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Adconion Media Group Raises $80 Million Series C - Germany-based online advertising network, has raised €40.9 million (US$80m) in Series C funding. Index Ventures led the round, and was joined by return backer Wellington Partners.

Keybroker Raises €5 Million - Sweden-based provider of search advertising solutions for the European market, has raised €5 million from Investor Growth Capital.

SellPoint Inc. Raises $7 Million Series C- Pleasanton, Calif.-based provider of on-demand video product tours, has raised $7 million in Series C funding. Granite Ventures led the round, and was joined by return backer Menlo Ventures.

FriendFeed Inc. Raises $5 Million Series A - Mountain View, Calif.-based social networking site focused on content sharing, has raised $5 million in Series A funding. Benchmark Capital led the round, and was joined by company co-founders Paul Buchheit and Sanjeev Singh.

Tiny Pictures Closes $7.2 Million Series B Round - Tiny Pictures, a developer of a service for sharing camera phone pictures among friends, completed a $7.2 million Series B round of financing. Draper Fisher Jurvetson led the round and was joined by Mohr Davidow Ventures.

GeoLearning Obtains $31 Million in Later Round - Fidelity Ventures led a $31 million later round of financing for GeoLearning, a provider of managed learning services and on-demand learning and performance solutions. In conjunction with the financing, the company welcomed Fidelity Ventures Partner Roger Hurwitz to its board of directors.

Internet Platform Provider Raising 3rd Round - A provider of an Internet platform for online retailing and multimedia content management based in Portugal is currently raising a $1 million 3rd round of financing.

Panther Express Raises $15.75 Million - New York-based global provider of digital content delivery services, has raised $15.75 million in Series B funding. Index Ventures led the round, and was joined by Gold Hill Capital and return backer Greylock Partners.

TidalTV Inc. Raises $15 Million in Series A - Baltimore-based startup bringing the television experience to PCs, has raised $15 million in Series A funding. New Enterprise Associates and Valhalla Partners co-led the round. TidalTV chairman Scott Ferber was a co-founder of Advertising.com, while its CEO Mollie Spilman was Advertising.com’s former top sales and marketing executive.

9Diamond.com Has Raised over $10 Million in VC Funding - China-based online retailer of diamonds, has raised over $10 million in VC funding. Backers include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Qiming Venture Partners, Zero2IPO Group and Papaport.

CrunchyRoll Inc. Raised $4.05 Million in Series A - San Francisco-based video sharing site focused on anime, has raised $4.05 million in Series A funding, according to a regulatory filing. Venrock led the round, with partner David Siminoff joining the board of directors.

HiveLive Inc. Raised $5.6 Million in First-Round Funding - Boulder, Colo.-based provider of an enterprise social software platform, has raised $5.6 million in first-round funding. Grotech Capital Group led the round, with general partner Joe Zell taking a board seat.

Fanzter Inc. Raised Around $1.87 Million in Series A - Collinsville, Conn.-based new media development startup, has raised around $1.87 million in Series A funding from Second Avenue Partners, Curious Office Partners and Rich Barton) , according to a regulatory filing.

NextIO Raises $18.8 million Series C - NextIO Inc., an Austin, Texas-based provider of I/O virtualization solutions, has raised $18.8 million in Series C funding. Return backers Adams Capital Management and Crescendo Ventures co-led the ro

Alamofire Inc. Raised $2 Million in Series A - Southlake, Texas-based social gaming startup, has raised $2 million in Series A funding from The Founders Fund and Alsop Louie Partners.

Yelp Gets $15 Million in Fourth Round - Local review aggregator Yelp has snagged some $15 million in its fourth round of financing–for a total of $31 million since its founding in the summer of 2004. The San Francisco-based company has said that it will use the money to expand the service geographically, beef up the sales team, and open an office in New York City.

ClearTrip Travel Services Raised $18 Million in Series C - Mumbai, India-based travel website operator, has raised $18 million in Series C funding. Draper Fisher Jurvetson led the round with $10 million, and was joined by The Mahindra Group and return backers Sherpalo Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

WideOrbit Inc. Raised $14.5 Million in Series C - San Francisco-based provider of sales, traffic and billing software for the global media market, has raised $14.5 million in Series C funding. Participants included Khosla Ventures, Greycroft Partners and Hearst Ventures.

Akimbo Raises $8 Million in Fourth-Round Funding - San Mateo, Calif.-based online video technology company, has raised $8 million in fourth-round funding. Return backers include AT&T, Blueprint Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Zone Ventures.

eBay to Revisit Acquisition Targets - eBay says it may acquire firms that were previous targets, if current US market conditions keep share prices low. eBay’s VP of corporate development, Lorraine McDonough tells Information Week that eBay turned down good strategic deals in the past due to high prices. “With the market readjustment in 2008, maybe we will have the opportunity to revisit some of those,” she says. No details were given on possible targets. The online auction giant closed a number of medium-sized acquisitions over the last year, implying that a truly market-driven sale will be for a large sum. In Jan, eBay bought fraud detection provider, Fraud Sciences, for USD169m in cash. In Apr 2007 it paid a rumoured USD40m to USD45m for online discovery service, StumbleUpon. Meanwhile, in Jan 2007, it acquiring online ticket exchange Stubhub for USD310m cash.

