Quoted: [Ozzie] pointed to the software maker's acquisition on Monday of Medstory Inc., a health search engine, as an example of Microsoft's plan to offer targeted groups of Web surfers to advertisers.

Microsoft announced plans to acquire health-care search company Medstory Inc. this morning. It's the second acquisition for the company's relatively new Health Solutions Group, which bought the Azyxxi patient-information system last year.

Quoted: The company now has more than 600 people working specifically on health-care technology, up from a handful seven years ago, Shihadeh said. The initiative is unusual in that Microsoft is getting involved in programs aimed at a specific industry, rather than simply providing more general software and the underlying platform that others can use to develop those targeted programs. In doing that, the company risks stepping on the toes of some of its partners.

Quoted: The ToughGraph browser utilizes Amazon’s automatic tagging system, used for product recommendations. Unfortunately, we do not know the full extent of this system’s relationships, though it is no doubt based upon subject, purchase histories, etc. This metadata is essential in enabling this display, as without it linkages could not be dynamically drawn. Furthermore, these linkages could change from day-to-day.