Yahoo beat Wall Street estimates in its first-quarter earnings report today, with revenue of $1.08 billion and earnings of 23 cents. That’s a gain of 28 percent from a year ago in net earnings and 38 percent per diluted share.

Analysts had been expecting Yahoo to report revenue of $1.06 billion and earnings of 17 cents a share. But, as I reported earlier today, sources had indicated that the results would be on the upside.

Still, revenue was only up year over year by 1 percent — not exactly a great achievement, given exploding growth across the Internet industry. The real drag was the Europe, Middle East and Africa regions, whose revenue was down 9 percent — which Yahoo attributed to the weak economy there — with its “contribution” down 27 percent. That region has been run by Rich Riley, who is now Yahoo’s sales lead in the U.S.

One interesting note: While display revenue was down, search revenue was up. And unique visitors to Yahoo were up 7 percent, which was lower growth than in previous quarters. The reason was declines in search and communications, with media up strongly.

Now, investors are hoping to get more clarity from new CEO Scott Thompson in a call at 2 pm PT about the overall strategy for the troubled Silicon Valley Internet giant, which just restructured its management again and also had layoffs of 2,000 employees.

Thompson has yet to articulate a specific plan beyond the broad strokes of media, commerce and data/platforms as Yahoo’s aim.

But there is a lot more to deal with and in detail, including figuring out its troubled advertising search partnership with Microsoft, the talks around selling off parts of the company’s lucrative Asian assets, Yahoo’s patent lawsuit against Facebook, how Yahoo is going to deal with activist shareholder Third Point’s possible proxy challenge and whether more layoffs beyond recent firings will be needed.

“In the first quarter, Yahoo!’s results came in at the high end of our guidance range and beat consensus on revenue and profits,” Thompson said in a statement. “We also made changes to resize the organization and establish a new leadership structure to quickly deliver the best user and advertiser experiences at scale.”

Until Thompson gives more deets on the earnings call, which I will be liveblogging, here’s Yahoo’s official press release and cool charts on the subject:

YHOO News 2012-4-17 General

YHOO_Q112EarningsPresentation

As it turns out, Electronic Arts’ most popular game on Facebook, The Sims Social, is a perfect candidate for in-game advertising.

“It lends itself well with brands,” said Dave Madden, EA’s SVP of global media solutions. “Across The Sims Social, there’s nutrition, hygiene and careers.”

After all, it’s much harder to work a bottle of shampoo into a game that’s set in the forest or at a poker table. But when a game is about sleeping, eating microwave dinners or taking showers, that sort of product placement becomes much easier.

That’s how Unilever got interested.

In January, the massive consumer brands company — known for being the second-largest advertiser in the world — kicked off a multimillion dollar, year-long advertising campaign with EA.

It started with providing a virtual Dove Hair Spa in the Sims’ bathroom, where people’s avatars shampooed using the “Care & Repair with Dove Hair Therapy shower.” Upcoming Unilever products will include ice cream brands for the spring and summer, such as the new Magnum Mini ice cream bars, Yosicle ice pops, Cornetto ice cream cones and Heartbrand ice cream.

Because the advertisements offer virtual goods for free, players don’t typically mind interacting with the product placements. The Sims Social offers a fairly large global audience, attracting roughly three million daily users and 17.2 million monthly active users to make it one of the top 15 games on Facebook, according to AppData.

While advertising in social games by Electronic Arts or other big publishers like Zynga isn’t new, Madden said it is becoming more routine.

“Everyone knows the audience is there, and that they are spending a lot of time in the games, but from a media standpoint, it’s still been fairly new,” he said. “For a global company like Unilever to want to partner with EA and launch a campaign globally, it’s an indication that gaming is finding a stage.”

To accommodate the interest, Madden said they’ve created a rate card, developed four types of in-game advertising features, and have determined a calendar for how much integration work the developers can handle.

Here are the four advertising types that EA has focused on:

1. Traffic Drivers: Typically, these ads drive players in the game to visit a brand’s Facebook page, where they can download a free in-game virtual good. In a two-week period, more than one million players from The Sims redeemed the Dove Hair Spa virtual items in their games, and 50 percent of the players chose to “Like” the brand on their own accord.
2. Quests: These are the deepest and most involved. Players will have to take a number of steps inside the game to earn a valuable item at the end. For instance, Toyota launched a quest where players earned a Prius.
3. Store Tabs: In the virtual goods store, there will be a whole tab dedicated to the brand. Unilever, which plans to do all four types of advertising, plans to roll out a Dove tab, where users will see five items related to vanity and hair care.
4. Media Integrations: Users can watch a short video advertisement or other type of media, to unlock a virtual good.

In an effort to minimize the impact of massive layoffs that Yahoo’s top management has been planning, according to sources close to the situation, one of the latest ideas to save costs and presumably jobs by new CEO Scott Thompson is to sell off much of its advertising technology platform, including Right Media.

And among the possible buyers Thompson has been targeting in recent visits: Google and Microsoft, as well as Silver Lake, the private equity firm that had once been talking to the Silicon Valley Internet giant about making a large investment in the company.

(That particular deal has gone south, but there is always yet another scheme on the horizon at Yahoo!)

The concept behind such a sale, according to several sources inside and outside the company, is to turn a cost center into a revenue source, with Yahoo essentially outsourcing a business that was a cornerstone of its strategy. A negotiable number of employees affiliated with those units would then move over to the new owner.

The most ideal plan, said sources, would be to sell Yahoo’s whole advertising technology “stack,” including the Right Media Exchange, a marketplace for advertisers, publishers and ad networks to trade online ads. Yahoo bought it for $700 million in 2007.

According to info on the company’s site, it has “300,000 active global buyers and sellers and more than 11 billion daily transactions.”

Also part of the possible package is APT, a system Yahoo has built to make buying and selling online advertising easier. In addition, Yahoo’s technologies for display-ad serving have been mentioned as a possibility for sale.

It’s unclear what the potential sale means for the new ad strategy that U.S. boss Ross Levinsohn and his lieutenant Jim Heckman have been pursuing since last summer. That plan included its own acquisition of ad network Interclick and an attempt to sync up with rivals AOL and Microsoft in an effort to fend off Google and some third-party players, like ad networks.

But the reason for contemplating much a major move — which has been considered before, but never has been seriously offered — are obvious: While Yahoo once dominated this arena, it has steadily lost ground, especially to Google. The search giant has made almost all of its money in search-related ads, but has been moving aggressively via its DoubleClick and other ad-serving entities into higher-level ads.

Microsoft has also been trying to compete, as has AOL, but it’s getting to be an expensive race, and one where Yahoo would have to make major investments to once again gain momentum. Building up this business again had been the aim of co-founder Jerry Yang, who wanted to go big in the arena in a number of ways before he left the company earlier this year.

But those days seem to be over at Yahoo.

“A lot of what has happened so far under Scott [Thompson] has been trying to find more revenue anywhere it can be generated, and get out of businesses that are not growing,” said one person. “Right now, it’s a lot about what we shouldn’t do rather than what we should.”

That has meant visits to see both Google and Microsoft about possible deals by Thompson, with the involvement of CFO Tim Morse and Chief Product Officer Blake Irving.

Thompson (pictured here) has also recently been talking to Silver Lake about the ad-platform sale, in a deal that might include the Andreessen Horowitz venture fund. This would be a different kind of transaction, said sources, in which a separate company would be formed, with Yahoo owning a piece and contracting with the new entity to provide ad technology.

All this activity is related to the layoffs in the works of perhaps thousands of employees, which were to have been communicated to the company this week.

Sources said those have been delayed for some weeks for several reasons, including whether to consider more deeply if certain larger business units can be spun off, sold or somehow transformed. (To be clear: Major layoffs are still being planned, but now might take place in two parts, said sources, in what is a quickly changing and volatile atmosphere at Yahoo.)

Another area being looked at, said sources, is Yahoo’s search advertising partnership with Microsoft, which has not been as successful as had been expected. While Yahoo has been working with the software giant about improving the results, Thompson has apparently been contemplating other possibilities, including working with Google (calling all regulators!) and/or laying off up to 900 employees who work on the company’s search offering.

Any of these moves could, of course, cause a firestorm of controversy, which Thompson appears to not worry much about. He was the driving force in Yahoo’s patent lawsuit against Facebook earlier this week, which is largely attracting a negative reaction across the tech landscape.

