The Silicon Alley Insider has posted the following article in which it reveals that CBS sold 37 million in online ad sales for March Madness.

“CBS is turning live, ad-supported sports on the web into a real business, selling out its inventory for March Madness on Demand and bringing in about $37 million in online ad sales, up 20% from the year before.”

Last month, it was said that CBS was investing in a big campaign for the event of March Madness, apparently marketers working for CBS knew what they were doing. They grew 20% from last year.

The New York Times has posted an article about the unfinished debate between Google and China. The biggest search giant might be facing a more critical situation that they thought.

“BEIJING — The Chinese authorities have warned major partners of Google’s China-based search engine that they must comply with censorship laws even if Google does not, an industry expert with knowledge of the notice said Sunday.”

In the meantime we have only seen from Google a company statement specifying that: “Google has been very clear that we are no longer going to self-censor our search results. We are in active discussions with the Chinese government but we are not going to engage in a running commentary about those conversations”

The U.S. will spend more money in online advertising than in print advertising this year. As many magazines and newspapers have decided to go online and avoid the cost of printing.

The following article from the Financial Times reports how printing is slowing down in the U.S.

“This week that online spending is expected to rise 9.6% to $119.6bn while print ad spend will decrease 3% to $111.5bn, according to a survey of 1 000 advertisers by Outsell publishing research company.

The advertisers say they are spending more of their marketing budgets on web-search ads, their own websites and “webinars” - web conferencing used for live meetings, training or presentations on the internet.”

It has been recently announced that the video ad management company Auditude is partnering with Dailymotion to create an online video advertising.

Auditude will manage the catalog for Dailymotion and this partnership will last for at least one year, meaning that Auditude will be getting some bucks.

Joy Marcus, General Manager of Dailymotion, U.S. commented: “We want to make sure our advertisers have the best ad platform to reach our users both on Dailymotion.com and through our embedded player.”

He also said: “The challenges associated with the monetization of all video content are increasingly complex and partnering with Auditude creates an even stronger offering for advertisers, and new opportunities for revenue growth.”

The U.K was the first major country that invested on internet advertising in 2009. However, the U.S. is gaining reputation this year for its online ads in the market.

Chuck Richard, vice-president and lead analyst at Outsell commented: “Advertisers are directing dollars toward the channels which generate the most qualified leads and most effective branding.”

He also said:”As they emerge from the recession, they need more accountability, and they’re spreading their spending over a widening set of options.”

The Wall Street Journal has recently published an interesting article about what to do with online ads, whether you should block them or not.

“Technology-news site Ars Technica tried an experiment Friday: It blocked its content for users who were employing a particular ad-blocking tool. The response from the site’s readers consisted of confusion, some apologies and a considerable amount of indignation — prompting editor Ken Fisher to pen a piece entitled “Why Ad-Blocking Is Devastating to the Sites You Love.””

Mr.Fisher said:” Unless they use a subscription model, sites rely on advertising to survive. And although some of this advertising is on a pay-per-click basis, much of it is under a pay-per-view system.

Furthermore, unlike in the world of print and television advertising, where measurement is fuzzy, advertisers online count whether an ad is loaded or not. This means that people who block ads are denying revenue to the sites they visit. As he puts it: “Imagine running a restaurant where 40% of the people who came and ate didn’t pay. In a way, that’s what ad blocking is doing to us.””

E-Trade Financial Corp has been sued by the famous actress Lindsay Lohan for the big amount of $100 million. According to her statement, the baby girl seen in a commercial was based on her.

“Lohan alleged that online brokerage’s use in the ad the girl, also named Lindsay, improperly invoked her likeness, name, characterization, and personality without permission, violating her right of privacy”

A spokesman for Grey Group commented:”the “Lindsay” in the ad was named after a member of its account team.” The name used wasn’t never intended to be associated to the actress.

According to a recent press release, Walmart partnered with the second giant search engine, Yahoo, to work on an online campaign to attract housewives and women in general.

The campaign has been a success from the beginning leading Yahoo to be the first online advertiser for home improvement while leaving Google and Microsoft lost in the online advertising market.

It hasn’t  been released the amount of cash that Walmart has invested, but what we do know is that Yahoo is cashing big bucks now.

According to a recent article, the phone company Vodafone wants to expand in the market, but they know they have to compete against Google and this hasn’t been easy.

Reuters reports that Vittorio Colao, who was speaking at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, said: “mobile phone execs that the industry needed to come up with new biz models to deal more effectively with the demand for data services and phone apps”

He doesn’t point out Google, but he shows to the audience that Google as well Yahoo dominate the market. He ended his speech saying: “Let us work together to deliver truly competitive, truly open and truly sustainable technology”

The Associate Press has published the following article:

“Lee Enterprises, publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and other newspapers, said January total revenue fell 9.2 percent from the prior year.

The company said the decline is the first single-digit percentage drop since 2008. And the company said advertising trends have improved for the fifth month in a row.

Newspaper publishers have been struggling with a severe slump in advertising revenue, exacerbated by the sluggish economy, as more people use the Internet to get their news. Lee said ad revenue for January fell 10.5 percent from the prior year.”