With a goal of crafting "media sensible" communications, Publicis agency Denuo has launched a new practice called Alchemy. "Alchemy isn't a unit or division, it's really a practice within the group we've now formalized," said Saneel Radia, VP and alchemist at Denuo.

Due to initiatives to reduce work hours and overtime, compensation expenses for the US Postal Service dropped by $247 million — or about 2.5% — in the third quarter compared to the same period last year, according to a financial report that the USPS has filed with the Postal Regulatory Commission.

Technology companies increased their paid search marketing spend with Yahoo in the second quarter of 2008, according to a recent report by Covario. "Since the beginning of 2007, Yahoo had been consistently losing market share to Google," said Craig Macdonald, VP of marketing and product management at Covario.

Yahoo has released more information about its non-exclusive ad services agreement with Google, in a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing dated August 8.

In an effort to be more transparent to users, Google last week released a feature that shows users how their search results are customized.

In response to concerns from the mailing community, the US Postal Service said today that it will support an additional price incentive for mailers who adopt the full service Intelligent Mail barcode (IMB) option.

Yahoo announced today that it plans to provide users with the ability to opt-out of receiving targeted, customized advertising on all of its properties. The change is scheduled to go into effect by the end of August, according to Kelley Benander, a Yahoo spokeswoman.

Search engine use continues to grow, with 49% of Internet users saying they use search engines on a typical day, according to a Pew Internet & American Life Project report released this week.

Publicis' Farrell discusses his view of direct agencies.

The Publicis Groupe has reached an agreement with Google to acquire the Performics search marketing business. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.