Terry Semel couldn’t be happier with the performance of Yahoo’s new search advertising system. The Yahoo CEO told an AdAge conference that Panama would show “some very exciting numbers” in the first quarter as they try to gain on Google. “We have said from the beginning and we say it clearly right now, again, that our intention is to close the gap and Panama is doing a great job,” Semel said.

Yahoo has disclosed for the first time it discards anywhere from 12 to 15 percent of clicks on its ads as either invalid or of inferior quality. To help fight click fraud, Yahoo promoted one of their attorneys, Reggie Davis, to a newly created post of vice president of marketplace quality. “We need to take some of the inconsistency out of this issue,” Davis told Reuters about the challenge of fighting click fraud.

The source of the anti-Hillary Clinton video spoofing Apple’s legendary ’1984′ advertisement has been identified. The Huffington Post identified Philip de Vellis, who has resigned his position with Internet company Blue State Digital in the wake of the controversy surrounding the ad. “I made the “Vote Different” ad because I wanted to express my feelings about the Democratic primary, and because I wanted to show that an individual citizen can affect the process,” De Vellis said on his blog.

Rumors about a possible Google Phone received another boost as photos of the new gadget began to circulate on a mobile phone forum. Garett Rogers speculated that the pictures of the Samsung built mobile have probably been manipulated even if they are of a real prototype. Google reportedly has about a hundred people working on software for the device.

Microsoft has opened a social networking site for the finance industry. The Dynamics Live Community beta site recently opened during a San Diego conference, where Microsoft staffers have been calling it a ‘MySpace for financial pros.’ The new site offers articles and expert columns as content, and blogs and forums for its users. Networking features are listed as ‘coming soon.’

News aggregator Topix.net paid one million dollars to purchase the Topix.com domain January. Topix CEO Rich Skrenta told the Wall Street Journal the two domains have been running side by side since then, and plans to switch to the dot com address. But Topix could face a loss of search engine traffic during the changeover, and Skrenta’s plea for help from Google received a canned response to post his request on a support message board.

“This can’t be the process,” Mr. Skrenta says. “You’re cast into this amusing, Kafkaesque world to run your business.”

Defense contractors have been big players in crawling audio tracks for online video. Beet TV said Podzinger, a subsidiary of BBN, has crawled one point five million YouTube clips since December. Podzinger’s Alex Laats said they crawl thousands more each day. Beet TV also claimed that the same technology has been used by government agencies for a variety of other tasks since 2001.

Internet advertising revenue reached sixteen point eight billion dollars during 2006. The fourth quarter of 2006 was the highest quarter ever, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau;revenues for that period were just under four point eight billion. IAB CEO and President, Randall Rothenberg stated, “The continued growth in Interactive advertising is clearly based on marketers’ recognition that they connect with consumers most effectively through Interactive media. The increase underscores marketers’ understanding that Interactive advertising can engage consumers, build brands and sell products and services.”

Mike Arrington at TechCrunch reported that blog ad firm Federated Media was raising money and looking for a buyer. John Battelle later commented that neither statement was true, although like any startup, a future sale could take place. Apparently advertising is booming on blogs too! Accoding to Arrington Federated Media projects $30 million in sales and “several million dollars” in profit in 2007.

YouTube fans in Turkey will not be able to reach the video-sharing site. A Turkish court ordered the country’s biggest telecom to block access to YouTube after videos insulting the founding father of Turkey appeared on the site. Turkish media notes the ongoing “virtual war” between Turkish and Greek site visitors. Insulting videos seems to be a standard method of attack. The video implied that the Turkey founder was gay. Insulting Ataturk is called Turkishness and is a crime punishable by prison.

Wikipedia will still allow contributors to be anonymous. But after a prominent editor who claimed to be a theology professor in a New Yorker magazine interview proved to be a college dropout, Wikipedia’s founder Jimmy Wales said the website will require people to document the professional expertise they claim to have. Twenty four year old Ryan Jordan, was exposed as a dropout from Lexington Community College .. which by the way is only 5 minutes from WebProNews headquarters in Lexington KY.