Acquisitive agency holding company MDC Partners is diversifying its holdings beyond conventional advertising agencies into what it calls "social commerce" with the acquisition of dotbox. Terms were not disclosed, but MDC, whose last big acquisition was independent media services shop R.J. Palmer, described dotbox as a firm that "provides brands with a full suite of service offerings across strategy, implementation and activation, from classic e-commerce to socially integrated campaigns and full omni-channel retail solutions."

Asserting that technology and market forces have moved "light-years ahead" of the 37-year-old rule, the Newspaper Association of America asked the Federal Communications Commission to full repeal of its ban on newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership.

ReachLocal signs on Kris Barton to the position of chief product officer. He comes to ReachLocal from Nero, where he served as COO of the multimedia software company overseeing business development, global online products and services. Barton also worked at Microsoft, overseeing the product development for MSN online properties, and prior at Omniture and Novell.

Cablevision Systems this morning said its "advanced advertising platform" has delivered nearly 4 billion impressions for advertisers to date.

Apple today announced reaching 25 billion app downloads. Perhaps it’s not surprising the milestone took place in China, with the downloand of the popular game “Where’s My Water?” As the winner of Apple’s App Store Countdown to 25 Billion Apps promotion, Chunli Fu will receive a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card. The company said it offers more than 550,000 apps for the iPhone in 123 countries and 170,000 native iPad apps. There are 315 million iPhone, iPad and iPod devices worlwide

Yahoo this week debuts the slate of original shows it announced last year as part of its new comedy channel featuring comedians such as Mike O’Brien, a Saturday Night Live writer, and Seth Morris (Step Brothers, No Strings Attached) in lead roles. Yahoo introduced its comedy channel in December with the live broadcast of a Bill Maher stand-up performance. Like the lineup of women’s shows it launched last October, the typically 3-5 minute weekly episodes of the five new comedies will offer advertisers “share of voice” sponsorship opportunities against the entire slate of shows. Yahoo says it already has …

American newspaper publishers are losing $7 in print advertising for every each dollar they are gaining in new digital revenue, according to an analysis of financial data of 38 newspapers from 13 publishing companies released this morning by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.

With the long-awaited iPad 3 slated to be unveiled next week, what are the prospects for sales? According to a new study from mobile ad network inMobi, 29% of mobile Web users plan get the latest version of the Apple tablet. And more than half (54%) of that group isn’t already tablet owners. Among other findings, inMobi said 65% of those who intend to buy an iPad 3 would also consider getting an iPad or iPad 2 at a lower price instead. The iPad 2 currently starts at $499. comScore estimates almost half (47.5%) of U.S. mobile owners, or …

After nearly 200 comments on its Facebook page, ProFlowers spokesperson "Mike" had this to say: "We are sorry for the negative experience caused by the comments that were made by Rush Limbaugh. Although we do not agree with the comments made, we do value your feedback as you are all valued customers. Rest assured, your feedback is heard. We value your comments and are here to help. Our management team will review your concerns."

Independent regional airline Cape Air said Thursday it has launched a new reservation platform based on ITA Software. The small airline based in Hyannis, Mass., teamed with Google-owned ITA Software to implement the new system to streamline online bookings. Jeremy Wertheimer, VP of Google Travel, said the platform was built from scratch.