Wired considers “startup studios,” which are taking a new approach to the technology startup model. According to this new formular, “You start a business, your business experiments with lots of ideas, many ideas fail but some succeed, you turn these ideas into new businesses, and the formula repeats on its own,” Wired reports. Under the old rules, "You get an idea, you build a product based on your idea, you start a business to sell your product, your business succeeds -- or, more likely, it fails -- and you start all over again, looking for a new idea.”  

The European Parliament just voted in favor of a resolution to “unbundle” Google’s search engine from the rest of its business. “The widely anticipated, non-binding vote calls upon the European Commission, the EU’s antitrust regulator, to ‘enforce EU competition rules [and] to consider proposals with the aim of unbundling search engines from other commercial services,’” Search Engine Land reports. “Beyond the ‘break up Google’ angle (Google was not identified by name), the European Parliament called for the creation of a single digital market in Europe.”  

Some users are unhappy with Yahoo over its decision to sell their Flickr photos. “More than 300 million publicly shared Flickr images use Creative Commons licenses, making it the largest content partner,” The Wall Street Journal reports. “Yahoo last week said it would begin selling prints of 50 million Creative Commons-licensed images ,as well as an unspecified number of other photos handpicked from Flickr.” 

Google is testing a new service that lets users experience Web sites without ads in exchange for paying a small monthly fee to those sites. Dubbed Google Contributor, the new service is launching with 10 publishing partners, including Mashable, Imgur, WikiHow and Science Daily, GigaOm reports. “When a user goes to the Google Contributor Web site (initial access is by invitation only), they see a list of the publishers that are participating in the beta version and they can choose whether they want to contribute $1, $2 or $3 a month.” 

Messaging startup Viber just debuted Public Chats -- a new service that lets users “listen in” on chats between willing celebrities and their interviewers. Public Chats "give you that fly-on-the-wall experience as you watch other people that you care about as they have conversations," Viber CEO Talmon Marco tells Mashable. Notes Mashable: “A good analogy might be a podcast in texting form, or a live blogging of an interview.” 

Despite a 29% gain in third-quarter revenue, investors punished Salesforce on Wednesday for a less than shining fourth-quarter outlook. “Salesforce continues to benefit from an ever-expanding cloud services market that has let the company build up a strong momentum with consistent revenue growth,” Fortune reports. Yet, “the company’s estimate of around $1.44 billion in fourth-quarter revenue came in just below analysts’ expectations.” 

Billboard and its data partner Nielsen SoundScan have decided to start tracking songs’ digital streams and downloads on the Billboard 200. “It is the biggest change since 1991, when the magazine began using hard sales data from SoundScan, a revolutionary change in a music industry that had long based its charts on highly fudgeable surveys of record stores,” The New York Times reports. 

The Los Angeles Times has named Web strategist Nicco Mele as its new deputy publisher. “With Nicco, we truly have a digital native to help us reimagine our business and develop new digital revenue streams,” LAT publisher Austin Beutner said on Monday. According to the newspaper, “Mele's primary role will be to craft business strategy across all digital platforms.” Mele previously co-founded the Web consulting firm Echo & Co. 

Vice Media on Monday is expected to name Alyssa Mastromonaco as its new chief operating officer. A longtime Obama aide, Mastromonaco most recently served as deputy chief of staff for operations at the White House. “The hiring signals how Vice, known for its renegade reporting and on-the-edge articles and videos, is seeking a new level of management as it navigates its next stage of growth,” The New York Times reports. “Mastromonaco, who officially starts in January, will oversee all of the company’s operations, as well as take responsibility for expanding its global business.” 

The owner of the Onion and its satirical sister publications is has reportedly hired a financial adviser to explore a possible sale. “The company … is working with the the [sic] investment bank GCA Savvian,” Bloomberg reports, citing sources. “Founded as a magazine by a pair of students at the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1988 … David Schafer, a fund manager, bought the company in 2003.” Other Onion Inc. operations include a YouTube channel for the A.V. Club, and satire site Clickhole.