Hard to tell how much of the modest ad recovery we’re hearing about is real versus hoped for. But analyst Richard Greenfield says that either way, Viacom won’t be getting a boost.

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When videogame sales tank, what happens to sales at the world’s biggest videogame retailer? The answer shouldn’t be a surprise, but somehow the performance that Gamestop put in this morning managed to catch Wall Street off guard anyway.

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Economists may be declaring that the recession is over, but declarations won’t do much for media businesses that have seen their ad dollars disappear. But here’s a bit of (very) cautiously optimistic news for them: Two reports from Wall Street research shop Sanford Bernstein noting the mildest of turnarounds.

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When will the online ad market finally start bouncing back? We’ve yet to see it in Q2 earnings reports from the likes of Google and Yahoo.

But one observer says it’s already here: Ad optimization firm PubMatic reports that prices for ad-network inventory it sees have increased 35 percent since the beginning of the year.

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Be very careful about reading too much into this. But for what it’s worth, several newspaper publishers are now announcing that things are looking…“up” is the wrong word. Let’s try “less bad.” And let’s see what the New York Times has to say tomorrow.

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Still have a job in media? Looking for a wee bit of inspiration in a gloomy week in a miserable year? Here’s a free pep talk.

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An endless ad barrage may be enough to get you to sample Bing. But it can’t ensure you’ll like the results once you try it.

That’s the conclusion Citigroup’s Mark Mahaney reached after taking Microsoft’s new search engine for a spin and comparing it to Google’s and Yahoo’s. The result: Google still delivers better results most of the time. In 71 percent of searches, Google either supplied the most relevant answer or tied with other engines. Bing did that 46 percent of the time.

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It has been three months since Zenith Optimedia revised its ad market forecast downward. Which means it’s time to knock it down once again. The ad buying firm now thinks the market will shrink by 8.5 percent this year, which is worse than the 6.9 percent decrease it predicted in April, which was worse than the 0.2 percent decrease it threw out in December. Past performance is no guarantee of future results, of course. But anyone want to bet on what happens in three months?

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Another vote for the “we’ve seen the worst of the recession” camp: Google CEO Eric Schmidt, talking to reporters at the big advertising festival in Cannes, says the economy should start picking up in a few months.

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Here comes the battle the online ad business has been dreading: Congress is drawing up a bill that would require users to sign up to let advertisers track their online behavior–and, if you believe online publishers, more or less destroy the online ad business.

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Even as the rest of the retail world stumbled in the past year, Amazon kept cruising and increasing market share. So if a cratering economy can’t hurt the e-commerce giant, what could? Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney throws out a suggestion: Movies, books and music–the same stuff that helped Amazon get the lead it enjoys today.

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Want to watch the season finale of “30 Rock” for free, whenever you want, on a big screen? Go for it, says Hulu–just don’t watch it on a TV.

Confused? Of course. So was I when I checked out Hulu’s new “Desktop” app, launched today as part of the video service’s new “Labs” collection of experimental offerings.

Basically, it’s downloadable software that makes it easier than ever to watch Hulu’s shows and clips in the same way that you’d watch TV–on your sofa, remote in hand. But Hulu wants to make sure you don’t actually think it replaces TV.

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The traditional publishing business is grim, but if you broaden your perspective and look at the rest of the media business, things are starting to look… not horrible.

Granted, “not horrible” doesn’t equal “good times are here again.” But I keep hearing that the sickening decline in advertising spending has stopped, at least, and that some marketers are actually spending money again.

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File this one under “hard to say it’s news”: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says the company would consider more layoffs–if the economy falls off another cliff. Gotta credit him with consistency: He said the exact same thing a week ago.

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Last year, Warner Music Group boasted about its investments in two digital music start-ups. Today the label says those dollars were wasted. Bummer for imeem, which is trying to raise more money.

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