Media, Interactive Services Propel WPP Growth - Social Nets Prove A Boon For PR, Not Advertising - Media investment management, as well as digital and interactive media services, continued to show the strongest growth of any of U.K. ad giant WPP Group’s marketing and communications services during 2007. According to year-end results released early this morning, media services revenues rose 14% over 2006, outpacing WPP’s overall reportable revenue growth rate of 4.7%.

Google Unveils Automatic Matching - Google is quietly rolling out a new program that addresses the drop in click-through growth outlined in a comScore report earlier this week. Called Automatic Matching, the new feature would use up search marketers’ unspent advertising budgets. Automatic Matching is currently in a limited beta test and gives marketers the opportunity to opt-out at any time. Where AdWords gives marketers control of their keyword budgets, the new service gives Google more control. Automatic Matching takes advertisers that haven’t maxed out their budgets and expands their list of keywords to include terms Google deems as relevant. Since Google runs both AdWords and the Google Search engine, the search giant would be pretty good at choosing keywords for advertisers-which could raise ethical quest.

Live Video On YouTube This Year - First rumored in January, YouTube is definitely doing live video, and it’s happening this year. Sarah Meyers got the scoop, transcript as follows care of NewTeeVee: Meyers: “When are you guys gonna do live video on YouTube?” Chen: “2008. We’ll do it this year. “Live video is just something that we’ve always wanted to do, we’ve never had the resources to do it correctly, but now with Google, we hope to actually do it this year.” Now for the guessing game: which live video startup will fold first once YouTube dominates the market? YouTube will be last to market, but the same momentum that has seen YouTube dominate video will now be applied to live video. Like video, content creators want to be on the service that gives them the most exposure, no matter how good the alternatives area (after all, YouTube doesn’t offer the best quality video). YouTube already has the user base; live video streamers will flock to YouTube like a moth to a flame.

IAC’s Gaming Site InstantAction Site To Spend $50M-$100M - That’s a biggish number for IAC, currently in the throes of a split, and major layoffs from the Ask.com side of the business. Its quasi-professional 3-D gaming site InstantAction is about to launch, and the company will spend $50 million-$100 million on the site, reports Variety. The goal is to offer games a bit deeper than online casual games, though not as involved as console games either. The new site comes out of its majority stake in game developer GarageGames.com, which it bought last year.

comScore: About That Google Sell-Off We Started; No Slowdown For Google Or Online Ad Industry - A comScore report indicating a decline in Google’s January click-through rates helped send the search giant’s stock similarly downward earlier this week. Aside from shaking up investors, the comScore report also fed fears of that the online advertising market was tanking as well. Having seen the way the numbers were interpreted by the industry, comScore CEO Magid Abraham has weighed in and issued a memo explaining what its report did and didn’t mean. As comScore’s January 2008 qSearch paid click report showed, Google experienced a 7 percent sequential decline vs. December ‘07. It also showed flat annual growth in paid clicks for Google (NSDQ: GOOG). Moreover, the number of paid clicks per Google search query fell by 8 percent from December to January - which led some to conclude that consumers are clicking less on search ads, possibly indicating a reduced desire to keep up their purchases in the face of a sputtering economy.

RealNetworks annouced it has acquired Trymedia - Casual games syndication technology firm, Trymedia, formerly a division of Santa Clara, Calif.-based Macrovision, provides casual game syndication and monetization platforms for online publishers, retailers and game developers including AOL, Yahoo and IGN. Terms not disclosed.

Hellman & Friedman has agreed to pay $2.4 billion for Getty Images Inc. (NYSE:GYI) - Seattle-based creator and distributor of visual content and other digital media; the price includes the assumption of existing debt. Barclays Capital, GE Commercial Finance and RBS Greenwich Capital are providing debt financing.

Microsoft Acquires Israeli Startup YaData - Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Israeli daily business newspaper Globes is reporting that YaData went for between $20 million and $30 million. YaData’s technology, which Microsoft is expected to implement, is designed to help advertisers discover original customer segments online. YaData, founded in July 2006, is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel and has received funding from Israeli venture capital funds Giza and Ofer Hi-Tech.

TheKnot Acquires TheBump - TheKnot, the marriage and baby lifestyle online media firm, has done another small acquisition: it has bought out The Bump Media, publisher of TheBump local magazine and website dedicated to pregnancy and first-time parents. Financials were not released. TheBump local magazines are guides to the local maternity and baby scene in 11 major tier markets like Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, and others. This new acquisition will complement the company’s TheNestBaby.com offering.

