We've taken a look to see how it measures up to the popular online encyclopedia, and whether it offers any potential SEO benefits...  

The thing is, Yahoo doesn’t need to change the game, only to play it properly. Or to at least speed up its moves. Because if you want to see a killer example of tardy gameplay, look no further than its lame – and ongoing – failure to roll out the long-awaited Yahoo Publisher Network (YPN) internationally.

The programme, which rewards sites that introduce new users to Adsense, will be “retired” in the last week of January, according to a post on the service’s blog. 

So what does this tell us...?

The online ad giant says the service is now being offered to its Adsense partners in the UK, Ireland and Canada – enabling them to display ad-supported clips on their sites.

Steve Rubel has linked to an article in AdAge that quotes Google CEO Eric Schmidt as saying:

“How will those developers get paid for those services? We would like to have our ads in those applications.”

The web ad giant increased its profits by 45% to $1.07bn and sales by 57% to $4.23bn, helped by its continuing search dominance and growth in international markets, including Britain.

The move, another attempt by Google to monetise its $1.76bn purchase of YouTube a year ago, will see it sharing revenue with publishers that add its ‘video units’ to their sites.

The study investigates the effectiveness of 'making ads look like content', and concludes that more users will take notice of such an ad.

The index, which gathers data from 4,000 online advertisers and agencies, reports that the overall industry average click fraud rate rose to 15.8% for the second quarter of the year.

The company's revenue rose by 58% to $3.87bn (£1.88bn), but its profits increased by a more modest 28%, to $925m (£450m). 

It has spent heavily on acquisitions so far this year, as well as increasing its headcount as it develops new products and enters new markets.

Here, Scott talks about OpenAds’ upcoming move into new formats, as well as its recent funding by a group of well-known VCs.

The video in which the ads are embedded includes two tell-tale yellow segments in the time seek bar.

Vulcan Golf filed the complaint in Illinois arguing the practice, by which individuals register attractive domain names but place only ads on them, is a "shocking and egregious, intentional, bad faith scheme to generate revenue and profit from illegal and deceptive actions".

The online auction company said it would use Google’s ad platforms in a “much more limited way” and focus more on rival ad services.

The click-to-play blocks pay cost-per-thousand publishers for every ad impression, regardless of video plays.