Some of the stories people are talking about this morning:»  MSN U.S. Head Scott Moore to Depart Portal (AllThingsD) »  Why Rupert Murdoch Should Announce A New Direction For News Corp. (NSDQ: NWS) (Guardian/paidContent) »  News Corp’s Bête Noire Watson Plans To Address Shareholder Meeting (Guardian/paidContent) »  Federated Media Partners…

The three major portals and YouTube (NSDQ: GOOG) sold more of the lucrative custom homepage ads in the second half of Q3, according to the latest figures from Macquarie. But it could be a blip, as the gains more mostly due to the influx of spending by TV networks promoting…

MSN China and RenRen, the Facebook-like Chinese social network, have signed a wide-ranging strategic cooperation pact that will enhance the Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) portal’s profile in the Far East but leaves Facebook’s position uncertain.

*AOL* News, consistently among the top news sites, is making way for The Huffington Post, a victim of the $315 million acquisition of the younger site. It’s confusing enough right now for those used to going to the site (no matter how much HuffPo plays it down, it did have…

AOL’s consistent double-digit display declines over the past year have surely tried its investors’ patience, but a report from Macquarie Capital’s Ben Schachter says that the worst appears to be over and that the portal’s display business is “trending well.” The improvement suggests that AOL’s focus on larger display formats…

CNN has created a new post of VP and GM of CNN International Digital, to which it is appointing MSN’s international programming director Peter Bale. Bale will head up all non-U.S. digital operations for CNN (ie. CNN International) from London.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau’s “rising stars” award isn’t meant as solely as a pat on the back to high profile members at its annual conference. The large intent is to reduce some of the confusion for advertisers and publishers that have cropped up with the proliferation of larger display formats…

Carolyn Everson, who led Microsoft’s global ad sales across Bing, MSN, and Windows Live, is leaving to join Facebook, AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher reports and we can confirm. Everson joined Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) only nine months ago, replacing Robin Domeniconi who left the post to take a job at Hachette Filipacchi’s…

AOL’s acquisition of Huffington Post makes for a “risky bet,” according to Scott Moore, partner and regional executive producer at Microsoft’s rival portal MSN. In a Q&A conducted by paidContent’s Staci D. Kramer at Federated Media’s Signal LA conference on Wednesday, he questioned whether HuffPo’s political bent would fit in…

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) posted a 5 percent increase in sales during the most recent quarter, countering predictions that its revenue would stay flat—or even fall—because of slow growth in the market for PCs. The results were particularly remarkable because a year ago Microsoft benefited from blockbuster sales of its then-new…

		EPS*	Rev. vs Q0409	Net Inc. vs Q0409
Microsoft	Release		5%	4%

* vs. Analysts' Estimates: Beat Met Missed

Steve Ballmer started off his Consumer Electronics Show keynote Wednesday by running down Microsoft’s product debuts in 2010, including Windows Phone 7 and Kinect, and promising a preview of what Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has coming next. Read on for a summary of Microsoft’s announcements regarding Kinect, Windows Phone 7 and…

If it felt like there were a lot more of those large, homepage takeover display ads in the latter half of Q4, that’s because major sites like YouTube (NSDQ: GOOG) AOL (NYSE: AOL), Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) and MSN were rolling them out at an even greater pace, according to an…

It’s over for Paul Yanover at Disney (NYSE: DIS) Online. The chief architect behind the rebuilding of Disney.com is leaving to “pursue new opportunities outside the company,” as he told staffers Friday morning in an internal e-mail (full memo below).

Microsoft’s MSN, which has launched a series of very successful sites with major magazine publishers over the last two years, is now partnering with Rodale on a new health and fitness property. The site, Fitbie, which is going live today, features a series of articles and videos on working out,…

For the past few months, AOL (NYSE: AOL), Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) and YouTube (NSDQ: GOOG) have turned to huge takeover ads as a way to attract premium brand dollars as the display market has picked up markedly over last year. Takeover ads or splash pages come in various formats, but…

eMusic launched its new website today, which includes 250,000 new songs from Universal, new hits from Sony (NYSE: SNE) Music and Warner Music—and higher prices for its newer tracks.

Naysayers continue expressing suspicion Spotify will launch in the U.S.. But Spotify’s not alone in discovering the challenge of an overseas launch. Here’s a newsflash for the sceptics: the list of U.S. services which haven’t found their way out of America is also long…

The adventurous Jeff Dossett is changing paths again. The new gig: SVP for content partnerships at IPO-bound Demand Media, where he is reporting to Chief Revenue Officer Joanne Bradford. Dossett’s responsibilities as outlined on his LinkedIn page: “securing innovative content partnerships with leading brands, content publishers and online distribution networks.”

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) and BermanBraun have jointly developed another spin-off of Wonderwall, the hit celebrity site they launched a year-and-a-half ago. The two companies debuted Wonderwall Latino today, a new site which features news on Hispanic celebrities—all in Spanish. Although Wonderwall Latino is dominated by a Wonderwall-like “wall” of photos,…