CNET calls him Viacom's "secret weapon." Mika Salmi, the media conglomerate's new president of global digital media, not only founded Atom Entertainment, which he sold to Viacom last year for $200 million, but he helped discover Trent Reznor, the genius behind the rock group Nine Inch Nails. It's that kind of hipster/businessman sensibility that Viacom thinks will help its digital arm through growing pains, including a $1 billion lawsuit against Google and YouTube to bring Viacom content back under Viacom control. Part of Salmi's job is to grow the company's digital business outside of Google's influence, while breaking …

Naysayers will claim they saw it coming: MySpace users are starting to feel "as if their space is being invaded," now that the social network's parent, News Corp., has imposed new limits. For example, gone are the days when users could embed anything they wanted using software tools from third-parties. "MySpace will now only allow you to use MySpace things," said one irate blogger, a singer who was informed this weekend that she could no longer sell items or advertise using third-party software. Justin Goldberg, chief executive of Indie911, the label representing the singer, says, "We find it …

Here's a story you don't hear everyday: Google's got itself a dissatisfied search partner. So dissatisfied, the partner is considering abandoning the search giant for one of its competitors-Microsoft. And it's a major partner, too. Comcast Corp., the country's largest cable operator, is negotiating to use Microsoft's search services on its broadband portal because it thinks Google takes too big a share of the revenue. Comcast is also negotiating with Google about extending the existing relationship, although the cable giant finds other aspects of the deal to be irksome, too. Comcast is wielding considerably more muscle power these …

With relatively little fanfare, YouTube announced Monday it would be host the first annual awards for the best user-generated videos of 2006. Voting for next week's awards started this week and ends Friday, trophies will be handed out on March 26. To vote, users browse through and rank videos in seven genres, including most creative, most inspirational and best series, comedy, music or commentary, and the "most adorable video ever," which seeks to find the absolute cutest of the myriad so-cute-it-hurts clips of sleeping puppies and kittens that pervade the video site. Among the more noted nominees …

When it comes to Apple, it's all about cachet, which is precisely why a new ThinkEquity Partners report says Apple TV, the company's latest consumer electronics offering, has the potential to make big waves. Given the user loyalty Apple commands, the forthcoming wireless set-top box (which is expected to ship any day now) could be scooped up by as many as 70% of the company's 22 million Mac users over the next five years, according to ThinkEquity analyst Jonathan Hoopes. That's optimistic, but even so, Hoopes believes that at least 25% of Mac users will purchase Apple TV, …

After Viacom decided to pull its copyrighted content from YouTube and sue the online video provider for $1 billion in damages, most media reports focused either on the implications for site owner Google or the nascent user-generated video sector at large. But the Times took a closer look at Viacom's broader online ad strategy, assessing how the online posting of its copyrighted content steps on the heels of its progress. Viacom's biggest gripe is that YouTube has stepped on its efforts to generate Web revenue from its properties' highly popular TV programs. According to Nielsen, more than 80 …

Viacom can sue Google for billions and its big media cousins can follow, but Google will always have a one-up on them in terms of distribution. And that's where the big money in media has always been. Offline, the big media companies often do their own distributing, on the Web, this is Google's domain. Where it doesn't control distribution, big media has traditionally used its buying power to display content prominently. "The historical media play," as consultant John Hagel says, "is having privileged access to limited shelf space." Online, shelf space is infinite, placing the traditional economics of media …

Get ready Web users for a new form of attack: That open wireless hotspot you thought was pretty awesome for providing you with free Web access might actually be a trap. That's right, hackers are creating open look-alike wireless access points so they can get access to your sensitive information. Geoff Bickers of the FBI in Los Angeles says consumers should be particularly wary of highly trafficked Wi-Fi hotspots, such as cafes, airports and hotels, where the laptop turnover is significant. "There's an axiom in the computer world that convenience is the enemy of security." Just ask …

As many expected, Time Warner may be dressing up AOL for a sale as early as this year, a move that UBS analyst Aryeh Bourkoff in a research note said would boost the media giant's value. Time Warner says it has no such plans. "AOL is not for sale, nor do we plan to spin any part of it off," Time Warner spokesman Ed Adler told Reuters on Friday. "The company has a great new strategy, and it's working well." An AOL insider told MediaPost otherwise, although no timetable has been set. The source said Time Warner plans to …

Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University, is applying the wiki principle to journalism, bringing the wisdom of crowds to news reporting in a new project called "Assignment Zero," a collaboration between Wired Magazine and NewAssignment.Net, his experimental journalism site. In a Wired report published last week, Rosen wonders if large groups of people can work together on the Net, report on events in their world by dividing the work yet hit high standards for truth and accuracy. At a time when YouTube is fostering free expression by eliminating traditional barriers to entry, journalism is …