Moonves Details Digital Strategy For CBS - While Web-related financials were typically sparse, CBS head Leslie Moonves did provide key insights into the company’s digital dealings during Tuesday’s fourth-quarter earnings call. Moonves also discussed how CBS has been financing various digital initiatives. “We’ve pruned our asset mix to shed some of our lower-growth businesses like certain small-market TV and radio stations,” he said. “We’ve used a portion of the proceeds to invest in other higher-growth areas like Last.fm.” Late last month, through deals with Universal Music Group, Sony/BMG, Warner Music Group, and EMI Group, CBS proclaimed Last.fm to be the biggest free, ad-supported music service online–and the future of the global music business.

New MTVN Exec To Generate Dollars In Digital Platforms - MTV Networks is placing an increased emphasis on generating sponsorship dollars linked with its new virtual worlds and video games. To underscore its commitment, the company has hired an executive charged with building those revenues.

Google Sites Offers Collaboration Tools for Web Docs - Google on Wednesday said it was moving into new Microsoft territory, launching a new Web-based software program that offers Web site collaboration tools called Google Sites, which will compete with Microsoft’s SharePoint software. Sites will become part of Google’s applications suite, which includes email, word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software, and a daily calendar. Like these other products, Sites will be free and requires no installation, maintenance or upgrades.

Microsoft Unveils Windows Server 2008 - The latest version of Microsoft’s Windows Server operating system, released Wednesday, incorporates features that launch Microsoft into the virtualization market, territory belonging to market leader VMware. Virtualization is one of the fastest-growing segments of the software industry because it breaks up the traditional computer of one piece of operating software per machine. With virtualization, one computer can run several operating systems, allowing one machine to conduct two to three times as many operations as a machine running one OS.

The Quadrant Goes Collective: Newspaper Ad Alliance Picks Sides - We hear that NYC-based online ad network Collective Media has won a bid to power quadrantONE, the online newspaper advertising alliance backed by The Tribune Company, Gannett (NYSE: GCI), Hearst and the New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT) that was unveiled last week. Calls to quadrantONE and Collective were not immediately returned. Collective has been around for about three years and received its first funding last October.

Microsoft Slapped With Record EC Fine For ‘Unreasonable’ Patent Charges - The European Commission has fined Microsoft 899 million euros ($1.3 billion; £680.9million) (its biggest ever antitrust penalty) for failing to to comply with a 2004 ruling it must hand server information to competitors. In March that year, MS was deemed to have extended its Windows PC monopoly in to the workgroup server market by withholding information that would let rival vendors offer product integration. Today’s fine came because, until October 2007, Microsoft had still been charging unreasonable amounts for access to that information, the EC said.

Aegis Lays Out Integration Models, Expands Creative Services - Aegis Group’s integration of traditional media services network Carat with interactive advertising unit Carat Fusion in the U.S. is the first in a series of bold experiments the holding company is trying in major markets around the world to find what forms of integration work best when combining, media, digital, and creative services brands. Creative services have become a key part of the mix being offered by London-based Aegis, which is known as a holding company for media and research operations, but which has quietly begun offering award-winning creative as part of an increasingly full-service offering, said Mainardo de Nardis, CEO of Aegis Media Global.

Classmates.com’s Growth Spurt Has Legs, Says CEO - Despite pulling its planned initial public offering in December, Classmates.com is anything but a social networking has-been, according to Mark Goldston, chairman and CEO of parent United Online. Classmates signed up one million new paid subscribers in 2007, equal to three years worth of previous paid membership growth.

CareerBuilder Launches PrimeCB.com, Job Search Site For Retirees - PrimeCB.com features the same functionality of the main CareerBuilder job search engine, including part-time, full-time and contract positions searchable by keyword, location, skills and job type. The difference is that jobs listed will come from employers with a demonstrated interest in hiring retirees and other experienced workers.

Blinkx To Announce Partnerships With BBC, CBS And TWC - Video search engine BLinkx is expected to announce content partnerships with the BBC, CBS and The Weather Channel. Blinkx presently serves over 50 million unique visitors every month–and boasts more than 220 partners and 18 million hours of indexed video and audio content, including TV moments, news clips, short documentaries, music videos, and video blogs. Blinkx uses speech recognition technology to deliver results in place of metadata-based keyword searches.

Nymag.com Named Magazine Web Site Of The Year By MPA - nymag.com the website of New York magazine, was named Magazine Website of the Year in the Service/Lifestyle category by Magazine Publishers of America (MPA), for the second year in a row. Nymag.com’s Daily Intelligencer was named Magazine Blog of the Year. Winners were announced at the Magazines 24/7 Digital Conference this week in New York City. Nymag.com attracts over four million unique users each month, generating more than 40 million page views (Source: Omniture SiteCatalyst). The site is a full-fledged online magazine in its own right, publishing between 40 and 50 original stories each day.

Disney takes big plunge into online video - Walt Disney Co. has returned to its short-form roots with the debut of a digital studio that will develop original content for the Internet. Stage 9 Digital Media, quietly in the works for two years, will be unveiled today with the premiere of “Squeegees,” a comedy series about window-washer slackers, on ABC.com and YouTube. It is the first of a planned 20 online programs currently in development.

