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Google announced plans to give AdSense publishers a new way to generate revenue by allowing multiple Google-certified ad networks to compete for display ad space on their sites.

“You may remember that we began to accept display ads served from qualified third-party vendors over a year ago, which helped increase the number of display ads competing on AdSense publisher sites,” says Google Business Product Manager Sean Harvey. “With this new change, participating ad networks can also bid in our auction to appear on AdSense sites. This new capability will help you generate the most profit for every ad that appears on your site, whether the ads come from AdWords advertisers or Google-certified ad networks.”

The networks themselves are ad agencies and companies that partner with advertisers and publishers to buy and sell ads on sites they don’t own. AdSense publishers will now be able to allow advertisers from these networks to compete directly with AdWords advertisers for their ad space. The ad networks:

- Connect advertisers with publishers

- Provide access to additional inventory not currently available with AdWords

- Adhere to Google’s standards for user privacy, ad quality and speed

Reporting and payments will still run through AdSense as always, and available ad formats will remain the same as they have been for AdWords. Publishers will still have control over which networks can show ads on their pages, and they can choose to opt out of receiving ads from specific networks, or all networks.

Right now, the feature is only available to publishers in North America and Europe, but Google plans to rolling out to more places in the future.

Online social networking site Facebook is looking to expand its staff by as much as 50 percent this year, its chief executive Mark Zuckerberg told Bloomberg news agency in an interview dated August 20.

Facebook’s website says it has more than 900 employees.

The company, which counts venture capitalist Peter Thiel, Accel Partners, Microsoft Corp and Russian Internet investment firm Digital Sky Technologies among its investors, has more than 250 million registered users.

In June, rival MySpace, owned by News Corp, said it would cut 30 percent of its U.S. staff and two-thirds of its international workforce.

Advance Internet, which runs news and information websites in alliance with more than 30 newspapers has entered into an agreement with Microsoft that will allow its sales staff to sell ads on the Microsoft Media Network on the local level.

Under the agreement Advance Internet’s sales force will offer behavioral targeting and audience extension capabilities to its local advertisers on the Microsoft Media Network.

“We have the number one local news and information sites in each of our markets,” said Peter Weinberger, president of Advance Internet.

“According to Media Audit, five of our sites rank in the top 10 of newspaper affiliated sites based on local penetration of adults 18+. Now through our agreement with Microsoft, we will be able to serve our advertisers with even better online marketing solutions.”

Advance Internet will become a certified reseller of the Microsoft Media Network, offering local advertisers access to 76 percent of the online population. Advance says the deal will significantly increase its reach in all of its local markets.

The two companies have also signed a content agreement, and Advanced Internet will become a certified reseller of Microsoft’s search products.

“The local perspective that Advance Internet offers will be incredibly helpful as we develop our reseller efforts,” said Brian Handly, general manager, PubCenter, Microsoft.

“We are excited to expand Content and Search Ads into Advance Internet’s portfolio of regional Web sites.”