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Can conservatives break the copyright stalemate?

Cries for copyright reform have typically come from Silicon Valley liberals. But in recent months, conservatives are adding arguments of their own. This presents the chance to reach a grand bargain on fixing copyright.

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The Babysitters are back, and republished as ebooks

Scholastic is releasing the first 20 books in the mega-bestselling “Babysitters Club” series as ebooks. The books rose to worldwide popularity in the 1980s and 1990s, and Scholastic hopes to bring back the now-grown fans who read them as kids.

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SOASTA buys LogNormal to beef up mobile app testing

The two companies were already working together on mPulse when they decided a deal was in order. The new product aims to give mobile and web developers a real-time look at how their apps are perfroming in the field, said SOASTA CEO Tom Lounibos.

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Verizon gives RIM a pass on 4G-only smartphone rule

Verizon pledged to no longer accept new 3G-only smartphones, putting its considerable market might behind LTE. But it now seems willing to make an exception to that rule for its old partner RIM. Verizon will sell the BlackBerry Curve 9310, a device with no 4G connectivity.

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Free Publishers Lunch e-book offers excerpts from hot fall titles

Book publishing industry newsletter and website Publishers Lunch is previewing hot fall titles — by authors like Junot Diaz, Dennis Lehane and Barbara Kingsolver — in a free e-book, “BEA Buzz Books,” ahead of major publishing fair BookExpo America in June in New York.

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Yahoo’s CEO takes a credibility hit in proxy battle

Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson has been using a resume with a false claim for more than a decade. Activist shareholder Daniel Loeb unveiled Thompson’s lack of a computer science degree during a proxy fight, saying it raises issues about his credibility — and the board’s.

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Behind the Netflix PAC: a broadband power play

Netflix has formed its own political action committee called Flixpac, and my sources indicate that the biggest issues it plans to tackle will be how to let folks share their movies on social networks and the more nuanced issues of broadband competition and network neutrality.

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Facebook updates Pages to look more like user Timelines

Facebook is giving brands new tools for managing the way they interact with users on the social network, with updated Pages that will provide a better visual experience to users and advanced administrative tools for responding to user messages.

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Cloud server shipments to skyrocket in 2012

For anyone who doubts cloud computing is driving IT, check out new numbers from IHS. The researcher predicts unit shipments of “cloud servers” — those that run cloud computing infrastructure — will grow 35 percent to a whopping 875,000 this year, from 647,000 in 2011.

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5 ways to go global in China

Accessing new markets can be daunting. But by understanding the landscape and taking the right approach, it’s easier than ever before. Robert Laing, CEO of myGengo, shares his tips for expanding your business into China, an increasingly emerging player in the online game.

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An E-Book For Every War

A bestselling thriller author and financial journalist is self-publishing a series of e-book novellas, each featuring the same two character…

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Ex-Time Warner CEO Returns to the Web With Health Startup

Former Time Warner CEO Gerald Levin, best remembered for his failed AOL merger, has made a quiet return to the online world as an investor of health-information start-up OrganizedWisdom and now sees the power of channeling social media to help better the lives of people.

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What GM Ventures Is Looking For

At the Cleantech Investor Summit in Palm Springs, Calif. on Wednesday, GM Ventures President John Lauckner highlighted how GM Ventures could help entrepreneurs and startups, and also what GM Ventures is looking for in terms of its investments.

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Hard News Pays Better Than Fluff — or Does It?

A study has drawn attention in media circles by suggesting that stories on “serious topics” such as the Gulf oil spill draw more revenue for media outlets than stories about celebrities like Lindsay Lohan. But the reality is a little more complicated than the study suggests.

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Jon Lajoie’s Success Not Keeping Him Away From YouTube

It’s been almost two years since we last wrote about Jon Lajoie — whose comedy sketches and songs helped him build international fame online — but while he’s been doing pretty well for himself thanks to acting gigs and an original album, he’s still maintained his web popularity.

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Modern Family Creator Takes Aim at Hulu — Again

Steve Levitan, executive producer of ABC hit show Modern Family, has a Hulu problem. The problem, as he sees it, is that if Hulu goes public — which could happen as soon as the end of 2010 — content providers will be left in the lurch.

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Is It Time to Stop Blogging and Start an Email Newsletter?

Sam Lessin, founder of media startup Drop.io, is shutting down his blog and has started a subscription email newsletter, much like the one Weblogs Inc. founder Jason Calacanis started in 2008. Lessin has also started a service called Letter.ly to allow others to follow his example.

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Networked Lighting: LEDs Via Communication Cables

The future of lighting in commercial buildings is digital, networked and intelligent. That’s according to Dave Leonard, founder and CEO of lighting management startup Redwood Systems, a two-year-old company that makes a control system for LEDs that runs over an optimized version of ethernet cables.

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AOL Hires Sanford Bernstein Analyst Lindsay

Here’s a hire that’s not as unusual as it looks… AOL (NYSE: AOL) is bringing media analyst Jeff Lindsay over from his perch at Sanford Ber…

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Will Verizon's LTE Pricing Look Like a Utility Bill?

Verizon’s pricing for its next-generation Long Term Evolution Network will likely involve a base subscriber fee plus usage charges for the bandwidth consumed on devices that need a cellular connection, said the carrier’s CTO. So will that pricing model resemble that of a utility?

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Len Lauer Out, Reorg at Qualcomm

Qualcomm quietly announced via a press release that Len Lauer has resigned and is taking a CEO gig at another unnamed company. Lauer had joined Qualcomm in 2006, from Sprint. According to sources, he’s been looking for a new job for a while.

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With Eye on Future, Microsoft Offer Startups Freebies

Microsoft, in an effort to woo startups and combat the open source movement, is going to start offering free software and online services to certain type of startups across the world, the company announced today. This effort, dubbed “Biz Spark,” will be rolled out across the world in 82 countries.

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IAC Split: Interview: Doug Lebda, COO, IAC

Following the IAC (NSDQ: IACI) press conference explaining today’s announcement that the company will split into five publicly held companie…

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Monday Vid-Biz Headlines

WPP Acquires Schematic; company makes purchase to create original digital content beyond ads. (release) “Dick in a Box” Nabs Emmy; the Samberg/Timberlake…

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On The ETel LaunchPad

ETel, the O’Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference is going to kick off on February 27th, with the GigaOM/ETel LaunchPad, followed by a special…

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Guangdong, the new VoIP nation

Guangdong, a fast growing province of China is gearing up to become an important sourcing base for a myriad of VoIP products.…

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