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My 2 featured articles for the week ending Aug. 26, 2005:

Archived blogs for the week of August 22, 2005

973 - August 26, 2005 - 8.59 AM EST

Google hires prominent law firm Keker & Van Nest

Google just hired law firm Keker & Van Nest to represent it in an impending courtroom battle with Microsoft. Keker & Van Nest, led by ex-Marine John Keker, has defended such controversial clients as Wall Street banker Frank Quattrone and former Enron executive Andrew Fastow.

Google was sued last month by Microsoft after it hired one of the Redmond, Wash., company's former top executives to open a research laboratory in China.

The suit, filed in King County, Wash., Superior Court, alleges that Google helped ex-Microsoft executive Kai-Fu Lee violate a non-compete agreement with Microsoft.

Keker & Van Nest will work with another law firm, Dorsey & Whitney, on the case. Google also recently filed its own lawsuit in Santa Clara County Superior Court arguing that Microsoft's attempt to enforce the "covenant not to compete" provision in the contract violates California law.

Posted on Businessblog™

972 - August 25, 2005 - 2.08 PM EST

Perfect 10 Magazine sues Google over nude pictures

Perfect 10 Magazine sues Google, alleging that it is infringing on copyright laws by displaying thousands of pictures of nude women.

Perfect 10 magazine said in a statement that it was seeking a preliminary injunction against Google "to enjoin Google from copying, displaying and distributing Perfect 10 copyrighted images."

The magazine said it had already filed a complaint against Google in November 2004 claiming the Web giant "is displaying hundreds of thousands of adult images, from the most tame to the most exceedingly explicit, to draw massive traffic to its website, which it is converting into hundreds of millions of dollars of advertising revenue."

Posted on Businessblog™

971 - August 25, 2005 - 9.15 AM EST

The Google Talk feature

Google wants to go further beyond its core competency, Internet search. The company is launching an instant messaging (IM) service and online voice calling service that will take it into greater competition with more established telecommunications companies around the world.

It's new service, Google Talk, also marks an ambitious attempt to create an open platform on the web for voice calls and instant messaging, a move that could challenge the “closed” instant messaging networks run by rivals Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft’s MSN.

Last week’s announcement that Google planned to raise about $4billion by selling shares fed speculation that it would use the cash to branch out into new services, perhaps by acquiring a company such as Skype, an early leader in internet telephony.

The launch of its own service, announced on Wednesday appears to indicate instead that the company intends to build a network from the ground up, using a different approach to that taken by better-established rivals.

Google took its first step into the communications business last year with the launch of Gmail although it has made no secret of its ambition to go further. Eric Schmidt, chief executive officer, has listed search and communications as the “killer applications” of the internet.

Posted on Businessblog™

970 - August 24, 2005 - 9.24 AM EST

Yahoo and Viacom ink advertising deal

Yesterday, Viacom signed a search distribution deal with Yahoo. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Yahoo will provide Web search services and paid search to Viacom's range of online properties including CBSNews.com, BET.com and MTV.com.

Web search is seen accounting for about 40 percent of all online ad spending in 2005, when total Web advertising is expected to grow 21 percent to $11.5 billion, research firm eMarketer said earlier this year.

Posted on Businessblog™

969 - August 23, 2005 - 1.25 PM EST

Will Google offer Instant Messages?

According to people familiar with the service, Google is planning to launch an instant messaging (IM) program called Google Talk as early as tomorrow. The new IM service follows by just a few days the introduction of Google Sidebar, which pulls news stories, photographs, weather updates, stock quotes and other features onto a user's computer without opening a Web browser.

With all the new services, Google now competes with Internet portals such as Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Time Warner Inc.'s America Online squarely on their turf, even as those companies encroach onto Google's with updated search engines.

Google has been playing catch-up with many products, such as e-mail, a personalized home page at Google.com and online maps. The goal is to get consumers to stay longer, rather than simply search for websites and then click away.

Compiling a list of buddies to chat with through instant messaging provides the kind of "stickiness" these companies covet.

"Like any big company, they've got a brand name, and they've got to keep extending it," said John Tinker, an analyst at Think Equity Partners who had not seen Google Talk.

"Because the reality is, there's not a whole lot of difference between their search [engine] and anyone else's."

According to a person who has seen the service, Google plans to let users chat using more than just their keyboards. Like similar programs from competitors, Google Talk also will let computer users with a headset have voice conversations with other computer users with headsets, this person said.

Posted on Businessblog™

968 - August 22, 2005 - 6.03 PM EST

Google and Yahoo fighting for advertisers

Google and Yahoo are reportedly fighting over a deal that would see them emcompassing the world of traditional media for the first time.

Yahoo and Google have approached Trader Classified Media about a possible merger of some sort. Trader Classified Media owns about 575 print titles, ranging from Canada's "Auto Trader Magazine" to "Buy & Sell Chinese in the US".

The interest by Google and Yahoo underlines the continuing land grab in the global classified advertising market and the desire of internet firms to create online communities in local markets throughout the world.

Sources say that other firms, possibly including the online auctioneer Ebay, have also made approaches.

The talks include the possibility of a sale of a stake in Trader, an acquisition of the entire company or a joint venture.

Last Friday, Trader was valued at about E1.3 billion ($2.2 billion) when adding both classes of the company's stock together.

Posted on Businessblog™

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