This June, Court TV viewers will get a chance to test their investigative skills and win up to $25,000 via the 8-Day Mystery Challenge, an online game with on-air and wireless components.

Apparel retailer American Eagle is diving into the branded content arena with "It's a Mall World," a digital comedy series that centers on the lives of a group of teens who work at a mall, including a girl who is employed at - where else? - American Eagle.

Zoiks! Verizon Wireless has come up with a new web 2.0 genre: user-generated comics. As of May, customers of Verizon's Get It Now service can create their own cell-phone comic strips using a series of characters, settings and backgrounds developed by Advanced Mobile Applications and mobile game maker Longtail Studios.

The retro TV trend continues online. Sony Pictures Television this month begins serving up bite-size versions of shaggy-hair era shows including "Charlie's Angels" and "T.J. Hooker" on MySpace. Called the Minisode Network, the new service offers condensed versions - told in three to five minutes - of 15 shows mined from Sony's TV library.

Spring is shaping up as mating season for media companies with a wave of big deals including Thomson Corp.'s  $17 billion merger with Reuters Group and a trio of online ad network acquisitions including Google's purchase of DoubleClick ($3.1 billion), Yahoo's buyout of Right Media ($680 million) and WPP Group's $650 million deal for 24/7 Real Media.

After struggling to line up major cable operators to carry the English version of Al Jazeera last year, the Arabic news channel in April turned to the Web's primary TV alternative: YouTube.

SNBC.com is giving new meaning to audience interaction with an in-cinema game that's part of a broader campaign aimed at newshounds.  

Virgin mobile USA has become a billion dollar-a-year company in just five years, though it was still $36 million in the red for 2006. That was one of the disclosures the youth-focused mobile service made in filing for a $100 million IPO in May. The prospectus also contained some other intriguing nuggets.

New video networks seem to be debuting online almost weekly now, and the latest contender is Jalipo. The broadband network features professional, high-quality video with a pay-as-you-go model similar to prepaid mobile plans.

Political debates have been known to generate a lot of hot air but not clouds - until now. Following the first presidential debates, Janet Harris, president of media analysis firm Upstream Analysis, created "tag clouds" that provide a visual display of the 50 words used most often by candidates in both parties.