The ailing company has been on the block for half a year, but DoubleClick has finally agreed to be acquired by private equity firm Hellman & Friedman for approximately $1.1 billion. So DoubleClick is "going private", and current shareholders will get $8.50 per share. Quite disappointing for a company that used to command $130 per share. So what happened? Did the company grow too fast? Diversify too much? Lose crucial ground to more nimble competitors? The answer to all of these questions seems to be "yes."

The on-demand delivery model for enterprise software -- managed hosting, software as service, whatever you want to call it -- is a big deal right now. Ever since Salesforce.com broke out with its wildly successful IPO last June, investors and industry watchers have been bullish on the promise of hosted applications.
Sure, application service providers (ASPs) have been around for years, but after the dot-com hype faded, it became clear that the "rented software" model only made sense for small businesses that didn't require true enterprise functionality. Not anymore. Flash forward to 2005, and ASPs are once again the darlings of Silicon Valley.

It's tax time again, and those of you who are filling out paper forms and licking stamps are in the minority for the first time ever. When all returns are in, the IRS expects to have surpassed the 50 percent mark for electronic returns, reports CNET. Why the rush to the Net? Why the promise of quicker returns, of course. And here's something I didn't know: The IRS actually requires CPAs to file returns electronically these days. One possible roadblock to mass adoption, however, is that the IRS doesn't let people file taxes directly through its Web site, but instead offers its "Free File" program that lets taxpayers file electronically through tax preparation software and service providers with whom the IRS has partnerships.

If you're a brick-and-mortar or catalog retailer trying to break into the online channel, chances are your online sales conversion rates are below those of your competitiors that are focused on e-commerce, according to a new study released by Nielsen/NetRatings. The study found that among the top 10 online retailers ranked by conversion rates in February, only Coldwater Creek has a significant brick-and-mortar presence. Kudos to Coldwater -- that must be why Sears decided to keep it. While the average sales conversion rate on e-commerce sites is 4.9%, QVC led the pack, converting over 16% of site shoppers into purchasers. Land's End was close behind, and Amazon, Yahoo Shopping and eBay also made the top 10.

The Internet telephony market is only just beginning to heat up, and the market is largely up for grabs as cable companies, ISPs and telcos jockey for position. There's a lot of competition, but AOL may be in a good position to nudge consumers into VoIP, as the company is already experienced at holding the hands of its mostly non-technical customers. AOL Internet Phone Service is more expensive than plans offered by market leader Vonage, even at the "low" introductory rate, but hey -- overpriced service has never stopped AOL in the past.

Google has started to unveil the fruits of its recent acquisition of Keyhole Corp., a digital map maker that has added a lot of value to the already way-cool maps.google.com. For now, Google claims to be offering free satellite maps of many areas of the United States, with the capability of zooming in all the way down to individual houses and businesses. I say "claims to be" because I couldn't get any of the satellite maps to work for me. But even Google's non-satellite offerings are much higher quality (and, at first glance, more accurate and comprehensive) than any online map service you've ever seen. Eat your heart out, Mapquest -- you're so 1990s.

The broad scope of Google, Yahoo and MSN can be a liability when trying to appeal to users who want to find information about specific niches. Vertical search engines -- some independent and some funded by the big boys -- are gaining popularity with users who want to easily center their searches around specific topics and avoid sifting through hundreds of irrelevant pages. Specialty search engines targeted at specific topics or industries won't replace the larger search engines, reports Internet Week, but they will add a "new layer" to the game.

Just as we all suspected, the MGM vs. Grokster case has made it all the way to the Supreme Court, in a case that will determine whether file swapping services have a viable business model or are liable for copyright infringement. So far, two federal courts have sided with the file swapping companies, basically upholding the ruling of the 1984 Betamax case. While I agree with the Betamax ruling (basically a "don't ask, don't tell" policy), I don't see a direct parallel to file sharing. More importantly, Justice Anthony Kennedy doesn't seem to, either. Today Kennedy told attorneys for Grokster and Streamcast that "What you are suggesting is unlawful expropriation of property as a kind of start-up capital. From an economic standpoint and legal standpoint, that sounds wrong."