A number of prominent voices have spoken out against the legal action, including well-known VC Fred Wilson, who yesterday penned a poisonous blog post, titled “Yahoo Crosses the Line.”

It ends thusly: “I am not writing this in defense of Facebook. They can and will defend themselves. I am writing this in outrage at Yahoo! I used to care about that company for some reason. No more. They are dead to me. Dead and gone. I hate them now.”

Ouch!

Also weighing in publicly via Twitter was former Yahoo director Eric Hippeau, who was one of the company’s first investors, which is embedded below:

Pathetic and heartbreaking last stand for Yahoo bit.ly/yirCcj It’s all over. I loved you very much.

— Eric Hippeau (@erichippeau) March 13, 2012

Double ouch!

All I can say is that Thompson certainly has a lot of gumption. That has actually been his M.O. from the start, said several sources, with the former president of eBay’s PayPal payments unit and dark horse cold-emailing his way into the Yahoo CEO job.

True story: He had not been among its list of possible candidates — largely because he had been placed in his job at eBay many moons ago by Heidrick & Struggles, which was conducting the Yahoo CEO search, and that’s a talent acquisition no-no to poach someone you placed.

That did not stop Thompson, who thought he might be good for the job and reached out directly to board members at the end of the selection effort, which then led to the search committee and soon enough to the job in what was a very quick vetting and secretive (although not secretive enough!) hiring process.

Since then, Thompson has been on a tear, from working on a restructuring to trying to assuage activist shareholder Dan Loeb to helping put the kibosh on its Asian stake sale talks to suing Facebook. And now this sale effort, too.

If the peripatetic Thompson — who might need a dose of Ritalin before this thing is over — wanted to get noticed by the tech powers that be: Mission accomplished!

“He’s definitely someone who appears to have decided on shooting the moon with a lot of these actions,” said one person close to the situation, referring to the move in the card game of Hearts, which is a risky gambit to capture every penalty card worth 26 points in order to win. “I just hope no one loses an eye in the process.”

(That would be triple ouch, by the way.)

No comments all around, but everyone was certainly cordial on this rainy morning.

Tomorrow, as part of the commitment that AllThingsD has to providing its readers with ever more high-quality content, this site will be launching a new reviews section, All Things Reviewed.

Simply put, we’re building on the consumer-tech reviews by Walt Mossberg and Katie Boehret that we’ve always run, with a fresh team of ATD reviewers, the first of whom is the talented Lauren Goode.

Lauren will be joined in the coming months by additional strong reviewers, who we will be adding soon, and each of whom will likely do one meaty review a week.

Katie, who will continue as a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, will also take on the added task of editing the new All Things Reviewed section, which we designed to be bright and graphical and easy to navigate.

We’ll also have plenty of timely, interesting consumer product news in addition to the in-depth reviews. It will all be integrated into the main ATD site, too, because we consider it a key part of providing a range of news, information, analysis and context to those who come to us for trustworthy, fair and accurate journalism.

Make no mistake: We think it is critical that reviews adhere to the same strict tenets of reporting we have for everything we post here. The reviews of the products we will feature take time, rigorous testing and deep critical analysis.

And, like Walt’s and Katie’s current reviews, these new ATD reviews will be based on thorough testing and aimed at smart consumers — and not just techies and enthusiasts.

That’s why we will pick carefully which products are significant or might be interesting to a broader range of readers. In other words, we won’t be reviewing every single slightly changed phone or laptop, or every me-too location app, and we won’t bore you with chip speeds and technobabble.

Thus, as hard as it is to say to the geeks who follow us, we will shun the rigid spec lists and templates used elsewhere, and instead present you with holistic, experience-based reviews that tell the story of the product — hardware, software, apps, games, Web sites and services.

Most importantly, we won’t be afraid to point out negatives, even if the manufacturer is an advertiser. Our aim is to earn your trust and be on your side, even if you disagree at times with our conclusions.

Like all new endeavors, we hope to get the entire section up to cruising speed as soon as possible, but we’ll be doing it in the careful, considered and high-quality manner we strive for in everything we do. (And, like all new stuff, we also had a party introducing the section to a packed crowd at the SXSW Interactive festival last night.)

We hope you’ll like the result and welcome your feedback as we begin our latest expansion. And, as usual, there will be much more to come.

Last night, I did the unthinkable, and actually drove myself through rush hour traffic in Silicon Valley to go to an event in San Jose.

I did this for three good reasons.

First, it was to see Bill Maher’s “CrazyStupidPolitics: Live From Silicon Valley” show, which was being being broadcast live and exclusively on Yahoo Screen, the Internet giant’s video destination. The event launched the Yahoo Comedy Channel, which will offer premium original video from some top talent for free, underwritten by advertisers.

Second, Maher is really, really funny, and even better in stand-up than on his HBO cable show.

Third, some Yahoos always think I am too mean to the company and don’t focus on what it’s doing right.

To be fair, that’s because it has not been doing much right when it comes to stabilizing leadership, handling its longtime moribund board, and giving non-cat-wrangling direction to its talented pool of much-beleaguered employees.

Thus — with some sort of usually self-inflicted fire drill going on all the time — there is a lot for me to report on, from persistent attrition to declining metrics to the latest bickering with its Asian partners.

Which is why it was a pleasure to see the Maher event and then also watch it online, because it was done by Yahoo with the kind of beautiful ease that it used to roll out all the time from its media properties.

When I say pleasure, it is a major compliment, since making and presenting content on the Web has usually ended in pain. Google-owned YouTube, as successful as it is, still hurts my eyes when I watch it, and has not yet become the kind of environment that big brands would want to live in for a long time.

But, from its very first day, without a lot of fuss and noise, Yahoo has created and distributed some of the very best online content experiences from its undersung media units, whether it was Yahoo Finance or Yahoo Sports or Yahoo News.

While there were some notable misses — there was a strange original news show produced in Web 1.0 that was so bad it was good — Yahoo has always had a strong talent for media distribution, and has the huge audience to aim it at.

What has been a shame is the lessening focus the media side has gotten, despite its success over the many years, and even though many of its channels have long been No. 1 across the Web.

The often short shrift has been largely due to the faux struggle between whether Yahoo was a media company or a technology one. It has been an exhausting and toxic debate within Yahoo over the years, with no clear conclusion.

But here’s the truth: The Maher event showed that what Yahoo can do well is be a high-level, high-quality, highly selective distributor of media of all kinds to millions upon millions of users.

This has been and can still be — if properly organized, staffed and sold — a very good business for Yahoo, which has always treated it like some sideshow, rather than the main one.

I get that, of course — why be in a media business, when the pickings are so good in search, commerce, social … whatever?

Why? Well, because a terrific guide of all sorts of media experiences online is what Yahoo was from its very start, and what it has since tried not to be as definitively.

Having covered Yahoo from its very beginnings, it has been a lot like watching someone you think looks good in one outfit change into one ill-fitting and inappropriate get-up after the next in search of the right image.

But if the company only cared to take a look at how well and seemingly effortlessly it pulled off the Maher event, it would know immediately what it has always done well is what it should always be doing.

The Maher live offering was not fancy and it was not flashy and it did not have all kinds of the latest trends hanging all over it.

It was just good, well done and well worth a watch, whether in person or at home. And it was very, very funny.

It would be nice, then, if Yahoo learned to laugh like this much more often.

Here are some of the clips from Maher’s patter to enjoy:

Yahoo actually let me talk with its new CEO Scott Thompson this morning, after the company announced it had hired him as its latest leader.

In an interview, the man who is leaving a job running eBay’s large and lucrative PayPal online payments unit was affable and — dare I say it — seemed very sweet, as well as gung ho on Yahoo’s prospects going forward.

Joking about how he took the job only because eBay and Yahoo are located close by each other in Silicon Valley and the commute was just as easy, Thompson opened by noting that those working at the online commerce giant have always had a “keen appreciation for what each other was doing.”

He said that when he was approached in November about the Yahoo job, although sources said it was just offered this week and took eBay by surprise.

Still, soon after being contacted by Yahoo’s exec recruiters, Thompson said he began “exploring in more detail what’s actually here.” As he did so, he added, he “became progressively more fascinated” that Yahoo had more promise than has been assumed in recent years.

