I have the tv on in the background while I blog from the comfort of my North Carolina home, and happened to catch a commercial advertising the KGB. WHAT!?!?!?! I've seen enough spy shows to know that the KGB are Russian spies. Well not anymore. The KGB has apparently changed its mission to providing a text search service. The U.S. number is 542542, which is quite close to rival text search company Cha Cha's number of 242242 .

Google Checkout is now offering subscriptions for sellers who wish to offer them. The option is available through the Beta Features page. Merchants can set up recurring billing through the API as well. If you're not familiar, Google Checkout offers shopping cart functionality in a way similar to PayPal , which is owned by eBay. In April 2007, eBay teamed up with Yahoo to challenge Google Checkout , part of the ongoing search wars. Last October,

Okay, so maybe Super Bowl ads still work. Hulu saw a significant spike in activity after it aired an ad during this year's Super Bowl, "which both ignited the site's popularity and highlighted the growing mainstream appeal of online video," Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix. Hulu, the online video joint venture of NBC Universal and News Corp, surged 55% to 7.8 million unique visitors in February,

Why are Facebook, YouTube and Twitter featured on the SES New York agenda? Isn't this a natural as finding lions, and tigers, and bears in the forest? According to comScore qSearch 2.0 , there were 2.7 billion expanded search queries conducted on YouTube and 206 million conducted at Facebook in February 2009. And according to Hitwise Intelligence , the top websites visited after people use Twitter are...wait for it...Google, Facebook, TwitPic, MySpace, Twitter Search, Yahoo!

comScore has released quite the interesting data on the growing trend of mobile internet usage . It seems daily usage among unique users has grown over 100% from January of 2008 to January of 2009. But get this - that's just the number for accessing news and information. It doesn't even include social networking. With mobile Facebook and Twitter apps, it's no surprise that the growth rate in that space is monumental: Related Reading: comScore Acquires M:Metrics U.S.

When you get a link to a YouTube video to your Gmail account, wouldn't it be nice to view the video right then and there without opening a new tab or window? You're not the only one who thinks so. A new Gmail Labs feature enables just that. Turn on the new feature by clicking on "Settings" in the top right corner of your Gmail page. Then look for "Labs." Previews for Picasa, Flickr and Yelp have been added as well.

Google AdWords has released new templates that allow you to create coupons for display advertising . The ads can then run on the Google Content Network. Here's an example: The new templates can be accessed via the Display Ad Builder in your AdWords account.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer just can't get away from questions about going after Yahoo - again. Just over a year after the software giant made a public - and unsolicited - bid for the Sunnyvale search engine , the playing field has changed. The economy went to the pooper and Yahoo!'s stock followed suit . Then there's a brand spankin' new CEO in former Autodesk Chairman Carol Bartz. Ever since Ballmer declared that Microsoft is moving on last July,

Google has released two television advertising reporting features . They are: Google Analytics enhancements - Now, you can track TV ads by the hour and see how many viewed the ad as well as what percentage of the initial audience was retained throughout the entire ad. Audience Data Reporting - Google is adding interests )i.e. photography( and household properties )i.e. marital status, presence of children(. Previously,

When I conducted a search yesterday on Google for " SEM conference ", the top sponsored listing was for Search Engine Strategies New York. However, the top organic listing was for the Society for Experimental Mechanics. Welcome to the real world. The organic search engine results don't always reflect the way we'd define a three-letter acronym )TLA(.

As we all know, the economy has been volatile, which usually bodes not-so-well for industries that are on the indulgent side. But Travelocity is aiming to keep vacations on the minds of consumers by releasing a toolbar . It may seem like bad timing, but with a constant presence of travel deals and sales, it could end up being a good strategy. Plus, Travelocity is hitting all the online hot spots in attempt to promote the new toolbar. Facebook, Twitter, their blog,

Dennis Woodside has been tapped to replace Tim Armstrong at Google. Woodside was formerly Google's VP of U.K., Benelux, and Ireland. Armstrong was Sr. VP and based in New York. Last week, AOL announced that Armstrong had been selected as their new CEO . Armstrong will take over for Randy Falco. AOL is owned by parent company Time Warner. It's no secret that AOL needs new direction.

Microsoft's adCenter has released new converstion tracking options. They are, according to the adCenter blog : Count One Conversion Per Click : adCenter will only count the first conversion to occur after the click. Any subsequent conversions will not be counted unless they originate from a new click. Count One Conversion Per Unique URL : Under this mode, your site will "tell" us when a new conversion event has taken place.

Local advertising spending by small-to-medium U.S. businesses will grow by almost 34 percent from 2008 to 2013, and nearly 70 percent of their interactive ad budgets will go toward paid search and video, according to a new report from Borrell Associates, " Main Street Goes Interactive ." The report says there will be a nearly 275 percent increase in SMB spending on streaming audio and video, almost 140 percent increase on e-mail and direct ad formats,

My wife is a prolific generator of content. She takes, on average, 200 photos per day, writes a public blog, and sends detailed, engaging emails about our travels to her personal email list. Recently she told me she'd like to make a little money selling her photographs. I asked her what was standing in her way. She said, "I've been trying to figure out what my niche should be." My response: "You ARE the niche.

For the past few days, I've outlined the sessions at Search Engine Strategies New York that should appeal to newbies and veterans next week. But at its core, the event remains the premier SEO conference that was launched a decade ago. And there will be plenty of content at SES New York 2009 for budding search engine optimization specialists and experienced SEO consultants to see and hear.

AOL has announced the completion of transitioning from providing offerings via DoubleClick to providing full service offerings via ADTECH. AOL acquired ADTECH in 2007 . DoubleClick was acquired by Google last year, after the European Union approved the merger . Google owns a 5% stake in AOL and Google Sr. VP Tim Armstrong was recently tapped to be AOL's CEO . Platform-A reaches 91% of the U.S. internet audience.

Google Friend Connect, the tool that allows web developers to add social networking to any site , has launched an API . Here's what site owners and developers can expect: Site owners - Integrate Friend Connect more deeply into your site. JavaScript APIs allow you to integrate a social community directly within the markup of your page, and our REST APIs allow you integrate existing login systems and your existing data with new social data and activities.

Google's browser, Chrome , was released as a beta last year. Then, in December, it was released out of beta . Now, the next version has been released into beta . Confused? If you're using Chrome, only upgrade to the next beta if you're willing to test out the new features. They may not work perfectly yet.

Google has made a couple of announcements regarding Hosted News. First up, 8 news agencies have been added as Hosted News partners . All of the agencies belong to the European Press Agency. The agreement will allow the agencies to distribute newswire content on Google News. Seconly, ads will now appear next to Hosted News stories. The ads will appear below the main text of the articles. You'll need to click on a single story page in order to see these particular ads.