With the departure of FCC chairman Michael Powell, it looks like telecom
regulation reform isn't going to happen this year. What a surprise – wink wink.
But regulation snafus are only one barrier in the minefield that Internet telephony
providers must cross in order to bring the technology to the masses. It's not
going to happen overnight, but VoIP is coming. So who will cash in? Will it be
cable companies, wireless providers or VoIP-focused specialty players like
Vonage? Will consumers save money in the end? And are local telephone
companies doomed as voice communications slowly but surely turn to the
Internet?

What constitutes fair use of copyrighted content on the Internet? These boundaries may be shaped by a lawsuit filed recently against Google by the French news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP). In the most highly publicized suit of its kind, AFP is arguing that Google wrongfully aggregated photos and story excerpts from its news sites in order to populate Google News. Now, the general mode of thinking about content on the Web has always gone something like this: "If the content is out there, and it ain't locked down (i.e., password protected), then you can link to it, aggregate it, and organize it however you want." In other words, to quote a popular open-source mantra, information wants to be free.

According to a new study by The Kelsey Group and ConStat, Inc., 70 percent of U.S. households now use the Internet as an information source when shopping locally for products and services -- an increase of 16 percent since October 2003. This puts the Internet on par with newspapers as a local shopping information resource, with the Internet
likely to surpass the impact of newspapers in the very near future. “Most of the Internet’s growth for shopping research can be attributed to large search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and Ask Jeeves, the usage of which increased significantly, from 47 percent in 2003 to 55 percent in
2005,” said Tim Trickett, vice president of business development at ConStat. “Further, the research shows that the increase in usage of the major search engines has been powered by broadband users exclusively.”

Following an uncharacteristic period of quiet calm, Barry Diller's InterActiveCorp. (IAC) has announced plans to acquire Ask Jeeves, the "fifth place" holdover from the dot-com boom that refuses to die. Ask Jeeves has always tried to differentiate itself from the search giants with a user-friendly Q&A approach -- something that never really materialized into a large enough user base. But Ask Jeeves is without question a recognizable brand, and one that can probably generate a few advertising dollars for IAC, even though it will have to line up behind the big boys of search.

Finally, maybe developers can stop complaining about Internet Explorer's lack of support for accepted standards. Rumors are flying that the next version of IE will address these long-held concerns. Mozilla's Firefox may be the hot browser right now, simply because Microsoft has been biding its time. But just as Internet Explorer stole the show from Netscape five years ago, the same will likely occur with the release of Internet Explorer 7. IE 6 is sorely in need of repair, and the quick gains in market share by Firefox and other alternative browsers were probably just the kick in the pants that Microsoft needed to get its act together. So IE lost a few percentage points of market share -- down to just under 90%, according to the latest figures. Big deal. MS has had the benefit of learning from Firefox and incorporating its features. Sometimes being second to market is best, especially when you have an enormous advantage over the competition in the first place. That said, it is always going to be safer to use a browser that isn't being used by 90 percent of the Internet population.

As high-speed Internet access becomes as important to businesses and consumers as other utilities, more options are opening up for how broadband access is delivered. Of course right now the majority of connections are DSL or cable, but emerging technologies such as Wimax and broadband-over-power-line (BPL) have much to offer in the way of convenience, speed, reliability, and even cost savings. The Department of Public Works of the city of Manassas, Va., is one of the first municipalities to get on board with BPL, reports ComputerWorld.

Enough has been written about phishing scams by now -- those fake emails that purport to be from banks or eBay, trying to trick you into submitting personal information. I get these every day, and never really worried about it because I'm not a moron. It's a minor annoyance to delete them, but you don't have to respond. But the latest threat, dubbed "pharming," can get you even if you're Howard Hughes careful. Pharmers actually manipulate the domain name system (DNS) that translates URLs into the IP addresses that computers understand, so these fraudsters can send you to a scam Web site even if you type in the correct URL.