It's not often referred to amid all the hoopla, but Michael Zuckerberg and Facebook have been embroiled in a three-year court battle with a smaller rival that seeks an injunction that would shut the social network down. ConnectU claims that Zuckerberg created Facebook using code and other ideas stolen from the rival site, which was started by three of his Harvard classmates. (Zuckerberg later dropped out of the university to run Facebook full-time.) The social networking phenom, which has some 30 million users, will attempt to convince a U.S. judge to throw out ConnectU's claims later this week. …

"Casual" was the buzzword of this year's E3 conference in Los Angeles, championed mainly by Wii-maker Nintendo, which is widely being regarded as the leader of the next generation of video games. This year's E3 stressed the importance of reaching out the mainstream--and for good reason. Casual games, often described as simple puzzle or card games (but refers to anything straightforward that could be learned in a few minutes), have been a massive success for Yahoo and MSN on the Web, especially among middle-aged women. Next-gen hardware makers, believing that many of their sons and daughters will scoop up …

Author J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books are so popular they've spawned a parallel universe on the Web, where some sites attract millions of fans every day who chat about the books and view Web pages built around them. One of the biggest is Mugglenet.com, created by Emerson Spartz when he was just 12. Today the site is visited up to 40 million times in a month, making it one of the biggest Harry Potter-related Web sites-not to mention a commercial success. "I spent the entire summer on the road signing thousands of autographs, which is simply unheard of …

Veoh Networks hopes its new VeohTV platform does for Internet TV what YouTube did for online video sharing: dominate. The product is a downloadable application that acts like a Web browser for video, which figures to be a practical way to organize the glut of video--both professional and amateur--that exists on the Web. VeohTV displays both clips from YouTube as well as full-length video from traditional media companies like NBC. But it could ruffle the feathers of big media, and open up the pathway to court. Unlike, say, Joost (a Web TV competitor), you can watch video from …

Last week, Information Week reported on MSN's tremendous gains in search share for Live Search. After the report, readers openly questioned the merits of the company's astonishing 67%t gain in search volume. At the time, the gains were attributed to the prizes users were awarded for using Live Search in the new MSN game zone, Live Search club. As it turns out, a huge chunk of the statistical spike can be better-attributed to bots, says one Live Search Club user. "The reason their search engine is being hit so frequently is that people are running automated 'bot' programs …

The introduction of Web 2.0 technologies marks "the very beginning of the next phase of creativity, that will last, I think, a minimum of 10 years, probably 15 years," says John Chambers, the chairman and chief executive of Cisco Systems. But how does the introduction of social media tools help drive business? Tthe power of [connecting] many to many allows you to do things at a dramatically different speed." For large corporations, Web 2.0 tools like wikis, teleconferencing and social networking allow interaction on a much larger--and more personal--scale. Chambers said firms should let people use these …

Sony Corp. has turned its video site into a recruiting ground for top talent, giving it a new name: Crackle. The site formerly known as Grouper will transfer all of its old accounts to the new site, which contains 12 branded channels for different show concepts, from comedy to music news, animation, etc. Crackle features a channel guide and a high-quality 16x9 embeddable video player. Advertisers can buy 5- to 15- second ads between the site's videos and banner units. Crackle's channels will also contain more than 1,000 professionally-produced videos, adding top user-generated content to each category, as selected …

Allen & Company's summit in Sun Valley, Idaho, is the most important big media event of the year -- but the press isn't given much access. Journalists are shut out of the dinners and social gatherings, but there is a press conference. Anything noteworthy takes place out of view. Even so, the Allen & Company press conference is an opportunity to get in front of Google's Sergey Brin, who spoke with Reuters about Facebook and the Viacom-YouTube suit, among other things. Brin said Google would be happy to speak with Facebook CEO Michael Zuckerberg (who's not …

Big Search may belong to Google, future competition will come from vertical search providers. For example, GlobalSpec.com, a search-engine for engineers, has already established itself as the best way to find information about anything related to engineering. "They own that market," says Charlene Li of Forrester Research. Indeed, GlobalSpec has some 3.5 million registered users, adding them at a rate of 20,000 per week. Vertical search sites have plusses: Results should be better targeted than what you might get from Google. These sites also attract specific audiences, which allows for better targeting for advertisers. Health-related search is another area …

Mark Thursday July 12th as the day the music died. A federal appeals court rejected Webcaster's requests to postpone the implementation of new royalty rates for music broadcast over the Web. That means Monday, July 16, will stand as the day Webcasters will have to pay copyright holders a new, higher royalty payment for digitally delivered music. "This is a major victory for recording artists and record labels whose hard work and creativity provides the music around which the Internet radio business is built," SoundExchange executive director John Simson said. SoundExchange is the federal organization created to set …