Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer believes the online advertising market will reach $40 billion this year and grow to $80 billion by 2010. Last year, Microsoft earned only $2 billion from it. Google claimed $8 billion. This disparity upsets Ballmer and so he's put his man Kevin Johnson to the task of remedying the situation. Since most of Google's revenues come from search marketing, Johnson's first plan is to acquire more search queries for Microsoft. Hence the bid to acquire Yahoo, or at least its search business. But Johnson knows more search queries for Microsoft won't unseat Google alone, and so his second step is convince advertisers that Google's search advertising isn't worth all the money they spend on it. To make that argument, Johnson will rely on a tool Microsoft acquired when it purchased aQuantive last year: engagement mapping, a system that will tell vendors which ads consumers saw on the Web before they purchased a product.

Here at Valleywag, we feel that readers deserve to be in on the gossip between reporters at the local watering hole. Why can't the same principle apply to our IM conversations? Here's one I had with AdWeek's Brian Morrissey. Topics include engagement mapping, the food crises and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and why search is overrated.