by Claudine Zap Amidst all the stories coming out of Vancouver this week, this one almost got lost: " Growing Pains " actor Andrew Koenig is missing. Apparently the TV star was visiting friends in West Vancouver when he disappeared . He was last seen on February 14 at a bakery in the Stanley Park area. Koenig played a kid during his recurring role as Boner for the 80s sit-com, but he's 41 now. So why all the concern?

German objections to Street View date back at least a year and a half, and by all accounts, Google still hasn't come close to convincing the German government that the program is harmless. Just the same, Google's announced its intention to move forward with Street View in Germany within the next 10 months. Google almost seems to have given up on the idea of discussing the matter. The AFP reported this afternoon that Arnd Haller, the head of Google's legal team in Germany,

The Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative, an advocacy group, said today it supports the introduction of legislation by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Judd Gregg (R-NH) that includes provisions to legalize and regulate Internet gambling under the "Bipartisan Tax Fairness and Simplification Act of 2010. "With so much media focus on the differences between Democrats and Republicans in Congress,

by Mike Krumboltz A little while back, when the Snowpocalypse hit the Eastern United States, a traveler was stuck overnight at the Pittsburgh airport. Rather than twiddle her thumbs or play Tetris on her phone, she decided to make a movie. As far as we know, it's untitled, but we like to call it "Making the Best of a Bad Situation." Check it out below.

Two fine articles on search engine technology landed in our laps to noodle over this week. One piece focuses on Google and the other Microsoft's Bing platform. Both deal with the artful but dodgy practice of disambiguation, or tuning search algorithms to parse semantics. Folks, I mean the difference between Apple, the company and apple, the fruit. Humans get this stuff pretty easily (we hope). Computers don't. Let's start with the Google item from Wired ,

Hello, Here are the most viewed adCenter API topics on MSDN for January 2010. Microsoft adCenter API Microsoft adCenter API Programming Reference Microsoft adCenter Web Service Addresses Cashback Rebate Program Introducing Microsoft adCenter API   WSDL Overview What's New in the SDK for the Microsoft adCenter API   Developing with the Microsoft adCenter API Getting Started with the Microsoft adCenter API Microsoft adCenter API Overview Thank you.

As reliable and useful a marketing tool as email's proven to be in the past, it'll be better than ever in the future, according to one expert. The Director of eMarketing Education at ExactTarget explained during a session at OMS how things are changing and how marketers can continue to use email to their advantage. (Coverage of the Online Marketing Summit 2010 continues at WebProNews Videos . Keep an eye on WebProNews for more notes and videos from the event this week.

Online Marketing Summit 2010 in San Diego is host to a smorgasboard of internet marketing topics and this afternoon I am priveledged to participate on a panel about Social Media. Panelists include: Chris Baggott, CEO, Compendium Blogware Lee Odden, CEO, TopRank Online Marketing Michael Senger, CEO & Founder, StoneMass Caitlin McCabe, Founder, WhiteLabel Marketing Ben Hanna, VP Marketing, Business.com That's a lot of people for a panel,

We've just added a new search suggestion feature in Web search for Yahoo! Taiwan (Yahoo! Kimo). This feature helps users easily enter queries in traditional Chinese in the search box using the Zhuyin (Bopomofo) system. Zhuyin is a phonetic system widely used in Taiwan. When Taiwan users type their queries, they often need to switch the language input method from English mode to Chinese mode, taking several clicks before they can enter the query.

Twitter is testing an ad platform, which is expected to be released next month, possibly at the South By Southwest event in Austin. Though the timing of the release has not been confirmed, Twitter's head of product management and monetization, Anamitra Banerji, told MediaPost that they "are working on an ad platform, but it's only in the test phase." According to Banerji, when Twitter does launch the product, it will make it clear when sponsors have paid for ads,