From Monday's New York Times is a preview of the impending browser war involving new versions of Mozilla's Firefox, Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Apple's Safari (in no particular order).
What appears at stake are behavioural understandings of users that can be parlayed into more computer ease (less bookmarking) and commercial opportunities. The Times piece doesn't test the new browsers, but it indicates Firefox 3.0 is going to be twice as fast and much less of a memory beast. The new IE will permit snippets of a site --- sports scores, for instance --- to be placed in the margin of the browser for updating when the site isn't live. Safari, meanwhile, is encroaching on the PC market.

The Daily Telegraph of London is one of Britain's most respected dailies, but when its telegraph.co.uk Web site suddenly gained 6.3 million unique visitors in two months and overtook The Guardian Unlimited in popularity, even its most ardent believers had to wonder.
Media need accurate audience measurement online to attract and capture fledgling digital advertising. The challenge is acute for conventional media looking for a healthy bridge to the digital sphere.
At the moment there are varying sources of measurement, some of them real-time and some of them poll-related that deliver delayed information. The two systems offer variances in audience totals, but each has certain attributes that help media explain their reach.
In Britain, though, the spurt has set off alarm bells and prompted the joint industry committee for Internet standards to review the matter.
Out of this should come a clearer and consistent form of measurement to make sure everyone is comparing apples to apples.

Business Week has taken a look back at its first major take on blogs three years ago and examined the new terrain. What a difference a thousand days makes.
All in all, a very good look at the contribution blogs make to the public sphere, albeit with their economic challenges.

Those charged with the task of shifting journalism into the digital space are typically alarmed at the spartan, otherworldly business environment upon arrival.
Financing journalism in that new environment is made possible typically through several other initiatives that don't necessarily adjoin the world of reporting --- digital entities and utilities that gain revenue through search or other ways, and not the direct-revenue-for-consuming-journalism one might expect.
In some ways, the situation is not all that different than some of the workaround financing in conventional media --- the classified, advertorial and service journalism in some sections of a newspaper, or the paid programming on broadcast outlets, generate substantial revenue with only a portion of the programming expenses, so they help fuel newsrooms and are not only useful to the audience but to the creators.
Which is why the new Business Week piece on Google feels like relief in opening the lid on what the behemoth is doing to the world of advertising, including the advertising for the press. Someone is actually saying clearly that certain precepts --- that journalism can be paid for by adjacent Google ads and display --- are "idiotic." And someone is also saying that Google is scraping a lot of the necessary funds away. And that Google is essentially taking a free press and monetizing it largely for itself.

These are early days, but a new e-commerce model may emerge as Microsoft launches its Cash Back program. Those who use Microsoft's Live Search to find retailers and shop with them will find a portion --- pretty small, but a portion --- of their spend in turn tucked away in a PayPal account. Once the account reaches five dollars, it's possible to redeem.
All along many have speculated that some sort of micropayment program would be the catalyst for e-commerce. Amazon and others already have associates programs to encourage sites to direct traffic and business their way, but outgoing CEO Bill Gates is suggesting Microsoft's effort may help shape a new model for both advertising and shopping. Clearly this program can more accurately track the relationship between user attention and user consumption and charge advertisers more precisely on the basis of what's purchased and not just what's viewed.
In any event, it's a plan that occupies attention as Microsoft figures out what to do --- or not --- with Yahoo! Incoming Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has indicated there's no longer interest in buying Yahoo!, but won't discuss possible deals for parts of the company.

The upgrade on Google Earth includes its 4,500-source-strong local news aggregator to serve up headlines in the places you're visiting on the application.
Where is this leading? Easy assumption: A hyper-local ad model driven by timely content.
Now, Google Earth is a bit of a download beast, given the amount of data it houses, so the application won't necessarily make your PDA croon with delight any time soon. But marrying sophisticated maps and news is a powerful fusion, and any time Google unfurls a new application, it's important to take notice and ponder the consequences.

Some brave words from the president of News Corp., Peter Chernin: Spend more time developing new business models than protecting old ones.
He was speaking in the context of the incessant drop in sales and incessant rise in piracy in the video business, but he was seemingly making a point about the overall digital sphere.
"To the degree we're only trying to protect existing business, we're toast," he told the U.S. National Cable and Telecommunications Association's annual convention. "All we're doing there is staving off the inevitable. We'll be dinosaurs sentencing ourselves to extinction."
The message was clear in that respect: Build new models or die.

Some time back it was revealed CBS News was figuring out the dignified way to discontinue Katie Couric's term in the Evening News anchor chair. In having any meeting at all to discuss this, and in permitting someone to leak the information, it all but guaranteed a ratings death spiral --- which has pretty well gone according to schedule and pushed the newscast well down into third place with the smallest audience in its 60-year history.
The New Yorker's Nancy Franklin has some nice turns of phrase this week on the disarray.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckenberg is striking a more conciliatory tone today in the open-source ID skirmish that Google Friend Connect ignited.
He said in Tokyo today that Google introduced the portable utility --- which essentially takes your Facebook information off for a ride --- without first consulting Facebook, and that his company has concerns that personal information will be shared without the user's knowledge.
Having said that, the CEO isn't stirring the pot. Google makes good products and there ought to be a way to work with them, he observed. They just need to talk.

A few weeks ago when Microsoft's $47.5-billion takeover offer for Yahoo! withered, it was safe to assume there might be another chapter. And so it is.
Microsoft said today it wants a collaboration and some sort of transaction, but not (at least for now) a full-on takeover. The New York Times and others are reporting that the arrangement involves a deal on advertising, which is noteworthy considering the ongoing talks between Yahoo! and Google.