Internet news/analysis quick links

• Morgan Stanley Internet analyst Mary Meeker published an investor presentation (PDF) containing upbeat predictions about Internet advertising.

• Stock Lemon, an anonymous site likely produced by hedge funds, targeted Intermix Media (ticker: MIX).

• Marchex (ticker: MCHX) acquired the assets of Pike Industries, "an online yellow pages and lead generation provider for local merchants" for $20 million in cash and (restricted and unrestricted) stock.

• Fred Vogelstein wrote an outstanding cover story for Fortune Magazine describing how Microsoft (ticker: MSFT) is intent on beating Google (ticker: GOOG). Notable quotes:

An unnamed Microsoft executive:
"Here Microsoft was spending $600 million a year in R&D for MSN, $1 billion a year for Office, and $1 billion a year for Windows, and Google gets desktop search out before us? It was a real wake-up call. It was the first time many people in the corporation understood that Google was more than just a search engine. People said, 'If they can do desktop search, what prevents them from doing a version of Excel, PowerPoint, or Word, or buying Star Office?'."

Bill Gates:
"The idea that you type in these words [in the search box] that aren't sentences and you don't get any answers—you just get back all these things you have to click on—that is so antiquated." (Note: the Answers.com (ticker: GRU) guys must have enjoyed that one.) "We need to take search way beyond how people think of it today and just have it be naturally available, based on the task they want to do."

• Meanwhile, Google unveiled personalized search, began testing ads in RSS feeds, and introduced the Google Web Accelerator.

• The Wall Street Journal profiled Woot, an inventory-clearance retailer that competes with Overstock.com (ticker: OSTK) but sells only one item at any given time. According to the article (paid subscription required), Woot gets 150,000 unique visitors a day with almost no advertising.

• Shopping.com (ticker: SHOP) launched comparison shopping for mortgages. Full disclosure: at the time of writing I'm (regretfully) long SHOP.

• E*Trade (ticker: ET) canned its proprietary trading group, according to a report from Ben Silverman.

• Numerous Internet companies reported earnings results. But The Internet Stock Blog was missing in action, (mis-?) focusing instead on building out the Seeking Alpha Network of stock blogs. New additions: The Energy Stock Blog, The Retail Stock Blog, The Utility Stock Blog and ETF Investor (exchange-traded funds). This is the Long Tail of financial publishing: niche, category-killer sites devoted to a single sector. We're now looking for people to write (or contribute to) The India Stock Blog, The Chip Stock Blog and The Healthcare Stock Blog. If you know anyone who may be interested, please ask them to email me.