The Other Guy Blinkx: Denuo Strikes Deal With Video Search Engine, Hopes To Develop Best Practices - Publicis’ Denuo unit this morning announced a deal with video search engine blinkx to develop a set of “best practices” for advertising and marketing tied to online video. Among other things, the companies said they would collaborate on projects that would explore how the ad industry can deliver online video advertising campaigns that map to the right audience, are delivered in the right context, and run in the most appropriate form.

Yahoo Execs Pique Interest With Apex Hints - Promising to “revolutionize” Internet advertising, Yahoo founder and CEO Jerry Yang and President Sue Decker coyly hinted at some capabilities of Yahoo’s new “Advertiser-Publisher Exchange,” or Apex, at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Ecosystem 2.0 conference in Phoenix on Monday.

Take-Two Rejects EA’s $2 Billion Takeover Bid - Take-Two Interactive Software, parent company of Rockstar Games and the Grand Theft Auto video game franchise, has rejected an unsolicited takeover bid from Electronic Arts (EA). EA proposed to acquire Take-Two for $26 per share in cash, or roughly $2 billion. Take-Two’s Board of Directors publicly said the offer undervalues the publisher’s “robust and enviable stable of game franchises, exceptional creative talent and strong consumer loyalty.”

ContextWeb Launches Ad Campaign For ADSDAQ - To promote the community aspect of its ADSDAQ ad exchange, ContextWeb today is launching an ad campaign featuring the very advertisers and publishers who make up ADSDAQ, its network. “This is about the formal launch of our community, which we think will be an important ingredient in the evolution of the exchange,” Burns told Online Media Daily in an exclusive interview.

Web Video Viewers Will Continue To Increase Consumption - With TV networks and studios putting more of their programming online–through their own sites or portals such as News Corp. and NBC’s Hulu–Web viewers will increasingly shift from video “snacking” to full-length TV episodes and movies in the next five years, according to a new study on online video by eMarketer.

Washingtonpost.com Partners With Kiplinger’s To Boost Personal Finance Coverage - Washingtonpost.com has entered into a content partnership with Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine and Kiplinger.com in its latest effort to boost the Post’s personal finance coverage online.

Glam Media Seeks To Expand, Raises More Financing - Seeking expansion into new content categories and global markets, fashion and shopping e-publisher Glam Media has raised another $84.6 million in financing led by German publishing behemoth Hubert Burda Media.

Yahoo Prepares Open Search Platform - Yahoo is preparing to launch a new search platform that would allow third parties to modify results by adding images, data and links. Listings can be modified, but the order of results cannot. Codenamed “SearchMonkey”, Yahoo execs say the effect is supposed to be similar to that of Greasemonkey, a Firefox add-on that lets users see modified versions of Web sites. Similarly, SearchMonkey would be a series of search add-ons that users could turn on and off (though some will be turned on by default). Open search would certainly open the door to more information for a given result. Yelp, a user generated local business review site, is one of the launch partners. Its listing will now include a photo, review information and the address and the company’s contact information.

Yahoo Launches Digg-Like Social News Features - Yahoo is taking direct aim at social-news aggregators like Digg and Reddit with a new tool called Yahoo Buzz that calls up the most popular articles voted on by the Web site’s massive user base. As part of the Buzz launch, Yahoo is also introducing previews of content on other sites. For example, a search for a LinkedIn user could return links to that person’s connections or their full profile; a search for a restaurant could include links to a reservation page or a review. The moves are in line with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang’s wish to open the Web giant’s services to third-party publishers.

Google January Revenues Are “Disaster” - ComScore is reporting “shockingly bad” paid search performance for Google in January. Being a panel-based traffic measurement firm, comScore’s won’t be exact, but as Silicon Alley Insider’s notes, “Even if Comscore is only half right, this is a disaster.” The surprising news broke in a flash note from Bear Sterns analyst Bob Peck. ComScore reported 532 million domestic paid clicks in January, flat year-over-year, but down 12 percent since October. Click-throughs were the lowest since comScore started reporting the data, which only came from Google.com (not the AdSense network) in the U.S.

eBay Strike Ends, Seller Wrath Grows - eBay sellers went on strike earlier this month after the ecommerce giant raised fees and implemented other policies that sellers claim silence them. The one-week strike ended today after the company, surprisingly, said it didn’t care–they need us more than we need them.

Fox Said To Be Exploring Termination Of Google Advertising Deal - Even while parent company News Corp. continues to try to disrupt the Microsoft/Yahoo merger, Fox Interactive Media (FIM) is rumored to be in negotiations with Microsoft take Google’s place as the MySpace advertising partner. The Google-FIM deal, first announced in August 2006, obligated Google to make guaranteed minimum revenue share payments to FIM of at least $900 million based on Fox achieving certain traffic and other commitments. But the original deal was negotiated in extreme haste, say people with knowledge of the deal. In February 2007 the parties were rumored to be working on the final agreement, months after ads were already being served by Google. That long form agreement was never actually signed. In Google’s haste to keep the deal from Microsoft they may have paid more than they can stomach.

