A new MySpace mobile application set to debut this summer will support Microsoft Windows Mobile as well as Microsoft Silverlight. Silverlight is technology similar to Adobe's Flash that powers rich media. "We are pleased to bring MySpace users the benefits and flexibility of Microsoft's platforms," said Aber Whitcomb, chief technology officer of MySpace.

Despite the economic decline of 2008, internet advertising reached $23.4 billion, setting a new record high. Records have been set for five consecutive years, according to data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau )IAB( and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Search grew 19% over 2007 , maintaining its role as the driving force behind the continued )yet slowed( growth in internet advertising. Meanwhile, digital video is on the rise,

AOL's former Chief Executive Jonathan Miller has been approached by NewsCorp to head up their digital unit, according to reports. Miller is under a non-compete agreement with AOL, but that expires within days. The agreement prevented Miller from joining Yahoo!'s expanded board, a compromise with investor Carl Icahn last summer during the Microsoft acquisition aftermath. Currently, Miller is a partner at investment firm Velocity Interactive Group. He left AOL in 2006.

Google will no longer be offering YouTube video ads in AdSense . Apparently, the feature hasn't performed as well as AdSense had hoped. Publishers may still get video ads if they accept image ads on their sites or if the produce video content and use AdSense for video. Meanwhile, if publishers still want to feature YouTube videos, they can, of course, embed videos directly on their site. They can also create playlists to feature multiple videos.

I just received an email from an old friend about The Christian Science Monitor , which published its final daily print edition yesterday. This prompts me to ask, "Should search engine marketers mourn the death of newspapers or celebrate the new era of online journalism?" Before I tackle this emotional question, let's review the facts objectively - as any good journalist would do. The key words in my first sentence are "daily print." Or, as John Yemma,

If top NYC public relations firms are smart, they'll give PR jobs or paid internships to The City College of New York )CCNY( students that I met last week. Why? Because most of these kids know something that most of us don't and it is crucial to our survival as an industry. Let me explain. I played reverse hooky last Wednesday afternoon. I attended school when I didn't have to. Professor Philip Ryan invited me to visit his Introduction to Public Relations class at CCNY.

Visual search engine Searchme has added a Twitter button that helps users Tweet the search results they've come across. Once you've conducted your search, simply click the button. You'll be taken to the Twitter homepage where a Tweet is already prepared for you. Tweak as needed or go ahead and update. Check it out.

Google Maps has a feature called "My Maps" where users can create custom maps marking points of interest. Users can set them as private or as public and share them. Until now, the complete maps didn't show up in the results. That's changing, however, as Google rolls out the ability to view these complete maps by including them in the search results . Google made several suggestions of search terms to try as an example. When I click on the link from the Google LatLong blog,

Mobile advertising network AdMob is testing automatic pricing adjustments which they will make their customers' jobs easier. The idea is that automatic pricing will help lower maximum Cost-Per-Click )CPC( bids and reward publishers that deliver higher value clicks.

Online video site Veoh is now offering groups . Many social sites offer groups. LinkedIn and Facebook are two social networks that have very popular and successful group features. Groups are a great way of finding other users on the same network with similar interests, but they're also great for sharing. So much of the web, from search to social media to shopping, is about discovery,

Google has announced that it's cutting its sales and marketing staff by 200 worldwide. While it's never a happy experience, the bright side is that this is only about 1% of Google's total staff. Also, let's face it, if you need to find another job, having Google on your resume is helpful. Plus, I'm sure they'll have a better than average severance package. Still, it sucks. Unfortunately, they're not alone. In search and social media, we've seen layoffs at Yahoo,

There were just as many big stories on Day 3 of SES New York 2009 as there were on the first two days of the event. Since I took the Acela back to Boston last night, I'm only getting around to reporting on them this morning. The big story was the morning keynote by John Gerzema, Chief Insights Officer at Young & Rubicam Group and author of "The Brand Bubble." In her post, " Morning Keynote: John Gerzema ," Lisa Barone of Outspoken Media wrote, "John starts off.

Google has expanded the availability of the new AdWords interface to additional U.S. advertisers plus more countries and languages )Spanish, Japanese, French, and Brazilian Portuguese(. The beta originally opened to more limited availability last November . Here's what to expect, per the Inside AdWords blog: Performance graphs : Spot trends over time with custom graphs on every campaign management page.

YouTube has announced a name change for some of the features on its site. They are as follows: Spotlight Videos - These are videos that YouTube are entertaining or educational for the masses, so they highlight them. Promoted Videos - Originally called "Sponsored Videos," these are the paid video ads - like paid search but for YouTube and with videos.

comScore has released data about iPhone users in the UK and compared to other mobile devices, the iPhone is certainly spurring on mobie search. 55% of iPhone users conduct searches on their devices, while just 32% of smartphone users and 12% of all mobile phone users search on their phones. In fact, the iPhone beats smartphones and other mobile phones in every major category from email to mobile music to social networking: The downside?

I have a confession to make. I love the new Yahoo! Inquisitor app for the iPhone . I like it better than - gasp - searching Google. But do people from other nationalities, geographic locations and languages feel the same way? They're about to find out. Yahoo! is releasing its Inquisitor iPhone app to 11 more countries. They are: Canada UK France Germany Italy Netherlands Spain Sweden Switzerland Australia New Zealand The Inquisitor app is set to Yahoo!'s U.S. index by default,

Last year, Google extended Webmaster Tools to hosting providers , who could in turn offer it to their customers. Now, Google has released "Services for Websites," a bundled package of tools for website hosting providers. Included in the bundle are Webmaster Tools, AdSense, Custom Search, and Site Search. When a hosting provider implements "Services for Websites," its customers can integrate Google tools with just one click.

In case you tuned in late, half of the top posts and stories from Day 2 of SES New York were a continuation of the top story from Day 1: Guy Kawasaki's opening keynote, "Twitter as a Tool for Social Media." To catch you up, in case you missed my post, " Ten Top Stories from Day 1 of SES New York . Better yet, read Lisa Barone's post in Outspoken Media entitled, " Guy Kawasaki: Twitter As a Tool for Social Media .

Last November, Google added voice search to their iPhone mobile application . Now, Blackberry users are getting the perk . The updated Google Mobile App for Blackberry now has the ability to conduct a voice search. If you have a Blackberry and want to download the app, browse to http://m.google.com on your device. The voice feature is available for Blackberry devices with O/S 4.2 and higher )except the Storm(. The app without voice is available for devices with O/S 4.1+.

Over at Google Blogoscoped, Tony Ruscoe & Philipp Lenssen have uncovered a Google Experiment called the "Wonder Wheel." The experiment shows related searches. Ruscoe and Lenssen offered up screenshots using the search term "comic books." Wonder Wheel is reminiscent of the concept )though not the visual implementation( behind Quintura .