Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU), China's leading search engine, sold off during Monday's after-hours session after the earnings report for the third quarter was issued. When you're a theoretical growth company like Baidu, missing estimates on the guidance side is never a good thing to do.

Nevertheless, Baidu delivered in Q3 itself. Sales skyrocketed 39%. Net income per share exploded over 40% to the upside, coming in at $2.07 per share on a GAAP basis. Adjusting for items, the company earned $2.16 per share. Earnings.com gives an expectation of $1.81 for per-share profit.

Internet giant Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) sent out invitations to 100,000 developers to come in a test the waters of its newest creation, Google Wave.

Unfortunately, for most of us, since the service is being offered on an invitation only basis, we will have to wait a bit longer to see what Google Wave is all about, but it does seem to offer some really nice features that will probably become very popular with internet users.

Shares of online retailer Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) are trading a bit higher this afternoon after being upgraded today by Susquehanna Financial.

Susquehanna Financial analyst Marianne Wolk raised her rating on the stock this morning to a "positive" from a "neutral" rating and put a $100 price target on the company. The stock is currently trading up 1.7% on the day to $76.91, up $1.28.

Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU), a Chinese equity dedicated to internet search, has been one hot stock. As of this writing, shares of the company are up over 90% over the three-month frame! Talk about being in the green. And this is a stock that closed on Monday at $224.86.

Baidu reported Q1 earnings after the bell yesterday, and the release was full of high growth rates (the growth rates should be high considering the run-up of the stock). Revenues increased over 40%, operating profit went up by over 30%, and net profit rose over 20%. On a per-share, adjusted basis, Baidu delivered 86 cents per share for its investors, beating analysts' expectations by two pennies.

Online auction giant eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) is going to be reporting its first quarter earnings today following the market close, and analysts are looking to see the company show 33 cents per share for the quarter.

eBay has been working hard to weather the current economic storm, but has a lot of work ahead of it.

Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO), a web portal whose colleagues include Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) AOL, reported Q1 numbers after the bell on Tuesday. According to an earnings preview done by colleague Mark Fightmaster, Wall Street was counting on something along the lines of 8 cents per share. Well, on a non-GAAP basis, Yahoo! earned 15 cents per share. Not bad.

Unfortunately, Yahoo! made three pennies more on the same adjusted basis in last year's similar quarter. Furthermore, revenues, adjusted for currency effects, dropped 8%. Oh, and one more thing. Free cash flow decreased over 60%.

Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) has had an impressive run as of late. The stock is up by a double-digit percentage over the year-to-date period. At the time of this writing, shares have gained 6.8% in afternoon trading on decent volume.

According to this CNET article, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is once again the catalyst for the rise in Yahoo!'s fortunes. Are you, like I, getting sick and tired of the drama between these two tech companies? Now, I know today's news isn't about an all-out takeover/merger or anything like that, but still, if I read Microsoft and Yahoo! in the same sentence again, I think I'll scream. Anyway, CNET is reporting that the two are in talks about an advertising partnership.

The Internet, or its latest version known as Web 2.0, is still too young to make any sweeping statements (also known as informed conclusions) about its impact on print U.S. newspapers.

Still, we know that newspaper readership among adults - - and among young adults ages 18-25 in particular - - decreased after the Internet came into being.

But here's a little fact you rarely hear about: newspaper readership was declining even before the Internet started transforming businesses and lives in the 1990s.

That said, it is clear that some newspapers will not survive as the Internet progresses. Further, almost all will have to substantially modify their print business models to remain viable. Many, if not most, will have to specialize in some way, or otherwise develop some niche, to retain utility.

Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO), which competes with Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), and Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) AOL, reported Q4 stats after the bell on Tuesday. They were pretty dismal, but expectations were bea t. Revenues dipped by 1%, and earnings per share on an adjusted basis were $0.17. According to Wall Street's view, Yahoo! was only supposed to earn $0.13. A four-penny beat on the bottom line is a pretty good thing.

Or is it in this case? I would argue it's no big deal. I mean, we are talking about Yahoo! here, and there's a new CEO on the job, Carol Bartz. She replaced the disaster known as Jerry Yang. Considering that there's a new regime, you can't really rely on this beat as a proper indicator for what's to come.

For a long time now, when it comes to search engines, Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) has been the king of the hill, and a new survey shows that Google extended its lead once again during August, taking valuable traffic away from its main competitors Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT).

According to comScore, Google increased its dominance during August by attracting 63% of all search engine traffic, up from 61.9% during the month of July. comScore's data was based on 11.7 billion searches in the month, and shows that Yahoo and Microsoft are still unable to tap into the valuable search engine traffic that Google maintains.

Yahoo scored a very distant second place, with 19.6% of all search engine traffic. This was a drop of 0.9% from its July figures. Third place goes to Microsoft, who scored 8.3% of search engine traffic during the month, down 0.6% from the previous month.