“Its potential is still enormous, but the dialogue has not been about what the company is,” Thompson said. “I want to get this wonderful brand to where it could be again … so, as a starting point, this is a great starting point.”

Thompson’s premise is based on his belief that we are still in the early days of the Internet. And, because he is a Boston native — making him, of course, an ardent fan of its beloved Red Sox — he used baseball as a metaphor.

“It’s early innings, and there are the next eight innings in front of us,” he said, noting that he was in the stands with his father when catcher Carlton Fisk hit that famous game-winning home run in the 12th inning of the sixth game of the World Series in 1975.

Note to everyone who is not an obsessive fan like Thompson (and also, I might add, Walt Mossberg): It did take the Red Sox from 1918 to 2004 to actually finally win the Series again, so maybe Yahoo has a chance!

“This remains a great business, and I have no doubt its best days are ahead of Yahoo,” said Thompson, in that same hopeful spirit of this-year’s-gonna-be-the-one.

Thompson noted that he is fully cognizant of the major troubles at the company recently, and had a “real sense of urgency, but not by moving at breakneck speed, because you just do bad stuff faster.”

Instead, he said, he hopes to focus Yahoo the same way he did PayPal, by innovating, making commitments and keeping them, and overperforming.

None are easy tasks, and all have stymied Yahoo in the recent past. Thompson said that he thinks it might be because of not focusing equally on both consumers and Yahoo’s partners and advertisers.

He admitted that his lack of advertising experience was clear — it could be problematic, because it’s Yahoo’s biggest business — but said, “I readily admit what I don’t know, and am ready to learn and rely on Yahoo’s great team.”

While he would not go into deep specifics — Thompson does not start until next week — he said he planned to get some basic grounding, noting, “I have no preconceived notions.”

One thing is clear, said Thompson: “I can assure you I am going to be completely different.”

If that means doing what Fisk did, that would certainly be a home run for Yahoo.

This morning, Yahoo said it had hired PayPal President Scott Thompson as its newest victim, oops, CEO.

(You can read my interview with him too, here.)

AllThingsD.com had reported the pending development last night — which is how we roll here.

Now we will roll into the conference call on the matter, and are hoping that the head of the lucrative eBay payments unit will make an appearance, given that he does not start until next week.

One piece of advice I will extend Thompson: I would refrain from cursing, as previous Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz did on her first outing. (She was fired in September, although not precisely for the cussing she so enjoyed partaking in.)

Here we go!

7:02 am: It’s on, with Thompson present.

Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock begins, and he is “very excited, very excited.”

I’d be very excited if Thompson talked and not Roy, who has been to this particular Yahoo CEO rodeo a few too many times before.

Bostock is making promises that this time it’s going to be different. Really!

He also notes that the company will continue its “strategic review” — but who knows what that means now.

And he thanks Tim Morse, the interim CEO who is moving back to the CFO job. (Agreed — nice work, Tim!)

7:06 am: Scott Thompson is on and is “just thrilled” to be the new Yahoo CEO.

I like his accent, which seems like he might be from Boston. He does look and sound like Cliff Clavin, the mailman guy at the Beantown bar from the television classic “Cheers.”

Except, given he has been the darkest of dark horses in this CEO race, nobody knew Thompson’s name.

Thompson is saying all the right stuff, about wanting to increase shareholder value and such.

He sounds so hopeful! Urgency! Thoughtfulness! A bright new morning at Yahoo!

I have been to this rodeo before too, but I am still hoping this time it’ll work.

Scott, if you let me down, I might cry, because you sound so nice.

7:09 am Q&A time already.

Congrats from the Wall Street analyst peanut gallery.

Then, it’s right into a question for Bostock, about the progress of the Asian assets deal.

Also, is Thompson too much of a technologist and not a media dude?

Bostock wants to talk about only Scott, but notes that there will be “no slowdown and no delay” in the Asian process. And Thompson will be all onboard when he comes on board, folks.

Bostock sounds tired, but starts to talk about how a “great customer experience” is the key to the advertising business. He notes that Thompson knows how to do this, hence he’ll be fantastic.

“I have every expectation he’ll be out there calling on advertisers,” says Bostock. I would hope so, given that is where Yahoo makes most of its lettuce.

Bostock is saying Yahoo has been “treading water” and now needs to swim fast. Treading water? I wonder who the top honcho at Yahoo has been while the company has been listlessly dangling its legs in the drink?

Roy — that’s who!

7:15 am: Another analyst asks about margins.

Thompson is not having any of it! He is polite when asking for time to get on the job to make proper statements.

But he does focus on the need to build “great, innovative” products. True, but Yahoo has been incredibly unable to do this of late.

Thompson gives no specifics, though. My big idea: I would steal the self-driving car from Google.

7:17 am: A question about what the core of Yahoo is, and about what lessons Thompson is bringing from his experience at PayPal.

Well, he has not met the team — literally. Yahoo’s board consulted almost no one in the top ranks of execs on this appointment.

But Thompson “suspects” there is talent there. Given the recent attrition, he’ll need a big Inspector Clouseau magnifying glass to find it!

From eBay’s PayPal, he says that the key was balancing the customer experience with network effect and, well, blah, blah, blah Internet-speak.

I am still thinking shoplifting the self-driving car is the bestest idea.

7:20 am: A question about Yahoo’s display business versus Google.

Thompson notes it is too early for him to say — though he had better say soon! — but notes that data is key. He is a well-known by-the-numbers guy, and that is clearly where we are going at Yahoo, now that he is the big dog.

Thus:

“The data these Internet businesses create, the ability to use analytical technology to build a better businesses for your customers … I feel certain that wealth of data is going to be exploitable for next generation products, next generation experiences … My instinct says down in that data we’re going to be able to find ways to compete and innovate that the world hasn’t seen yet.”

I am really liking this accent, which is almost lulling. And so polite! Sources tell me that being “collaborative” was a big goal in this hiring.

7:22 am: A question about the identity of Yahoo, and whether it should be public or private.

Thompson harps on the need for innovation, and hopes it will be the future.

“I would not be here if I didn’t think it was possible,” says Thompson.

Bostock takes the public/private question. Yahoo will be public, he declares! Mostly, because it would be too pricey to take private.

“It’s a moot point,” he says.

7:25 am: More questions about what Yahoo is.

Thompson declines to run off the rails on this dicey one, but he says he believes that Yahoo has great assets.

It does. It’s just that it has been crashed many times — by the people who just hired him — right into a wall.

Just sayin’ — a self-driving car would have done a better job.

7:27 am: A brain-drain question, and more on Asia and on mobile.

Bostock butts in again. He said that Thompson will not be distracted by that, and will concentrate on the core business. Hush up, Roy.

Thompson says that he looks forward to meeting the peeps of Yahoo. (’Cuz he has not, as yet!)

He also loves mobile — which Yahoo has largely borked.

7:32 am: A content strategy question. Early days, so Thompson is still keeping his yap shut.

In this, he’s like the anti-Bartz. Is this good? It’s certainly different.

He says again that, “I can’t wait to meet” everyone at Yahoo. Vice versa, because this dude came from left field.

Thompson promises that he will be a “sponge.”

He closes by noting that he is “genuinely excited,” and says he believes in Yahoo.

Indeed, when it comes to Yahoo, you definitely gotta have faith.

In a deal that was struck some time ago and is close to fruition, BermanBraun is prepping three major Web properties for AOL that will focus on pets, men and, interestingly, the weather.

After I inquired, AOL confirmed that the Hollywood production company — headed by former Yahoo and ABC exec Lloyd Braun and former Paramount exec Gail Berman — will debut the trio of sites around March. The new sites will use rich features and a slick design to attract premium advertisers.

The pair will jointly sell the advertising, but the sites themselves will be operated by BermanBraun in cooperation with AOL’s media unit, the Huffington Post Media Group. The deal was struck in late 2010, before AOL bought the Huffington Post for $300 million in January of this year.

While AOL has partnered with many outside sites, this will be the most prominent one since that acquisition.

Since then, much of the new content development on AOL has been aimed at drastically increasing the number of sites with that brand. There have been more than two dozen of those since March.

In this case, the Huffington Post Media Group, run by Arianna Huffington, has typically either created new topic sites or relaunched old AOL ones.

