Amazon.com is feeling the love from Oprah. AdvertisingAge has metrics on how the talk show host's endorsement of Amazon's e-book reader Kindle is driving web traffic.

Don't look to go public anytime soon. More IPO filings were withdrawn in October -- a total of 31 -- than at anytime in the past 13 years, according to a report from The New York Times citing research from Dealogic. [More after the jump]

Phuong Le of the Associated Press covers the race to develop fuel from algae, reporting that $180 million in venture funding has flowed into algae research. The story also builds off comments made by Vinod Khosla at a conference in Seattle last month in which the venture capitalist noted that for algae to work it will need to have an "out-of-the-box approach." More on Khosla's remarks here.

The head of Zillow's partner relationship program recently stepped down, but the Seattle online real estate company continues to link arms with multiple listing associations. The latest to forge a partnership with Zillow is the Houston Association of Realtors, which has more than 60,000 listings in the Houston area.

Apptio is taking advantage of the economic slow down to entice customers with a new software product that helps clients identify ways to reduce IT spending. The Bellevue startup, which is backed by Madrona Venture Group, Marc Andreessen, Ignition Partners and others, says that recent customer wins include Alaska Airlines, Skytap and SumTotal.

West River Capital has made an undisclosed investment in Ascentium, a Bellevue digital marketing company which last month noted that sales doubled during the third quarter to $35 million. Its clients include Boeing, Nintendo and Microsoft.

Amazon.com is launching a multi-year initiative to combat "wrap rage," the frustration one feels from trying to "free a product from a nearly impenetrable package." CEO Jeff Bezos writes about the effort on the e-tailer's home page today.

Ramp Group has laid off less than five employess and converted some workers to hourly positions as the Bellevue technology consulting shop adjusts to what Robb Nielsen described as a temporary "lull" in business. Ramp, which does consulting work for Microsoft and other technology companies, now employs 45 in Bellevue and 55 in India..