AOL To Pump Out Quigo Text Ads - AOL will begin serving its own text ads across some of the most popular sites in its network via Quigo, the PPC engine it bought for $340 million in November. While AOL will continue to serve Google text ads to visitors, the Web giant will also run Quigo ads on sections including News, Money & Finance, Sports, Email and Entertainment.

Social Nets, Niche Employment Sites Likely To Snag Most Employer Dollars - Employers see social networking sites as one of the most promising channels for finding new hires, and 61% anticipate spending more of their recruitment budgets on sites like Facebook this year, according to a new report from Classified Intelligence, LLC.

Kelsey Group: Interactive Ad Revenues To Reach $147 Billion Globally By 2012 - Interactive advertising revenues will increase significantly from $45 billion in 2007 to $147 billion globally in 2012, representing a 23.4% compound annual growth rate, according to The Kelsey Group. Interactive advertising–including search, display advertising, classifieds and other interactive ad products–grew its share of global advertising revenues from 6.1% in 2006 to 7.4% in 2007.

Agency Shifts Buys Away From Portals - Web portals lost 5% of online ad dollars last year to narrower content sites and search engines as spending followed consumers across a more fragmented Web landscape. That’s among the key findings in Avenue A|Razorfish’s annual outlook report on digital advertising trends based on 2007 billings of $735 million. Overall, vertical sites accounted for 39% of spending; search, 31%; portals, 19%; and ad networks, 11%.

Zinio Strikes Deal With Havas Media Unit, Gains Access To Global Markets, Clients - In a move to leverage the global distribution of the Internet, digital magazine publisher Zinio has team with a unit of Havas Media to extend the reach of consumer magazines into Europe and Latin America. The deal, which combines Zinio’s digital magazine publishing platform with Acceso, a powerful media management system jointly owned by Havas Media and ISP, is expected to greatly expand the number of consumer magazine titles utilizing Zinio’s system from about 850 currently to more than 2,000 over the next year, executives at the companies said.

AOL Inks Content Deals To Launch Mexico Portal, Home Improvement Site - AOL has launched AOL.com.mx, a Spanish-language Web portal for Mexico, and rolled out AOL Home, a U.S.-based home improvement and domestic enthusiast site. Both endeavors highlight a key step the Web giant has taken in its struggle to break the shackles of its former subscription-based business.

Internal Microsoft Email Reveals Details Of Proposed Yahoo Acquisition - Microsoft has not given up on its plan to acquire Yahoo, a company executive told employees in an email on Friday. “If and when Yahoo agrees to proceed with the proposed transaction, we will go through the process to receive regulatory approval, and expect that this transaction will close in the 2nd half of calendar year 2008.”

IAB Approves, Releases Ad Privacy Guidelines - With concerns mounting over access and usage of consumer data, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Sunday unveiled new interactive advertising privacy guidelines that are designed to ensure users’ control over the use of personal information by interactive media and advertisers.

Microsoft’s “Brilliant Steps” To Remake Itself - Microsoft is “taking brilliant steps to remake itself.” Fortune says the decisions both to buy Yahoo and to open its software up to greater interoperability represent a “critical moment in [Microsoft’s] history.” The bigger step, of course, is the $40 billion-plus Yahoo bid, which would be the company’s largest-ever acquisition and could pose significant regulatory and restructuring complications. Shareholders are very much against the deal, and have shaved 15 percent off Microsoft’s stock price since the company announced its intentions.The move to more open software is especially positive for Microsoft’s enterprise business, which faces mounting pressure from corporate software makers who use open source technology. The addition of Yahoo will ease the company’s transition to a more “Web-centric” (i.e. ad-supported) approach to Internet services.

Industry Execs Say Gaming To Move Online - Industry luminaries are in accord: The future of gaming is online. They predict that content will be delivered from a central server to a network of users, and that Internet service providers will provide access to that network by tacking on an added charge for gaming service, just like cable providers charge $10 extra per month for HBO.

Facebook Traffic Declines in U.S., U.K. - Facebook saw month-to-month traffic declines in December and January, according to separate reports from ComScore Media Metrix and Nielson Online. TechCrunch suggests that the Web’s No. 2 social network may be plateauing in the U.S. ComScore data shows the site’s traffic leveling over the past few months, dipping by about 800,000 visitors in January. In December, the site drew 34.7 million unique visitors in the U.S. compared to 33.9 million in January. MySpace also saw declines, but less so, drawing 68.9 million U.S. uniques in December compared to 68.6 million in January.

Netscape Founder Sounds NYT Deathwatch - On the eve of Netscape’s official demise, its co-founder Marc Andreessen, who sold the company to AOL in 1998 for $4.2 billion, points to another failing business: The New York Times. He notes on his blog: “I hereby inaugurate my New York Times Deathwatch, which will continue until the last Sulzberger has left the building.”

Search Volume Rebounds In January - Search rebounded at the start of 2008, with Americans conducting more than 10 billion “core” searches in January, up nearly 9% from December 2007, according to comScore. In contrast, search volume had slid downward in December, with an almost 4% dip in queries versus the previous month.