This week, for example, the company rejiggered AOL TV as HuffPost TV, as well as announcing El Huffington Post, an international Spanish-language version of the Huffington Post that will debut in early 2012, in partnership with El País.

The BermanBraun effort, though, is more independent and large-scale. It will feature extensive video and heavy use of imagery. Huffington Post will be involved in editorial selection, and has been working closely with the firm on incorporating social elements.

“It’s been a very dynamic and collaborative partnership — we’ve worked together on everything from design to picking the editors,” said Roy Sekoff, founding editor of the Huffington Post Media Group, about the arrangement. “BermanBraun brings a distinctive approach to their sites, and we’ve helped infuse that with our focus on real-time, social, and building community.”

Sekoff declined to give more details, such as the names of the sites. (They won’t be HuffPost Pets, HuffPost Weather and HuffPost Dudes, though!)

Pets could be a strong category if done in a new way, especially if designed with new tablet devices in mind. And weather, to my mind, is a sleeper category if reimagined freshly.

BermanBraun — which also develops television shows and movies — has a lot of experience in the online content arena. It has previously created Web sites for Microsoft’s MSN unit, including the high-profile celebrity site Wonderwall.

It will be interesting to see how the collaboration turns out. In the meantime, here’s my favorite weather song — Lena Horne rules! — to enjoy until the three sites launch:

Clearspring, the social-sharing company — in an effort to increase its business as a marketing analytics player — has acquired XGraph, a data science company.

Clearspring declined to provide the price it paid for XGraph, but said the deal was in cash and stock. The start-up raised $3.75 million just over a year ago.

The combined company has 85 employees — 70 at Clearspring and 15 at XGraph.

Execs at the the McLean, Va.-based company said the purchase will increase value to advertisers and publishers via audience targeting and data science. Clearspring is best known by consumers for its AddThis social-sharing tool, which provides a lot of detailed user data.

Clearspring raised $20 million in funding in May. At the time, the company said it planned to spend its new cash on acquisitions that leveraged data and built audiences more efficiently.

The New York-based XGraph focuses on modeling and monetizing the Web’s social graph.

“We get a lot of data points every day and making sense of them is something we have already been doing, but XGraph fits the bill to go even further in the multi-graph use of data,” said Clearspring CEO Ramsey McGrory. “It puts us in a position to be the market leader for the application of data.”

Key Compton, CEO and co-founder of the three-year-old XGraph, noted that the industry has become data-driven in new ways.

“People are connected to each other via social connections in a multi-graph platform,” said Compton. “I think there are some really interesting opportunities to access the data.”

Here’s the official press release for the deal:

Clearspring Acquires XGraph to Create Largest Multi-Graph on the Open Web

Company accelerates growth by deepening data team and technology

McLean, VA and New York. NY. — November 1, 2011 – Clearspring, provider of the largest social sharing and analytics platform, AddThis, announced today it has acquired XGraph, Inc., a leading data science company focused on modeling and monetizing the web-wide social graph. Clearspring’s massive reach and proprietary real-time data processing capability, coupled with XGraph’s audience technology, create the largest multi-graph platform on the web — mapping 1.2 billion user’s connections by brand affiliation, intent and social behavior.

The investment in XGraph’s data science capabilities marks another step on Clearspring’s rapid growth trajectory. XGraph’s team has deep data science expertise with applied backgrounds in advertising, sociology, mathematics and computer science. Their unique technology dynamically organizes users by shared connections and interests. XGraph’s team and platform will drive Clearspring’s existing efforts with publishers, advertisers and agencies forward while also setting the stage for new innovation.

“Clearspring is at the epicenter of two major shifts online — the web becoming social and personal, and advertising becoming data-driven and accountable. The common thread in both changes is data. To compete in this new world, companies will not only need the ability to access and process big data, but also have the ability to activate that data to create value for consumers, publishers and advertisers,” said Ramsey McGrory, Clearspring’s new Chief Executive. “The combined company has the people, technology and data to enable our clients to stay at the forefront of these changes. 2012 will be a breakout year for Clearspring.”

For advertisers, agencies and trading desks, Clearspring will immediately be able to provide the largest multi-graph audience targeting capabilities available on the open web. By using this technology to identify a brand’s core audiences and finding millions of other connected and like-minded people online, the company can now drive more efficient spending and increased campaign performance. Clearspring also plans to leverage this new capability to deliver publishers unique audience insights, monetization capabilities and actionable data products in the coming year.

“Most companies only capture one dimension of how we’re all connected, whether it be our friends or people we share with — a single graph approach. XGraph not only models these social connections, but also multiple other types of connections such as brand affiliations, intent and more — a multi-graph approach,” said Key Compton, XGraph’s CEO. “We’re truly excited to leverage our technology to unlock the value of Clearspring’s massive data set and help publishers and advertisers truly harness the power of the web-wide interest graph.”

XGraph is headquartered in New York with an office in Silicon Valley. All XGraph employees based in New York will join Clearspring’s office there. Clearspring plans to keep the office in Silicon Valley. The combined company will have 85 employees nationwide.

Tonight at 1 am PT, techies who have nothing else to do — that would be me! — can click onto a brand new tech site called The Verge.

Well, kind of — it’s the result of many months of work by the gang that defected from AOL’s popular Engadget tech powerhouse, set up temporary shop under the Web site name This Is My Next and busied themselves with creating The Verge.

I have another screenshot below of the new site that will be focused on news, reviews and features about tech, and which has been getting a final tweaking all today.

From my quick perusal, it has a vibrant and slick design, with a lot of packed boxes, swooshy movement and plenty of content.

Along with the launch, The Verge’s parent company — formerly doing business as SB Nation, focused on sports — will also transform into Vox Media.

In a chit-chat with Vox’s CEO Jim Bankoff, top exec Marty Moe and Josh Topolsky, The Verge’s Editor-in-Chief, the trio of former AOLers all said they were going to for the big time.

“We want to build the platform for talented native Web voices, in sports and tech for now, and then we plan to grow more verticals,” said Bankoff.

“We want to create more than a news site or blog about tech — the frustration at AOL was that we did not get the resources or manpower to realize that bigger vision,” said Topolsky.

(You’re speaking to the choir, brother!)

Said Moe: “We think this category has not had a large enough vision…not enough has been innovated over the years and we think it is a big opportunity.”

Topolsky said the site, along with a mass of original content from 30 writers, will also be helped by a strong database of information about all its topics and gadgets and also focus a lot on community input.

“What we want to do was graduate beyond the blog,” he said.

(Hmm…and here I just got the hang of this blog thing.)

Bankoff, who would not say how much Vox spent on launching The Verge — my back-of-the-envelope guess, several million dollars — said that costs were spread out between the tech and sports sites with centralized sales and product teams.

Initial launch sponsors are BMW, Sony and Samsung, said Moe, who is aiming to sell “major brand advertisers on the idea that we will be the premiere destination of consumer tech coverage.”

It has to grow past big sites like Engadget to do so, but Topolsky said that This Is My Next had three million unique visitors in the last month and more than 10 million page views.

“We have done that with a lot of editorials and in-depth reviews,” he said. “I think people are really hungry for great content and stories.”

As to competitors, Topolsky said that “this not to necessarily I win if you lose,” although his clear aim is to unseat sites like CBS-owned CNET, Engadget and Gawker Media’s Gizmodo and perhaps even newsier sites such as TechCrunch and AllThingsD (as if!).

“We are going to do the nuts and bolts stuff,” he said. “Somewhere between Engadget and Wired.”

Topolsky compared The Verge to a “boutique hotel — we have the same stuff everyone else has, but it is a much more elegant experience.”

Later, that will change, he promised, noting that “this is only version 1.0.”

Of course — but what else would you expect from a gadget site?

(Good luck and congrats to the entire The Verge team from AllThingsD!)

And here is another lovely screenshot, as promised:

San Francisco-based Federated Media Publishing said it has bought Lijit Networks, a smaller online advertising analytics and tools firm.

The price for the Boulder, Colo., start-up — which was founded in 2006 — was undisclosed, but it has received just under $29 million in venture funding from firms such as Foundry Group. Federated said Lijit would continue to operate independently, “but in conjunction.”

In an interview yesterday, Federated CEO Deanna Brown said the buy was to round out offerings for its clients and to better compete in a world where most of the online ads go to the top five players.

