Hulu clearly sees video startup Joost as a competitor, and is out for blood. Last week, Joost ditched the desktop software approach and launched a new social network around its now Web-based video product. TechCrunch reports that Hulu today launched a series of new, similar features, including show recommendations, user discussion forums, better search and 17 new vertical channels from anime to fashion and beauty, food and leisure, home and garden, comedy, music, video games, etc. The News Corp./NBC Universal joint venture says it now has nearly 900 TV and film titles from over 100 content providers. As TC's …

The Yahoo board is set to meet for the first time since Carl Icahn and two new board members were added. As Kara Swisher reports, there will be much to discuss, particularly the company's stock falling to a five-year low. What can Yahoo do to boost shares? Swisher says the purchase of AOL from Time Warner looks to be Yahoo's "most attractive option," and that the talks are "more serious than (have) been reported." Other problems that need to be addressed include attracting new top-level talent, reacting to the troubled economy (in which display advertising looks particularly weak), and …

If regulators don't decide to put the kibosh on the Google-Yahoo search partnership, a big "if" by many accounts, it could turn out to be a very lucrative deal for Yahoo. Henry Blodget points out that Google's superior search ads would provide Yahoo with incremental revenue and cash flow, and at the same time allow the ailing Web portal to reduce spending on the search wars, which Yahoo lost a long time ago now. However, as nice a deal as this might turn out to be, Yahoo should have taken Microsoft's offer for its search business, particularly the second …

There's no shortage of analysis out there claiming that Google's Yahoo partnership should pass regulatory inspection because Google doesn't set advertising rates. The argument, essentially, is that a search monopoly for Google would be OK because the Web giant operates a kind of free market bidding system for advertisers. So, if ads are performance-based and prices go up, that can only mean that advertisers deem those ads to be more effective, and thus, worth more. Right? Tech Crunch's Michael Arrington couldn't disagree more. In particular, he singles out The New York Times' Randall Stross, author of the latest pro-Googlopoly …

Rumor has it that MySpace Music is being delayed because negotiations with EMI, the fourth and final piece of the Big Music puzzle, are ongoing. There's also the lack of a company CEO, but that might not matter as much, says TechCrunch's Erick Schonfeld. With EMI on board, MySpace Music "will overnight become a major new force for music distribution on the Web," he says, adding that it's like a subscription model, except the subscription (a MySpace membership), is free. Sounds wonderful, right? Well, it may be too good to be true, says Schonfeld. For starters, independent labels, which have …

Microsoft on Monday announced that it would repurchase $40 billion worth of its own stock, and raise its quarterly dividend by 18% in an effort to spur investors into buying the company's stock. That raises Microsoft's dividend from 11 cents a share to 13 cents. The $40 billion buyback program will expire on Sept. 30, 2013. According to Reuters, the company recently completed a $40 billion stock repurchase program. It also said its board had issued debt financings "from time to time" of up to $6 billion. The company will use the proceeds from this for general corporate purposes.