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When the Nexus One was released, comparisons to the iPhone were unavoidable, and a respect in which the Android device came up short was multi-touch.  Now, though, an over-the-air software update should allow Nexus One users to pinch and zoom to their hearts’ content.

Pinch-to-zoom functionality’s will work when people are fiddling with the phone’s browser, its gallery, or the Google Maps application.  That’s bound to come as a pretty huge bonus to folks who thought they would be permanently without the feature.  It’s possible this update will spur a few additional purchases, too.

And the pinch-to-zoom addition doesn’t represent the end of the update, either.  "[W]e will provide a general fix to help improve 3G connectivity on some Nexus One phones," promised an official blog post.  Which is important.

What’s more, Google Goggles "will now be available directly on your device by launching it from your All Apps menu.  Just use your Nexus One camera to start searching the web."

This should all act to make the Nexus One quite a bit more competitive.  It’ll be interesting to see if sales enjoy a boost in the weeks ahead.

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The majority (69%) of media planners and agencies now use online advertising networks as part of their digital ad buys, representing a 24 percent increase in the past 18 months, according to a new study by Adify Media.

"Especially in light of the Dynamic Logic study that found that creative quality is 50 to 75 percent responsible for campaign success or failure, agencies must start evaluating the creative capabilities of networks," said Russ Fradin, president of Adify.

"As the industry looks for better ways to engage, not just reach, their audience, brands need to focus on compelling creative that builds an ongoing conversation with consumers and placing it where consumers spend time."

Other key findings from the survey include:

– More money is being allocated online each quarter:
   – 56 percent of respondents’ budgets were more than $500k in 2008.
     73 percent were over $500k in 2009.
   – In 2009, 37.9 percent of the respondents spend between $1-5 million
     per quarter on online advertising, 15.2 percent of respondents spend
     $5-20 million per quarter, and 5.9 percent spend more than $20 million
     per quarter on online advertising.

Branding is a major focus for online ad campaigns:
   – 83 percent of respondents allocate 50 percent or more of their budget
     to branding vs. direct response.

Awareness of vertical ad networks (VANs) continues to grow as a way to
   reach niche audiences:
   – 72 percent are familiar with VANs versus 56 percent in 2008.
 

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Don’t be shocked if one or more shrines to Windows 7 are erected in Redmond today.  Microsoft released its quarterly earnings report this afternoon, and thanks in large part to the new operating system, the company’s numbers look quite good.

Analysts thought Microsoft might report something like $17.84 billion in revenue and earnings per share of 59 cents.  Microsoft overshot those forecasts by a significant amount, posting $19.12 billion and 74 cents, instead.

That puts the company up 14 percent and 57 percent, respectively, on a year-over-year basis.  And it would be an understatement to say that victories of this nature don’t occur every day, particularly given our economy’s current condition.

So if you’re happy (and as you’ll see in a minute, investors are), think well of Windows 7.  A record for Windows units was set last quarter, and Peter Klein, Microsoft’s CFO, said in a statement, "Exceptional demand for Windows 7 led to the positive top-line growth for the company.  Our continuing commitment to managing costs allowed us to drive earnings performance ahead of the revenue growth."

Unfortunately for Microsoft, things didn’t go so well in every respect.  The Online Services Business lost a whopping $466 million, which makes for a significantly worse performance than last year (when it lost $320 million).

Then, one other possible cause for skittishness is the fact Microsoft hasn’t yet given any guidance.  Windows 7 can’t sell well forever, after all.

Still, investors have received Microsoft’s news with open arms and fists full of dollars.  Even though the Dow and Nasdaq both sank today (by 1.13 percent and 1.91 percent), Microsoft’s stock is up 1.47 percent in after-hours trading.

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Although Nexus One sales estimates haven’t exactly blown everybody’s minds so far, it seems that the cell-phone-you-can-only-buy-from-Google experiment is going to continue.  Motorola’s co-CEO announced today that his company is working on device for it.

