A year ago, when Time Warner Cable and Viacom sparred over renewal fees, Viacom took out ads asking consumers for sympathy. Today, faced with the prospect of similar fights with the likes of News Corp. and Scripps, Time Warner Cable is launching its own appeal. Good luck with that. Read More »

With Sun Microsystems beginning to founder as it awaits European Commission clearance of its acquisition by Oracle’s, a group of U.S. Senators is urging the EC to speed up its approval of the deal. In an open letter, the group essentially tells European regulators to “get on with it,” warning that further delay could result in additional layoffs at Sun. Read More »

How do you get Web users to pay for content? Get an iPhone in their hands. That’s one conclusion you can draw from a new survey, which shows that people who own the Apple handsets are more willing to pay for stuff than the average Internet surfer. Read More »

Having diligently hewn Psytar’s legal coffin over the past year and a half, Apple has now taken up its hammer and set about nailing the Mac clone maker into it. This week the company called for a permanent injunction against Psystar’s operations. Read More »

While BoomTown is trapped on, oops, fully enjoying an overnight train trip to Portland for the holidays (and just beginning to sweat from not enough broadband), here’s a very funny video of the Muppets doing Queen. The puppets–part of Disney’s Muppets Studio–just got themselves a channel on YouTube and this is one of their most popular posts so far. Read More »

The Internet Archive and more than 20 Web companies are banding together to preserve the historical records of the abbreviated Internet addresses that are passed around on services such as Twitter. Services such as Bit.ly and TinyURL allow consumers to convert a lengthy Web address into a miniaturized one. They have soared in popularity in recent years with the advent of Twitter, which limits users to 140 characters per post. Read More »

There certainly is a lot of noisy swirl of late around the escalating fight between Google and some traditional media companies over content online. The loudest voice in this fight has clearly been News Corp. kingpin Rupert Murdoch, who seemingly has not met a television interviewer of late he did not regale with tales of the search giant’s nefariousness. Murdoch has also tried to get Google’s biggest nemesis, Microsoft, involved in what has become a wrestling match over the future of news. But what’s really happening here? Here are five possibilities to consider. Read More »

I’d like to say this is a half-full, half-empty scenario. But the more I think about it, the more I’m thinking the latter. Web ads improved over the last three months, but compared to last year, we’re still behind. And last year was terrible. Read More »

With more people emailing and fewer people sending physical mail in recent years, the U.S. Postal Service is taking steps to move into the digital world–and using a venture-backed company to do so. Goodmail Systems Inc. has partnered with Epostmarks Inc. to launch a product, Postmarked Email, that has the approval and protection of the U.S. Postal Service. Read More »

They’re grinning like a shot fox up at Microsoft today now that the company’s advertising partnership with Yahoo has been cleared by antitrust regulators in Australia and Canada. Read More »

Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell is leaving the software giant at the end of the year and will be replaced by longtime Microsoft finance exec Peter Klein. A Microsoft spokesman said Liddell wants to pursue jobs beyond his finance role outside the company. BoomTown always enjoyed his adorkable New Zealand accent, even when it was talking econalypse 24/7. I have no idea what Klein sounds like, but he currently serves as CFO of Microsoft’s Business Division, which is one of the company’s largest units. Read More »

With Twitter exploding–and the focus on real time data exploding along with it–there are a number of new companies that are seeking to develop more specific applications of this technology. Read More »

This year, Live Nation, the world’s largest concert promoter, will put on some 22,000 live shows–each one attended by carping about the asinine “convenience” and “courtesy” charges the company likes to tack on to ticket purchases. But much as concertgoers might loathe the idea of giving Live Nation even more of their money, they may soon do so. Because beginning today, the company is offering exclusive audio and video recordings of some of its events through iTunes. Read More »

Google’s chief executive Eric Schmidt said during a trip to Baghdad this week that Iraq’s stabilization could lead to business opportunities in the country. Mr. Schmidt was part of a delegation, led by Peter Pace, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to encourage business development in Iraq. Read More »

Yet another goofy Silicon Valley name did not prevent Asana–the productivity software start-up founded by former Facebookers Dustin Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein–from nabbing $9 million in funding from Benchmark Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. The round, which was announced today, will be used to turbocharge Asana and its small team, who are aiming at the very dull and unexciting but very large and problematic workplace collaboration and communications market. In Sanskrit, “asana” means “sitting down” and refers to strong but relaxed postures in yoga–so presumably, Moskovitz and Rosenstein are trying to help frustrated workers achieve a digital form of nirvana. Read More »