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Wal-Mart Stores reached an agreement with Live Nation Entertainment to sell tickets to concerts and other events at about 500 stores. The service will be introduced in the next few months in cities including Chicago and Los Angeles, according to Irving Azoff, executive chairman of Live Nation. The new accord will let Wal-Mart shoppers buy tickets for concerts, sports and other events at cash registers in the retailer's entertainment department, Mr. Azoff said. Live Nation also sells tickets at Blockbuster stores.

The Pulitzer Prize administrators have decided that The National Enquirer is eligible to compete for the awards, a person briefed on the matter said Thursday.

ROME-Google Inc. on Wednesday said it will scan ancient Italian literary texts ranging from Galileo Galilei to herbal medicine manuals as part of the Internet company's first publishing partnership with a national government. The deal involves digitizing up to one million books held in the National Libraries in Rome and Florence.

Discusses framing of Net Neutrality as contested First Amendment terrain, with comments by Kyle McSlarrow, President of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association.

Op Ed Exploring the rates and speeds available in other countries, and the fact that the United States has among the slowest speeds and the highest prices of advanced economies. Also discusses the proposed FCC National Broadband Plan.

"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."

Help wanted. Must tweet. If you're "passionate about engaging millions" in advancing President Obama's \nagenda, the commander in chief has a job for you. The Democratic National Committee and Organizing for America -- the successor organization to Obama for America -- are seeking a "social networks manager" to oversee Obama's accounts on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. The ideal new hire, according to the official job description, will possess "strong, sharp and personable" writing skills, as well as the ability to craft messages that "move people to act" and managing multiple "complex" projects."

"Taiwanese regulator the National Communications Commission (NCC) has revised its mobile TV licensing plans, announcing that, contrary to its previous announcement, only one concession will be awarded in 2010. As reported by CommsUpdate on 18 January 2010, the NCC revealed that it planned to award two operators concessions for mobile TV services, allocating each licensee 6MHz in the 600MHz frequency band across which it will deliver 18-20 programme channels using either the Qualcomm-developed MediaFLO or DVB-H as its mobile TV standard."

Fending criticisms from multiple parties, Google once again made the case for digitizing millions of orphaned books before the U.S. District Court Southern District Court of New York, in a fairness hearing held Thursday. A total of 27 different parties requested to speak before the court. Five were in favor, including Sony, the National Federation of the Blind and the Center for Democracy and Technology. The rest -- 22 in total -- opposed the settlement, including Amazon, Microsoft, the Open Book Alliance, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Those in favor praised the idea of rendering hard-to-find books in electronic form, because they could be accessible to a much larger group of readers, and not be lost to the ages. The objectors, however, voiced strong concerns that the settlement case preempts U.S. copyright law altogether. Others voiced privacy and antitrust concerns.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski spoke today about some of the likely recommendations in the National Broadband Plan. Among them is a goal of 100 million households at speeds of 100 Megabits per second."

Facebook, Twitter, and the iPhone are TV's only hope, according to Elisabeth Murdoch, CEO of Shine Limited, a British television production and distribution company. According to Broadcasting & Cable, Ms. Murdoch told TV producers and distributors at the annual National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE) convention: "We in the TV business have to catch up with \nwhat our audience is doing. We can no longer afford to be one-screen business."

Merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation, two of the major concert ticket vendors in the US, was approved by the US Justice Department. Consumer groups, independent promoters and ticket brokers all urged the department to block the deal, warning that it would give the resulting company the power to dictate terms for live entertainment at the expense of venues, artists and consumers. The companies argued that combining their ticketing and promotions arms would enable them to offer better services to venues and acts, and better value to fans.

"One provision, a "Mobile Future Auction," calls for a spectrum auction that allows current licensees, including broadcasters, to voluntarily give up spectrum in exchange for a share of auction proceeds. This provision, which has drawn the ire of the National Association of Broadcasters trade group, is one element of a plan to free up 500 MHz of spectrum over the next decade for mobile broadband use."

"The Federal Communications Commission's National Broadband Plan, announced last week, is aimed at providing nearly universal, affordable broadband service by 2020. And while it takes many admirable steps - including very important efforts toward opening space in the broadcast spectrum - it does not address the source of the access problem: without a major policy shift to increase competition, broadband service in the United States will continue to lag far behind the rest of the developed world."

"Federal regulators trying to bring high-speed Internet connections to all Americans will propose tapping the government program that now subsidizes telephone service in poor and rural areas. The Federal Communications Commission will include a proposal to revamp the Universal Service Fund as part of a national broadband plan due to Congress on March 17. Although the proposal itself has been expected for months, Friday's announcement offered the first solid details."

"Nearly two weeks remain before the U.S. Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to deliver its national broadband plan to Congress. But analysts are already picking potential winners and losers based on key themes that have already been identified, such as mobile broadband networks and spectrum swaps. The plan's overarching goal is to give all Americans access to affordable, high-speed broadband Internet."

"By being the first and, largely, the only publication pursuing the Edwards story through his denials of the affair and of fathering a child out of wedlock, The Enquirer is under consideration for a Pulitzer Prize, and it has strong support for its bid from other journalists. The success has Mr. Levine considering opening a Washington bureau to look for more dirt among politicians."