A Few Quarters for Pinball

He has not proven his lack of ability and he has not yet proven his ability. So let’s give him a few more quarters and see what he does.

— Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter, about Mark Zuckerberg

Bang! Publishers Say Giant Web Ads Have "Stopping Power"

Bigger really is better! So say Web publishers who have been running supersized, don’t-you-dare-look-away-from-me ads for the past year. Even better, the ad sellers insist–they have scientific proof to back up their claim.

Google CEO’s Advice to the Street-View Shy: The Video

Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s suggestion for those who feel violated by Street View (“Move”) didn’t make the final cut of his interview on CNN’s “Parker Spitzer” show, but here’s the outtake.

Voices

Twitter Moves to Make it Easier to Tweet

Twitter borrowed a page from Facebook Thursday, announcing a plan to begin offering online publishers the chance to embed a “tweet” button on their sites. The goal is to make it easier for users of Twitter to share content–or tweet, in Twitter-speak. More than 30 large sites including CNN.com, HuffingtonPost.com, and YouTube, the video website, today will begin making the tweet button available to users, Twitter announced.

Voices

CNN Invests in Neighborhood News Feed Outside.In

CNN.com is investing in Outside.In, a start-up that feeds neighborhood blogs and other local news and information to the Web sites of newspapers, TV stations and other media. The investment, whose size the Time Warner Inc. Web site declined to disclose, comes as news organizations seek more local information about high school sports, eateries and social events, in which they see an untapped market.

Voices

CNN's New Look Includes an "iTunes" for News

Time Warner’s CNN unveiled its new Web site Thursday evening in a presentation that was part Hollywood and part Apple. All week long, the network had been touting the event, dubbed “The Unveiling.”

Yahoo Renovates Its Home Page

Katherine Boehret reviews Yahoo’s made-over home page, which features less clutter and new “apps.”

Is the Internet Ready for Michael Jackson’s Funeral?

Michael Jackson’s funeral service starts at 1 pm Eastern today and you will have to try very hard not to see it: In addition to wall-to-wall coverage on the news channels, any Web site capable of live-streaming the event will be doing so. Is the Internet ready for the coming traffic jam? I’m betting it is.

Is Bigger Better? Here Come the Supersized Web Ads.

Earlier this year, an online publishing trade group promised to get its members to start running new, bigger, harder-to-ignore ads by July. So here they are: The Online Publishers Association says 37 sites, including the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and CNN.com, will start selling the plus-sized ads this week. Now we’ll see if they work.

CNN: We Don’t Need YouTube and Twitter to Tell Us What’s Going on in Iran–We’ve Got iReport

The “Iran is Twitter’s defining moment” meme is losing momentum to the “Iran is YouTube’s defining moment” meme. But CNN has a different spin. Time Warner’s cable news channel wants us to know that it isn’t dependent on either the micromessaging service or Google’s video site to report on what’s happening in Iran–it has iReport.

The "I'm a PC Variations"