TiVo, the original digital video recorder, is in danger of becoming obsolete, as similar technologies are developed and bundled with the cable subscriptions sold by companies like Comcast and Time Warner Cable. The DVR company, badly in need of differentiating its services, on Wednesday revealed a new partnership with Amazon.com that allows subscribers to sync their TiVo services with Unbox, Amazon's movie and TV download service. The partnership allows TiVo subscribers to log into the Amazon service via their set-top box after registering at the combined Unbox-TiVo Web site. Then, they can purchase and download content directly to their …

Domestically its been dominated by MySpace and Facebook, but Friendster, one of the original social networks, has picked up steam overseas, enabling the San Francisco-based company to strike a potentially lucrative new ad partnership with Google. Under the deal, Google text and display ads will run on Friendster's user profiles from around the globe, while its search engine will eventually be replaced by Google technology in the second quarter. Friendster's staying power has to be attributed to its international growth. Expansion into Southeast Asia helped the social networking giant grow its user base from an all-time low of …

At the recent media conference hosted by Bear Sterns, Peter Levinsohn, president of Fox Interactive Media, the News Corp. entity that oversees MySpace, said the media giant is "in very active negotiations with all the media companies" to create a comprehensive video offering that would open TV content to tens of millions of Web users. As we know through Google's experience with YouTube, "active negotiations" with big media firms could amount to nothing. Indeed, It's hard to fathom fiercely competitive big media companies giving over that kind of control to a major competitor. However, the social network MySpace …

On Monday, the Copyright Royalty Board, which licenses a variety of copyrights and organizes royalty fees, decided to raise royalty fees, a move that could cripple the fledgling Internet Radio business. Royalty fees have traditionally been calculated as a percentage of revenue--a good thing for smaller radio Webcasters. However, the new rule says Web outfits should begin paying on a per-song, per-listener basis. "The more intensively an individual service is used and consequently, the more the rights being licensed are used, the more the service pays, and in direct proportion to the usage," reads an excerpt from the …

MTV Networks, whose TV networks include MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and Spike TV, is set to unveil a bold new Web strategy to build thousands of new Web sites where users could watch, contribute and even re-edit its television programs. Sites will be built around everything from personalities to particular aspects of its shows. The new Web strategy is a brave move for MTV, whose name became almost synonymous with youth culture in the 1990s. However, the rise of Internet media and in particular, social networking and video sharing sites like MySpace and YouTube, loosened its grip on …

To the chagrin of Google and YouTube, Viacom on Tuesday strengthened ties with Google rival Microsoft in an agreement to place more entertainment programming onto Microsoft's Xbox Live Web service. The software giant will make available a free, downloadable, HD version of a popular episode from Comedy Central's "South Park," as part of a promotion for its HD DVD add-on for the Xbox360. The idea is to spur more Xbox 360 users into buying shows from Viacom and other media companies. The move comes as part of Viacom's ongoing strategy to make its content widely available for purchasing …

The financial services firm Piper Jaffray raised eyebrows recently with a new report called "User Revolution," in which it predicted that global Web advertising would exceed $81 billion in just four years, representing a 21% compounded annual growth rate. The shift in user media consumption will drive up ad spending on the Web, co-author and lead Internet analyst Safa Rashtchy says, as Web users consume more of what he calls "communtainment." He points to young people as the driving force of this phenomenon, citing their use of communication through IM and MySpace. Whereas older consumers keep talking separate …

Microsoft has long pegged "branded entertainment" as a primary focus for growing MSN, its perennially beleaguered Web portal. After various efforts were met with modest success, video shows became MSN's new strategy. For the cost of a low-budget 22-minute TV pilot, MSN has teamed up with the producer Reveille to create 10 shows. Some, like "Chef to the Rescue" and "The Big Debate," have been greenlighted right away; others are still pending. MSN believes in the Web portal idea: Direct your big audience to content that sticks. Marketers like Kraft, in the case of "Chef," have jumped on …

Google last week cut a new deal to move more into real estate. The search giant is teaming up with real-estate engine Trulia to host more than 500,000 real-estate listings from real-estate giant Realogy, whose holdings include Century 21, Coldwell Banker and ERA. Realogy has its own search engine; but now, current and future listings will also appear on Google's Google Base listings service, as well as Trulia, one of the best real estate engines out there. The partnership underscores the broader movement of today's corporations to find more distribution channels for their products and services on the Web. …

Search marketer Gord Hotchkiss interviews Google's SEO master blogger Matt Cutts on the effect Google's move toward personalization will have on the "art" of search engine optimization. Per his previous interview with Marissa Mayer, vice president search products, services and the consumer experience, he found out Google's personalization push will be less game-changing than a Google index update: only about two in 10 search results would be impacted by personalization, and never the No. 1 organic result. Nevertheless, personalization will be something SEO specialists need to consider -- especially because it's an ever-changing animal that will become more …