Impending Recession for Paid Search?

How did I miss this post by Steve Rubel? Tired of doomsaying in the Web 2.0 bubble realm, he recently predicted an impending recession for poor old Google, based on several factors.

ChaCha Gets Extra-Important $10M In Funding

In a series B round of funding, the Indiana 21st Century Research and Technology Fund showed its confidence in ChaCha by tossing in $2 million.  Morton Meyerson must really like ChaCha, though - he gave the human-powered search company $8 million.

Widget Growth Driven By Social Networks

Users of widgets are more likely to receive them from friends than from companies that created them, according to a new report from JupiterResearch, "Widgets: Delivering Applications Users Want." User between the ages of 18-24 are six times more likely to receive widgets from friends than from a company.

Free WSJ Online Access Coming

Rupert Murdoch plans to make WSJ.com free to increase readership and generate far more in advertising. Right now the site gets 1 million viewers and Murdoch hopes to see it go to 15 million. For now a subscription just to the online edition is $79 for a year.

Could Google Finally Deliver On Old AOL Promises?

Two years ago next month, Google bought five percent of AOL for a billion dollars. Yeah, you might have forgotten that, but it was a really big deal at the time. While Google’s main motivation was to keep being the search technology for fifth-place AOL Search, there was a lot of talk on both sides about the two companies working together. The big get, mentioned…