the Myspace inventory being offered via Google’s DoubleClick Ad Exchange.

MYSPACE AND GOOGLE RENEW AND EXPAND SEARCH
AND ADVERTISING AGREEMENT

LOS ANGELES and MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., December 16, 2010 – Myspace and Google, Inc. today announced a multi-year agreement to renew and expand their long-standing search and advertising relationship. Under the terms of the new agreement, Google will continue to power Myspace search and search advertising and will also provide additional display advertising services to enhance the rich
entertainment content experience inherent on Myspace.

This agreement brings together Google’s expertise in search and advertising with Myspace’s strength in social entertainment. Specifically, the agreement provides Myspace with:

Web search and search advertising
Full display ad solutions (including participating in the Google Display Network and DoubleClick Ad Exchange)

“We’re thrilled about renewing our partnership with Google. Their best-in class technology will continue to provide our consumers with a robust search experience,” said Nada Stirratt, Chief Revenue Officer of Myspace. “We look forward to participating in the Google Display Network and DoubleClick Ad Exchange to increase yield across our display ad inventory.”

“We’re excited to deepen our partnership with one of the largest social Web properties in the world, Myspace,” said Henrique de Castro, Vice President of Global Media and Platforms at Google. “We’re pleased that our technology will benefit Myspace’s users on its newly redesigned site, and that Myspace has chosen our display advertising solution to increase its returns.

It’d be cool if Twitter told us how many times that one actually was retweeted. For those of us who like numbers and stuff.

But whatever. Here’s Colbert’s victory celebration, from last night’s show. Biz Stone dropped by to do the honors.

Oh. Also! Want to buy an ad on Twitter? They’ve got a Web site for you.

The best way to see it is by downloading the TV Guide iPad app, where you’ll find it prominently displayed. It’s like any other “in-app” ad you’ve seen before–click on a banner, and you get a barrage of multimedia–except that in this case it’s intensely fun.

It helps that the ad is for a movie, which translates perfectly on the iPad. And that the movie fuses action, nerddom and nostalgia. And Jeff Bridges!

And note that Apple has always understood the appeal of movie trailers and the Web: Remember when Apple’s movie trailers site was one of the most novel and well-trafficked places on the Internet?

So if you’re wondering if the iPad is a great place to advertise movies via iAds, that question should be answered. The real question is how the format will fare for other products: So far, Apple’s pricing and control issues have made iAds on iPhones and iPods less than a resounding success.

But that’s business talk! Ignore that for now! Get your iPad out and go look at the pretty moving pictures!

No iPad? Then you’re going to have to imagine. Here’s a screenshot:

And here’s a shakycam video:

That’s according to Chitika, which has been tracking iPad adoption rates on its ad network (three billion ads served monthly across more than 100,000 sites) for some time now.

As of this month, the iPad accounts for 0.83 percent of all traffic on Chitika’s network, research director Daniel Ruby tells me. And at current growth rates, which have been steady since the device’s launch, it should hit 2.3 percent by the end of next year. To get that metric, Ruby took the past two months’ data trends for iPad growth relative to the full network’s traffic and, after accounting for spikes and dips, built out a growth line for the next twelve months. And while Chitika has taken some flak in the past for inaccuracies with its iPad sales counter, Ruby says he’s confident about this particular projection because he’s predicting a metric Chitika can directly measure.

Said Ruby, “For the sake of perspective, the iPad is already on par with Linux in terms of Internet usage market share [in North America] and is on pace to more than double its presence by the end of 2011.”

[Image credit: Gizmodo commenter ModestMouse]

11:48 am: Joe Belfiore gives a quick résumé. Windows Media Center, Zune, etc.

11:49 am: Walt: Why so late?

Belfiore: We’ve certainly been doing phones for a long time. A lot changed in the industry with the iPhone. Belfiore says Windows Phone 7 tries to respond to what Apple has done with the iPhone and Google with Android.

11:50 am: Walt: What makes you think you are right up there when you don’t have a lot of things?

Belfiore: (Points to Andy Rubin’s comments that Android is really for tech enthusiasts.) Belfiore says he agrees and that Windows Phone is built more for everyday people, to do the key tasks average users do and do so in an elegant way. “There are certainly some functionality shortfalls, and we are going to work to address them,” he says.

Copy and paste coming in “early 2011,” he reiterates.

As for multitasking, he says some tasks are there, such as background fetch of email and Web pages. Music playing works (but only if you are using Zune).

Walt points out that is where iPhone was when it launched and it got away with it because it was so different from what was on the market.

11:53 am: Belfiore says that some of Windows Phone 7′s features are worth the tradeoffs. As an example, he cites a feature that takes a picture with one click even if the phone is locked.

“We’ve focused on valuable scenarios that are different,” he says. “Some set of users will choose the value of those scenarios.” Belfiore says that Microsoft still aspires to fill the gaps.

Walt: How many have you sold?

Belfiore: We’re not talking about numbers yet.

Walt: Other people do.