“I am excited we can give both publishers and advertisers more tools for engagement and monetization,” she said.

Federated, which lost big social-media news site Mashable earlier this year, also benefits from increased scale and inventory of sites.

Lijit CEO Todd Vernon, who will become EVP of technology at Federated, said that it was ever more important for ad-focused firms on the Web to “deliver the entire stack.”

“Lijit has a core competency in the media business, and combined with FM’s best-in-class sales force, we can offer everything needed to do effective online campaigns,” he said.

Here’s the official press release:

Federated Media Publishing To Acquire Lijit Networks

Combined Entity Will Power More than 77,000 Independent Publishers Across the Web Via Comprehensive Advertising, Analytics and Reader Engagement Tools

SAN FRANCISCO, October 4, 2011 – Federated Media Publishing, which powers the best of the Independent Web, today announced the acquisition of Lijit Networks, Inc. Lijit is a leading provider of advertising services, audience analytics and reader engagement tools for online publishers of all sizes. The combined entity will reach nearly 300 million global unique visitors according to Quantcast.

Lijit, headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, will continue to operate independently but in conjunction with the rest of Federated Media Publishing. Lijit CEO Todd Vernon and COO Walter Knapp will take on corresponding EVP of Technology and SVP of Platform Revenue responsibilities at Federated Media Publishing and will report directly to Federated Media Publishing’s CEO, Deanna Brown. Additionally, Lijit board member Seth Levine from Foundry Group will join the Federated Media Publishing board of directors, effective immediately.

With the addition of Lijit Networks’ existing publisher relationships, Federated Media Publishing will now reach more than 77,000 online publishers and nearly 15,000 expert communities, making it one of the largest companies to power publishing on the Independent Web. The acquisition vastly expands the combined company’s inventory of sites, offering premium advertisers improved scale and reach.

Publishers Will Profit and Flourish

Lijit helps publishers more thoughtfully interact with and better understand their audience by providing analytics and engagement tools that build deeper relationships, lengthen time on site and increase page views. These robust and actionable audience analytics and reader engagement tools leverage intent, behavior and demographics to help publishers of all sizes increase revenue and better engage their readers.

Additionally, the combined advertising services provided by FM and Lijit will give publishers of all sizes a revenue stream that complements existing sales efforts and helps grow and monetize their website businesses, no matter what the size.

Advertisers Can More Easily Analyze and Engage

The combination of Federated Media Publishing’s premium online advertising and conversational marketing programs and Lijit’s proprietary data collection tools will empower advertisers to better understand user intent, contextual relevance and demographic information. And by leveraging the combined entity’s extensive publisher relationships, advertisers will have unprecedented scale on the Independent Web.

Introducing Programmatic Buying to the Independent Web

Programmatic buying is one of the fastest growing trends in digital media and the introduction of Lijit’s robust RTB exchange will equip media buyers with one of the largest platforms available. Over the next few months, Federated Media Publishing and Lijit will develop a series of private exchanges that will highlight leading independent publishers. These exchanges will allow brands to engage active, passionate consumers found in highly conversational online communities and publications, while delivering premium CPM rates via FM’s conversational marketing programs.

Quote

“The Lijit Networks team is just as passionate and committed to powering publishers as we are at Federated Media Publishing and that was a crucial element to this decision,” said Deanna Brown, chief executive officer, Federated Media Publishing. “Our combined relationships, proprietary tools and conversational marketing services will be invaluable to publishers and advertisers alike.”

“Federated Media invented how to leverage authentic voices and engaged conversations that exist in the Independent Web,” said Todd Vernon, founder and CEO of Lijit Networks. “The combination of the two companies is a game changer in the industry that unlocks new opportunities for both companies and our combined publisher network.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111004/federated-media-buys-lijit-networks/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110211/twitter-tells-advertisers-to-dig-deeper-promoted-trends-are-going-to-get-more-expensive/ http://allthingsd.com/20110211/twitter-tells-advertisers-to-dig-deeper-promoted-trends-are-going-to-get-more-expensive/#comments Fri, 11 Feb 2011 11:30:11 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=29572 Twitter’s “promoted trends” ads may be the company’s most consistent source of revenue. Now the company wants to wring more money out of them: It has told buyers to expect a significant price bump for the ads in the next few months.

Twitter doesn’t have a formal rate card, but ad industry sources say the going price for a one-day promoted trends purchase has settled between $70,000 and $80,000, after starting out as high as $100,000 a day.

Now Twitter has started telling buyers the coming price hike will consistently push the ads into the $100,000 to $120,000 range.

Promoted trends give an advertiser a chance to essentially purchase a small sliver of Twitter’s site, by inserting their message at the top of the “trends” section of users’ pages. For now, Twitter sells only one per day, and has been selling the slot out with some frequency.

And promoted trends could become even more valuable for Twitter CEO Dick Costolo and his company if they start carving the ads up into different geographies, giving them the ability to sell more than one per day.

If, say, Twitter could sell at least two different promoted trends, in two different territories each week, at $100,000 a pop, those ads alone could generate $20.8 million a year. Play around with those assumptions, and you can quite easily bite off a big chunk of the $100 million-plus ad revenue estimates we’ve seen floated.

Ad buyers also tell me Twitter has been bullish about its “Promoted Accounts” product, which it rolled out toward the end of last year.

When I first wrote about the concept last summer, and described it as a way to let marketers (or anyone) “buy” followers, the concept upset some Twitter traditionalists.

But they’re going to have to get over it, because it’s exactly what Twitter is selling: It prices the ads, which show up on users “Who to follow” list, on a “cost per follow” basis. Buyers pay between $1 to $3 for every new account that follows them.

The one Twitter ad product I haven’t heard buyers talk that much about is the first one Twitter rolled out. “Promoted Tweets” were supposed to work like Google’s AdWords–”organic” tweets, tied to keywords, that showed up in search results, and later in users’ regular streams.

That seemed like a promising tactic at first. But I’ve never seen a promoted tweet “in the wild”; the only time I’ve seen them is when they’re attached to the promoted trends.

But perhaps I’m just missing them. If you’ve bought one, or if you see one, please pass drop me a line (peter@allthingsd.com) and let me know.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110211/twitter-tells-advertisers-to-dig-deeper-promoted-trends-are-going-to-get-more-expensive/feed/ 7 http://allthingsd.com/20110119/theres-a-one-in-200-chance-youre-tweeting-from-inside-justin-bieber/ http://allthingsd.com/20110119/theres-a-one-in-200-chance-youre-tweeting-from-inside-justin-bieber/#comments Wed, 19 Jan 2011 16:28:40 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=28262 From the “awesome to know, now what?” file: Something like one out of every 200 Twitter users claims to be filing their dispatches from Justin Bieber.

Or at least somewhere very close to the teen idol: Some Twitter users report that they are located “in Justin Biebers heart” or “Bieberacademy” or “Bieberville, California.” That comes from a new study from the august Palo Alto Research Center, which had an intern comb through the “Location” fields on 10,000 Twitter user profiles.

The PARC report says that 66 percent of users filled in the field with “valid” information. Another 18 percent left it blank altogether, and 16 percent used it to make a joke and/or an expression of their Bieberlove.

But even that 66 percent number is a bit misleading, since “valid” is a very vague term. Check out this great deadpan:

This includes those who merely entered their continent and, more commonly, those who entered geographic information in highly vernacular forms. For example, one user wrote that s/he is from “kcmo–call da po po”. Our coders were able to determine this user meant “Kansas City, Missouri”, and thus this entry was rated as valid geographic information (indicating a location at a city scale).

Big picture: The PARC report explains convincingly that you shouldn’t take the self-reported geographic information in Twitter profiles at face value. And, I’d argue, that extends to the rest of the information as well. On the other hand, if you’re an advertiser trying to find a lot of Justin Bieber fans, this stuff may be very, very useful.

(Thanks to YouTube’s Hunter Walk for the tip. Via Twitter, of course.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110119/theres-a-one-in-200-chance-youre-tweeting-from-inside-justin-bieber/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20100908/yahoos-shine-editor-in-chief-departs-for-conde-nasts-lucky-magazine/ http://allthingsd.com/20100908/yahoos-shine-editor-in-chief-departs-for-conde-nasts-lucky-magazine/#comments Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:06:45 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=33500

As Yahoo (YHOO) seeks to sort out its women’s strategy online, Brandon Holley (pictured here)–the editor-in-chief of its main women-focused site, Shine–is leaving for a job with the same title at Condé Nast’s Lucky magazine.

