Verizon's clearly pushing hard to convince people to subscribe to its $15-a-month V Cast service, developing video deals that make select clips available to users. But such arrangements don't seem likely to spark subscriptions.

Universal Music Group head Doug Morris told the Reuters Media Summit this week that the company expects to see its most profitable year ever in 2007, thanks to new tracks from its most popular musicians....

Since 2001, Stuart Frankel has maintained a personal Web site that included a page he created to parody "Barney"--yes, the fictional purple dinosaur. In the posts, Frankel suggested that Barney's friendly facade was a mask for his real, satanic nature....

Online retailers appear poised to have a decent holiday season, at least judging by the preliminary numbers released this weekend by different measurement companies. At the same time, some e-commerce stores still have some work to do to shore up their sites for the remaining weeks in the holiday season.

While some entertainment companies continue to complain about video-sharing sites, at least one, CBS, isn't griping today. Several weeks ago, CBS began uploading clips of its shows to YouTube--and has seen ratings increase as a result.

In a sweeping decision, the California Supreme Court just ruled that Internet service providers and users--including bloggers--can't be sued for defamation merely for publishing material written by someone else.

With just several weeks left until Congress adjourns for the year, the nonprofit group Center for Democracy & Technology has weighed in on pending bills that, it argues, should die on the vine.

The surprising shake-up at AOL this week, that saw chairman Jonathan Miller ousted in favor of NBC Universal's Randy Falco, was cheered by brokerage house Merrill Lynch. In a report issued this morning, research analyst Jessica Reif Cohen said the shift bodes well for the company.

Viacom's Comedy Central is poised to join the growing roster of traditional media companies that have cut deals with video-sharing site YouTube, Reuters reports today.

MySpace has triggered a lot of complaints in the company's brief existence. Now, a city official in Houston is griping that family and friends of death row inmates have created MySpace pages on their behalf.