It certainly is good to see Microsoft working the innovation thing, especially in the consumer space with its Bing search service.

The ultimate goal is to gain market share for Bing, from striking deals with hotter companies like Twitter and Facebook to doing a massive advertising and marketing campaign to making constant feature upgrades.

This is one of those weeks for Bing, with the launch of a spate of new features that show a lot of chutzpah.

But whether all this will spell significant changes in market share compared to dominant rival Google is still an open question.

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While sales of Windows 7 are doing well, Apple is continuing to slap the Microsoft operating system software around.

There was a bunch of mean-spirited “Get a Mac” ads right when Windows 7 was released in late October, stressing consumers dying to switch to Apple when faced with the prospect of upgrading their Microsoft software.

Now there is a name for them: “PC Switchers.” It sounds a little naughty.

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RealNetworks just lobbed its appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals in the case revolving around its DVD-copying software, RealDVD.

A U.S. District judge issued a preliminary injunction against RealNetworks in August to stop sales, and renewed it in October.

In the appeal, which is embedded after the jump, RealNetworks said the judge was using the wrong legal standard and more.

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Hollywood is selling the end times hard this week with the opening of “2012,” a blockbuster-style movie about the last days of the world for humanity.

Apparently, we were warned!

It’s based on junk theories about how the 5,125-year-long Mayan Long Count calendar ends on Dec. 21, 2012, which can only mean that so goes the universe.

So, until the apocalypse, enjoy the trailers.

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Guess what? It’s yet another online company going gaga over Twitter integration–this time LinkedIn is announcing a partnership with the microblogging service.

Microsoft and Google recently announced various ways they were lacing their various services with Twitter’s feed, mostly around search.

Here is an adorkable video about it with LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman and Twitter’s Biz Stone.

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Google has acquired AdMob for $750 million, a huge price for an innovative start-up that hass pioneered online ads on mobile and now smart phones.

BoomTown visited AdMob last fall and posted about how it was likely to eventually be acquired by…Google!

The move is a major one for the search giant, which has been pushing hard into the mobile advertising space as it seeks to grow its already considerable Web business. AdMob is arguably the fastest out of the gate in the nascent arena.

Plus, here’s AdMob CEO Omar Hamoui in a video interview with me last November, as well as the official press release on the sale.

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ABC certainly has been taking its sweet time in releasing the first episode of “V,” a sci-fi television series that debuted earlier this week on the Web in any substantial way.

The premiere of a redo of a 1980s miniseries about a lizardy alien invasion disguised as a peace mission by outerspace hotties turned out to be a big broadcast hit, but it is hard to watch online.

Until tomorrow, that is.

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Today, All Things Digital debuts a new feature called “Almost Famous” in our Voices section.

No, it is not about Kate Hudson and nascent rock stars.

Well, you might meet geek rock stars to be.

Focused on innovative, interesting or just plain odd start-ups, we thought it was a good way for our readers to get a gander at some up-and-coming ideas and trends. It will be penned by Drake Martinet every Friday.

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Tony Conrad, CEO and co-founder of Sphere–the contextually relevant content engine AOL bought in the spring of 2008 for upward of $25 million–left the Time Warner online unit last month, several sources have told BoomTown in recent weeks.

But, in an effort by AOL’s CEO Tim Armstrong to hold onto entrepreneurial talent, Conrad has agreed to become “Special Advisor” to its AOL Ventures Unit.

Apparently, he is also mulling a new start-up and remains a VC too.

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Here is a video interview BoomTown did with Bob Visse, GM of MSN Product Management today at Microsoft’s offices in San Francisco.

The new MSN homepage debuts tonight with a redesign cutting clutter, adding the ability to access both Facebook and Twitter, a local focus and with Microsoft’s new Bing search service everywhere.

Also, some Microsoft interviews with MSN staff about the changes.

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Longtime Yahoo tech leader Ash Patel is taking some time off until early 2010.

Yahoo confirmed the break to BoomTown.

In recent days, some inside the company had mistakenly thought the 44-year-old EVP for Product Architecture & Strategy was departing the company for good.

Actually, it’s more of a sabbatical for Patel.

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Here’s the new trailer for the upcoming videogame-to-live-action Disney fantasy adventure movie, “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.”

It still looks an awful lot like a videogame and is chock full of special effects–but the adaptation also seems to feature much in the way of shirtlessness and mascara-wearing on the part of star Jake Gyllenhaal.

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BoomTown is not quite sure what to think of another new advertising campaign from an Internet giant–this time by eBay.

With the tagline, “Come to Think of It, eBay,” the print, television and online marketing campaign starts today to “boost its standing as a holiday shopping destination.”

Interestingly, the ads have been crafted by San Francisco-based Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, which has also just nabbed the lead role in the $100 million advertising campaign by Yahoo.

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Now, BoomTown likes a good jingle as much as anyone else, but this new one from Microsoft’s Bing search service is sticking in my head like a piece of chewed gum.

Shot at Keith Valley Middle School in Horsham, Pa., it uses 400 very adorable sixth graders, who are dragooned into one very large “Bing Goes the Internet” dance–complete with logo wear. The kids rock, the jingle not so much.

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While Nicki Dugan (pictured here) was not one of the top execs at Yahoo, she certainly is typical of many at the company who stuck with it through many ups and downs.

No longer, according to a memo BoomTown obtained, since the longtime PR staffer–who has been at Yahoo for almost a decade and who was previously with an outside public relations firm that worked for Yahoo–will leave the company Monday.

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