Google has taken the first swing at Microsoft’s effort to step up against the search giant. Today, Google began it’s first of many marketing campaigns to encourage people to go with Google. They started billboard campaign on four major highways to get people to consider “going Google.”

The highways include the San Francisco’s Highway 101, Chicago’s Eisenhower Expressway, Boston’s Massachusetts Turnpike, and New York’s West Side Highway. It is an effort to reach out to businesses to push it’s business class products. Drivers of these main highways will be looking at Google while they drive rather than just at work.

Google defines “going Google” as the no-problem computing that everyone desires. They want to sell the idea that you will never have email issues, lose files, or web browsing IT problems with their product. Microsoft is well know for problesm and Google is ready to capitalize on that with the business class. Let the games begin.

There isn’t one person I know that hasn’t been pissed off with Comcast. The cable company that claims it isn’t a monopoly is starting trials with more and more media partners to grab more and more money out of our pockets and there really is nothing you nor I can do about it.

The trial program is for the cable companies On Demand Online service. Users will be able to watch TV shows online whenever they want. Comcast has grabbed 17 cable stations and recently the gigantic broadcast network, CBS.  This is going to drive big time audiences to the companies TV show portal.

As the demand for more available online material is growing, many companies are trying to battle companies like Hulu and YouTube who are making big bucks off of video searchers. While this is only a trial, I’m sure it will be made into another Comcast money maker.

Online streaming of music on internet radio providers will live on. Sharing music and video has always been a tight subject when it takes away from the profiting artist and production companies that put them out there. Developing internet radio businesses never stood a chance when the royalty rates for operating daily were set way too high.

Pandora, a popular internet radio provider, blew up on the net offering free music of your choice streamed across the web. The company almost dissolved when agreements did not close to renegotiate a new royalty structure. Even Congress got involved by passing the Webcaster Settlement Act in 2008 which gave only a year for an agreement to be made  between webcasters and a company called SoundExchange. SoundExchange is the collector of royalties which divids them up to the rightsholders, in this case it is the artist and production companies.

The settlement that was agreed upon today will divid webcasters into three types of service, subscription-based, large services, and small services. Webcasters had to agree to pay $25,000 for legal access to the music that they broadcast over the internet. Pandora founder Tim Westergren, said “if it hadn’t been resolved, we would have been done.” In the agreement made, webcasters can stream music as long as it’s not taking from product sales with downloads.

Everyone knows how big Facebook has become. Everyone is practically on the social networking site two,three, or even one hundred times a day. The only thing people are still questioning is how much the company makes in revenue. The question has been in the air ever since Microsoft invested millions into the company CEO Mark Zuckerberg started.

On monday, Marc Andreessen, Facebook board member, said in an interview with Reuters that he is expecting the social networking site to bring in over $500 million by the year end. He also said that he predicts the company to be bringing in billions in the next five years to come.

Ad sales seem to be the companies main revenue. It is usually many sites main revenue and it could make or break a company. Andreessen even said in his interview that if the company worked harder in it’s advertising sales, it could be profiting in the billions. Facebook is working towards other revenue streams which include a system based on credits like it’s Gifts application. It hopes to turn this into something where people can purchase and make transactions on any fun new ideas.

You think big brother is watching you, wait till you hear about this product by a Japanese technology company. They are offering companies better security in the workplace. A lot of companies have video cameras and security badges that replace the aged old key, but now we seem to be taking a step way to far.

Devices offered by this company include snap video cameras to keep an eye on where your going and ankle sensors that must be worn to see where you are in the building. They also have other products like the ankle brace that clip onto your clothing that pinpoint where you are by sensors in each of the buildings rooms. Pretty crazy huh?

The online video site, Joost, is having another try at it. The start-up is reorganizing and will shift it’s model to offering online video platforms in a plain format. It will essentially be licensing its technology to media organizations that want to offer video on their site by them.

Joost is another web video company that tried to compete with Google’s YouTube and Hulu but came up short. The company was founded by the creators of Kazaa and Skype, Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström. It has changed it’s business model twice already and has now seen layoffs and changes to upper executives. The new CEO will be Matt Zelesko who is the current senior vice president of engineering. Mike Volpi won’t be going far from his seat when leaving as Chief Executive. He will still remain as a chairman in the company that still trying to find itself.

This model seems to look like the money maker for Joost. A web online video platform available for anyone to license sounds like gold to us.

There is no doubt that you have heard about “Ida”….right? Well, if your a person of faith, I would close my eyes right now. The “missing link” in primate evolution was found in Germany by paleontologist Jorn Hurum and his team.

Ida is a 47-million-year-old fossil is known as Darwinius masillae. It’s skeleton has primate-like characteristics with opposable thumbs, grasping hands, nails, and short limbs like us. Yes, like us. Hurum said that the fossil bridges the gap between primates (monkeys) and humans.

Brian Richmond, a biological anthropologist at George Washington University, said “Ida is one of the important branching points on the evolutionary tree”.

It’s no surprise that Google remains king of the castle when it comes to search. The latest numbers released by comScore show Google widening the gap between it’s lead and their competitors. April reports showed Google having 9.5 billion searches throughout the month.

Google was up .5 percent in the month of April with 64% of the search market. Yahoo took second place with 20.4% and Microsoft in third with 8.2%. Google maps, directories, and other unique creations from Google are factored in with the overall number of searches.

As Yahoo and Google have ad share deals, Yahoo remains for sale and is still in talks with Microsoft while the failing search company has wanted out for years now.

The most popular classified website, Craigslist, will be considering changes to the popular website after the attention it has gotten from the “Craigslist Killer”.  The craigslist killer,  Philip Markoff, was charged with murdering a masseuse that he looked up on craigslist.

Lawyers from the popular site will be meeting to discuss blocking the “erotic services” ads which is where Markoff found his victim. Markoff also robbed and assaulted two other victims found on craigslist.

Craigslist has been around for over 15 years and is used by 50 countries. The classified site generates over 22 billion page views a month.

Craigslist chief executive, Jim Buckmaster, said  “while preserving the beneficial aspects of Craigslist … without compromising the quintessentially American values of free speech embodied in our Constitution.”

I’m sure Craigslist will see many changes down the line since they are partly owned by EBAY.

So when Jonathan Miller, the new Chief Digital Officer of News Corp, said he was gonna make some changes to the executive team of Myspace, he wasn’t kidding. The news hit the air waves about replacing co-founder Chris DeWolfe after Myspace sees its numbers and Social Network spot slip under Facebook. Facebook has definitely acquired more users worldwide in an explosion of popularity for the social networking site.

News Corp has officially announced DeWolfe’s replacement. The new CEO will be Owen Van Natta who is actually a former Facebook executive. Hmmmm, we may see some similar features on Myspace as we see on Facebook.

Not only has Van Natta worked at Facebook but has also been CEO at Playlist Inc, an online music company, and VP of Business/Corporate Development at Amazon. He definitely has the experience for Myspace.