Several months ago we passed judgment on "conscious" rapper Common—he's fundamentally a tool. Not for his music, which is cool enough, but because he merrily goes around selling himself as a pitchman for everything from Smirnoff to GAP, while simultaneously yapping on and on about his true devotion to hip hop and love and art and The Corner and acting like these "brand partnerships" somehow represent something deeper than just a paycheck. It's incredibly grating. Like his outfits. Well, now Common is speaking out (to Ad Age, appropriately) about how he's totally keeping it real by selling product placement spots in a video for his new song called—wait for it—"Universal Mind Control." Tell us, how dead is irony?:

Forget Facebook's controversial redesign. Users of the social network have something new to complain about: third-rate Web search, provided by Microsoft. The two moves are connected; when ad-hating CEO Mark Zuckerberg forced through the revamp of Facebook's profile pages, he bumped Microsoft-sold banners off of them. To make Microsoft whole, Facebook agreed to a search-advertising deal. You know it must burn Facebook's proud engineers — those who haven't left — to partner with an organization that has done nothing but lose market share for years.

Microsoft's Department of Losing Money — the Xbox and Zune division — has reportedly frozen hiring. [Silicon Alley Insider]

Fifteen million people are estimated to be eligible for a class-action lawsuit filed against Microsoft, because they bought "Vista Capable" PCs that can only be upgraded to the most Basic version of the new operating system. I have one — it lacks a graphics card powerful enough to run Vista's slick Aero interface. I'd have to install a bigger power supply before I could add the necessary graphics card. The lawsuit's backers have a clever idea: In addition to ads in USA Today, they want to send out a high-priority Windows Update that notifies PC owners about the lawsuit, and requires them to click the notice. Microsoft says they can't identify individual purchasers well enough to contact each one directly. Too bad — they could've sent us all junk mail about the lawsuit, and we'd have thrown it away.

♦ Rachael Ray's mammogram is scheduled for tomorrow. And you'll be able to watch it go down if you tune into her show. [NYDN]
♦ The New Yorker just issued its endorsement of Barack Obama. Bet you're really surprised. [NYer]
♦ CNBC hit an all-time record the day the Dow dropped 777 points. [MCN]
♦ ABC's lineup of new shows isn't off to a very good start this season. [THR]
♦ Why Microsoft's ads with Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld was a flop and Apple's "I'm a PC" ad has been a success. [AdAge]
♦ Newark's Star-Ledger is hanging on, but barely. [AP]
♦ As the economy turns south, marketers are turning up the volume and going after their competitors. [WSJ]
♦ Donna Tartt is leaving Knopf for Little, Brown. [Galleycat]
♦ The new, ad-covered subway cars... revealed! [NYT]

This morning, Steve Ballmer promised Windows Cloud, a set of Web-based applications that would enable "light editing" of MS Office docs and who knows what else — he didn't say. It's probably no coincidence that Amazon announced its own sort of Windows Cloud today: Customers will be able to run Windows Server and SQL Server via Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). Amazon CTO Werner Vogels blogged an explanation:

Windows Cloud, outlined briefly by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at a conference in London this morning, is a separate project from Windows 7, the successor to Vista. Ballmer didn't say much, claiming he didn't want to spoil the official announcement. But he made it clear that sorry, no, Microsoft won't be moving to a fully browser-based version of its Office applications. Rather, Windows Cloud will let road warriors do what Ballmer called "light editing" at, say, a public Internet workstation or kiosk. Ballmer dubbed the concept "software plus services," as opposed to a full software-as-a-service product. Sounds like the plan is to do just enough to keep Office customers from switching to Google Docs. (Photo by AFP/Artyom Korotayev)

Charles Simonyi, the Microsoft billionaire who paid $25 million for a 13-day stay on the International Space Station in April 2007, plans to return on another Russian rocket in 2009, says Virginia-based Space Adventures, which didn't say how much he was spending this time. Simonyi, who made his money helping Microsoft develop Excel as well as word, had been dating Martha Stewart for 15 years before they broke up in February; he's now engaged to Lisa Persdotter, a 28-year-old Swede, according to reports. Is she more tolerant of his rocketing career?

Apple made developers who wanted to write applications for the iPhone sign a non-disclosure agreement that was rigorous it even forbade them from publishing Apple's letters rejecting their app from its iTunes store. More seriously, the NDA also prevented developers from learning from each others mistakes and publishers from writing how-to manuals for would-be application developers. So after loud complaints, Apple today announced it would drop the non-disclosure agreement for released iPhone software. Developers rejoiced. Explaining the need for the NDA in the first place, Apple also landed a few only slightly veiled jabs at an old rival, Microsoft. I couldn't help but be reminded of a scene from Pirates of Silicon Valley, which I've embedded below.

Microsoft's Live Search Cashback program isn't winning Microsoft search market share, so the company today launched SearchPerks, a program to give users prizes for using Microsoft search. Use Microsoft search for 4 days and get a ringtone. Use it for 10 days and get 100 frequent flyer miles. Use it for 7 months and get a new xBox controller. The catch: you have to use Internet Explorer and open a Windows Live account. People don't bother bending at the waist to pick up pennies off the sidewalk anymore, so like Cashback, SearchPerks and free ringtones probably aren't going to increase Microsoft's search market share. But because you have to install something called a "Perk Counter," which tracks some of your online behavior, SearchPerks could help Microsoft come out with more studies saying how important brand advertising is compared to Google-dominated search marketing.

