advertising

As Google recently turned 10 years old, some analysts and investors began to say the company was suffering from early signs of maturity.

Google's growth rate, while still brisk, has slowed significantly and is expected to slow more because of the economic slowdown. Eric Schmidt, the chief executive, said that Google was better positioned than other advertising companies to survive a recession.

Schmidt, 53, spoke last week from the company's headquarters in Mountain View, California.

Joe Soto, general manager of an advertising firm in Philadelphia, has a complicated relationship with his BlackBerry e-mail phone.

He felt "awful" and out of touch when he was without a BlackBerry for two days because his unit fell overboard when he was sailing on the Chesapeake.

At the same time, if he could turn back the clock five years, to before the BlackBerry took over corporate America, he would do it "in a minute."

"If everybody also threw their BlackBerrys away, I would too," he said, chuckling. "The only problem is, in my industry, it makes me more competitive."

Google will begin selling ads on some cable networks owned by NBC Universal in a new partnership that will expand Google's efforts to become a force in television advertising.

Under the agreement, NBC Universal will make a relatively small amount of advertising time on networks like MSNBC, CNBC, Sci Fi and Oxygen available for sale through Google's TV Ads program in the coming months, the companies said. The partnership could later be extended to other NBC Universal properties.

AT&T is mulling over the idea of monitoring its customers' surfing habits for those who use the company as their ISP, according to the New York Times on Thursday. While it has not yet done so, the company pointed to practices by Google in defense of its plans. However, if it does move forward, AT&T said it would do the right thing and require an "opt-in."

AOL is shutting three data-storage services, including one of the Internet's earliest photo-sharing sites, as it seeks to cut costs and focus resources on its advertising opportunities.

AOL Pictures, the year-old media-sharing site BlueString and the online backup service Xdrive will likely shut down by year's end, though the company is looking to sell at least Xdrive, which AOL bought in 2005 for an undisclosed fee.

Given that he was ousted from the top job at a struggling AOL, Jonathan F. Miller might not seem a natural candidate to advise its Internet rival Yahoo Inc. But Miller was instrumental in transforming AOL into an advertising company, giving him expertise in a field Yahoo must master.

In his four-plus years as chairman and chief executive of Time Warner Inc.'s AOL LLC, Miller made key acquisitions, including Advertising.com for $435 million in 2004, along with a crucial decision to shed AOL's roots in dial-up Internet access and give away content once reserved for paying subscribers.

Taylor Nelson Sofres, a market research company, interviews consumers on behalf of mobile phone makers like Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Motorola, helping them figure out which buttons, bells and whistles to put on their new devices. After the cell phones reach stores, another market researcher, GfK, takes over, tracking global sales of the devices.

Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc. told lawmakers Wednesday that Congress should pass basic privacy legislation to protect information about consumers, such as the data being gathered about people's Web surfing habits in order to pinpoint Internet advertising.

As Bill Gates enjoyed his last day as a Microsoft employee Friday, rumors swirled that CEO Steve Ballmer was ready to make a powerful move to improve search capability. An unconfirmed report in VentureBeat said Microsoft will acquire semantic-search start-up PowerSet for $100 million.

The growing advertising ambitions of technology powerhouses like Google and Microsoft, reflected in Google's recent linkup with Yahoo and Microsoft's efforts to keep pace, are creating alarm in ad agency executive suites.

At an annual gathering in the south of France, agency executives harshly criticized Google's agreement to place ads alongside Yahoo search results. The move could strengthen Google's dominance over the most lucrative portion of the fast-growing online advertising business.