Google announced today (http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/advertising.html) a "content-targeted advertising" service which proposes to replace general website ads with "relevant sponsored links" similar to those displayed in its own search engine, and in the search pages of its affiliates. 

Here's how "content-targeted advertising" by Google appears to work:

• Google's proprietary classification engines identify "the meaning of a web page"
• Based on that, and presuming a 3-way arrangement between Advertisers - Google - Websites, Google then automatically serves "relevant" ads from its stable of participating advertisers
• Relevance to a website is [apparently] based on Google's classification scheme, and the order of relevant ads served is [apparently] based on Google-measured click-through response rates [now competing with Double-Click and others].

Here's a link to a Motley Fool article about this: Google's Banner Day. The search king moves into third-party advertising. [The Motley Fool] and another in Wired News: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,57900,00.html

Planet PDA magazine says Tablet PCs will "revive the PC market?"  http://www.planetpdamag.com/content/030403rt.htm

This is another example of a hardware guy getting into the services business.

Apple gears up to sell music online. Not innovation, necessity [The Register]

Hughes, AOL finalize divorce. The General Motors unit discloses that it has ended its relationship with AOL Time Warner's America Online division, according to a regulatory filing by the DirecTV operator. [CNET News.com]

Reporting on the end of the strategic relationship between Hughes and AOL.

LA Times (registration required) http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-aol4mar04,1,312976.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dpe%2Dbusiness

WSJ (subscription required) http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB10467221763794400,00.html?mod=technology_main_whats_news

An interesting article in Cableworld about the difference between Broadcast Network and Cable Network advertising rates. Among other things, Cableworld points out that cable advertising CPM's are half that of the Networks in prime time...

"According to Nielsen Media Research's Monitor-Plus service, which measures ad spending in all major media, buyers spent $21.10 to reach each 1,000 viewers in the key 18-to-49-year-old demographic (called cost-per-thousand, expressed as CPM in agency jargon) during prime time on broadcast, compared to $10.60 on cable."

Small operator in Indiana announces FTTH plan.

Pursuing the new Television Week publication's website [formerly Electronic Media] I discovered this useful television / media links page. http://www.tvweek.com/links/index.html

TV Week.com is reporting that the Game Show Network is looking to do interactive applications in the one-screen [as apposed to two-screen TV/PC approach] to take advantage of all the digital settop boxes that are already deployed.  http://www.tvweek.com/technology/030303gameshow.html

This is a link to an alert posted by Internet Security Services In [happens to be in Atlanta] that led to the article referenced below by Computerworld News and others https://gtoc.iss.net/issEn/delivery/xforce/alertdetail.jsp?oid=21950

Major Internet vulnerability discovered in e-mail protocol. The Department of Homeland Security has been working in secret for more than two weeks with the private sector to fix a major Internet flaw that could leave most e-mail traffic vulnerable to hackers. [Computerworld News]

And here's a kind of rebuttal by the folks at Slate.com entitled "Lost in Cyberspace"  http://www.msnbc.com/news/880169.asp?0si=-#BODY

New Ways to Untether Travelers. Broadband wireless Internet and e-mail services are becoming available on airplanes, in pubic places and hotel rooms. By Joe Sharkey. [New York Times: Technology]

Liberty's Malone and Comcast Set to Weigh Future of QVC. John Malone, the billionaire who controls Liberty Media, will soon negotiate ownership of QVC, the cable shopping network. By Geraldine Fabrikant. [New York Times: Business]

HP creates new Web services unit [InfoWorld: Top News]

Molyneux goes to the movies. Legendary game designer Peter Molyneux's new project, The Movies, is snapped up by games publisher Activision. [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition]

Yesterday, Liberty Media triggered one of the exit rights it has governing its 42% stake in QVC. This indicates that Liberty Media may be interested in buying Comcast's 58% interest in QVC. For Liberty it is primarily a "valuation" issue [which is apparently to be done independently sometime later this year], for Comcast it is a very complex value/growth, tax, debt reduction trade-off issue.

EchoStar added 400,000 net new subs in Q4-2002, well ahead of industry estimates. They also wrote off the $690 million penalty they had to pay Hughes for termination of the DirecTV deal, otherwise they had a good quarter and a good financial year with revenue up ~20% for the year to $4.8 billion, and EBITDA up 58% for the year to $806 million.