Sunnyvale, Calif. - Hoping to avoid a messy proxy battle, Microsoft has increased its bid for Sunnyvale-based Yahoo by "several dollars," The New York Times reported on its web site late Friday. Specific financial terms being discussed have not been disclosed, though Microsoft reportedly has raised the possibility of increasing its current $29.30-per-share offer to as much as $33.

Mountain View, CA - CNET reports that Google (NASD: GOOG) announced on its AdWords blog that Google TV Ads, a program that has been in beta since June 2007, is now available to all U.S.-based advertisers. The program allows advertisers to reach over 13 million households nationwide on 94 channels. Like with Google’s AdWords service, which places ads on its Internet search pages, advertisers using Google TV Ads will bid for placement using an online tool that shows estimated costs to run a particular campaign and allows advertisers to increase or decrease their bids before placing them.

There are two principal ways advertisers are trying to create value for consumers on the web — and they must create value because, you know, consumers are in control. On the web, advertisers can provide entertainment or information. How effective is advertising as information on the web? See Google’s $15B in ad revenue — an $5.19 billion in ad revenue in Q1 2008. The technology of web search enabled advertisers to create value for consumers in a way that was never possible in analogue media.

Washington - The Justice Department is investigating whether an advertising tie-up between Yahoo (NASD: YHOO) and Google (NASD: GOOG) violates antitrust laws, Reuters reported. Under a two-week test, scheduled to end this week, Yahoo is using Google's online ad system to provide relevant ads alongside its search results.

San Francisco - Mechanical Zoo, a social search start-up founded by a number of ex-Google employees, has raised $750,000 in convertible debt from angel investors and is set to launch a beta test of its service next month, CNET News.com reported.

London - Google (NASD: GOOG) once again claimed the top spot in market research firm Millward Brown's annual list of the top 100 most powerful brands, beating out other leading brands like GE/NBC Universal (NYSE: GE), Apple (NASD: AAPL) and Microsoft (NASD: MSFT) for the honor for the third year in a row. The report estimated Google's value at $86 billion, up 30% on a year ago; second-place General Electric's brand value was estimated at $71.4 billion.

A colleague forwarded me a fantastic article from Ad Age "It's Web 3.0, and Someone Else's Content is King". The article is worth a read for anyone in the content business. The author, Matthew Creamer, suggests that Web 3.0 will be about monetizing the web's openness and points to examples in the news business of websites aggregating other people's content for profit. Are content aggregators in fact growing in popularity? The author cites Michael Wolff of Newser: "The space is heating up". According to internet usage data, is it?

San Bruno, Calif. - Google's (NASD: GOOG) YouTube has paid out more than $1 million in total revenue to members of its Partner Program, which shares ad revenue with "the most popular and prolific original content creators" on the site.

Sunnyvale, Calif. - Following what is said to have been a successful week-long test, Yahoo (NASD: YHOO) is now seeking to partner with Google (NASD: GOOG) to provide ads alongside its search results, the Wall Street Journal reported. The tie-up with Google would be a key element to a prospective deal where Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) would merge with Yahoo, and take a stake in the company, according to Reuters.

Online video is a hot topic these days with new entrants coming online (e.g. PluggedIn) and out of beta (e.g. Hulu) every day. We are seeing users spend a bit more more time with the video websites, spending an average of 16 minutes and 12 seconds for the week ending April 12, 2008 as compared to 15 minutes and 14 seconds during the same week last year. One interesting trend that I have noticed is that search engines and social networks are now accounting for an equal share of referred traffic. Last week (ending April 12, 2008) the share of upstream traffic from search increased 35% over the same week the previous year, while the referred traffic from social networks declined 20%.

Pity the poor regulator who, someday soon, will be faced with evaluating some proposed combination of all or parts of Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL and/or News Corp. (is there anyone else left?). What yardstick would you even apply? Someday, they're all going to be in the same combination of the content creation/distribution business, online advertising, applications development and platforms and social networking anyway. It's really only a question of how they get there and when, not whether or even should they. Trying to come to grips with that through the keyhole of any one deal or company is probably not a formula for a coherent regulatory framework for the future of the digital media industry.

New York - News Corporation (NYSE: NWS) is in negotiations with Microsoft (NASD: MSFT) to join its hostile takeover bid for Yahoo (NASD: YHOO), while Yahoo, which has rebuffed Microsoft's advances, has itself been holding talks with AOL and News Corp., The New York Times reported on Thursday. Should News Corp. join Microsoft in its offer, Yahoo would likely see a higher bid made than Microsoft's current offer, in a deal that would combine Yahoo with Microsoft's MSN and News Corp.'s MySpace.

Sunnyvale, Calif. - In the midst of its efforts to ward off -- or sweeten -- a takeover bid from Microsoft (NASD: MSFT), Yahoo (NASD: YHOO) announced on Wednesday that it will embark on a limited test of Google's (NASD: GOOG) AdSense for Search service, which will deliver Google's ads alongside Yahoo's own search results.

Jakarta, Indonesia - Several Internet service providers in Indonesia have blocked access to Google's (NASD: GOOG) YouTube video site, over the posting of a Dutch film that purports to accuse the Koran of inciting violence, Reuters reported, citing an official with Indonesia's information ministry.

London - Universal Music Group has launched a new Rolling Stones channel on Google's YouTube, that lets fans upload videos of themselves posting questions to the band, with the band to respond personally to some of them, Reuters reported. The new channel will mainly promote "Shine a Light," the new Stones documentary from director Martin Scorsese.

Mountain View, Calif. - Google (NASD: GOOG) will lay off about 300 employees from its recently acquired online ad firm DoubleClick, or about a quarter of the company's U.S. staff, The New York Times reported, citing a person with direct knowledge of the plan.