‘DoubleTwist’ Converts DRM Restricted iTunes Tracks To MP3 Files - Jon Lech Johansen, the Norwegian hacker known as “DVD Jon” for creating software that bypasses copying restrictions on DVDs, has now unveiled a program that enables people to get rid of digital rights management
restrictions on iTunes.

Yahoo Expands Newspaper Network, Adds 25 Shaw Papers - Yahoo Thursday said it expanded its network of newspaper partnerships with the addition of four publishers, including Shaw Newspapers and its 25 daily and weekly newspapers covering northern Illinois and Iowa. With the addition of these publishers, the Newspaper Consortium now includes 634 participating newspapers, 425 of which are dailies - 30 percent of all U.S. daily newspapers and 37 percent of all U.S. Sunday circulation.

MOGO Media Launches How-To Video Podcast - The AskMOGO podcast will feature staff and experts answering technical questions submitted at MOGO conferences and through the AskMOGO Web site.

Microsoft Shares Secrets with Software Developers - Microsoft is finally embracing the push towards open software (sort of). In a conference call which failed to mention any progress on the Yahoo front, Microsoft executives unveiled a “strategic shift” in the company’s business
practices, the broader push of which is to bring Microsoft’s flagship products-the Windows OS and Microsoft Office-further into the realm of Web-based computing.

Google “Very Exposed” to U.S. Recession - We’ve got a “rough” next few quarters ahead of us as the U.S. economy dips into recession, and Web giant Google is as badly exposed as anybody else. Google is at risk because a significant portion of its advertiser base is at risk. Consumers will spend less during a recession, which means Google ROI will drop for advertisers, forcing them to spend less with the search giant.

Microsoft Skydrive launches globally and increases storage to 5GB - Microsoft’s Skydrive online file storage service is leaving beta for public release, with the company announcing a 5GB total storage boost in tandem with the launch. Skydrive opened in beta last year, allowing users to upload and manage files, choosing whether to keep them private, share with trusted friends through various permission levels or open to public access.

Truveo Continues Global Expansion with Addition of Six International Partners - Truveo, the leading video search engine, today announced that it is continuing its successful international expansion with the addition of international partners from China, Brazil, India, Turkey and the United Kingdom who have integrated the Truveo video search engine onto their websites. Traffic to Truveo’s websites expanded dramatically after it launched 15 international sites late last year.

MTVN Acquires Site Network Babunga To Build Parenting-based Ad Net Around Nickelodeon - MTV Networks (NYSE: VIA) has acquired Babunga, a company which owns a network of family-focused websites, Mediaweek reported.

EC Approves Thomson-Reuters With Conditions; DOJ Concurs; Close Expected In April - On schedule, the European Commission has approved the merger of Thomson (NYSE: TOC) and Reuters (NSDQ: RTRSY) (technically the former is buying the latter), provided the companies meet certain competition conditions.

ONESite Acquires Social Platform, Aims To Increase Presence In Entertainment And Tech - Seeking new talent and a larger sales force, ONEsite, a white-label social networking platform, has acquired rival software provider Social Platform. With the deal, ONEsite is aiming to extend its footprint in the West Coast and increase its presence in the entertainment and technology sectors.

WebMD to Merge With Parent - WebMD Health Corp. and its majority owner HLTH Corp. have agreed to merge in a cash-and-stock deal worth about $2.31 billion. HLTH Corp., which owns more than 80% of WebMD and has about $1.45 billion in cash, had proposed a merger in November. As part of the deal, HLTH Corp. said it will divest its two other main business units.

RealNetworks Buys Macrovision’s Games Business For $4 Million - Earlier today Macrovision (NSDQ: MVSN) announced its Q4 earnings and also mentioned that it has sold off its games DRM business (through Trymedia) to an undisclosed buyer for $4 million. We have found out through sources that the buyer is RealNetworks. This is in keeping with Real’s growing online and casual games business. Last year the company bought the casual games site Gametrust for about $20 million.

Reed Elsevier Buys ChoicePoint For $4.1 Billion; Restructuring - Reed Elsevier (NYSE: RUK), the B2B media giant is buying U.S. risk-management information business ChoicePoint for $4.1 billion in cash, as it also announced a series of cuts along with its 2007 results today. The Anglo-Dutch company said that it will combine ChoicePoint with its LexisNexis and analytics group and create a risk-management business with $1.5 billion in revenue and a leading position.

BaltCap Buys Interinfo Units - BaltCap, the leading private equity investor in the Baltic States, has acquired 100% of the Interinfo group of companies in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (”Interinfo”) from Interinfo Holding SCA. Interinfo is the leading operator of “yellow pages” directories in the Baltics and provide print, internet and directory assistance products.
Interinfo has operating companies in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania with an annual turnover of EUR 15.5 million in 2007.

Google Expands AdSense For Video, Sets Deals With Tremor, YouMe, Others -
In a bid to accelerate its role in the burgeoning online video advertising marketplace, search giant Google this morning is announcing a slew of deals expanding its AdSense for video beta. To date, the AdSense program has focused mainly on enabling Web publishers to serve text-only ads. The video beta version, enables publishers to serve targeted, contextually-relevant video graphical ads and text overlays, and is seen as an alternative to the pre-roll an post-roll advertising clips that have become the industry’s default standard advertising format.