In the women’s space, Yahoo’s Shine site, is huge, but has lagged in social networking and other current trends.

Juicing it up is important, since the women’s market is a big one for advertisers, with many competitors–from iVillage to AOL (AOL) to a recent effort by Demand Media to reach women using a site created with supermodel Tyra Banks.

Here is the press release from the New York media giant about the move by Holley, who had been at Condé Nast before (and you can read a story here in the New York Times from earlier this year, in which she compares her online and offline jobs):

BRANDON HOLLEY NAMED EDITOR IN CHIEF OF LUCKY

New York, N.Y., September 8, 2010–Brandon Holley has been named Editor in Chief of Lucky, it was announced today by Thomas J. Wallace, Editorial Director of Condé Nast. Her appointment is effective September 20, 2010. Ms. Holley was the Editor in Chief and business lead of Yahoo! Shine, one of the largest online destinations for women, since 2007. She replaces Kim France, who is leaving the company.

:Brandon is an extraordinarily innovative editor whose extensive experience in both the print and digital realms will be key to developing the Lucky brand across multiple platforms,” said Mr. Wallace.

Under Ms. Holley’s leadership, Yahoo! Shine attracted 25 million visitors per month, according to comScore. Her appointment at Lucky marks a return to Condé Nast for Ms. Holley, who was Editor in Chief of Jane from 2005 to 2007, when it ceased publication. In 2001 she launched ELLEgirl where she remained editor until 2005. Ms. Holley served as senior editor at GQ from 1998 to 2000. She was also part of the launch team of Time Out New York where she served as the dining and shopping editor from 1995 to 1998. She started her magazine career as a writer for Paper magazine and worked as a fact checker for Rolling Stone. In 2002, Ms. Holley was named one of Advertising Age’s Women to Watch.

Lucky and Luckymag.com focus on shopping and style, showcasing what to wear and how to wear it, while making fashion and beauty fun and accessible. The magazine, which launched in 2000, has a circulation of 1.1 million. Condé Nast, a division of Advance Publications, operates in 25 countries.

In the United States, Condé Nast publishes 18 consumer magazines, two trade publications and 27 websites that garner international acclaim and unparalleled consumer engagement.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100908/yahoos-shine-editor-in-chief-departs-for-conde-nasts-lucky-magazine/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091130/was-it-all-a-bad-dream-ad-business-optimism-at-2007-levels/ http://allthingsd.com/20091130/was-it-all-a-bad-dream-ad-business-optimism-at-2007-levels/#comments Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:30:35 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=13349 Your semidaily dose of advertiser pulse-taking: People who plan to spend money on ads seem more chipper than they have been in two years.

The summary, via MediaPost:

The optimism of ad executives to boost their advertising budgets has risen to its highest point in two years, and is now at pre-recessionary levels, according to the most recent in a series of periodic surveys gauging the long-term confidence of advertisers and agency media-buying executives. The study, which is based on an index of executives who plan to boost their ad spending over the next 12-months vs. those who plan to decrease it, currently stands at a positive difference of four percentage points, the highest level since the fall of 2007, when the index stood at positive eight percentage points.

And a chart! (Click to enlarge.)

That data point comes from Advertiser Perceptions Inc., which periodically polls ad buyers about their moods–and more practically, whether they intend to spend more or less in the future.

This tracks with the last report we saw from the firm back in May. And more generally, with anecdotal stuff publishers and ad types tell us.

The usual caveats: Things are getting better, but that doesn’t mean they’re good. And online growth is good, but it’s best if you’re Google (GOOG); everyone else is going to see much smaller gains. Or, at least as likely, smaller declines.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091130/was-it-all-a-bad-dream-ad-business-optimism-at-2007-levels/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091111/strength-in-numbers-news-corp-may-join-time-inc-s-hulu-for-magazines/ http://allthingsd.com/20091111/strength-in-numbers-news-corp-may-join-time-inc-s-hulu-for-magazines/#comments Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:12:30 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=12909 While Rupert Murdoch is busy shaking his fist at Google (GOOG), he is making more friendly overtures to other media players. Sources tell me his News Corp. may join the digital e-reader storefront that Time Inc. and other magazine publishers are putting together.

It’s not clear if News Corp. (NWS) will end up investing in the joint venture, which is designed to control distribution of “print” content to readers like Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle and Apple’s (AAPL) rumored tablet, or if the company will simply agree to tailor its stuff–most notably, The Wall Street Journal–to the joint venture’s standards.

In either case, News Corp. has yet to officially sign on, sources tell me. An announcement formally acknowledging the JV itself is supposed to be a couple of weeks away, though I have been hearing this for at least six weeks.

No comment from News Corp. or Time Inc., the Time Warner (TWX) publishing unit that has been assembling the JV. Other expected partners include Hearst, Condé Nast and, perhaps, Meredith. (Disclosure: News Corp. owns Dow Jones, which owns this Web site.)

In some ways, News Corp. is an obvious partner for the coalition, which I like to call “Hulu for magazines.” Murdoch has been an outspoken critic of Amazon’s distribution and pricing policies; he argues that by controlling the subscription of digital newspaper and magazines delivered through its e-reader, Amazon deprives publishers of a valuable asset.

Murdoch also wants more money for the stuff it does sell: In an earnings call last week, he said that while the bookseller was now paying his company up to $6.50 a month for each $15 monthly subscription to The Wall Street Journal, that split wasn’t good enough.

The JV is supposed to solve those problems for publishers by letting them control sales, customer billing and pricing. But it is also primarily designed with magazine publishers in mind, and News Corp. isn’t in that business.

Meanwhile, New Corp.’s Dow Jones unit is proprietary about the system it has already built to handle subscriptions to the Journal’s print and online editions and its BlackBerry and iPhone apps.

While it’s possible that the JV could use the Dow Jones subscription/commerce platform as the technological base of the JV, Dow Jones could be prickly if asked to play well with others. “Newspapers and magazines, don’t mix well, for reasons that aren’t obvious to the outside world,” says a News Corp. executive briefed on some of the company’s conversations.

In any event, balancing different partners’ interests is only one of the hurdles facing the JV. Some others, from the story I published last month:

• They’ll have to convince consumers who already have billing relationships with Amazon, Apple and other vendors to sign up with yet another service.
• They’ll have to convince device makers to play along with the strategy, which runs counter to many of their own plans. Both Amazon and Apple, for instance, have intentionally created closed systems that give them control of both devices and distribution.
• They’ll have to create content consumers want to buy. The new product can’t simply be a digital version of the magazines they’re already printing: That’s already available on the Web, and consumers have shown almost no interest in paying for it, and advertisers haven’t fully embraced it either.

So what exactly will the JV be selling? That’s probably the most difficult question for publishers to answer, made even more difficult because they don’t know what capabilities the e-readers of the future will boast. Apple for instance, refuses to even acknowledge to Time Inc. executives that it plans to produce a tablet device, let alone provide them with specs.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091111/strength-in-numbers-news-corp-may-join-time-inc-s-hulu-for-magazines/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091106/droid-goog/ http://allthingsd.com/20091106/droid-goog/#comments Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:09:59 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=28418

“There will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or web search results pages. There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up all over the Google site. Ever.”

– Google Vice President of Search Product and User Experience Marissa Mayer

“People wouldn’t like [ads on the homepage]. We prioritize the end user over the advertiser.”

– Google CEO Eric Schmidt, August 2009

Well, this is a first, I think: Google is promoting a consumer electronics device on its front page. Surf over to Google.com right now and you’ll find this pitch plugging Droid, Motorola’s (MOT) new Android smart phone: “The Droid is on sale now. Learn more.”

The text is simple and at just 42 characters, it jibes well with Google’s (GOOG) minimalist design ethic. Click on that “learn more” link and you’re taken to a mobile partners page that touts Droid’s Google-enabled search prowess. Only then are you presented with a big “Get the Verizon Droid Now” button that takes you to Verizon Wireless (VZ), where you can purchase the device.

