Here’s the latest action:
1) US internet ad market is big, getting bigger
2) San Francisco, home of the carbon tax?
3) Google Maps adds user ratings to local search
4) Wal-Mart launches cleantech accelerator
5) Visits to Facebook appear to drop
6) Proofpoint raises $28 million for email security
7) Piczo suffers from walled garden approach
8) Covad could save Silicon Valley municipal wireless
9) Fundability funded for entrepreneur/investor network
10) Google joins group to build transpacific optic cable

US internet ad market is big, getting bigger — Two separate analyst groups estimate the US online ad market at $21.1 billion and $22.5 billion, respectively. Either number works out to well over 20 percent growth from last year. The global market is estimated at $45 billion. TechCrunch has a slightly longer summary.

San Francisco, home of the carbon tax? — Mayor Gavin Newsom said he’d like to set up a plan to tax the carbon emissions of businesses in San Francisco this morning, during an early morning keynote at the Cleantech Forum. Confusingly, this appears to be a ballot issue for the city, separate from an emissions tax already being considered for the entire Bay Area. Newsom’s plan also involves congestion fees for inner-city driving, a measure typically only considered by much larger cities like London and New York. For a rundown of some possible pitfalls, Earth2Tech has a good brief.

Google to become a Yelp competitor? — If not Yelp, fill in the name of your favorite local listing service. Google Maps now has user ratings and “neighborhood refinements”, a pair of user-generated stats that could help you find the best local businesses by pushing them up in Google’s search results.

Wal-Mart launches cleantech accelerator — Also at the Cleantech Forum, Wal-Mart announced the cleantech accelerator, an open call for applications from green and energy-efficient technologies that could benefit the retail giant’s business. No word on whether proof of residence in China is required to apply.

Visits to Facebook appear to drop — Traffic to Facebook has dropped about 27 percent from its peak, according to the latest Hitwise stats. However, the drop can probably be explained away by a post-holiday seasonal trend. The average time users spend on the site has continued to rise.

Proofpoint raises $28 million for email security — About $58 million had already gone into Proofpoint prior to this round, so this latest investment pushes the Cupertino firm into the funding stratosphere, at least as email companies go. We’ll have more details tomorrow.

Piczo suffers from walled garden approach — Teen-oriented social network Piczo appears to have taken a serious traffic hit in the United Kingdom, perhaps due to its more restrictive joining policies. The network aims to create a safe place for 13 to 16 year olds, but being closed isn’t helping it against its more popular competitors, including Bebo, MySpace and Facebook (which opened up last year). Piczo has laid off about a quarter of its staff, according to Valleywag.

Covad could save Silicon Valley municipal wireless — By focusing in on business use instead of trying to address the much broader consumer base in the region, high-speed wireless firm Covad might manage to revive the plan for municipal WiFi in Silicon Valley, which appeared to die last year. The network would serve group including local fire and police, which would in turn help pull in more grant money. More from InfoWorld. Another promising venture in the municipal wireless space is Meraki, which plans to roll out free WiFi in San Francisco, as we recently reported.

Fundability takes $500,000 second funding — Fundability, a connection platfom for entrepreneurs and investors, appears to have received a fairly unusual second round of funding, at one-sixth the size of its $3 million first round in January. The company also launched its online marketplace for the public, claiming that several startups already received funding on the platform during the private beta. We’ll see how it fares now that the rabble can come in. The investment amount was reported by VentureWire (subscription required).

Google joins consortium to build transpacific fiber-optic cable – The move is the first time an Internet company has invested in an ocean-spanning cable. Story here.

1. Amazon S3, VentureBeat go down
2. Montalvo Systems vs. Intel, with chip for handheld devices
3. Fox Interactive to introduce “music Hulu for MySpace”
4. Yahoo’s board moving against Yang
5. Google searchers are wealthier, buy more online
6. Xobni hires Jeff Bonforte away from Yahoo, to be its new CEO
7. Stormfisher raises $350 million for biofuel project
8. Cable veteran Philip Balboni moving to online news site
9. Nielsen buys Audience Analytics
10. Air commuter conference coming up this spring
11. Report: Online Community Best Practices
12. Wal-Mart chooses Blu-Ray

Amazon S3, VentureBeat go down — Online data storage service S3 went down. Affected startups include SmugMug, 37Signals, Twitter and many others. Lots of coverage on Techmeme. Earlier today, VentureBeat was down because of separate hosting problems.

Montalvo Systems taking on Intel, focusing on a chip for handheld devices — It has designed a chip for smartphones, notebook computers and other portable devices, that should run software that works on Intel or AMD chips. The company’s plans have been outlined in some detail by Michael Kanellos at CNET (our previous coverage ).

Montalvo’s chips, however, will fundamentally differ from the latest Core or Opteron processors from Intel and AMD in that the cores on its chip won’t be symmetrical, i.e. identical to each other. Instead, Montalvo’s chips will sport a mix of high-performance cores and lower-performance cores on the same piece of silicon, similar to the Cell chip devised by IBM, Toshiba, and Sony, according to sources close to the company.

Bay Partners, U.S Venture Partners, NEW-IndoUS Ventures, Leapfrog Ventures, CMEA and Adams Street Partners.

Fox Interactive to introduce “music Hulu for MySpace”– The project, which is still being put together, intends to sign up all the major music labels as content providers — who would get equity. The music would be distributed on widgets and contained in a portal page, similar to video-sharing site Hulu, which Fox is a part of. The music on MySpace would be DRM-free and ad-supported. PaidContent has the scoop.

Yahoo’s board moving against Yang — Founder and chief executive Jerry Yang and a small group sympathetic members are trying to avoid a sale to Microsoft at all costs. But Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock is leading an informal group of board members and billionaire Ron Burkle who think that Yang may be ignoring his fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder returns. The New York Post has more.

Google searchers are wealthier, buy more online — Hitwise numbers here. See chart for more.

Xobni hires Jeff Bonforte away from Yahoo, to be its new chief executive — Bonforte was previously a vice president who helped lead the growth of Yahoo Messenger. Company blog post here.
Stormfisher raises $350 million for biofuel project — It turns agriculture and food-industry byproducts into methane gas, which reduces the levels of waste in landfills. The investor is private equity firm DenHam Capital, which has already sunk many millions into biofuel projects.

Cable veteran Philip Balboni moving to online news site — He’s leaving New England Cable News to join online international news company Global News Enterprises LLC, which is slated to launch in April with more than 70 international correspondents. The new company has taken on around $8 million from angels. (Photo via Columbia University.)

Nielsen buys Audience Analytics – The web measurement company says the Provo, Utah-based startup will improve its ability to handle large quantities of audience measurement data
Air commuter conference coming up this spring — Tech commentator Esther Dyson and publisher Imaginova are teaming up to organize the fourth annual Flight School from July 4-6, an event that brings entrepreneurs together to talk about innovation in aviation and space travel. The focus is still on “air taxis” — basically, smaller planes making local flights on-request — but Flight School’s scope will be broader this year, Dyson told us. Since the conference began, air taxis have become a marketplace reality through companies like DayJet, and commercial space flight is becoming more and more practical too, Dyson said. She added: “When I was a kid, I took it from granted that I would go to the moon. Now it looks like I’m going to have to work pretty hard to get there.”

Report: Online Community Best Practices — Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang delivers the report (buy here). It’s tagline is “Communities Are A Powerful Tool, As Long As You Put Members’ Needs First.”

Wal-Mart chooses Blu-Ray — More here. Meanwhile, Toshiba may be ready to give up on HD DVD.