Homemade Honda Spot Is A Good FIT - While some advertisers debate the benefits of putting marketing dollars onto social networks and video-sharing sites, Crackle.com, the online video entertainment network, which is a Sony Pictures Entertainment Company, has proof that online advertising really works.

Newspaper Web Sites Draw Younger Audiences - Newspaper Web sites are reaching elusive younger readers, a new analysis by Scarborough Research indicates, giving a much-needed boost to the ailing newspaper business. The growth in online audiences is offsetting losses in print readership, at least somewhat.

Yahoo Keen On FIM Deal - Yahoo wants so badly to avoid a Microsoft takeover (or at least, avoid a takeover at $29 per share) that the Web company has enlisted four or five executives from MySpace owner News Corp. to try and hammer out a deal that would combine Yahoo with News Corp.’s Fox Interactive Media.

Google Health Records Set Off Privacy Alarms - Google today unveiled a pilot program that enables people to store and share information about their medical conditions online. The initiative, available to up to 10,000 patients of the Cleveland Clinic, will let them post information about illnesses, prescriptions, allergies, and the like, to a password-protected online account.

Internet Brands Buys Nine Auto/Community Sites - Internet Brands, the LA-based online e-commerce and community sites holding company which did its IPO in November last year, has bought a total of nine new sites. Out of those, eight are online auto enthusiast communities and another is a community site for dog owners and lovers.

HLTH Corp. And WebMD To Follow Through On Merger; Earnings: WebMD Q4 Revs Up 22 Percent - After announcing just last week that their proposed merger might not happen due to a negotiations impasse, WebMD (NSDQ: WBMD) and its parent HLTH Corp. now say that their deal will go through.

Microsoft Launches Indian Digital Ad Platform - Microsoft is launching its digital advertising platform in the Indian market, partnering with local operations to provide coverage for entertainment, social networking and financial sectors. The local partners are Bollywood Hungama, Equity Master and HDFC Securities, as well as Facebook’s Indian operations.

VC Investments Jump in India - Venture capitalists invested $928 million in 80 India-based companies last year, according to a new report from Dow Jones VentureSource. That represents a 166% incresase over 2006 figures.

CNET TV Relaunches Video-On-Demand Network - Aiming to capture a larger share of tech-hungry consumers, CNET has relaunched its video-on-demand network, CNET TV. “We’ve seen a 60% increase in viewership since last year, and we’re looking for ways to continue that incredible growth,” said Joe Gillespie, executive vice president of CNET.

MySpace Gives Scale To Free Music Experiment - MySpace has held discussions with Universal Music, EMI, Sony BMG, and Warner Music over a deal to bring free music to MySpace’s 110 million worldwide members. However, reports across the Web diverge on whether the talks are preliminary or more advanced.

Alibaba, Softbank and Micro-hoo - As it turns out, Alibaba will have a seat at the Yahoo negotiating table as the Web giant continues to resist a $41 billion (and shrinking) takeover from Microsoft. Yahoo owns a 39 percent equity stake in Alibaba, worth approximately $5.2 billion. Jack Ma, the company’s founder, on Monday announced that it recently hired consultants
to help influence the terms of a Yahoo sale. As Forbes says, “Alibaba might be used to majority rule in China, but it’s making sure that strong connections fortify its minority voice in this possible buy-out.”

VideoEgg: Rich Media Ads, Pay Only When Users Engage - Video ad network VideoEgg said it will implement a new pricing system that charges marketers only when users initiate an ad and watch it for a brief time. Previously, the company sold ads on a cost-per-thousand impression basis.

Searchers Most Satisfied With Yahoo Search Assist - Yahoo jumped to the top of the pack for customer satisfaction with search assistance and suggestions, according to stats from the latest Keynote Customer Experience Study on search engines. Some 2,000 users participated in the study and ranked the engines on performance, relevance and overall satisfaction. Search Assist helped Yahoo gain 41satisfaction points over the course of six months–moving from third to first place in the search suggestions category.

China Roundup: HSW Spins Off Non-Core; Mixi Planning China Launch - The Chinese online publishing firm whose main business is offering translated versions of the US-based site HowStuffWorks.com (now owned by Discovery) to viewers in China and Brazil, is spinning off two of its non-core assets in wireless telephone training and educational software businesses. Also it plans to sell the 5 million shares to two affiliates of Asian equity fund Eastern Advisors for $18.4 million.

United Online: Dreams Of A Classmates IPO Die Hard - In December, United Online (NSDQ: UNTD) announced the withdrawal of its plan to hive off its Classmates unit via IPO.

Gates: Microsoft Won’t Raise Yahoo Offer - Microsoft’s Bill Gates says “there’s nothing new” vis-à-vis the software giant’s Yahoo offer: “We’ve sent our letter and we’ve reinforced that we consider that it’s a very fair offer,” adding there are no plans to up a bid that was originally worth $31 per share. However, since Microsoft’s offer more than two weeks ago, its stock has plummeted more than 12 percent, reducing the offer price to around $29 per share, or $41 billion.

