In the last year, generic searches for e-readers have doubled, while Kindle-related searches have increased eight fold. With the smaller, sleeker and cheaper Kindle 3 now available Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) looks set to further capitalise on its position as a market leader in the e-reader market.

Is Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) changing its approach to online spending? The company, which had said as recently as a year ago that it was willing to invest 5 percent to 10 percent of its operating income on its search business for up to five years, wasn’t willing to spend enough to become AOL’s search partner. In fact, Microsoft’s bid wasn’t even competitive enough to bring negotiations down to the wire—and AOL chose Google as its partner months before its contract with the company was even up.

Inflection, an under-the-radar startup which owns genealogy website Archives.com, has raised $30 million in a first round of funding. The company charges users $39.95 a year to access historical records and build their own family trees on the site and it is apparently doing very well, despite competition from sites like Ancestry.com.

Any search deal with AOL (NYSE: AOL) would start with the same given: search-advertising revenue will continue to decline as it loses access subscribers. But AOL CEO Tim Armstrong says the deal with Google to extend their search partnership through 2015 should make each search it does get more lucrative—and the expansion into mobile and video makes it a better deal than the current one.

“This is a better deal for us on a per search basis. It should be a better search and better monetized,” Armstrong told paidContent in an interview after this morning’s surprising announcement. He’s frank about the situation—“Search decline is going to continue and part of our search revenue will go down.” But he’s also optimistic that the improvements can help AOL make enough money from the “free web” to make a difference. “At some point in the future they should even out,” he said.

Even if newspapers migrate every print reader to paying online, they will still face big losses, according to one analyst.

Annual income per paywall subscriber on TheTimes.co.uk and WSJ.com is just a quarter that from subscribers to UK quality dailies’ print editions, Enders Analysis’ Benedict Evans observes in a new note.

Ending months of speculation about whether AOL (NYSE: AOL) and Google (NSDQ: GOOG) can make a new search deal, the companies announced this morning that Google will be the portal’s exclusive search partner through Dec. 31, 2015. The expanded search and content deal now covers mobile search and puts AOL’s content on YouTube.

Some of the stories people are talking about this morning:

»  Disney (NYSE: DIS) content has remained on Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) even though the companies’ cable and broadcast deal has expired and they continue talks. [LA Times]

»  Twitter for iPad is now available, offering panes and inline video viewing to eliminate the need to open and close windows. [Twitter Blog]

Ping, the social network Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) announced on Wednesday it’s injecting in to iTunes, is rudimentary, buggy in parts and is deterring many first-time users by recommending they listen to Apple’s hand-picked selection of mainstream chart-toppers.

If you want to own Glee episodes at a cut-rate price, better get your Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) downloads fast. The e-tailer is countering Apple’s 99-cent rentals from ABC (NYSE: DIS) and Fox by selling some TV episodes at a loss. Amazon still has to pay the contracted rates for electronic sell-throughs (EST), according to sources familiar with the situation, and the networks still have deals with Amazon, Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and other distributors that make a switch to 99-cent EST as the rule highly unlikely anytime soon. One source described the price-slashing as a “big loss” although the actual number depends on how many take advantage—and how long Amazon sticks with the lower rate.

Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) today announced a slew of new products and features on its phone, music and video viewing offerings. Check out a visual tour of Steve Jobs’ presentation, as well as our coverage, below:

Here’s a quick way to learn about the small, black second-gen Apple TV introduced by CEO Steve Jobs at the Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) 09.01.10 event:

»  How much does it cost? The device is $99, nearly a 67 percent cut from the original $299 price for the first Apple TV and nearly 57 percent from the current $229. Remote is included; cables are not.

»  How big is it it? It’s 0.9” high, 3.9” wide and 3.9 inches deep. For comparison, iPhone 4 is 4.5” x 2.31” x 0.37”; the new Nano is 1.48” x 1.61” x 0.35”

»  How much does it weigh? 0.6 lbs, slightly more than the iPhone 4 at 4.8 oz.