Update: VentureBeat reports: "We’ve learned that Massive, the company’s in-game advertising business, suffered something like 75 percent layoffs."

I probably don’t have to tell you that people are looking for ways to make extra income in this economy. Luckily there are ways you can get extra revenue out of sites you already have.

A Google spokesperson tells WebProNews that the company is seeing more and more people doing just that. "We’ve also been seeing regular people capitalizing on changes in consumer behavior (ie, more people searching for recipe sites and therefore stay at home mom’s creating recipe blogs as a result)," he says.

Online shoppers are loosening the grips on their wallets, but continuing to be cautious about where and how they spend their cash. To secure their business, online retailers need to persuade consumers that they’re offering the best product at the best price.

Online shoppers are loosening the grips on their wallets, but continuing to be cautious about where and how they spend their cash. To secure their business, online retailers need to persuade consumers that they’re offering the best product at the best price.

Online shoppers are loosening the grips on their wallets, but continuing to be cautious about where and how they spend their cash. To secure their business, online retailers need to persuade consumers that they’re offering the best product at the best price.

Online shoppers are loosening the grips on their wallets, but continuing to be cautious about where and how they spend their cash. To secure their business, online retailers need to persuade consumers that they’re offering the best product at the best price.

Yahoo has provided a look at how Americans have been searching for economic data in recent times. One query they specifically look at is "Obama stimulus package," which has quadrupled the number of searches over the last week, when compared to the week before.

Employees in the U.S. seem to overwhelmingly share a "it won’t happen to me" attitude when it comes to losing jobs. Glassdoor.com has released results from a survey, which found that 4 out of 5 employees have no concerns about being laid off in the next six months.

GlassDoor breaks it down into two categories – companies that have reported upcoming layoffs, and companies that have not:

Personal experience speaking: The top three questions a Target employee is likely to hear relate to the location of the restrooms, the location of the seasonal section (Christmas, Halloween, etc.), and – at least in Kentucky – whether or not the store sells cigarettes.  But new Hitwise data indicates that inquiries about layaway may become more popular.

Things aren’t looking so good in Silicon Valley these days. As the US economy adjusts to recession, funding for ventures is down, stock prices are falling, and online tabloids have to let go even their decadent Valley prostitution reporters.

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.

Whatever sort of recession we’re in hasn’t yet resulted in any soup lines (or at least not any soup lines that made the evening news).  It also hasn’t had any horrible effect on online advertising.

It’s more than a little ironic, but WebMD isn’t looking too healthy; the company has cut its 2008 financial outlook.  On the bright side, there’s a possibility that this is only WebMD’s problem, as opposed to something representative of the online economy.

The economy’s not good, and the powers that be at Penton Media seem sure it’s going to grow worse.  As a result, the company will not grant raises or hire new employees, and it’s looking for other places to save money, as well.

I had my next few purchases all planned out – a nice alarm clock, a new TV, and a big bookcase.  Then signs of a recession began to pile on, and setting aside extra mortgage payments started to seem like the better idea.  Many companies are thinking similarly.

An interesting article in the New York Times today – Is It a Recession? Marketers Seem to Think So – highlights how that the marketing industry is ramping up spending, even if this might be a recession (and, well, we cannot say we are in a recession yet, according to statistics).

According to the article:

As financial commentary continues to suggest a recession is inevitable, we’ve decided to run a series of blog posts detailing ways small businesses can leverage the power of search engine and online marketing to weather the recession storm.

In this month’s Target Marketing Magazine, a TopRank authored article on how small businesses can gain a competitive marketing advantage by leveraging content promotion, blogs, social media and universal search was featured.

It should be the Frau Blucher of words and if we believe in that marketing genius that was "The Secret" we shouldn’t dare throw it out there. Nonetheless, the braver the media gets at using the "r" word, the more people are searching for it.

Thus, they’re all putting the energy out there like seeds and are waiting to reap the harvest.

Recession. There, I said it, now let’s get on with it.

Whether it’s true or not, we’ve heard it again and again: online advertising will do all right in a recession.  Now there’s more evidence to support the statement, and also a sign that a new-ish factor – the writers’ strike – is helping online ads.

How did I miss this post by Steve Rubel? Tired of doomsaying in the Web 2.0 bubble realm, he recently predicted an impending recession for poor old Google, based on several factors.

I think most of us can agree that an economic recession would be bad.  But not everyone – and everything – would be affected in the same way, and at least one expert onlooker thinks Google would benefit.