MySpace Eyes Ad-Supported Music - Free music, it seems, is here to stay. First, Imeem, then SpiralFrog, QTrax and now, News Corp.’s MySpace is aiming to bring ad-supported music to the Web’s largest social network. CNET’s Greg Sandoval says the Web’s No. 1 social network is currently in discussions with music’s big four about giving the record labels an equity stake in MySpace in exchange for offering free music.

Microsoft Moves Beyond Google Earth, to the Universe - Microsoft hopes to move light years beyond Google Earth with a new software app called WorldWide Telescope, which TechCrunch and other blogs say will be released on Feb. 27 at the TED Conference.

Is The SaaS Or Agency Model Better For SEM? - According to this face-off-style article, the answer depends on the size of the business and how much search figures into its overall marketing strategy. For small businesses, Webvisible’s David Reeve argues that the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model works best. Using an automated campaign management tool (which tackles bidding, organization and analytics) may be the best thing for a small business owner who doesn’t have the budget to devote to a dedicated search agency–but needs help tackling the nuts and bolts of SEM on a daily basis.

Google spends USD281.6m on 17 acquisitions in 2007 - Google spent USD281.6m on 17 purchases last year, excluding its USD3.1bn takeover of DoubleClick and the USD625m it paid for software firm Postini. The search giant increased its staff by more than 50% in the calendar year of 2007, to 16,805 employees from 10,674 a year before, according to its annual summary report filed with the SEC.

Toshiba Gives Up On HD DVD; To Be Out By End Of March - The reports were right on: Toshiba is quitting the HD DVD business, leaving Blu-ray as the last format standing. The recent history is well known, as Blu-ray has racked up an impressive string of wins, both from studios and electronics retailers, leaving HD DVD with little room to maneuver.

GoFish Launches Vertical Distribution Ad Network - Youth entertainment and
media company GoFish Corp. is launching a vertical distribution network for
marketers to reach the 17.4 million Web users ages 6 to 17. For
advertisers, kids and teens represent an important consumer segment. Teens
alone have a total annual aggregate income of $80 billion while the buying
power of kids is expected to total $21.4 billion in 2010.

Google And Microsoft Sued For Patent Infringement - Google and Microsoft
were hit with a lawsuit last week by a company claiming to own a patent on
paid search methods. The company, Paid Search Engine Tools of Liberty
Township, Ohio, said in its lawsuit that Google’s AdWords program, as well
as Microsoft’s paid search platform, adCenter, violate a 2006 patent for a
method of optimizing keword bids.

Asian Holdings Could Unlock Value for Yahoo - In rejecting Microsoft last
week, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang cited the company’s investments in Alibaba and
Yahoo Japan as one of the reasons Microsoft’s offer of $31 per share
“substantially undervalues” the company. Yahoo has investments worth $13.8
billion in Alibaba.com Corp., a Chinese trading site, and Yahoo Japan,
accounting for nearly one-third of Microsoft’s offer. Analysts say those
assets could balloon to $15.9 billion by the end of the year.

Search, Email Survive Recession - Typically, when consumers cut back on
spending, so do marketers, but digital marketing may be a game changer, as
marketers turn to more measurable media like the Internet. That doesn’t
mean Web spending would be unaffected by a recession, but Bryan Weiner, CEO
of digital agency 360i, says marketers won’t be cutting cut back on search
and email, because these tactics drive the best return on investment.

The Inevitable Rise Of Web Gaming - SAI contributor Sean Ryan is CEO of
Meez, the former CEO of Listen.com and the brother of SAI Chairman Kevin
Ryan. He blogs at SharkJumping.com, where this post was originally
published. The earliest casual games were actually Java web games in the
late 90’s, but they faded due to lack of business model and lack of
broadband, while Real Networks (RNWK) and Shockwave introduced the
downloadable game $20 try-before-you buy model which then drove the casual
market to its current billion dollar + status.

2012: New Multimedia Spend Rises To $12.6 Billion - New media platforms
will see a rise to $12.6 billion over the next five years, predicts Parks
Associates. That includes broadband, mobile, video ads, VOD and DVRs. The
key to the rush: it’s easy to target audiences and gain accountability.

OpenX and Google - You may never have heard the name Scott Switzer but he
may be David to Google’s Goliath. His eight-month-old company is the only
open source ad server facilitator of scale. This week he will rebrand it
from the OpenAds name it has been operating under to OpenX, as part of an
expansion intended to give clients more interactive heft.

Four Mortgage Companies Reduce Online Ad Spending - Is the real estate
collapse finally taking its toll on online mortgage ads? It appears so,
judging by Nielsen Online’s report on ad spending among the top online
advertisers in January. Web ad spending by troubled mortgage lender
Countrywide Financial Corp., for instance, fell to $13.4 million last month
from $38.3 million in December, according to Nielsen Online–while
LowRateSource, HSBC Holdings and LendingTree.com have dropped off the radar
completely.