After the announcement that the $6 billion aQuantive merger had been approved, Microsoft announced a huge shakeup to its Internet advertising division, which will now be headed by former aQuantive CEO Brian McAndrews, who becomes the official head of Advertiser and Publisher Solutions. Alongside McAndrews, is aQuantive co-founder Mike Galgon, who assists him as chief advertising strategist. Satya Nadella, who in March was named head of Microsoft's Search and Ad Platform Group, will continue to run the technology behind adCenter, but will also be in charge of the company's newly acquired ad exchange, ADECN. Steve Berkowitz's Online Services …

Publicity stunt or legal strategy? Google wants comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert to give a deposition in the search giant's fight against their employer Viacom, which is suing Google video provider YouTube for $1 billion in copyright damages. Stewart, host of "The Daily Show," and Colbert, host of "The Colbert Report," are two of Viacom unit Comedy Central's most high-profile personalities; their shows have been illegally uploaded to YouTube thousands if not millions of times. There's no guarantee that Stewart and Colbert will be questioned, as Viacom could argue that the pair is immaterial to the case. …

Dow Jones buyer Rupert Murdoch has said he wants to see The Wall Street Journal forgo its $65 million subscription business in order to reach more people. While many Web critics applaud the proposed switch, newspaper purists say the come-one-come-all approach won't generate the usage or ad revenue to justify it. Murdoch disagrees, saying it's the right move long-term. WSJ.com is one of the few (moderate)success stories in the pay-for-news business. British business pubs like the Economist and the Financial Times also have online subscription services, but have been less successful. The reason, per USAToday.com managing editor Chet …

In just a few months, Slide.com has become the most popular widget maker on the Web; its embeddable products allow users to easily post video, pictures and anything sparkles and moves to their Web sites, blogs or social networking pages. The latest Web 2.0 fad, widget use, continues to grow apace according to comScore, which says that some 220 million widgets were consumed in May alone. What's so special about embedded software apps anyway? For publishers, they make Web pages stickier. Like a Web page within a Web page, widgets allow users to customize their content. For example, an …

Internet Service Providers across the globe want you to know that their bandwidth comes at a premium-or at least it should. Late last week, leading ISPs in the UK warned the BBC that it would have to start restricting access to the company's new iPlayer streaming video service unless it starts contributing to streaming costs over their networks. The argument that Tiscali, British Telecom, Carphone Warehouse and other UK ISPs make is similar to the one adopted by U.S. telecom companies in their bid to shut down Net Neutrality: companies should pay for services that require more bandwidth. The …

As the newspaper industry continues its slow decline, Silicon Alley blogger Henry Blodget explains why The New York Times cannot escape a future of downsizing and depreciating returns. Its offline business accounts for just 13% of monthly readership but generates 90% of its revenue, while NYTimes.com's 7.5 million monthly uniques covers the remaining 10. The reasons? Offline display and classifieds ad sell for more than online ads, and physical papers are also sold. People spend less time with NYTimes.com than they do with the physical paper, as competition for ads comes from other online pubs, blogs, social networks, …

The world of streaming and downloadable media is an area Big Media has to figure out if it wants to maintain its dominant position in the media business. NBC Universal recently announced an innovative step forward in partnering with Israeli company Hiro Media, which embeds dynamic ads into media files, for its comedy service DotComedy. Hiro's technology allows ad-supported NBC files to be distributed across file-sharing networks pervaded by illegal trading. A technology like Hiro's is one answer to the massive headache caused by piracy to traditional media companies--especially if they upload files containing ad-supported content by the thousands. …

What's the movie download market like? Well, after reviewing Blockbuster's purchase of Movielink on Thursday-estimated at under $20 million by The Wall Street Journal--not so good. Why? The big movie studios backing the movie downloading startup (Warner Bros., MGM, Paramount, Universal and Sony) reportedly dumped more than $100 million into the joint venture. A cheap Movielink, on the market for well over a year, underscores the fact that consumers aren't that interested in purchasing and downloading movies. Maybe it's the long download times. Maybe it's the ease of movie piracy. Maybe consumers have gotten used to not paying …

This is a test, this is only a test: Universal Music Group has decided to experiment with selling digital rights management-free music, planning a six-month nationwide test in which most of its popular content will be sold using the universal MP3 format. Music sellers like Amazon, RealNetworks, BestBuy, Wal-Mart and others will all get a chance to sell UMG's DRM-free music; conspicuously, Apple's iTunes was left out of the test, per its contractual issues with the iPod maker. The six-month trial begins on August 21 and ends on January 31; the music giant can simply pull the …

Veoh Networks is looking to neutralize the threat of a copyright infringement suit from Universal Music Group by preemptively suing the music giant. The online video sharing site declares that it has no liability to UMG, even if its users illegally upload videos to the Veoh site containing UMG music. Veoh, like Google in its suit against Viacom, claims protection under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It also takes down copyrighted material when asked and does not outwardly encourage illegal activity. But why sue? Because UMG notified the site in July it was considering legal action against Veoh for …