So is it an ad? Google will almost certainly argue that it is not. But clearly, it commercializes the page. Droid is a consumer product sold by another company and Google is branding it on its most prominent page. Wonder how much that spot is worth.

Furthermore, it’s interesting to see Google leveraging search–a product in which it enjoys a de facto monopoly–to promote a second product that isn’t yet dominant (Android). More so, given this remark from CEO Eric Schmidt, made just yesterday:

“Hopefully, we won’t repeat the mistakes that Microsoft made 10 years ago that ultimately led to all these things that happened to them.”

I’ve asked Google for comment and will update this post if and when I receive a reply.

UPDATE Here’s Google’s comment on the Droid promotion via company spokesperson Gabriel Stricker:

We are currently running a homepage promotion for Droid. From time to time we include a link on the Google home page that points users to exciting and important information, whether it be relief opportunities in the wake of a tsunami or hurricane, awareness about an important cause, or information about a new product. The Droid is a hardware collaboration that we’ve been very active and involved with, so it makes sense that Google has an interest in getting the word out.

UPDATE Turns out this is not the first Google has promoted a handset on its homepage. Last October it plugged another Android device there, the T-Mobile G1.

(Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the owner of Travel Channel as Discovery.)

Rupert Murdoch and company are mulling a sale of the “action sports” cable channel, prompted by inbound requests, industry sources tell me. No comment from News Corp., which also owns this Web site.

If News Corp. (NWS) does part with the channel, it won’t be a whopper of a deal: Fuel TV, which features skate- and surf-themed programming like “The Adventures of Danny and the Dingo” (I know. Me either.) boasts just 30 million subscribers–about half of what cable networks need to get taken seriously by operators and advertisers.

Just as telling, perhaps: I’ve queried three different Wall Street analysts to get a ballpark price for the network, and none had a clue–and only one had even heard of Fuel.

So here, for everyone’s edification, is some Fuel TV programming: Danny and the Dingo’s (who are snowboarding stars, apparently) most recent high jinks.

Surprise! They’re not that awful, at least by the diminished standards of the newspaper industry:

Excluding one-time charges, the publisher earned 16 cents per share on revenue of $570 million. Analysts expected the Times (NYT) to lose a penny per share on revenue of $561 million.

Ad revenue declined 26.9 percent, which is unpleasant but better than the previous quarter, when it dropped 30.2 percent. Internet revenue dropped by 7.2 percent and Internet ad revenue was down 8.2 percent. Both of those results are improvements over the previous quarter as well: Last quarter, Internet revenue was down 14.3 percent and Internet ad revenue was down 15.5 percent.

Some cautious optimism from CEO Janet Robinson:

Looking ahead, visibility remains limited for advertising in the fourth quarter. But as is the case across the media sector, we have seen encouraging signs of improvement in the overall economy and in discussions with our advertisers. Early in the fourth quarter, print advertising trends, in comparison to the third quarter, have improved modestly, while digital advertising trends are improving more significantly.

A little more color on digital: The big improvement this quarter was driven by a turnaround at the Times’s About.com content mill: Revenue was up 7.2 percent, way up from the 5.1 percent decline posted in the previous quarter. This makes sense, given that About is driven by pay-per-click ads and these have come back across the industry, led by Google (GOOG).

But the story is less impressive at the Times’s traditional Web sites. Ad revenue there was down 18.5 percent, which is better than the 21.6 percent drop the previous quarter, but nothing to write home about. As it has done in previous quarters, the publisher blames the decline on a drop in online classifieds, and I assume that much of the drop stems from vaporized employment ads. If this is the case, it’s going to be hard to move those numbers significantly for quite some time.

Reporting third-quarter results after market close Thursday, Google (GOOG) topped estimates, posting net income that rose to $1.64 billion, or $5.13 a share, from $1.29 billion, or $4.06 a share in the same period last year. Net revenue for the period ended in September rose nearly one percent to $4.38 billion. Excluding items, earnings for the quarter were $5.89 a share. Consensus estimates had been calling for $5.42 a share and $4.24 billion in net revenue. The chart below shows revenue sources within Google (click to enlarge).

Impressive. Seems paid clicks grew 14 percent compared to the same period last year, and four percent compared to the prior period. Cost per click was down six percent year over year, but up five percent sequentially.

“Google had a strong quarter–we saw seven percent year-over-year revenue growth despite the tough economic conditions,” said CEO Eric Schmidt. “While there is a lot of uncertainty about the pace of economic recovery, we believe the worst of the recession is behind us and now feel confident about investing heavily in our future.”

Good to hear. Google’s shares, which have already risen more than 50 percent in the past six months, are on another upward tear. They rose 1.82 percent to $539.27 on the news in after-hours trading.

Earnings call highlights via The Wall Street Journal’s Andrew LaVallee:

4:32: Call starts. The cast is the same as last quarter: Mr. Schmidt, CEO; Patrick Pichette, CFO; Jonathan Rosenberg, SVP of product management; and for the first time, Nikesh Arora, president of global sales operations and business development. But there’s a twist–they’ll be using Google’s moderator to vet questions with voters. They vote on “the most relevant questions,” which go to the Google execs, the operator says.

4:35: “While there’s obviously a lot of uncertainty about the pace of the economic recovery, we believe the worst of the recession is behind us,” Schmidt says.

He adds that Google now has the confidence to invest “heavily” in its future. “It’s all good news from our perspective, at least in looking at the quarter.”

4:37: Says “we want to really get to the perfect search engine” and that many advertisers would like to spend more with Google if the company’s product allow them to do that.

4:38: Schmidt says “we’re open for business in making strategic acquisitions, both large and small.”

4:39: It’s Pichette’s turn. “At a high level, we’re very pleased with our Q3 results,” he says. The quarter benefited from growth in AdSense for content and display initiatives.

4:41: U.S. revenue up 4% to $2.8 billion. U.K. revenue decline affected by foreign exchange as well as ongoing macroeconomic weakness, Pichette says.

4:42: Operating expenses rose from the prior quarter, mostly due to payroll, equipment and facilities-related expenses.

“We believe the worst of the recession is behind us,” he says.

4:44: Brazil was a standout in Latin America, Arora says. We’re beginning to see signs of recovery in Europe and Africa, particularly Spain. In Asia, China performed strongly as an emerging market.

4:46: Looking at the display-advertising business, those have also shown strong results, he says.

On YouTube, new advertisers and partners are helping with monetization efforts. Ninety percent of the top 50 advertisers have run YouTube campaigns with successful results–recent examples include McDonald’s and Hewlett-Packard.

4:47: YouTube has signed deals with all four major record labels and several independent labels. Earlier today, Google announced a partnership with Channel 4 in the U.K., which will bring full-length programming to the video-sharing site.

4:48: Arora adds a personal shout-out to the sales team.

4:50: Rosenberg calls the new AdWords front-end one of the company’s biggest investments of the year. Advertisers have new reports, can run more efficient campaigns and can get new features faster thanks to the platform, he says.

Check it out (click tables to enlarge):

Note that these numbers are actually all down from August. Apparently some of you spent your last days before returning to work or school in front of your Web browser.

Meanwhile, Nielsen’s Top 10 list has the usual suspects. That is–Google’s (GOOG) YouTube and then everyone else. Interesting to note the disparity between total audience and total streams on Hulu compared to Yahoo (YHOO) and Microsoft’s (MSFT) MSN. Hulu is attracting a smaller but much more engaged audience than the big portals.

At some point, this could be a problem for the joint venture between News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox, GE’s (GE) NBC Universal and Disney’s (DIS) ABC since advertisers ultimately want reach. But it’s still astonishingly early for the site–recall that it only went out of beta in March 2008, and doesn’t have a major portal promoting it.

One caveat: Note that for whatever reason, Web video publishers tend to push the numbers they get from comScore (SCOR) more than the Nielsen numbers. But directionally, they tend to say the same thing.

Allrighty, then. If you’re going to spend so much time watching Web clips, best to make sure you’re watching something excellent. Like this clip from last night’s “The Daily Show”–a classic evisceration of CNN. Jon Stewart and crew often go after the cable channel and its brethren, but this one is particularly good. Warning! It is more than 11 minutes long!

