Show Guests:
Sebastian Rupley, Co-Crank, Editorial Director, PCMagCast.com
Natali Del Conte, Senior Editor, CNET TV’s “Loaded”

Bill Schmelzer, Tech Analyst, Ziff Davis Media

The Topics:
Sun to Help Old Foe Microsoft Get Search Traffic
Microsoft has turned to an old rival, Sun Microsystems, for marketing help in its latest move to increase Internet search traffic. Sun will advertise a Microsoft toolbar for the Internet Explorer browser to U.S.-based Web searchers when they download Sun’s Java software. This decision was made because of reserach showing that 35 percent of Web surfers are conducted from the browser’s address line, built-in search boxes and add-on search toolbars.

YouTube Channels Google with Search-Driven Ads
YouTube is experiencing increased pressure to profit from its massive audience and therefore is letting advertisers promote their commercial clips alongside the search results at the Internet’s most popular video site. Just as they do at Google, advertisers can now attach their commercials to specific terms entered into YouTube’s search box.

Unlicensed Stories Reel In Online Readers
A study from Attributor Corp. proved that on average, the audience perusing unauthorized online copies of newspaper and magazine articles is nearly 1.5 times larger than the readership on their own Web sites. Will media companies discover a way to extract advertising revenue from the traffic swarming to their stolen articles on blogs and other sites?

Obama’s Web Reach Expands
Transition officials call it Obama 2.0 — an ambitious effort to transform the president-elect’s vast Web operation into a modern new tool to accomplish his goals in the White House. Obama’s team is determining how best to convert his army of online activists into a viral lobbying and communications machine. Staffers are reluctant to discuss specifics, but Obama clearly is poised to become the first truly “wired” president of the digital age.

Apple Executive Claims iPhone the Future of Portable Gaming
Apple’s vice president of iPod marketing Greg Joswiak believes that the iPhone is the future of portable gameplay. He also sees the The Nintendo DS and Sony PSP becoming continually obsolete. “A big part of that is not just the device itself… but it’s the electronic distribution of the apps as well,” he says. Is he right?