According to this article, advertisers who use the Internet to get their message across may not like Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) Internet Explorer 8 beta. That's because the software giant is incorporating technology into the browser that will make it harder for data collection that could be used to target ads. In addition, the browser will be able to block some ads entirely, as well as block content from another website from appearing on the current site a user is viewing. The rationale for the latter is that the outside website could be capturing data on the user's habits.

All this adds up, in my mind, to a legitimate fear for advertisers. Look, I'm like anyone else. I don't want a lot of data collection going on. But, there are basically only two ways for companies like Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) to make money off web content: engage a subscription model, or utilize ad platforms to monetize eyeballs. The Internet has proven to be very resistant to subscription models. Sure, some do work to great success. For the most part, however, surfers don't want to have to throw a credit-card number into a form to be able to see content. It just doesn't work. They want unfettered access to sites. If this is to be the case going forward, then highly-targeted ads are going to play an increasing role in the solution to monetization challenges. Web sites aren't like cable channels, which have the dual revenue streams of subscriber fees and ad sales.

And, keep in mind that the companies mentioned above aren't the only ones who rely on targeted ads. How about Disney (NYSE: DIS)? News Corp. (NYSE: NWS)? Viacom (NYSE: VIA)? They all have major Internet strategies that utilize ad revenues. And let's not forget the incredible irony here. Mr. Softy has its own Internet strategy that needs ads to survive. I guess it's a tough position to be in: the designers want to enhance the attractiveness of Internet Explorer to users by helping them avoid the very thing that powers, in part, shareholder value for the maker of Internet Explorer. A conundrum, to be sure. I personally hope a solution can be found that will allow advertisers to continue selling their wares. I don't find advertising to be evil. I think it's a great industry that serves an important function in the economy. Microsoft had better consider that.

Disclosure: I own Disney; positions can change at any time.

Some investors/readers probably are not aware that the internet -- critical as it is today for commercial activities and the flow of information -- was not designed to handle the volume and complexity of today's web tasks. Moreover, the appearance of internet traffic jams created an opportunity for Akamai Technologies.

Akamai Technologies (NASDAQ: AKAM) solutions accelerate and improve the delivery of internet content and applications.

Analysts like Akamai's broad 1,800-member customer base, including many blue-chip companies. Further, analysts also like the fact that AKAM has continued to deliver material revenue increases and earnings gains, despite expansion/infrastructure investments.

Further, the consensus among analysts is that 28,000-server Akamai will continue to have a competitive advantage in its key business segments for at least the next two years. The Reuters F2008/F2009 EPS consensus estimates for AKAM are $1.68/$2.04.

Alibaba more than doubled on its first day of trading in Hong Kong today. After the trading day ended, Alibaba took its place as Asia's second largest Internet company behind Yahoo! Japan. All in, Alibaba is now valued at over $23 billion.

With shareholders including Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) and Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO), Alibaba joins other high-flying Asian IPOs in 2007. I wrote briefly yesterday about the PetroChina (NYSE: PTR) IPO, which after it saw its value triple, is now the world's first trillion dollar company.

Part of what makes the Alibaba IPO so interesting is the firm's growth prospects. China's largest Web trading site for companies predicts profit will almost triple this year on increased spending in the world's fastest growing major economy.

Are you an entertaining person? Are you a visual story teller? Can you capture an audiences attention and make them respond to you? If you think you have what it takes to create interest, incite and entertain, then there are options open to you. Don't just tell me you're an artist. Grab your video camera and prove it on Metacafe.

Metacafe is not just another video sharing website. Metacafe has something for you. Cold hard cash awaits the future producer of indie films. As of this writing, the top earning video on Metacafe has pulled $26,683. Note that it has taken about two and a half years to do that. Still though, that's not a bad return on less than four minutes of video. Other vid-clips on the site have generated between $3,000 and $8,000 for their creators. While not an amount that you could live on, it's still real money which could help pay the bills.

I myself have several ideas that I'd like to try in pursuit of Internet-based revenue generation. I do call myself an artist and I have the ability to make people sit up and take notice. What I don't have is a high-speed Internet connection...

I guess my gay version of Gumby will have to wait a while longer... and his pony pal Pokie will too.

Breaking up is hard to do. But these days it's a little easier, thanks to a new concept -- the e-breakup -- the use of email or instant messaging to break off relationships.

As described in the Boston Globe, it looks to me like the e-breakup makes things much easier for the message sender -- the e-breakuper -- and not that much harder for the receiver --- the e-breakupee.

The e-breakuper is much better off -- saving the time spent delivering the message and facing the e-breakupee's suffering. Meanwhile the e-breakupee is a little worse off -- missing out on a last chance to see and lay a guilt trip on the e-breakuper.

There's no putting the e-breakup genie back in the bottle. And there's no doubt it's changing how relationships work.

Have you been an e-breakuper or e-breakupee? Is it better or worse?