On the eve of its official launch, music video site Vevo has added videos from EMI Music Group to its cache, which already includes clips from Sony and Universal Music Group -- which, not coincidentally, own the site. Sources tell MediaMemo that EMI is only licensing its videos to the venture, and isn't joining as an equity partner. Rather, it will get an advance against revenue upfront. The deal, therefore, means Warner Music Group will be the only one of the four major labels that isn't working with the video site. Warner, for its part, has struck its …

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has finally joined Twitter, the microblogging service that he once likened to "a sort of poor man's email," but which he has since embraced along with the advent of the real-time Web. Under the username Eschmidt0, Schmidt on Sunday night used Twitter to thank the Wall Street Journal for printing a recent op-ed, and then linked to the piece in which he discusses Google's tumultuous relationship with the newspaper industry. Among other notables, Schmidt is following TV reality star Heidi Montag and hip-hop mogul "PDiddy," Sean John Combs. Oh, and in case you're wondering, …

As it turns out, Apple's iPod touch might be the company's greatest defense against mounting competition from Google's Droid operating system. That according to Flurry, a company that tracks smartphone usage among some 45 million consumers via 3000 applications that have integrated the company's API. Contrary to rival reports, Droid, the Verizon/Google/Motorola competitor to the Apple/AT&T iPhone has actually shown a great deal of traction. Yet, "While the Android platform is the most legitimate challenger to iPhone smartphone dominance, it's important to remember that the iPhone's flank is protected by an often overlooked, powerful fighting brand: iPod touch." …

Google says it plans to send out window decals to over 100,000 restaurants, shops and hangouts nationwide that have earned a following among Google search engine and map users. The stickers, which will recognize the businesses as a "Favorite Place on Google," are seen as part of a larger effort by Google to expand its brand power offline and into the world of Zagat and other business rating services and local consumer guides. Each decal will include a unique bar code that consumers can scan with the cameras on their mobile device -- like iPhones or Android-based handsets …

Late last Friday, reports emerged that Apple had agreed to acquire music streaming and retailing site Lala.com for an undisclosed sum. Unlike Apple's iTunes, Lala lets users store their music libraries on its servers and access them on a variety of devices, from computers to mobile phones. According to the Los Angeles Times, the news -- which has now been confirmed -- gives "analysts and journalists an excuse to engage in one of their favorite pastimes ... Guessing Apple's Strategy." To wit, one expert suggests to Bloomberg News -- which broke the …

Engadget thinks there's something very peculiar about Verizon's latest Droid commercial. "Sure, we get the expected Mad Libs-esque hyperboles like 'it rips through the Web like a circular saw through a ripe banana,' but other nods seem to indicate an acknowledgement that, well, it's not the prettiest of flagship phone princesses." Reads the ad's copy: "Should [a phone be] be a tiara-wearing digitally clueless beauty pageant queen?" Yet, while it admires Verizon for its fighting spirit, Engadget wants to know why smartphone consumers can't have both brains and beauty. It's not as if their makers don't have the …

Microsoft is apologizing for Bing's half hour of downtime on Thursday, which it's attributing to a system error. During the outage, users were either unable to access the search engine or else received incomplete results to search queries. The outage came a day after Microsoft announced new features for Bing, including updated Bing Maps and a visual search that integrates Twitter and Facebook feeds. "The cause of the outage was a configuration change during some internal testing that had unfortunate and unintended consequences," Satya Nadella, SVP of Microsoft's Online Services Division, wrote on the official Bing blog. In …

New research is challenging the popular perception that iPhones are totally safe, especially if users don't "jailbreak" or unlock their phones. Swiss iPhone developer Nicolas Seriot has published research on security shortcomings that could create a mechanism for hackers to lift data from regulation iPhones. Email accounts, keyboard entries held in cache and browser history files can all be potentially exposed by a malicious app, according to the report. Seriot has even developed a proof of concept app, called SpyPhone, in order to demonstrate how Apple's own APIs might be misused to read or edit a user's address …

Highlighting content from the former Thomson Corp professional businesses, Thomson Reuters is releasing a redesigned version of its news site. The new Reuters.com also puts the news agency a step closer to charging to for its content, according to the Financial Times. "I think eventually we will [charge]," Alisa Bowen, head of consumer publishing for Thomson Reuters, tells the newspaper. "As we introduce a greater range of content we will be looking for a range of different business models." Still, the site is catering to advertisers in a big way. The new design, by Huge, an Interpublic-owned digital consultancy, features …

Continuing his crusade to put AOL back on the right track, chief exec Tim Armstrong is talking up the soon-to-be-independent company's 100 million monthly unique visitors, and its ability to reach multiple audiences with one ad buy. In other words, the strategy is all about content, but as Bloomberg notes, AOL already tried that and failed. Still, a year ago, AOL licensed as much as 80% of its content, while, today, the company says it generates 80% of it. To succeed, "Tim needs to articulate the value of AOL," Robert W. Pittman, a former AOL Time Warner chief …