Los Angeles - Comedian Damon Wayans plans later this month to launch WayOutTV.com, a site that will feature videos produced by up-and-coming comedians chosen by Wayans himself, the Los Angeles Times reported. Wayans told the Times he would be directly involved in finding comedians and helping them write and produce their own content. "There's a lot of initial attempts at these sites, but no one has dominated like the way Comedy Central dominates cable," Tim Chang, a principal at Norwest Venture partners, who has been informally advising Wayans and has been looking at WayOutTV as a potential investment, told the Times.

Dulles, Va. - Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) AOL announced on Thursday a global marketing partnership with Spain-based mobile and Internet value-added services provider Zed. Under the deal, Zed's products will be promoted on AOL's U.S. WAP portal and desktop destinations in Europe, while Zed will promote AOL's mobile products through its marketing channels in Europe.

Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. - CBS' (NYSE: CBS) CBSSports.com said on Thursday that it has teamed with online social network Facebook to offer an official NCAA March Madness Brackets application to Facebook users. Participants will be able to compare picks with friends, as well as access tournament video coverage through links to the network's NCAA March Madness on Demand live streaming service. CBS said that more than 2.6 million Facebook users joined at least one bracket group in a similar feature offered last year.

New York - Next New Networks, an online producer and distributor of branded micro-networks, announced on Thursday that it will offer a range of its programming on MySpaceTV. Next New Networks will offer a minimum of 20 episodes per branded channel at launch, and feature programming from its Barely Political, Channel Frederator, Threadbanger and Fast Lane Daily networks, among others.

Silver Spring, Md. - Building off last year's launch of its direct-to-consumer mobile website, Discovery Communications (NASD: DISCA) said that it has launched new portals for the Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Discovery Health and Planet Green. Users can access the portals, built by New York-based Crisp Wireless, through their mobile phones at each network's individual Web address, as well as through DiscoveryMobile.com.

Agoura Hills, Calif. - Video game publisher THQ (NASD: THQI) said on Thursday that it plans to ship "Band Mashups" for the Nintendo Wii to retailers in April. The rhythm-based combat game features 150 tracks across multiple genres. "Band Mashups takes an innovative approach to the rhythm/action genre by blending music and combat in the ultimate battle of the bands," said Randy Shoemaker, global brand director at THQ. "Using a rhythm based game-play mechanic, the game delivers 70 over-the-top musical weapons and utilizes the Wii Remote's functionality to deliver a completely original musical combat experience."

Los Angeles - Nokia (NYSE: NOK) on Thursday announced the formation of the Nokia Artists' Advisory Council, which will be tasked with "helping to create an artist friendly environment inside the company, ensuring the artists' point of view is represented in creating new content business paradigms," and said former Eurythmic and producer Dave Stewart is the first artist to sign on.

New York - Nielsen, the media ratings and research provider, announced on Thursday that it has made a strategic investment in NeuroFocus, a Berkeley, Calif.-based firm that specializes in applying brainwave research to advertising, programming and messaging.

New York - Viacom is not in talks to acquire "Grand Theft Auto" game publisher Take-Two Interactive, Reuters reported, citing a source familiar with the matter, despite various online reports that Viacom was going to make an offer of $1.5 billion for the company.

Washington - Katharine Weymouth, a 41-year-old descendent of the family that founded and has since run The Washington Post, on Thursday was named the CEO of Washington Post Media, a new unit of the company that oversees both the newspaper and washingtonpost.com.

San Francisco - The U.S. Department of Justice has served major record labels Universal Music and Sony BMG (NYSE: SNE) with notices that seek information on Total Music, a project the majors are jointly working on that would purportedly offer a $5 per month subscription to their catalogs via mobile phones, digital music players and other platforms, Wired.com reported, citing the Music Ally newsletter.

Kfar-Saba, Israel - Modu, the developer of a small mobile phone that can be slipped into a wide variety of branded "jacket" enclosures, as well as other consumer electronics that connect to the Internet, on Thursday announced that it will launch its phone in October with wireless carriers in Italy, Russia and Israel. The basic Modu is similar in size and appearance to Apple's iPod nano, and with the interchangeable jackets the device is about the size of an average mobile phone.

Redmond, Wash. - Microsoft (NASD: MSFT) has acquired Caligari, a developer of 3D modeling and animation software, for an undisclosed sum, according to a post on the Caligari blog from chief executive Roman Ormandy.

Emeryville, Calif. - TurnHere, a provider of online video production and distribution, and Internet video advertising services, announced on Thursday that it has raised $7.5 million in venture capital financing, from Venrock and Hearst Interactive Media.

Seattle - Social Median, a social news start-up founded by former Jobster.com head Jason Goldberg, has raised its first round of angel funding, but declined to disclose the investors or amount raised, the Seattle P-I reports.

Pure West Documentaries and director Juan Carlos Pineiro Escoriaza have made a documentary about Gamers and Virtual Worlds (YouTube trailed embedded above), called Second Skin. The film, which will be premiering on March 7th at SXSW 2008, gives you a glimpse into the (virtual) worlds of computer gamers whose lives have been transformed by the emerging genre of Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs). If you are interested in finding out more about the future of games and game-like interfaces, check out this presentation by James Lundy of the IT research firm Gartner. It is an hour long and a little on the dry side, but you can click through the slides on the left to get a quick grasp of his predictions for what will happen in this space.

Fans of the TV series Lost were no doubt thrilled for the return of the show last Thursday night, in spite of a potentially shorter season due to the writers’ strike. Curious and obsessive fans (me included) have been visiting fan sites to read about the upcoming episodes and review information revealed in past seasons. Traffic to a custom category of Lost Fan Sites & Forums increased 175% for the week ending Feb 2nd, 2008 compared to the previous week.