Federated Media has built their reputation for providing blogs and other content websites with high CPM display advertisements.  However they have lost several partners through acquisitions or by others leaving voluntarily.  Ars Technica was with FM before they got bought out by Wired.  GigaOm switched from FM to IDG.  And Microsoft even poached an advertising deal with Digg.

In June 2007, Federated Media took some heat for making bloggers recite a Microsoft slogan in several conversational campaigns.  Valleywag exploited the bloggers for doing this.  Founder of Federated Media John Battelle wrote that he wished all of the blog authors disclosed that they had a relationship with the advertisers.  TechCrunch author Michael Arrington wrote that FM Publishing threw bloggers under the bus for writing that statement.

Ever since those times, the U.S. economy has been in a struggling economic state which led FM Publishing to question their current marketing practices.  Basically FM Publishing wants to displaying more engaging advertisements rather than just display ads.  Even though they are cutting some staff, FM Publishing will be expanding the Strategic Programs and Major Accounts divisions.

[via FM Blog]

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) Steve Ballmer and Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) Chairman Roy Bostock were spotted meeting at the Time Warner Center yesterday.  This took place two days after Yahoo! named a new CEO, Carol Bartz.

According to a tipster at Valleywag:
“On my way down the elevator, I was stopped on the 5th floor and in walk Roy Bostock and Steve Ballmer. Kind hellos were exchanged. As we entered the lobby they both walked out and seemingly proceeded to lunch together.”

Valleywag came up with several plausible conclusions out of the meeting here.  The first is that Microsoft is still interested in buying Yahoo!’s search business, but Bartz said that she wasn’t interested in getting to that right away.  Another possible reason is that Ballmer said he was ready to come back to the negotiation table when Yahoo! got a new CEO and both executives may have been in New York around the same time.

Given that they were meeting in the Time Warner building, my guess is that executives there may have wanted to arrange a deal between AOL, Yahoo!, and Microsoft.   Time Warner clearly wants to unload AOL somehow and Microsoft has a big enough wallet to take possession of AOL.  You never know what could happen when you put these three outfits in the same room.  More details as this story unfolds.

[via Valleywag]

Duane Brady, a South African man from Eldorado Park, a city just south of Johannesburg had to show up in court for making rude remarks about his wife’s friend on Facebook.  Danielle Cox, his wife’s friend wasn’t too appreciative of the comments so she made sure that he was punished for it.

Brady appeared at the Kliptown Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday with a charge of crimen injuria.  Captain Phillemon Khorombi  mentioned that Brady did not plead and he was in custody until he had his bail application complete.

Faan Coetzee, a lawyer in Johannesburg stated “If you write something on Facebook or on a website, it’s as good a shouting it from a stage.”

“You mustn’t think what you say on the web is less serious or less valid,” added Coetzee.  “If you are then charged and wanted to argue that it was a joke, you’ll have to prove it – as you would have to do in any other case.”

It’s interesting to see how things work in Johannesburg.  Be careful when using Facebook in South Africa, you never know if you’ll end up like Brady.

InsideView, Inc. is a “Sales 2.0 leader” company that has raised $6.5 million in second round funding today.  The investors involved with the funding are Emergence Capital Partners and Rembrandt Venture Partners.  The funds will be used to expand their sales and marketing operation teams.  The funding will also be used to enhance their platform.  InsideView has raised $14 million in total funding.

“InsideView is extremely pleased to announce the close of our successful financing,” stated InsideView CEO Umberto Milletti. “It is a great time to be in the Sales 2.0 space, which enables companies to do more with less by accelerating sales cycles and increasing sales productivity. In this current economic climate, completing any kind of new venture capital funding represents a noteworthy event. This strong vote of confidence from our existing investors can be attributed to our rapid growth and success, due to the widespread, broadening recognition of the advantages that InsideView’s unique technology offers.”

InsideView’s primary product is called SalesView.  SalesView crawls through 20,000 public websites and social networks.  This crawling through LinkedIn, Facebook, Reuters, and SEC filings.

Most standard TVs have a 4:3 ratio and wide-screen TVs have about a 16:9.  This leaves black borders left at the top and bottom when watching certain movies.  This is something that Philips wants to eliminate by unveiling the world’s first 21:9 LCD TV.

InterActiveCorp subsidiary Ask.com has signed a deal to become the official search engine for the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR).  Ask.com wants to push their brand in front of the second-most popular professional sport on TV.  NASCAR has about 75 million fans that purchase $3 billion in licensed products.

The financial details of the deal was not disclosed.  Jim Safka, CEO of Ask.com said that the goal of the deal is to have NASCAR fans use their search engine to look up information about NASCAR.  Ask.com will run the search engine on the NASCAR website and will also make a “NASCAR toolbar” for those users.  Ask will offer detail searches of NASCAR’s databases and the two companies will be showing display Ask.com ads at the races.

Ask.com sponsors the No. 96 Ford car driven by Bobby Labonte as part of a pact with the Hall of Fame racing.  The Ask.com Ford car will drive in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series as well.

“NASCAR fans are the most sponsor-loyal fan base in sports,” stated Ask.com spokesperson Andrea Riggs. “NASCAR fans appreciate the companies who support the sport they love and who enable the teams to keep racing.”

Kathleen Ko, an iGoogle Engineer announced that it is now possible to customize your iGoogle theme.  The new feature isn’t quite up yet but will be coming soon at http://www.google.com/ig/tm.  After adding an image to your theme, Google will ask you to start customizing.

The iGoogle theme customization tool will ask you to crop your image if necessary, select a color scheme, show you a real-time preview of your theme, and give you the option of making it a public or private theme.

“We hope you have fun customizing your iGoogle homepage with your favorite images, whether they’re photos of your pets or places you’ve visited, drawings, designs, cartoons — or whatever else your heart desires,” stated Ko on The Google Blog.

There are certain times I question what the point of Twitter is–microblogging–what a ridiculous concept!   But everytime something wrong happens, I am reminded of Twitter’s intangible value.  Earthquakes in California, the shootings in Mumbai, and now a plane crashing in the Hudson River.  Janis Krums of Sarasota, Florida reported on Twitter, “There’s a plane in the Hudson.  I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people.  Crazy.”  The tweet also contained a picture.

About 34 minutes after he posted the photo, MSNBC interview him live on TV as a witness to the incident.  Fortunately everyone is reported alive after the accident.  Although the picture is no longer available from Krum’s tweet, Silicon Alley Insider was able to save it: