Media & Culture @ HM

NBC Universal, along with private equity firms Blackstone Group and Bain Capital, said Sunday they will buy The Weather Channel from Landmark Communications.

A photograph that filled a billboard in Denver this week will not find its way onto billboards in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Who's winning the message war, Obama or McCain? Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a leading analyst of political advertising, dissects three commercials from Barack Obama and three from John McCain.

Universal Music told a federal judge here Friday that takedown notices requiring online video-sharing sites to automatically remove content need not consider whether videos are protected by the "fair use" doctrine.

Online hangouts like Facebook and MySpace have offered crime-solving help to detectives and become a resource for employers vetting job applicants. Now the sites are proving fruitful for prosecutors, who have used damaging Internet photos of defendants to cast doubt on their character during sentencing hearings and argue for harsher punishment.

Google has added a Google Elections Video Search gadget for iGoogle home pages, which searches the transcribed text of YouTube's Politicians channels for the keywords you enter.

Comparing the two presidential candidates' campaign logos

Are a corporate dominated media and democracy compatible?

Thanks to social media, there's an online trail of everything we do, with "friends" and "followers" as the audiences of the reality show starring each of us.

...where the star ends and the product and pitch begin has grown less and less discernible in the era of the human billboard. These days, it's nearly impossible to surf the Internet, open a newspaper or magazine, or watch television without seeing a celebrity selling something, whether it's umbrellas, soda, cars, phones, medications, cosmetics, jewelry, clothing or even mutual funds.

YouTube opens "Screening Room" as a launchpad for independent films. They promise 4 new films every two weeks.

Last week, the venerable Encyclopaedia Britannica gave into the pressure created by Wikipedia when it announced that it is trialling a new service (see the beta site here) that will let the public write and edit articles.

The Army plans to unveil a pilot concept recruitment center in late August that was inspired by the interactivity of Apple Stores. The center, opening in a city that's yet to be determined, will be built around virtual simulations and other experiential marketing techniques to engage visitors.

How's This for Intrusive Advertising?

Somebody created ten fake Facebook profiles of varying descriptions, built them up to 200 friends each, and is now selling them on eBay to anyone who cares to take them over for undercover marketing purposes.

Dunkin' Donuts has pulled an online advertisement featuring Rachael Ray after a conservative blogger complained that a fringed black-and-white scarf that the celebrity chef wore in the ad offers symbolic support for Muslim extremism and terrorism.

Today the City of London Police have dropped the charges against a 16-year-old anti-Scientology protestor for using the word "cult" in a move the human rights group Liberty called a "free speech victory."

Increasingly empowered consumers, more self-reliant advertisers and ever-evolving technologies are redefining how advertising is sold, created, consumed and tracked, IBM said.