New York - CBS (NYSE: CBS) has launched a test of high-definition streaming on its website, offering some clips in H.265/AVC format at 480p resolution through an HD player, TechCrunch reported. The company plans to offer 720p and 1080p as well. Hulu, the joint venture video service from News Corp. and NBC Universal, is also experimenting with HD streaming, and currently offers 360p, 480p and 720p -- although the latter is delivered through progressive download rather than streaming, due to bandwidth constraints.

Los Angeles - PaidContent, an online publisher of business and technology news, announced this week that it has hired Nathan Richardson as the new chief executive of parent company ContentNext Media. Founding CEO Rafat Ali will step aside, while retaining his roles as chairman, editor and publisher. Richardson was most recently head of Dow Jones Online, and before that led Yahoo Finance. "I am stepping out of my position as CEO (something I was never comfortable with, as people who know me can attest...I always liked the Editor and Publisher title better); but will keep the role of Chairman," Ali wrote on PaidContent.org.

New York - Video game publisher Take-Two Interactive (NASD: TTWO) will allow players of its forthcoming "Grand Theft Auto IV" to download any of the over 150 songs they hear within the game from Amazon's (NASD: AMZN) MP3 store. Players will use an in-game cell phone to text a number and receive a "text" back with the artist and song title. Those signed up for the Rockstar Games Social Club will also receive an e-mail with links to purchase tagged songs from Amazon. The game is slated for release on April 29.

New York - SpiralFrog, a free, ad-supported music download service, claimed on Friday that it is now the third-largest legal music download site in the U.S., behind only iTunes and Rhapsody, "based on reported user numbers." The company said it now counts 850,000 registered users, and has already surpassed 2 million unique monthly visitors for March. "In a relatively short time SpiralFrog has gained a strong following among young music fans, especially those in the high school and college demographic," said Joe Mohen, founder and chairman of SpiralFrog.

Basking Ridge, N.J. - Verizon Wireless announced on Friday that Viacom's MTV Tr3s and Disney's ESPN Radio have launched mobile TV channels exclusively for its V CAST Mobile TV service. The company also launched MySpace Mobile, and mobile sites for Viacom's MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and CMT for subscribers to its "Mobile Web 2.0" service.

New York - Lime Wire, a provider of peer-to-peer file-sharing software, this week announced an agreement with independent music aggregator and distributor BFM Digital, to sell the company's tracks in its DRM-free LimeWire Store. The deal adds 50,000 tracks from BFM's catalog to the LimeWire Store, which now offers nearly 1 million songs.

Burlington, Mass. - Cognos, an IBM company that provides business intelligence and performance management software, announced on Friday that the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) has selected IBM Cognos software to help analyze player performance statistics. The software will provide hundreds of agents with "self-service" views and reports and "will also enable the agents to perform ad hoc analysis on different scenarios with nearly immediate answers." "Our analysis of player performance is as complex and dynamic as the work of high-powered business analysts in Fortune 500 companies, and we need to use the same robust, flexible interface to achieve reliable results," said Doyle Pryor, assistant general counsel of the MLBPA.

Los Angeles - Viacom's (NYSE: VIA) Paramount Pictures has formed a new division in its interactive department to fund the development of video games based on its films, Variety reports.

Tokyo - Google's (NASD: GOOG) YouTube has reached an agreement with a Japanese rights holder, and will pay an undisclosed royalty for the rights to allow YouTube users to post cover song videos of tracks by Japan Rights Clearance (JRC) acts like Mr. Children and Spitz, Japan's Mainichi Daily News reported.

New York - Major label Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG) this week hired Jim Griffin, former head of digital at Geffen and a vocal industry critic, to oversee a plan that would have consumers pay a monthly fee through their Internet service providers for unlimited access to music, Portfolio.com reported. "We're still clinging to the vine of music as a product," Griffin told Portfolio.com, dubbing the state of affairs "Tarzan" economics. "But we're swinging toward the vine of music as a service. We need to get ready to let go and grab the next vine, which is a pool of money and a fair way to split it up, rather than controlling the quantity and destiny of sound recordings."

Redwood City, Calif. - After having its $2 billion buyout bid rejected, video game publisher Electronic Arts (NASD: ERTS) said on Friday that it has extended the expiration date on its offer for Take-Two Interactive (NASD: TTWO) until April 18. Take-Two has said the deal undervalues the company, and called EA's advances opportunistic, in light of the looming release of the fourth installment of its top-selling "Grand Theft Auto" franchise.

New York - Glam Media, an advertising and website network for lifestyle and fashion-related content, has acquired StyleMob, a San Francisco-based social network and "street fashion" destination site, Valleywag reported.

Hong Kong - Li Ka-shing, the Hong Kong billionaire and chairman of Hutchison Whampoa who invested $60 million in the Facebook social network back in November, has raised his investment to more than $100 million, and may sink even more of his fortune into the company, MarketWatch reported.

Sausalito, Calif. - Glassdoor.com, a stealth-mode "social networking company focused on employment conditions in the workplace," has raised $3 million in a second round of funding led by Benchmark Capital, according to PEHub.com.

May 8-9, 2008, Baltimore Convention Center, Baltimore, Maryland

There is an art to sucking up. Done too blatantly it will backfire. Done too weakly, you won't get what you want. The perfect suck up contains the following elements:

• Credibility. No matter how good your suck up, if you don't meet the requirements for placement, a job, an interview, whatever, it won't matter, so you need to show why you deserve what you're asking for.

Under the compulsory license for the use of sound recordings - the license which allows Internet radio services to use all legally recorded sound recordings by paying a royalty set by the Copyright Royalty Board - the designated collection agency can, once each year, audit a licensee to assess its compliance with the royalty requirements. Under the law, when the collective decides to audit a company, it must notify the Copyright Royalty Board, who then gives public notice of the fact that an audit is to take place. The Copyright Royalty Board has just announced that SoundExchange has decided to audit Last.FM.