Palo Alto, Calif. - Photobucket, the online photo-sharing site acquired last year by News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), on Tuesday announced the launch of a mobile version of its service, allowing users to upload and view photos on their cell phones. The company said an internal survey of Photobucket users by Fox Interactive Media in August 2007 found that 80% have a camera phone, 36% use the camera on their phone every day, and 52% can access the Internet from their phones.

Sioux Falls, S.D. - LodgeNet (NASD: LNET), a provider of in-room VOD and interactive entertainment systems to hotels, announced on Tuesday that it has brought its business units together under the new name, LodgeNet Interactive Corp., and will no longer use the brand names of recent acquisitions On Command and StayOnline. LodgeNet provides its services in more than 1.9 million hotel rooms in 9,300 hotel properties worldwide.

Los Angeles - Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) Warner Bros. on Tuesday announced an agreement with National CineMedia (NCM), the operator of an in-theater digital ad and entertainment network, whereby Warner will provide original, exclusive behind-the-scenes looks at upcoming films for display before films in theaters served by NCM. The NCM Digital Content Network currently is seen on around 13,500 screens in 164 U.S. markets.

Atlanta - Internap Network Services, a provider of Internet business services, announced on Tuesday that for the seventh year in a row it has been selected as the official provider of online video streaming services for the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. The Sundance Film Festival's official website will allows users to view independent short films, filmmaker interviews and daily video highlights from the annual Festival. The 2008 Sundance Film Festival runs January 17-27, in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah.

Arlington, Va. - PBS on Tuesday launched a beta test of PBS Kids Play, its new educational virtual world targeted at children ages 3-6. The broadband, ad-free subscription service will cost $9.95 a month, or $79 annually, and offer games and activities that feature characters from PBS shows like "Curious George," "The Berenstain Bears" and "Mister Rogers."

Palo Alto, Calif. - Online social network Facebook has received a "significant" investment from German Internet entrepreneurs the Samwer brothers, Reuters reports. "We are going to support the expansion of Facebook in Europe ... We know the online space in Europe extremely well," Alexander Samwer told Reuters.

Kirkland, Wash. - Digeo, a maker of digital video recorder devices and services under the Moxi brand name, announced on Tuesday that it will lay off nearly half of its staff, or 80 employees, and cancelled plans to release two new product lines. Kirkland, Wash.-based Digeo, which is majority-owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, also announced that CEO Mike Fidler has stepped down, and been replaced by president and COO Greg Gudorf.

Santa Clara, Calif. - Macrovision (NASD: MVSN), a provider of anti-piracy technology and informational databases on various media, said on Tuesday that its proposed $2.8 billion acquisition of interactive program guide company Gemstar-TV Guide (NASD: GMST) has passed antitrust reviews by the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice.

West Hollywood, Calif. - IAC's (NASD: IACI) Ticketmaster announced on Tuesday that it will acquire TicketsNow, an online marketplace for music, sports and other live entertainment event tickets.

Agoura Hills, Calif. - Video game publisher THQ (NASD: THQI) announced on Tuesday it will acquire roleplaying game developer Big Huge Games for an undisclosed sum.

San Francisco - PlanetOut (NASD: LGBT), the publisher of gay magazines The Advocate and Out and operator of websites including Gay.com, announced on Tuesday that it has retained Allen & Company to assist in the exploration of strategic alternatives, including a possible sale of the company.

San Francisco - Apple (NASD: AAPL) on Tuesday announced the launch of iTunes Movie Rentals, a new service that will feature titles from all the major movie studios, available within 30 days of their DVD release and priced at $3.99 for new releases and $2.99 for library titles. HD titles will cost $1 more in each category, and consumers will have 30 days to begin watching their rentals, which will expire 24 hours after viewing begins.

As 2007 wound to an end, advertising issues figured prominently on the agenda of Washington agencies, including both the FCC and the FTC. While the FCC is looking at specific regulatory requirements governing broadcast advertising, the FTC is investigating the privacy issues raised by advertising conducted by on-line companies. In November, the FTC held a two day set of workshops and panels where interested parties discussed issues of behavioral advertising - advertising that can be targeted to individuals based on their history of Internet use, and whether or not regulation of these practices was necessary.

London - Major record label EMI Group on Tuesday announced a major restructuring, that will see between 1,500 and 2,000 of the company's 5,500 employees let go, and other initiatives the company says will reduce costs by $393 million annually. "We have spent a long time looking intensely at EMI and the problems faced by its Recorded Music division which, like the rest of the music industry, has been struggling to respond to the challenges posed by a digital environment," said EMI chairman Guy Hands, whose private equity firm Terra Firma acquired EMI last year for $4.7 billion.

Facebook’s market share of UK internet visits to All Categories increased to 2.01% in December. The social networking website accounted for one in every fifty UK internet visits in the last month of 2007, with its market share peaking on Christmas Day. As the chart below illustrates, Facebook’s market share has increased 10-fold over the past 12 months.

San Francisco - Metaweb Technologies, the developer of an expansive online database that aims to house all the world's data, has raised $42.4 million in its second round of venture capital financing, led by Benchmark Capital and Goldman Sachs, VentureBeat reports.

Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs unveiled a super-slim new laptop Tuesday, MacBook Air, as well as movie rentals on iTunes in his much anticipated keynote at MacWorld. However, investors were not impressed and sent the stock down 4.3 percent at of 10.40 am PST.