On the Search Financial Front...

Ask Jeeves:
Piper upgrades Ask Jeeves stating "Ask Jeeves is not only remaining a meaningful search alternative, but is gaining faster than most other players." He estimates the company's usage rates rose 18 percent from the third quarter, the highest increase for the sector.

LookSmart:
Had a bad quarter. Tough news for them. It is a real shame since they sold me twice as much traffic as Overture with a greater than 90% bounce rate. In no way to I recommend using LookSmart...at least not on any large scale.

Cheaper cost per click does not translate into savings when you are buying automated or useless traffic.

Online Ad Spending:

• To increase 30% in 2005.

• Hundreds of retailers spend $50K-plus a month on paid search, SEM firm says

Google:
should buy Technorati? (found on SEL)

New Big SEM Firm:
WPP to enter search marketing fray...my general take is that good SEO generally does not scale that well, but they are opening 47 search offices. Best of luck to them...they will need it.

Personally:
I think I have been offered at least 5 jobs in the last 6 months...with some people wanting me to form brand new companies with them. There certainly must be a bunch of opportunity in this space!