Is Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) changing its approach to online spending? The company, which had said as recently as a year ago that it was willing to invest 5 percent to 10 percent of its operating income on its search business for up to five years, wasn’t willing to spend enough…

Any search deal with AOL (NYSE: AOL) would start with the same given: search-advertising revenue will continue to decline as it loses access subscribers. But AOL CEO Tim Armstrong says the deal with Google to extend their search partnership through 2015 should make each search it does get more lucrative—and…

Ending months of speculation about whether AOL (NYSE: AOL) and Google (NSDQ: GOOG) can make a new search deal, the companies announced this morning that Google will be the portal’s exclusive search partner through Dec. 31, 2015. The expanded search and content deal now covers mobile search and puts AOL’s…

Ping, the social network Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) announced on Wednesday it’s injecting in to iTunes, is rudimentary, buggy in parts and is deterring many first-time users by recommending they listen to Apple’s hand-picked selection of mainstream chart-toppers.

If you want to own Glee episodes at a cut-rate price, better get your Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) downloads fast. The e-tailer is countering Apple’s 99-cent rentals from ABC (NYSE: DIS) and Fox by selling some TV episodes at a loss. Amazon still has to pay the contracted rates for electronic…

Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) today announced a slew of new products and features on its phone, music and video viewing offerings. Check out a visual tour of Steve Jobs’ presentation, as well as our coverage, below:

Here’s a quick way to learn about the small, black second-gen Apple TV introduced by CEO Steve Jobs at the Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) 09.01.10 event: »  How much does it cost? The device is $99, nearly a 67 percent cut from the original $299 price for the first Apple TV…

NHN, which dominates the search market in South Korea and has been relying on Yahoo to power search ads on its Naver search engine for six years, says it won’t be renewing the deal—marking the second time in two months that a major Asian partner has cut ties with Yahoo…

Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) is trying to close the loop between music discovery and iTunes Store’s music purchasing, by injecting a brand new social network in to iTunes itself. Integrated in to new iTunes 10 and in to the iTunes Store app on iOS, “Ping” lets users “follow” friends to see…

And here it is ... the pocket-rocket version of Apple TV with $4.99 first-run movies and $0.99 TV shows. The main content events: as expected, ABC (NYSE: DIS), Fox and Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX). And, as expected, it’s a heck of a lot cheaper: a much more competitive $99, down from…

Apple’s annual fall event kicked off this morning with the company’s visionary leader Steve Jobs doing a couple of minutes of bragging, which has become typically at these kinds of launch events. The latest numbers: —iOS family of devices: Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) has shipped 120 million iPod, iPads and iPhones…

Facebook Credits, the virtual currency that Facebook members can use to buy various extras for Facebook apps, will soon be available for purchase in brick-and-mortar stores. Starting next week, Target will be selling $15, $25, and $50 gift cards nationwide that buyers will be able to redeem for Credits. The…

Sony’s long-held ambition of providing a content service available to its game console and other devices is finally coming together. At the IFA show in Berlin on Wednesday, CEO Howard Stringer said the cloud-based *Sony* Online Services (SOLS) platform, which was hinted at in November, is being christened Qriocity, and…

By John Plunkett: Marketing messages that appear on company websites and social media services such as Facebook and Twitter are to be subject to the same regulations as adverts that appear on television, newspapers or other media.

By Andrew Clark: While Rupert Murdoch’s British newspapers laid off journalists and fought their way through a global advertising recession, the Australian-born media mogul endured a modest degree of personal belt-tightening – his take-home pay dropped by 6% to $16.8m, or £10.9m.

*Sony* will begin selling updated versions of its Reader Pocket and Reader Touch devices today, but it is still months away from releasing its new Daily Reader with WiFi access. In practical terms, that means that Sony (NYSE: SNE) will not be directly competing with the Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) Kindle…

The invite to Wednesday’s Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) event shows a guitar, which usually suggests music, but that hasn’t stopped the buzz about video. The current Apple TV is too expensive at $269 and too limited in the kinds of content it delivers. With that in mind, expectations include a cheaper,…

AOL (NYSE: AOL) is buying Rally Up, a startup behind a social networking app for the iPhone and iPad that lets users share their locations with select friends. The app pitches itself as a social network for “people that actually should know your location,” such as family members and close…

Last week, one of the nation’s top dailies imploded its structure to go “digital first.” Today, the Deseret News, a much smaller paper in Salt Lake City, Utah, is following USA Today with an equally radical reorganization but very different emphasis—keeping the daily newspaper alive. The DN is slashing its…