Verizon

We've kicked off the New Year into full gear with our own Staci Kramer, Tameka Kee and Tricia Duryee covering the giant Consumer Electronics Show. Their coverage can be seen at our CES 2009 channels on both paidContent.org and mocoNews.net.

Our top headlines of the first full week in 2009:

I haven't a clue whether Microsoft's new partnership with Verizon as primary search provider really will amount to much. Consider this: even though Google has default search box placement on the smallest of the top three carriers, Sprint, it still dominates mobile search share. That has to tell you something about the power of brand familiarity over the deck.

We're pleased to announce that Courtney Holt, president of MySpace Music, will be featured in our Keynote Q&A at our upcoming EconMusic conference. This will mark Holt's first U.S.

In a move which may influence the search association mobile phone users have with their search engine of choice, Verizon has chosen Microsoft Search over Google as its default search engine of choice.
Verizon is expected to be the #1 mobile carrier in the US after its planned acquisition of Alltell this week and the move [...]

Amazon's Kindle may soon be just another electronic reader among a handful of choices on Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ).

Subscribe to Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) Cable and have a kid with a Dora addiction? Get ready to pop in DVDs. Need your daily fix of The Daily Show?

A federal court has ordered the domain registrar OnlineNIC to pay Verizon more than $31 million in damages in a cybersquatting case. Verizon alleged in a lawsuit brought earlier this year that OnlineNIC had registered 633 domain names that were designed to confuse people into thinking the Web sites were affiliated with Verizon.

Michael Roth, the Chairman-CEO, of one of America's two remaining agency holding companies, Tuesday said the Interpublic Group of Companies as well positioned as any agency group, financially and structurally, to deal with a protracted economic recession, but said the biggest factor is the "strength of our clients." He said Interpublic has a healthy, recession-resistant mix of clients, including a heavy dose of consumer goods marketers, and bellwether technology firms such as Intel, Microsoft and Verizon, and that its biggest financial services brand, MasterCard, is outperforming that beleague

In a major alley-oop, the NBA is about to give regional sports networks (RSNs) like MSG, YES and Fox Sports affiliates the rights to control their local digital content, the Sports Business Journal reports. Once the specifics are worked out, the NBA will be the only professional sports league to allow the RSNs (which typically partner with or are owned by their respective teams) to develop, manage and roll out digital content as they see fit.

The conventional wisdom has been that as the crushing economic downturn continues to squeeze consumers, cable TV will benefit as more people opt for home entertainment.