Politico publisher Robert Allbritton has acquired the politically minded news Web site Capital New York. Allbritton “plans to make ‘a substantial investment’ in the business and more than quadruple staff,” Politico’s Dylan Byers reports. In a memo, Allbritton wrote: “I have very big ambitions for this publication: to do in New York what we did in Washington with Politico.” 

A panel of federal judges, today, will get its first look at what Reuters calls “a potential landmark case for U.S. regulation of Internet traffic … testing whether the Federal Telecommunications Commission has authority to enforce so-called Net neutrality rules.” Representing the interests of private carriers is Verizon Communications, which is expected to begin oral arguments against the FCC, on Monday. 

As all the criticism laid at the feet of Steve Ballmer shows, Microsoft has long been a difficult ship to steer. Following its $7.2 billion acquisition of Nokia’s handset and services operations, however, running the software giant could now be a near impossible task. As such, “a list of missed opportunities and disappointing investments … have led to the belief that a more focused, nimble collection of mini-Microsofts could respond more effectively to the never-ending flow of disruptive technologies nibbling at its foundations,” The New York Times suggests. 

With obvious implications for Madison Avenue, Facebook is rolling out new search features that will make it easier to track social conversations in real-time. “One of the new tools will allow news organizations to use keywords such as ‘Syria vote’ or ‘Tokyo Olympics’ to search Facebook for posts on those topics that an individual user or a company has designated as public,” The New York Times reports. 

Parse -- the mobile-backend-as-a-service startup that Facebook bought earlier this year for a reported $85 million -- is rolling out a number of news features, this week, including analytics. “Following up a recent release offering insights into data concerning push notifications, Parse is adding a custom analytics service that tracks ‘arbitrary events with an arbitrary set of dimensions,’” ZDNet reports.

No, Rotten Tomatoes founder Senh Duong isn’t trying to take on Google. He does, however, envision another site of his, Movies With Butter, becoming the “Google News for movies.” As TechCrunch reports: “Duong says he and [business partner Binh] Ngo think they can build a better algorithm than Google News, which doesn’t have a film-specific section, based on their knowledge from Rotten Tomatoes.” 

Combine traditional demographic data with information about Web browsing habits, and what do you get? Far better predictions about what consumers are willing to pay for your service, according to a new paper from Brandeis University economist Benjamin Shiller. As The Washington Post suggests, the tactic could be particularly useful for Netflix as a way of determining how much to charge individual subscribers. 

Music streaming service Spotify is reportedly raising more money at a valuation of $5.27 billion. “To put this valuation in context, last November the company had an estimated value of $3 billion around the time that it closed a $100 million round,” TechCrunch writes. “About half of that last round came from Goldman Sachs, with Coca Cola taking 10% and Fidelity 15%.” So far, Spotify has raised $288 million. 

Bing this week is rolling a new video search feature, include navigational improvements, video overlays, pop-out previews, bigger thumbnails and new filters. "With the video overlay, users can move to different videos from the carousel at the bottom of the light box," WebProNews writes. "There's also a related searches list on the right ... The source and number of views are displayed under the videos."

SaaS startup Zuora just raised another $50 million, The Wall Street Journal reports. Founded by an early employee of Salesforce.com, "The company provides cloud-based services including subscription pricing, quoting, orders, billing, payments and renewals, for companies that offer subscriptions," WSJ writes, noting that this has never been a better time for subscription-based services.