Be patient, says a new report from Bernstein Research, which predicts that mobile ads will reach $2.2 billion by 2013. That’s a decent chunk of change, but still a small portion of the estimated $32 billion that will be spent on Web ads that year. And for Google (GOOG) and Yahoo (YHOO), it won’t be nearly enough to provide a meaningful boost to their business.

Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay isn’t down on mobile, by the way. Just realistic. He argues, sensibly enough, that mobile Web use is different from the kind you do at work or home: When you go online via your phone, you tend to look for specific bits of information, then hop off, as opposed to endless surfing from your desk or couch.

Which means that even as people transition to phones with good Web browsers like the one on Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, their mobile Internet time won’t replace the time they spend on their PCs, but just augment it. Translation: By 2013, Lindsay figures that mobile will make up about seven percent of Web page views. Click table below to enlarge.

What does this mean for Yahoo and Google, both of which have been talking up mobile as a big growth sector? Not that much, Lindsay says. He figures U.S. mobile ads could generate $300 million for Yahoo in 2013–about four percent of revenue.

And he thinks Google, which dominates mobile search in the same way it dominates the wired world, could generate $600 million–less than two percent of its revenue. Lindsay’s math (click to enlarge):

Not included in Lindsay’s analysis: Any mention of mobile ad opportunities specific to the app ecosystem Apple is creating. As I noted earlier this week, Apple has now pushed out two billion apps to iPhone and iPod touch users, and the majority of these could support ads if there’s a market for them.

[Image credit: mistress_f]

Vevo

Kohl’s job is a key one at the venture, whose premise is that the music industry can do a better job of selling its video inventory than sites like Google’s (GOOG) YouTube. Vevo is a joint venture owned (for now) by Sony (SNE) and Vivendi’s Universal Music Group; YouTube will help power the site and share in some of its revenue.

In theory, there could be a lot of dollars to go around. When Vevo opens its doors later this year, it is expected to generate some 450 million video streams a month. In theory, the fact that a single company controls the way the videos are displayed and distributed will make those streams more attractive to advertisers.

But there are plenty of skeptics who think the site will flounder, in large part because the music industry has never figured out how to run a successful consumer business and because media companies have a terrible track record when it comes to joint ventures. In Vevo’s favor: They said the same thing about Hulu, and that venture has been a success, at least operationally.

Kohl will run a six-person sales team he intends to expand, people familiar with Vevo’s strategy tell me. Until now, Vevo head Rio Caraeff has been overseeing sales himself–and learning on the job, since he didn’t have any sales experience of his own. Vevo now employs about 45 people.

At Nokia, Kohl ran the company’s interactive ad group; he has also put in time at Viacom’s (VIA) MTV Networks, Vivendi Universal and Comedy Central.

Part of the magic trick will involve cutting costs. That’s hard to see play out in real time, except when we get flare-ups like YouTube’s fight with Warner Music Group (WMG) over new contract terms. The other part of the abracadabra–selling more ads on more videos, particularly “viral” hits–is easier to spot, particularly because YouTube keeps pointing it out.

For instance: Yesterday’s announcement that the site would start attaching ads to many more popular videos submitted by users and share the proceeds with the uploaders.

YouTube was typically vague about how the plan will work, but the most telling news is that it thinks it can increase the number of “partners” it shares ad revenue with from “thousands” to “tens of thousands.”

Translation: All those skateboarding dog videos you make fun of? We’re going to turn them into money machines. Just watch!

I’m going to make an educated guess and posit that for all the effort YouTube has made  to “monetize”–I hate that word, but what can you do?–its gazillions of videos, its most important revenue generator is still its homepage. YouTube’s competitors think a one-day “takeover” there may cost an advertiser as much as $500,000.

There’s not a whole lot of upside left for YouTube in the homepage, though. It’s the gateway to the world’s biggest video site, and the second-biggest search engine, and you either want to advertise on it or you don’t.

But the rest of site remains a big opportunity. YouTube can keep chasing splashy “premium content” deals like the ones it has struck with Sony (SNE), Disney (DIS) and Time Warner (TWX). And at the same time, it can try selling more of the “long tail”–basically, everything that isn’t “premium.”

YouTube’s long-tail efforts sometimes get ignored, especially when the site is compared to Hulu and its array of TV shows and movies. But YouTube executives have insisted for a while that long-tail videos will play a big role in the site’s future, and the new move underscores that.

“I think they are working [the long tail] hard but are not articulating it well,” the head of a competing Web video company told me earlier this month. “It may be because they are worried about how advertisers and agencies will view them, but it may also be that they are not revealing it all until it’s farther along.” Yesterday, YouTube gave us another peek.

After all the investor hubbub over the oh-no-they-didn’t deal between Yahoo and Microsoft starts to die down a bit, the pair are now embarking on the path that is the only way toward proving the efficacy of them joining together.

That would be getting a variety of state, federal and international regulators to say yes to the wide-ranging online advertising and search arrangement they announced last week so they can start making it work.

According to sources at both companies, a variety of filings will be made this week, including one to the Securities and Exchange Commission that should provide more details of the partnership.

When it was unveiled last Wednesday, the companies said Microsoft (MSFT) will run search technology for the two, while Yahoo (YHOO) will sell the premium search advertising.

That SEC filing could answer a number of questions some still have about the deal, such as whether there is a large break-up fee that Microsoft would pay Yahoo in case the deal is scuttled.

That’s just the outcome that Microsoft and Yahoo are trying to avoid.

“We think of it as an outreach effort to explain how we are creating a strong No. 2 to Google,” said one source close to the situation. “The main goal will be to show that a better competitor in the marketplace is a good thing.”

While the companies are prepping for opposition from Google (GOOG), sources close to the thinking at the dominant search company said it is more likely to be muted and indirect.

That’s especially true since a MicroHoo makes Google–currently under a lot more government scrutiny than ever before–look like less of a bully.

Thus, Google’s tactics would entail less direct statements and more pointing out the discrepancies between what Microsoft said when Google tried to get approval for a search deal with Yahoo last year and what it argues now.

“They will probably not be that obvious, but they will be there still,” said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to me, in an off-hand remark at the software giant’s Financial Analyst Meeting last week.

It’s a game of legal chicken that Ballmer knows well.

Already, for example, Microsoft and Yahoo execs have been aggressively reaching out to major publishers and advertisers to get their staunch support.

That included calls immediately after the deal was announced last Wednesday to such execs as Martin Sorrell of the WPP Group (WPPGY) and Jeff Zucker, CEO of NBC Universal, a unit of GE (GE).

In Washington, D.C., both companies have legions of lawyers to try to make sure the Justice Department, which will review the case due to its antitrust implications, has all the information it might need.

And, more to the point, they want to avoid the debacle that took place when Yahoo and Google tried to get approval for their failed deal last year.

That deal was ended by Google after it became clear that Justice was going to fight it by arguing that top search companies hooking up hurt competition and stifled innovation.

In addition, there might be Congressional scrutiny, with possible hearings, similar to those held when the Yahoogle deal was pending, such as in the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee.

And, of course, there are actually independent groups concerned and they have also been in contact with regulators.

“There are questions that must be answered regarding the collection and sharing of consumer data by the two companies,” said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a D.C.-based group that works to promote consumer privacy and protection online, in a statement last week. “While the rationale for the deal is to provide some much needed competition to Google (and income for Yahoo), the further consolidation of the global digital advertising system should be a concern to Internet users, privacy advocates, online marketers, and competition regulators.”

Sources said Microsoft and Yahoo also plan to petition regulators in the European Union this week, which is likely to be most concerned about privacy issues involved in their union.

They will also be doing the same in other key countries worldwide, such as Korea, Taiwan and Brazil.

And, finally, given how involved state attorneys general became in beaching the Yahoo deal to partner with Google, they also will be starting outreach to key states, such as California, where Silicon Valley-based Yahoo is headquartered.

“Once again, it will be the Lawyer Employment Act of 2009,” joked one person close to the deal. “At least, that shows there is some economic benefit to this deal already.”

While we all wait in breathless regulatory anticipation, here are interviews I did at last year’s Senate hearings on Yahoogle, with lawyers from Google (David Drummond), Microsoft (Brad Smith) and Yahoo (Mike Callahan).

Incredibly, they are the very same lawyers who will be pretzeling themselves in entirely different shapes than they pretzeled themselves a year ago.

I would expect nothing less!

Here’s the video: