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When Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) announced its Nook e-reader in October, the ability to pursue a dual in-store and online sales strategy appeared to be one of the clear advantages it might have over Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN). But, as we first reported then, the chain didn't plan to sell Nooks to go in all its stores for the 2009 holidays-and, as it turned out, the combination of demand and distribution issues kept the device from store shelves. Instead, most people who bought Nooks at B&N stores were placing online orders for delivery weeks or months into the future-not buying them for same-day use.

Superbowl most watched show in history--breaking the previous record held by M*A*S*H. This article explores the enormity of the feat given the fractured nature of today's television viewing audience.

"To stop broadcasters from flexing their muscles, the coalition asked the FCC to mandate that disputes be settled by an arbitrator. They also want regulators to bar stations from withholding their programming, their most potent bargaining chip."

"Online news has become more popular than reading newspapers in the US, according to a Pew Research survey. It is the third most popular form of news, behind local and national TV stations, the Pew Research Center said."

"When Google unveiled Buzz, its answer to Facebook and Twitter, on Tuesday, it hoped to get its service off to a fast start by scanning the contact lists of Gmail users and automatically adding the most frequent correspondents as online friends. But what the company viewed as an obvious shortcut stirred up a beehive of angry critics.

"New technologies allow -- indeed, they require -- new strategic planning to ensure the most efficient use of spectrum, a vital public resource, especially given our broadband needs,"

"Perhaps the most interesting use to which the spectrum could be put would be to support a genuine mobile-broadcast service, based on a technology such as DVB-H or Mediaflo. "

President Obama's 2009 stimulus package was the most expensive bill in history, yet received strong media support. This is because the media; ABC, CBS, and NBC cite supporters of the bill 3 times as often as they mention critics, and nearly half of their reports included no criticism about the bill at all!

Among those commercials consistently deemed most effective, memorable and talked-about during the Super Bowl, many were created or suggested by consumers - or produced internally by the sponsors - rather than the work of agency professionals.

An withering critic of NBC's decision to limit online streaming of Olympic events to curling and hockey, in what the author describes as an attempt to force viewers into traditionally measurable media.

The Toronto-based startup Thoora promises to gauge how well individual news stories are doing by analyzing and calibrating real-time data from blogs, mainstream news sources and Twitter. Thoora's software uses more than 100 attributes to determine not only the most popular content but also the highest quality, using measures such grammar and spelling and the authority of sites that link to the content.

The American Society of Business Publication Editors and the Medill School at Northwestern University did a study of B2B editors and found that most didn't have any sort of corporate digital training, but they have to figure it out on their own.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday resurrected a possible settlement in a class-action lawsuit brought by freelance writers who said that newspapers and magazines had committed copyright infringement by making their contributions available on electronic databases. The proposed settlement was prompted by a 2001 decision from the Supreme Court in favor of six freelance authors claiming copyright infringement in The New York Times Company v. Tasini. After the Tasini decision, many freelance works were removed from online databases. Most publishers now require freelance writers to sign contracts granting both print and online rights. After the decision, the authors, publishers and database companies who were parties to several class-action lawsuits negotiated a global settlement that would pay the plaintiffs up to $18 million.

Move over Hawkeye Pierce, looks like Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints just took your ratings crown along with the Super Bowl title. A record 106.5 million people watched the Saints write a storybook ending to their dream season by beating the Indianapolis Colts 31-17 in Super Bowl XLIV on CBS, according to Nielsen. That's not only the biggest audience to date for the Super Bowl, but the biggest audience for a televised event ever -- barely knocking off the finale of \nCBS' "MASH," which averaged almost 106 million viewers when it ran in 1983.

Marvel is suing Jack Kirby's heirs, who are trying to terminate Marvel's copyright to many of their most important characters

Xbox draws more users per hour than most cable channels. MSFT wants to blur boundaries between gaming and cable by providing more video content.

Explores the economic angle of google's potential withdraw from China, and offers a competing argument that the firm's threats to leave may in fact be a face saving measure driven by the bottom line.

Google faces problems related to privacy and copyright protection in Europe. Google's most immediate challenges may be in Italy. This month a decision is expected in a trial in Milan, where four Google executives have been charged with defamation and privacy violations in a case involving videos posted on a Google Web site showing the bullying of an autistic boy.Italian prosecutors accuse Google of negligence, saying it was too slow to remove the video. But Google sees a political dimension. One of the four executives, Peter Fleischer, Google's chief privacy counsel, called the case part of "an attack on a decade of progress" for Internet companies in Italy. In Germany, German publishers have persuaded the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel to support a new kind of copyright protecting journalistic content on the Web. Analysts say the measure, which has not yet been introduced, could require Web companies like Google to buy special licenses to cite content published elsewhere.

Congressional hearings for the Comcast/NBC case are scheduled for Feb. 4. There are many opponents to the deal, including consumer activists and media watchdogs, Local affiliates are concerned that Comcast could "gradually migrate some or all of the most compelling sports, news and entertainment programming and talent away from free, over-the-air distribution on NBC to its newly owned cable channels that are made available only to paying subscribers, such as Bravo and USA Network."

"An article published in, The Guardian, discusses a debate taking place in the British Parliament around a new "digital economy bill. One amendment in particular is stirring a lot of discussion about its impact on content online. The Guardian writes: The new proposal - which was passed in the House of Lords by 165 votes to 140 - gives a high court judge the right to issue an injunction against a Web site accused of hosting a "substantial" amount of copyright infringing material, potentially forcing the entire site offline. Critics say the major problem with this amendment is that ajudge could shut down a Web site because of copyright infringement, even if thesite's manager didn't put the content online."

An article published on Thursday in, The Guardian, discusses a debate taking place in the British Parliament around a new "digital economy bill." One amendment in particular is stirring a lot of discussion about its impact on content online. The Guardian writes: The new proposal - which was passed in the House of Lords by 165 votes to 140 - gives a high court judge the right to issue an injunction against a Web site accused of hosting a "substantial" amount of copyright infringing material, potentially forcing the entire site offline. Critics say the major problem with this amendment is that a judge could  shut down a Web site  because of copyright infringement, even if the site's manager didn't put the content online. What is left unanswered is how a company can be held accountable for every piece of content placed on its site.  Many critics of this bill and others in Europe say it is most likely to result in the stifling of creativity, innovation and free speech. In the United States, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act offers some protection against liability to Internet service providers and Web sites that host copyrighted material uploaded by third parties.