Belfiore: We’re four weeks in. At some point we’ll get to that. “It’s just too soon to talk about numbers.”

11:55 am: Talk shifts to Microsoft’s ad campaign that suggests Microsoft’s phone provides at-a-glance information so that people can go back to their “real” life.

“Being late to do this type of experience,” Belfiore says, allowed Microsoft to go back and see what was working and what wasn’t with existing software. “Can people accomplish the most common tasks more quickly?”

That, he says, is how the company was led to the dedicated camera button. Another good example, he says, is Live Tiles–icons that can update with notifications, photos or other data.

11:58 am: He’s talking more about the Live Tiles and the fact that you can have a tile for the people who are most important to you and then contact them in any way you want (text, photos, call, Facebook).

12:00 pm: Walt: How many apps do you have?

Belfiore: I think the marketplace now has between three and four thousand.

12:02 pm: Walt: (Google Android chief) Andy Rubin said that parts of Windows Phone 7 have been around a long time. Is it old or new?

Belfiore: It’s mostly new. It is true we have kernel code that has been around for a long time.

But that’s not a bad thing, he says. The code has been tested, the bugs have been fixed. It’s true on the desktop with Windows. It’s true of Linux as well.

It’s probably true of Android, since it is Linux-based, which is based on Unix.

But a lot is new, such as Silverlight and XNA, in which developers build their apps. “He implied we were encumbered by legacy…I don’t think that’s true.”

12:06 pm: Walt: Why not build your own phone?

Belfiore: Our view is that both Microsoft’s core capabilities and our ability to affect more people would be greater with third parties building diverse hardware.

But, Belfiore says, the company recognized the challenges that come when you don’t make both software and hardware. In the past, Windows Mobile was wide open. This time around, Belfiore says, the company aimed for “the right amount of specified variation in hardware and the right amount of specified sameness.”

12:08 pm: Over time we expect to increase the variation that you see. “We are trying to get the benefits of constraint,” such as better user interface and making things easy for developers while still giving choice to consumers.

12:09 pm: Walt: How long will it take you to again become one of the big players in terms of market share.

Belfiore: It will certainly take some time. He points out that current Windows Phone software runs on only about 10 phones, all high-end devices. Over time, they want to get to lower price points.

Walt: So, how long?

Belfiore: I don’t know how long it will take.

Walt: Months?

Belfiore: It will probably take longer than that.

Walt: A couple of years?

Belfiore: Yeah, maybe.

Walt: Who will be the leaders three years from now?

Belfiore: It’s certainly the case that there are a lot of people building good products. My personal feeling is things won’t change that dramatically that quickly.

I do assume we’ll be in it. The question has to start with whether you have a great product….I think we have that so far. We’ll see how this plays off. BlackBerry has done that in the past. Nokia has done that in the past. We’ll have to see about the future.

12:13 pm: Walt: What about tablets, an idea Microsoft has championed for a long time. But what is the strategy? Seems to be desktop Windows is not a variation of the Windows Phone.

Belfiore: Historically, Microsoft has tried to adapt Windows for other uses (e.g., Media Center, tablet).

So far we’ve continued down that path.

The work we have done on the phone has been focused on very small-screen devices.

Walt: Why not just scale up? Both Apple and Android are working from their phone OSs in doing their tablets.

Belfiore: We’re four weeks out of introducing this new thing. The state of the world today is Windows, is our broad operating system. Runs on same screen size as tablets.

12:15 pm: On to Q&A

Q: How can phone makers really differentiate beyond apps and things like a keyboard and a camera?

Belfiore says the company aims for elegant co-existence. Dictates certain screen sizes, three buttons, four-point capacitive multitouch. “We really want all users to get a great touch-typing experience.”

There’s no upper limit on what they can add in terms of hardware features. For example, a hardware maker could add near field xommunications or some other peripheral not already supported.

12:17 pm: Joshua Topolsky from Engadget asks about tablets again, says last answer a bit of a cop-out. “You can’t possibly be this blind” that Windows 7 isn’t going to work on tablets in the way you want it. Is that really the strategy?

Belfiore hints that the announced strategy focuses on Windows for tablets, but says the company will evaluate that going forward.

Topolsky: Courier?

Belfiore; I wouldn’t count on that.

Last question, from a mobile video calling app. As of today, no native access for developers that need things like native access to the camera.

Belfiore: Individual software makers don’t, but phone makers and operators do, so software makers could work with them. He reiterates the platform is new and the goal is to open things up.

Goal is that all of these creative things can be built. “We’re going to move as fast as possible.”

12:21 pm: Walt: One last question on carrier craplets. There’s a limited number of tiles on Windows Phone 7. On the two phones I saw, some of the space I saw was taken up by carriers.

Belfiore: I really like our approach. I think it is really well considered. When AT&T sells a phone it is AT&T selling the phone. Makes sense for them or hardware makers to be able to showcase their differentiation. Both phone makers and carriers can create tiles, but the user can choose to remove the tile or even uninstall the app.