I must admit to being a little perplexed as to why Yahoo decided it needed to acquire Bix, a company that provides online karaoke and contests.

I just want to take a second and pass along one of the coolest linkbait ideas I’ve seen in a long time.

It’s not anytime minutes and SMS they want, but they would like to find and reward the winner of a contest for the best business plan in the Web-2-Mobile Business Plan Competition.

Yahoo’s first order of business after its acquisition of video site JumpCut is to invite users to create a Doritos commercial, similar to what Yahoo! did recently with their own promotion. The grand prize: $10,000 and a trip to Super Bowl XLI in Miami.

A number of people were suspicious when the Netflix Prize was announced. $1 million isn’t much of a reward, some complained, and others believed that it would be difficult to improve upon the site’s movie recommendation algorithm. Now, a little over one week into the contest, three teams have already beaten the existing system.

Despite past riffs between the two regarding intellectual property, NBC and YouTube announced a strategic partnership to promote NBC programming on the video sharing site.

If you live in India and you’re a blogger, there’s a contest running where you can win an opportunity to travel India and blog your experiences.

Now that Chevy has demonstrated how an advertising campaign can work with some online tools and lots of user participation, the era of the high-priced ad agency account could be viewing a blood-red sunset.

Google’s Code Jam Europe wants to find the best and brightest among European Java and C programmers, but its scheduling leaves something to be desired.

Pull Average Joe to the side (the next time you see him at the pub or wherever Joe haunts these days) and float the phrase “Network Neutrality” by him; if for nothing else, to watch the blankness wash over him. He has little use for the phrase, though it has the potential to affect him greatly.

MSN Spaces has added a Windows Live Expo module, so people can list their Expo items on their Space.

Giving the public the opportunity to create Chevy Tahoe video advertisements led to the creation of numerous anti-SUV commercials instead.

Another sports-driven arrangement between Microsoft and Fox Sports will deliver men’s basketball tournament information to users of MSN Search with the site’s Instant Answer technology.

Speculation abounds about the future of search and the dominance of Google, as rivals Microsoft and Yahoo ramp up their search engines and consider incentives for people to use their search.

A variety of prizes and charitable donations awaits the winners of the MSN Search and Win contest over the three-month period of the promotion.

There’s no better way to cure writer’s block then to blog about some cool Firefox goodies.

cNet (news.com) has come up with another clever contest using imagery from Google Earth.. funny, I could have sworn that clipping and reposting images from Google Earth on a commercial website was against the terms of use??

Of all the emerging concepts related to search engine optimization and marketing online, there are several memes that I’m particularly interested in that seem to be building steam lately.

Wait till January 31 and see for yourself I guess.

I highlighted this meme in my links tonight, but it’s so darn funny that I think it deserves its own post.

Steve Jobs says that the world needs a new kind of power cable. That sounds really cool.