Driven by higher CPMs and consumer appetites, top Web publishers are increasingly favoring video over the printed word, reports The Times. CNN.com and ESPN.com, for instance, are featuring video much more prominently on their home pages, "often prompting visitors to press play before they begin to read." Talking to the Times, K. C. Estenson, the general manager of CNN.com, credits the rise of video to broadband penetration, which has made the viewing experience more palatable for consumers. Among Web sites operated by newspapers, The New York Times Co., Gannett and Tribune each reach more than a million viewers …

Google's Latitude location-aware friend finder has added location history and alerts, which, one Location History is enabled by a user, tells them when friends are in the area. The system is even smart enough to recognize routine places like home and work so it will only send alerts when you and your friends are in an "unusual place." "Using your past location history, Location Alerts can recognize your regular, routine locations and not create alerts when you're at places like home or work," the service's engineers write in a blog post. "Alerts will only be sent to you …

Like Facebook, Twitter is finding it increasingly difficult to make even minor service changes without inciting virtual riots. The latest instance involves the micro-blogging service's new "Retweet" feature, which was at least designed to make it easier for users to republish the tweets of others. Along with untold Twitterers, Hubspot's Dan Zarella says the feature "could completely eviscerate most of the value out of Retweets," while PC Mag's Lance Ulanoff calls it "frightening dictatorial." At issue is the fact that the meta data -- about who tweeted and who retweeted -- is not included in the tweet text …

No wonder Microsoft was so willing to unload RazorFish on Publicis earlier this year. It turns out that in 2008 the digital ad agency only convinced its clients, including Visa and Victoria's Secret, to funnel 4% of their budgets to ads on Microsoft's Live.com search engine. In stark contrast, RazorFish's clients put 72% of their search ad budgets toward Google ads, and 22% toward Yahoo ads. But, it wasn't RazorFish's fault, says Slate.com's Big Money blog. "Microsoft's search platform was so bad, its own ad agency couldn't entice people to advertise on it." Partly as a result, Microsoft …

Software as a service, which has emerged as a key battleground for industry titans like Google and Microsoft, will be a $14 billion industry by 2013, according to new global research from Gartner. This year, SaaS, a.k.a., cloud-computing services, is on pace to grow 17.7% from $6.4 billion in 2008 to $7.5 billion. "I don't find the numbers too surprising," writes Network World's 'Head in the Cloud" column, "but the success of software-as-a-service is in stark contrast to many other portions of the recession-plagued IT industry." "Microsoft, for its part, …

Apple isn't the only company churning out apps these days. Amazon just released a Kindle for PC app, available as a free download for Windows 7, Vista, and XP. Similar to the Kindle for iPhone app, Kindle for PC syncs a consumer's Amazon e-book downloads, and shows them on their computer for convenient reading either when they're away from their e-book reader or don't own one. Amazon also says a Mac version is "coming soon." "Though not necessarily revolutionary," PC World says "the Kindle for PC app does the job." By offering additional portability, Amazon's broader aim is to dissuade …

Google Street View has officially finished visually cataloging all 50 US states. To mark the occasion, Google has launched an online gallery with some of what it considers to be most interesting imagery in Street View, including Alcatraz Island in San Francisco and the Kennedy Space Center. Google has also been working to bring even more locations to Street View, which have been previously impossible to reach. With the Street View "trike," Google can go to many places it otherwise wouldn't be able to go to and, after visiting some famous locations in Europe, it's bringing it stateside. In total, …

CBS has picked up a comedy project based on the Twitter account "Shit My Dad Says," which has attracted over 700,000 followers since launching in August. "Will & Grace" creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick are set to executive produce and supervise the writing for the "multicamera" family comedy, which author Justin Halpern will co-pen with Patrick Schumacker. Halpern and Schumacker will also co-exec produce the Warner Bros. TV-produced project. After moving back in with his parents in San Diego, Halpern, 28, launched the Twitter account to document his 73-year-old father's priceless rants and remarks such as, "Sometimes life leaves …

LinkedIn will now let members of its community feed their status to Twitter, and to their LinkedIn connections. Status updates have been an important part of LinkedIn, with working professionals using it to alert others to sales leads, new jobs and other business opportunities, writes eWeek. But, Twitter is fast becoming Web users' official status update, with millions of users blasting out messages to followers each day. Also of note, LinkedIn's membership growth has cooled in the last two years, while Facebook has soared to more 300 million users, sparking speculation that many people have turned to the …

During its first weekend on the market, analysts are estimating that Motorola sold a respectable 100,000 Android-powered Droid phones. By contrast, Apple sold more than 1 million of its latest iPhone model in its weekend debut in June. Still, Broadpoint AmTech analyst Mark McKechnie tells Bloomberg that the numbers are "encouraging." "There seems to be pretty good demand -- they've taken the right steps and picked a good partner with Google on the Android side." Verizon Wireless, the carrier for the device, had 200,000 Droid phones on hand, and most stores sold at least half of their stock. …