The company that produces NORAS, the National Online Recruitment Advertising Survey, in the U.K., has a new owner.

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Two days ago we cited a glowing report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau on ad spend for the first half of 2008. Now the gloom and doom is starting to sink in. Several analysts are lowering their estimates for online ad revenues ahead of the Q3 earning report period, according to PaidContent.

The good news (sort of): offline looks worse than online and indeed some Web-based companies could benefit as more firms look to cheaper and more targeted online ads.

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When Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion two years ago, many industry analysts were left scratching their heads. YouTube was king of the hill for user-created videos but how would Google make money from the site? This week, Google may have taken baby steps towards addressing that concern.

Music videos on the site will now sport an icon to buy that song from either Apple’s…

The report was released yesterday but it already seems out of touch with the reality on Wall Street. The Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers released figures on ad spending for the first six months of 2008 and the results were positively glowing.

For H108, ad revenues reached $11.5 billion, a 15.2 percent increase over the nearly $10 billion during the same…

A new survey conducted by Survey.com on behalf of Autobytel reveals some depressing facts about the state of the automotive industry in the current down market.

56 percent of dealers report that new vehicle sales this year have decreased from 2007. Domestic dealers have been harder hit than import dealers – 73 percent of domestic dealers report that sales are down (vs. “only” 48 percent of import dealers).

The Autobytel survey shows that dealers are increasingly…

EBay has made posting a vehicle free in EBay Motors.  Private sellers will pay nothing to post, and  $120 if their vehicle sells.

Sellers can post up to four vehicles per year free under the new rates. Presumably, four is the number EBay considers the difference between private sellers and dealers. After four vehicles, the rate is $20 to post and $100 if the vehicle sells. In effect, once a vehicle sells,  the fee paid by  a private seller and a commercial seller…

A tiny Toronto-based startup has just launched HomeZilla.ca, a map-based directory of schools, grocery stores, restaurants etc., aimed at participating in home-seekers' online research. It follows hot on the quiet launch of Zoocasa.com by giant media company Rogers Communications. While HomeZilla concentrates on services, Zoocasa actually incorporates listings of homes for sale --…

Turbulent times at EBay -- the company held a predawn conference call today to say it was laying off 10 percent of its global workforce, or about 1,000 permanent employees and several hundred temporary workers. The reduction is expected to result in pretax restructuring charges of approximately $70 million to $80 million, with the charges predominantly recorded in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to John Donahoe, EBay Inc.'s president and chief executive officer. "While never an easy decision…

Social media is quickly altering the way consumers make purchase decisions, according to a new study by shopping comparison site PriceGrabber. While the research focused on retailers, the lessons are equally critical for players across the interactive media space. eMarketer has the full report. Highlights:

Generation Y (those…

Ad spending for online video will grow to over $3 billion by 2012. That’s good news for interactive, classified and entertainment Web sites, but it’s still a drop in the bucket compared to the $70 billion TV market.

EMarketer CEO Geoff Ramsey, speaking about the future of online video at last month's IAB MIXX expo, explained that the greatest increases for online video…