IAB: Web advertising hits record $4.2 billion in Q3
Third quarter internet advertising revenues set yet another record, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Numbers released this morning estimate that online revenue will hit $4.2 billion, an impressive 33 percent above last years third-quarter tally. It also betters second quarters then-record $4.1 billion by 2 percent. It was the eighth consecutive quarter of growth for online advertising and only the second time it has topped $4 billion. First and third quarter results reported by IAB are estimates based on survey responses from some of the internets top advertisers. Final numbers for third quarter will be released in a few months with fourth quarter numbers.

ComScore: Traffic to web gambling sites stumbles
With Washington, D.C., focused on regulating online gambling, traffic to those sites saw a big drop in October. ComScore Media Metrix's monthly report on the web's most popular internet destinations for October, released yesterday, found that traffic to gambling web sites fell 27 percent compared with September. Congress recently passed legislation making it illegal for U.S. internet gamblers to exchange money related to their hobby and also prevents gambling sites from accepting U.S. individuals as cash-playing members. Also of note in comScore's report: basketball season boosted traffic to the NBA Internet Network by 46 percent to 3.8 million viewers, Wikipedia sites grew by 11 percent to 38.9 million unique monthly visitors, and YouTube fared well with 13 percent growth to hit 23.5 million unique monthly visitors.

The No. 1 news destination on election day: Yahoo
The major news organizations were the big winners online during last weeks midterm election. According to Nielsen//NetRatings, Yahoo led all global news and current events websites on election day with 6.28 million unique visitors, followed by CNN in second place with 5.92 million, MSNBC in third with 5.04 million, AOL web news with 3.7 million, and Internet Broadcasting Websites with 2.21 million. On the day after the Democrats won a majority in the House and Senate, traffic at other major news web sites increased drastically as well. The Associated Press had the most growth with an increase in traffic of 137 percent from the previous week, up to 1.9 million from 810,000. The CBS News Network posted an 89 percent increase over the same time period, from 687,000 to 1.3 million, and WashingtonPost.com had similar gains of 65 percent, from 730,000 to 1.2 million visitors.

Former Rocketboom vlogger lands an HBO deal
The internet truly may be the worlds least-expensive talent agent. Amanda Congdon, the former host of the popular online video blog Rocketboom.com, is developing a new comedy show for HBO. The commercial TV actress and stage performer says she plans to write a multi-platform program for both the premium cable TV channel and a future broadband webcast, in which she will star. Congdon remains a co-owner of Rocketboom but stopped doing the vlog to focus her attention on the HBO deal and her more recent video blog, amandaacrossamerica.com. She has also reportedly signed with the Endeavor agency.