Barry Diller and IAC/InterActiveCorp will start distributing user-generated videos in HD this week through Vimeo, its video-sharing site. The resolution comes in at the high-def standard 1280 pixels by 720 pixels, four times as clear as the 320x240 typically found on video sharing sites like YouTube. Not that you can't find high-def videos elsewhere on the Web. Movie trailers, for example, have been streamable in HD for a long time, as has other professionally produced content. However, Vimeo is the first-known Web site to make HD quality user generated content available. Will HD quality video be enough to …

As Web spending continues to hit new records each year, media execs are wondering whether the growth is sustainable. Are advertising expectations out of control? Some say that new media companies are taking advertising for granted, worrying that there may not be enough ad dollars to go around. Says NBC Universal's Beth Comstock, whose Integrated Media division is setting up a fund to invest in new media companies. "It's just not going to be possible," she said. "There are not going to be enough advertising dollars in the marketplace. No matter how clever we are, no matter what …

Nearly one year and several lawsuits after buying YouTube, Google has finally unveiled a digital fingerprinting technology to help identify user uploaded videos that violate the intellectual property rights of media content owners. Reviewers of the long-delayed new system applaud Google's efforts, but say the search giant still needs to do some refining. On Monday, Google began soliciting copyrighted materials for the "YouTube Video Identification" system from copyright owners, so that it can copy, identify, and remove illegally uploaded videos. Nine media firms, including the Walt Disney Co. and Time Warner, have participated in the test. Previously, Google relied …

By even the highest valuation, Google is still more than 15 times the size of Facebook. With a market capitalization of $190 billion, Google could eat the social network for lunch, and yet it's Facebook that's got the Web giant running scared. Google understands that it needs to grab a foothold in social networking, but Facebook, frustratingly, isn't for sale. And given its ad ambitions, Mark Zuckerburg's Facebook reminds one of a pre-IPO Google, circa 2003. Now, many analysts believe Facebook is planning an IPO sometime in 2008. The evidence: in July, Gideon Yu, finance chief of Google's video …

Its relationship with Apple in tatters, Universal Music Group has decided to pool together other big music companies independent record labels to create an iTunes competitor. UMG already has Sony BMG and Warner Music Group on board, which together would represent 75% of the music market. UMG's plan is to supply iPod competitors like Microsoft's Zune with the fodder it needs to compete with Apple. The service would be called Total Music. No comment yet from UMG. The move is partly about UMG's souring relationship with Apple, but also about boosting a business in decline. CD sales are …

Current TV, the media pet project of former Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore, has undergone a strategic makeover that includes turning its Web site into the cornerstone of its growth strategy. Launched in 2005, Current has been a cable TV channel (offered only by certain providers) that gives documentarians, aspiring filmmakers and reporters the opportunity to submit short clips of their reports and films and get them on television. The New York Times describes it as a "free-wheeling, round-the-clock news mashup." Right idea, wrong medium, says the Tnewspaper. The news mashup format was built for …

Many believe the valuations being placed on Web firms in Silicon Valley are out of control. Facebook fetching $10 billion? The company's only expected to sell $150 million worth of advertising this year. What about RockYou, which creates programs for Facebook, seeking $500 million? The sum total of third-party revenues on the social networking site is less than $1 million. Then there's the rumor that CNET wants TechCrunch for $100 million. TechCrunch is an industry blog. These were all unsubstantiated rumors of course, but the result is a whole bunch of bubble chatter in Silicon Valley. These seemingly …

Google is ubiquitous. By some counts, it's the most popular brand in the world, yet it's unlike just about any other global brand, spending almost no money on marketing. Ironically, perhaps, advertising has been the pathway to Google's mega millions. That it's become a necessary tool for those searching for content and advertisers searching for consumers is advertising enough for the $190 billion Web company. Indeed, who needs to advertise when you provide a service people (and advertisers) need? At the same time, Google crushes its competitors by being better, not by out-marketing them-but with research and …

Virtual worlds have been billed as a kind of social networking 2.0, but so far, they've yet to really catch on-with adults, that is. Kids, on the other hand, love the colorful 3D environments at sites like Neopets, Stardoll.com, Gaia Online and Club Penguin, where they create and care for avatars of their own making. These cutesy virtual worlds have rapidly become big business, as evidenced by Disney's $350 million takeover of Club Penguin. Sensing an opportunity, new players has emerged in the virtual market; many come from established brands like Mattel's Barbie. But these sites are mostly …

Facebook continues to pile on the press coverage, getting credit this time for stealing working professionals from the professional networking site LinkedIn. But it shouldn't. The Web's No. 2 social site is perfect for college dorm networking, but not so much for job or business development hunting. LinkedIn allows workers to delve into an extended network of contacts developed around the people you know. With Facebook, you can only see your friends' friends. In other words, friend grouping has become a problem for the social network that one time only allowed college students to join. Some people may not …