According to Scott Moritz, co-CEO Sanjay Jha said while discussing Motorola’s Q4 earnings that his company will release "one direct-to-consumer device with Google" sometime this year.  Jha also mentioned introducing 20 Android smartphones in 2010.

These statements help clear up some issues that surfaced last week, when a vice president at Motorola said the company intended to release 20-30 Android devices.  Even allowing for regional variations, it was a little hard to imagine how they could all be markedly different from each other.

Unfortunately, Jha provided little else in the way of Android- or cell phone-related information this morning, so other details regarding what’s on tap remain unknown.  It’s just a fair guess that the direct-to-consumer advice will be another range-topping model, and that it isn’t too close to coming out.

As always, we’ll see what happens.  Finally, for the record: Motorola’s Q4 report didn’t go particularly well, with its stock down 11.42 percent so far today as a result.

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Yahoo said today it is holding its second annual Key Scientific Challenges Program, which is open globally to any graduate student enrolled in a PhD program at an accredited institution.

The Key Scientific Challenges Program focuses on a number of issues, from developing algorithms that make information more personally relevant, to finding insights about online advertising and experimenting with new sociological models for how people engage with the web.

"Yahoo! and the entire online industry face challenges that are increasingly complex and require an interdisciplinary approach to solve," said Prabhakar Raghavan, head of Yahoo! Labs.

"The Key Scientific Challenges Program provides graduate students an unmatched environment that brings together social scientists, economists, computer scientists, and statisticians to collaborate in an unprecedented way. The students get the benefit of testing their research ideas in the real world, and Yahoo! gains new perspectives on the technical problems core to improving the Internet."

Winners of the Key Scientific Challenges Program will receive:

•     $5,000 in unrestricted seed funding for lab materials, travel to academic conferences, professional society memberships, and other resources to drive their research.
•     Exclusive access to selected global-scale Yahoo! datasets.
•     Personal mentoring and collaboration with Yahoo!’s world-class research scientists.
•     An invitation to present their work at the Key Scientific Challenges Graduate Student Summit, to be held in September 2010 at Yahoo! headquarters in Sunnyvale, California.

Applications for the program must be submitted by midnight PST on March 5, 2010. Winners will be announced in the spring.

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About 10 days ago, Steve Ballmer indicated that he didn’t share Google’s views with regards to China; Ballmer said that Microsoft would continue operating in China regardless of recent hacks and a policy of censorship.  Today, Bill Gates more or less echoed those sentiments.

Some free speech advocates might have hoped Gates would feel otherwise; after all, now that he’s let Ballmer take the reigns at Microsoft, Gates seem to have focused his energies on doing good in the world, and Google’s claimed the moral high ground in this dispute.

Nonetheless, according to Reuters, Gates said on Good Morning America, "You’ve got to decide: Do you want to obey the laws of the countries you’re in, or not?  If not, you may not end up doing business there."

Gates also argued, "The Chinese efforts to censor the Internet have been very limited.  It’s easy to go around it, and so I think keeping the Internet thriving there is very important."

There’s further confirmation that Microsoft will stay the course in China, then.  Of course, we have yet to see what will become of Google’s own protest.

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As social networking becomes increasingly widespread, more employers are using these sites to screen potential employees.

More than half (53%) of employers reported in a recent CareerBuildere.co.uk survey that they use social networking sites to research job candidates. Another 12 percent plan to start using social networking sites for screening.

Among employers who conduct online background checks of job candidates, 43 percent use search engines, 12 percent use Facebook and 12 percent use LinkedIn. Three percent search blogs and 4 percent follow candidates on Twitter.

  "Social networking is a great way to make connections with potential job opportunities in 2010 and promote your personal brand across the Internet," said Farhan Yasin, president of CareerBuilder EMEA. 

"Make sure you are using this resource to your advantage by conveying a professional image and underscoring your qualifications."

