Thomsom, maker of GE-branded telephones, has teamed up with Google to release a number of GE phones with a prominent GOOG-411 button above the keypad.

Pressing the button will call Google’s toll free voice controlled business search service.

Research shows that half of the agency/client relationships out there last less than two years.

This is from a sample of about 140 companies with an annual marketing spend of at least $2 million, including Citibank, General Mills, IBM, GE, and ESPN.

After nearly 15 years in agencies, this percentage sounds about right. But where the research tries to determine why this is the case, I take issue with it.

News Corp.’s bid to buy Dow Jones, and by default, the most influential financial newspaper in the world, the Wall Street Journal, seems to have spooked media rival General Electric into making a bid for the company as well.