Apparently there's a major financial meltdown of tech stocks happening that's going to crush the US economy. Or something. I don't know, I'm not daytrader, In fact, I only buy the stocks listed by default on my iPhone because I don't know how to add new symbols. But the issue is apparently important enough for Microsoft to weigh in. Well today's featured commenter, macbeach, has managed to notice a peculiar pattern:

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and his online services lieutenant Kevin Johnson couldn't finish the Yahoo merger negotiations they started on January 31. Microsoft's annual filings reveal the pair will pay for their failure with their bonuses. Johnson, who left the company in July, was promised a bonus between 97 percent and 100 percent of his salary and will earn only 97 percent. Ballmer, who was promised a bonus between 100 percent and 200 percent of his salary, earned a 109 percent bonus. Oh, to be a mediocre CEO and failed strategist at Microsoft: Though it's down a bit from last year, Johnson still earned $6.8 million in total compensation. Ballmer pulled a total of of $1.35 million on the year and still owns billions worth of Microsoft stock. (Photo by AP/Sarbach)

"Financial issues are going to affect both business spending and consumer spending, and particularly ... spending by the financial services industry," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told reporters at a news conference in Oslo earlier today. That's a reversal from his claim last week that tech sector worriers were probably watching too much CNBC. On the last day of the sales quarter, the always-bouncy Ballmer was refreshingly blunt: "Whatever happens economically will certainly effect itself on Microsoft." (Photo by AP/Erlend Aas)

Turns out the tech industry is not immune from the Wall Street meltdown. Apple stock dropped 16 percent yesterday. RIM, Google, Nokia and Yahoo share prices also saw double-digit drops. Yahoo shares hit a five-year low, down 10.8 percent to $16.88. Microsoft shares stayed less than five percent below the markets open until Congress failed to pass a bailout plan. The closed at $25.01, down 8.7 percent. The drop seems to have panicked Microsoft a bit, which did the only thing it could do when there was nothing for it to do: issue a statement. "Microsoft strongly urges members of the U.S. House of Representatives to reconsider and to support legislation that will re-instill confidence and stability in the financial markets," said Brad Smith, Microsoft's top lawyer. "This legislation is vitally important to the health and preservation of jobs in all sectors of the economy of Washington State and the nation, and we urge Congress to act swiftly." If it would help, we're certain Mr. Smith is willing to promise a cherry on top.

Yusuf Mehdi, a longtime Microsoft dealmaker (read: geek who looks good in a tie), is now running marketing and product management for MSN and search. But there's still no one in charge of Microsoft's entire portfolio of Web businesses. [BoomTown]

While mobile handset designer Nokia may be dedicated to the Symbian operating system, that doesn't keep company reps from attending the latest developer conference for Google's Android. And shortly after that report, the jQuery team issued a press release naming both Microsoft and Nokia as benefactors of the javascript library as a tool for mobile software applications. Who knew the scandanavian cell phone manufacturer was a polyamorist? Certainly a lot more excitement than regularly afforded to fifteen kilobytes of code. (Photo by Joe Loong)

Matt Marshall, the founder of tech-startups blog VentureBeat, is a former newspaperman. As such, he's handwringingly scrupulous about his ethics. In a recent story about Glam Media's layoffs, he included this disclaimer: "Disclosure: VentureBeat recently employed a business manager who was related to one of Glam’s cofounders. However, he no longer works at VentureBeat." Why not name names?Shown above is Jacob Mullins, the manager in question. He started at Microsoft last week, but is still listed as VentureBeat's ad-sales contact on the site. We take that to mean Marshall has yet to find a replacement. Odd: Marshall seems eager to explain a now-irrelevant personal connection that couldn't possibly prejudice his reporting. But he's reluctant to come out and state the obvious: He's lost the only guy bringing in money for his blog. That's worth disclosing. Matt, consider this a gratis job listing.

The fantasy that someone will buy AOL from Time Warner in a complicated deal is getting even AOL CEO Randy Falco hot and bothered. A tipster told Silicon Alley Insider that Falco recently fumed, "When is New York going to sell us?" And to whom? "Sources close to AOL" told VentureBeat's Matt Marshall that Microsoft plans to aquire both Yahoo and AOL after those companies merge. We planned to give you a 100-word version of Marshall's story, but seven paragraphs in, we realized it made no sense.Here's our theory: Some executives at Time Warner bent Marshall's ear in an effort to drive up AOL's price. Or rather, prop it up. Recent reports suggest Yahoo wants to pay $5 billion for all of AOL, only months after deal chatter put the price more in the $10 billion range. When Google bought its 5 percent stake in AOL in 2005, it valued the company at $20 billion.

This much is provable: G.ho.st, a hosted service that dubs itself the Global Hosted Operating SysTem, uses a slogan, "No Walls." Microsoft's new Seinfeld-powered Windows campaign pushes several slogans, including "Imagine No Walls." Sleep-deprived superreporter Kara Swisher tells us the G.ho.st gang claims trademark infringement on a pending trademark for "No walls." Our attempts to pull G.ho.st's trademark entry from the United States Patent and Trademark Office's searchable database returned no matches to G.ho.st's claim. Ball in your court, G.ho.st.ers — post your USPTO documentation in the comments, or it didn't happen.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told a meeting of Silicon Valley civic leaders yesterday that despite Wall Street's woes, the tech sector continues to thrive. "Our industry is not immune to what goes on in the global economy. And yet as I travel, given the current circumstances, people still see a certain buoyancy in the market," Ballmer said. Microsoft doesn't report its quarterly earnings until next week.Perhaps catching himself before he ran afoul of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Ballmer made sure to tell reporters he wasn't meaning to preview the numbers with his comments. "We are one week from the end of the quarter, so I have nothing all that interesting to say," he joked. One company we know he wasn't referring to: Blackberry maker RIM, which investors killed yesterday after it posted disappointing sales.