Top reasons why employers disregarded candidates after screening online:

•     Candidate lied about qualifications – 38 percent
•      Candidate showed poor communication skills – 31 percent
•      Candidate made discriminatory comments – 13 percent
•      Candidate posted content about them drinking or using drugs – 10 per cent
•      Candidate posted provocative or inappropriate photographs or information – 9 percent
•      Candidate bad-mouthed their previous employer, co-workers or clients – 9  percent
•      Candidate shared confidential information from previous employer – 8 percent

Top reasons employers hired candidates after screening online:
   

•      Profile supported candidate’s professional qualifications – 61 percent
•      Candidate showed solid communication skills – 41 percent
•      Candidate was well-rounded – 37 percent
•      Profile provided a good feel for the candidate’s personality and fit – 28 percent
•      Candidate seemed creative -24 percent  Candidate conveyed a professional image – 22 percent
•      Candidate received awards and accolades – 15 percent
•      Other people posted good references about the candidate – 15 percent

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Reactions to Google’s announcement about a possible withdrawal from China have been mixed so far; there have been objections from individuals who think its absence will deprive the Chinese people of information, while others approve of what they consider a moral stand.  But Baidu’s investors probably aren’t too conflicted, as the company’s stock imitated a bottle rocket today.

Today, Baidu’s stock gained 52.99 points, which works out to 13.71 percent.  That’s the sort of improvement many investors would be happy to see take place over a full year, especially considering how the recession has lowered expectations.

Baidu’s stock didn’t soar in accordance with any sort of market trend, either.  The Nasdaq rose just 1.12 percent today, and the Dow gained an even less impressive 0.50 percent.  So this is just a matter of many people realizing that Baidu would perform better than ever in a Google-less China.

Google’s stock, meanwhile, was less fortunate, sinking 0.57 percent today.  Although we should note that multiple factors could have influenced both developments.  (One more side note: the numbers in the graph are off because it covers a slightly different timeframe.)

Anyway, it should be interesting to see how these stocks continue to fluctuate as the Google China drama plays out.  One way or another, it’s likely that a lot more money will change hands before the end.

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December’s supposed to be a month of miracles, and – at least in terms of gaining market share – Google seems to have pulled off a minor one.  New Nielsen stats show that the search giant increased the distance between itself and competitors by a considerable amount.

Nielsen put Google’s share of the U.S. search market in November at 65.4 percent.   That number increased to 67.3 percent for December, which works out to a gain of 1.9 percent.  Swings like that aren’t without precedent, but tend not to happen on a month-to-month basis.

Yahoo, meanwhile, lost share.  Its numbers slipped from 15.3 percent to 14.4 percent between November and December.  And Bing suffered a similar fate, with Nielsen recording a drop from 15.3 percent to 14.4 percent.

So it looks like it’s time to once again ask: how high and low can Google and its competitors’ market shares go, respectively?  And is there a point at which Google’s gains will work against it?  Opinion pieces about the "Microsoft of search" tend not to be complimentary, after all, and antitrust regulators are already growing uneasy.

As always, we’ll check back in on the situation next month.

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Google’s given its presentation, tech reviewers have had their say, and, after months of buildup, the Nexus One should soon start appearing in the real world.  So how – in a sales sense – will it fare?  According to a Barclays Capital analyst, the Nexus One will be a rather hot item.

In a note released this morning, Doug Anmuth indicated that Google might sell 5 or 6 million units in 2010, generating incremental revenue of between $2.6 billion and $3.2 billion.  Which would appear to make for a pretty great debut; it should go without saying that tons of companies would kill for those numbers.

Indeed, to put the data into perspective, John Paczkowski pointed out, "Motorola’s (MOT) 2010 global smartphone shipments are expected to be somewhere around 13 million units."  Also, 6 million Nexus Ones sold in a year works out to about 16,400 finding new homes every day.

Still, to look at even bigger picture, Barclays predicted in September that at least 7 million iPhones will sell in just the first quarter of 2010.  Plus there’s little hope that Google will make much of a profit off the Nexus One, however many units it sells.

At least it’ll be an interesting story to watch.  Google’s already gone in an unusual direction by promoting the Nexus One on its typically-spartan homepage.

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