Comm spend to hit $923.91B

Ad Networks and Analytics:

• With help from LucidMedia, Yahoo added contextual targeting capabilities to its Right Media Exchange.
• Tapping resources at the Google Affiliate Network and eAccountableOPM, The Estate Vault launched an online affiliate marketing program.

Agencies and Marketing Execs:

• Great Works America made Fredrik Carlström its CEO and Executive Creative Director.
• TMP Directional Marketing (TMPDM), which focuses primarily on search engine marketing, signed new clients: The HoneyBaked Ham Company and The Men's Wearhouse.
• Mark Kaline, global media manager of Ford, officially left last week. The company committed to cut 15 percent of its white-collar staff by 1 August.
• Becky Scholten, formerly of Advertising.com, was promoted to Director, West Coast Advertising Sales at WeatherBug.
• Marc Porcelli was hired as VP of Ad Sales at Epic Advertising (formerly AzoogleAds).
• Jimmy Jellinek is now SVP of Digital Content and Digital Media at Playboy Enterprises.
• Chyron made Ken Fitzpatrick VP of Marketing.

Biz Buzz:

• Verizon pulled a pitbull ad that many found offensive.

Legal, Government and Regulation:

• ValueClick is suing TACODA for infringing two of its behavioral targeting platforms, alleging that profiling users based on their web activity, then serving them targeted ads is their domain. (Perhaps NebuAd and Phorm will be next on the hit sheet.) The suit was filed in Los Angeles.

Mobile:

• itsmy.com launched a "mobile web Social Phone Book."
• Even as it prepares to divide its divisions and focus less on handhelds, Motorola has appointed a new co-CEO for its mobile phones unit: Sanjay Jha, formerly of Qualcomm.
• BMW launched a .mobi site for Canadian customers. It includes promotional videos, ringtones and wallpaper, all to promote the 1Series Cabriolet and Coupe. Beware gratuitous inclusion of 1 in marketing copy. (For example, "The new BMW 1 Series. Condensed 1ntensity.")

Music:

• It's official: In Rainbows, the album Radiohead gave away online on a pay-as-you-please basis, was a success, drawing 2.3 million downloads in the first 3.5 weeks. The article suggests companies accept that downloading music is part of the culture. Shouldn't it also be part of the business plan?

Publishing:

• Cambridge University Press and The Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies are partnering to publish "World Politics," a political science journal, beginning 2009. The liaison will help the publication broaden its marketing scope globally. Cambridge will host the online variant.

Search:

• A Google employee used Google Maps to propose to his girlfriend.
• Yahoo is updating the ranking algorithm, crawling and indexing capabilities on its search index. Until changes are fully implemented, site owners should expect fluctuation in their organic search positions.

Social Networks:

• Google is having trouble keeping sex out of its virtual world chat service Lively, where anyone over 13 can create an account.

User Experience:

• The New York Times wrote an exposé about the culture of trolling — expressing mostly-anonymous disdain for other online personalities — over the internet.
• In a manifesto about megabranding's pitfalls, Al Ries of AdAge argues consumers don't necessarily want more choices.
• Total communications spend in the US is expected to hit $923.91 billion in 2008, according to Veronis Suhler Stevenson.