Msn.co.nz reported record page impressions for January up 16% month-on-month to December and 32% year-on-year (to January), it was announced this week.

The site recorded on average two million page impressions a day during January (a first for the company) and 44.3 million impressions for the month.

MSN’s entertainment and travel categories were responsible for a significant chunk of the site’s activity taking in 13.2 million page impressions for January.

Yahoo might have just posted another dismal worldwide result, and announced plans to dismiss 5% of its workforce (some of whom are “not f****** doing anything”, according to sailor-mouthed new chief executive Carol Bartz).

But figures filed with the Companies Office show that Yahoo!Xtra had buoyant time of it on the New Zealand market.

After a 78% profit fall, Yahoo is to lay off a further 5% of its workforce. Investors hope the poor result will help push Yahoo into an advertising alliance or merger with Microsoft.

In the wake of its poor quarterly result announced this morning, Yahoo has announced plans to cull 675 workers, or 5% of a workforce already trimmed by 2500 last year.

The search giant has unveiled a new “behavioural targeting” feature for websites on its AdSense network – matching a similar service launched by YahooXtra in New Zealand last month, and enraging privacy advocates.

It’s old hat to match context-sensitive text ads to the article, or video, that a web surfer is currently watching.

Google's shares have climbed 8% after hours on news the search giant is defying the slump. Yahoo zoomed 15% following comments by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer that his company acquiring Yahoo "would make economic sense".

For Q3, Google's profit rose 35% to 1.35 billion on revenue that was up 39% to $US5.54 billion.

However, the company has already put the brakes on, says CEO Eric Schmidt, as the global economy enters what he says is "uncharted territory".