eBay has been busy announcing changes and fueling speculation around others. According to the WSJ the online marketplace is going back to its roots as an “internet flea market” , as well as moving away from the retail model that Amazon owns and concentrating more on PayPal.

Want to hear a great Internet marketing story? It has a very happy ending. Well, let’s not get ahead of the story.

If you’ve forgotten, just nine months ago, Microsoft purchased a 1.6% stake in Facebook for $240 million. Doing the math from that, the total value of Facebook last October was $15B.

Overcoming the inertia that keeps people going to other financial sites confronts Chris Jolley, group manager at Microsoft’s Financial Products Group, every day. He believe MSN Money deserves a look.

If you want to build up investment interest in your SEO/SEM firm, you have to make your company compelling enough to separate capital from capitalists.

Chris Liddell, who serves as Microsoft’s chief financial officer, has defended the idea of spending $240 million on a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook.  His comments aren’t likely to reverse critics’ stances, however.

When it comes to financial matters, I like to play it safe.  Bubble Boy-safe.  So the concept of a wiki for investors makes me a little nervous.  But Wikinvest apparently inspired enough confidence in some onlookers to win $2.5 million in funding.

In-text ad company Kontera received another infusion of venture capital from its backers to build upon an earlier investment in the company’s ContentLink product.

Companies routinely receive three, five, or even ten million dollars in various funding rounds; reporting on it kind of dulls you to those huge amounts.  But iCrossing, a “global digital marketing company,” has just received $62 million, and that’s definitely worth a closer look.

Google has dropped some cash in Anne Wojcicki’s 23andMe biotech firm, to the tune of $3.9 million for a minority holding in the company co-founded by Sergey Brin’s new missus.

Monday, I presented to the Direct Marketing Association at their B2B Marketing Conference on the subject of Return on Search Marketing Investment. I love talking to direct marketers, because they understand how to market on the Web, but they don’t know they do. When I show them how to take what they know and apply it to this new online world, watching the light bulbs go on is very gratifying.

The Mercury News takes an in-depth look at the lack of ROI Microsoft is getting from its investment into web technologies, especially search.

Many of the wealthiest people in the world owe their fortunes to different types of residual income – from stocks and bonds to investment trusts, real estate, commodities and more.

Getting a good investment portfolio is something that everyone needs who does any kind of investing.

News of the Google YouTube acquisition wasn’t even cold yet when a new rumor popped up in the blogosphere that Google is also in talks to outbid Yahoo! on the number two social networking site, Facebook, reportedly offering $2.3 billion.

Like so many others, I’m working hard to make my financial future as bright as possible. I save when ever possible, and invest smart when I have the money to do so.

An obscure little fun fact about Google has been making the rounds; last month, Google filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission requesting that it not be treated like a mutual fund.

Large companies and institutions employ teams of analysts to help invest in other companies. If they buy a particular stock, the market often expects the stock to have significant upside potential.

A total of $18 million traveled into job search website Jobster, with half of the cash coming from Reed Elsevier, the publisher that owns LexisNexis and Hollywood trade paper Variety.

When an investor receives a newsletter full of stock tips and information, the first instinct is to act quickly on the information in order to make money before anyone else does.