While hit webisodes haven't quite been flooding the digital ether, the genre is far from dead, reports The New York Times. "After a protracted drought, money is trickling back into the professional Web video industry," the paper reports. "So-called branded entertainment deals ... are becoming more common, helping to nourish new programming. And venture capital firms are also paying new attention to the industry." Ikea, for one, has supported "Easy to Assemble," a show about a Hollywood actress who goes blue-collar, as its sole sponsor. Meanwhile, My Damn Channel, which distributes "Easy to Assemble," announced a $4.4 …

This weekend, the women at the center of a sex scandal -- which last week led to the ouster of HP CEO Mark Hurd -- revealed herself. Jodie Fisher, a 50-year-old former reality television contestant and soft-core porn star, most recently served as a marketing consultant at HP. (Boing Boing has posted some of her NSFW work online.) "Hurd's relationship with Fisher ... has put an unsavory end to one of the great executive runs in recent American business history," reports The New York Times. "And it has stunted a long search by HP's employees for stability and …

As Facebook continues on its path to world domination, smaller social networks are struggling to find their niches. United Online, for one, is trying to reposition its Classmates.com social network as a resource for "nostalgic content," paidContent reports. "While users will still be able to upload their own content and edit profiles, they will soon also be able to access a 'vast' amount of 'nostalgic content,' including vintage videos, movies, TV shows, commercials, music, magazines and newspapers," according to the blog, citing comments by United Online CEO Mark Goldston. According to Goldston, the company has already scanned 20,000 high …

Hot social-gaming startup Zynga has acquired a Japanese game maker by the name of Unoh. The deal comes on the heels of Zynga scoring a $150 million investment from SoftBank, a Tokyo-based wireless carrier that holds stakes in numerous Internet companies. Zynga and SoftBank also announced plans to co-develop and distribute games in Japan. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but VentureBeat reports the deal was worth about $30 million. "They have a great track record of producing innovative, successful games and are a perfect complement to the top-notch team we have already begun to assemble in …

Throughout Silicon Valley, top tech companies may soon have to make their "cultures" more conducive to older folks. The California Supreme Court just ruled that an age-discrimination lawsuit filed against Google back in 2004 should proceed to trial. "The ruling Thursday makes it harder for companies in California to defeat discrimination claims at an early stage, and employees are now more likely to get their claims in front of a jury," attorneys specializing in employment law tells The Wall Street Journal. In 2004, a senior executive at Google between 2002 and 2004, alleged when he was 54-years-old that other …

Supporting an earlier report, Apple is in talks to acquire Chinese software maker Handseeing, an exec at the company confirms with Reuters. "We should have a decision in about one or two months," said Tian Bo, vice president for operations. "They're still talking about it and it's not quite settled yet right now." Handseeing is "a little-known gaming company headquartered in southwest China's Sichuan province. It designs online games based on popular Chinese folklore," according to Reuters. Handseeing specializes in rich Internet applications, with a primary business model focused on mobile online gaming. "If realised, the deal could point …

Confirming earlier reports, Google says it has indeed acquired Slide, a social-media startup founded by PayPal vet Max Levchin. "We're working to develop open, transparent, and interesting (and fun!) ways to allow our users to take full advantage of how technology can bring them closer to friends and family and provide useful information just for them," Google engineering director David Glazer wrote in a blog post. "Slide has already created compelling social experiences for tens of millions of people across many platforms, and we've already built strong social elements into products like Gmail, Docs, Blogger, Picasa, and YouTube. As the …

Albeit on a very slow news day, the industry is buzzing about popular link-sharing Web site Digg, and claims that some "influential conservative" members are systematically downgrading thousands of stories they deem to be too "liberal." Online magazine AlterNet claims to have caught the "Digg Patriots" censuring "hundreds of users, dozens of Web sites, and thousands of stories" on Digg. Alternet claims that the group of about 100 is "able to bury over 90% of articles by certain users and Web sites submitted within 1-3 hours." "Digg is one of the most important …

Google's Android platform is presently activating 200,000 units a day, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told a gaggle of reporters on Wednesday. Remarkably, that's up 100% from 100,000 units a day in May. "The activation growth shows impressive progress for Google's mobile OS in the span of just a few months," VentureBeat notes. "Schmidt pointed to recent quarterly shipment numbers that showed Android phones outselling the iPhone in the last quarter as proof, and said that he confirmed the number with Google's own internal figures." Among other factors, Schmidt pointed to the success of the Droid X as …

Evite just relaunched it popular invite service, and, well, TechCrunch isn't a fan. Under the headline, "Evite Introduces Redesign, Tries Not To Suck, Fails," the blog slams Evite as the "MySpace of online invitation services." Damn. What's more, as a crew of hipper rivals rise up, Evite "refuses to take any lessons from these smaller, scrappier startups, something that even MySpace, to its credit, is now starting to do," TechCrunch add. "It's still slow (according to Alexa 76% of sites are faster than the old Evite.com) and it's still full of ads." Clone-like competitors include Pingg, Punchbowl, …