New York - Hulu, the advertising-supported online video joint venture between NBC Universal (NYSE: GE) and News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), has begun "politely" asking viewers watching TV shows and other content on the site to disable ad-blocking software, Silicon Alley Insider reports. The in-stream notices state that, "This program is brought to you by Hulu's advertising partners," while below in smaller print add that, "If you see this message repeatedly, you may need to disable your ad blocking software." The video then resumes playing after 30 seconds.

San Francisco - Blog search engine Technorati on Tuesday launched its own blog advertising network, Technorati Media, TechCrunch reported. The service has been in testing with a number of partner blogs, including BlogTalkRadio, BlogCritics, BlogTV and several other others that count a combined 17 million unique monthly users. Initial advertisers include Honda, Toyota, T-Mobile, Microsoft, Sony, Paramount and Universal Pictures. The network is currently only courting larger blogs, but is expected to open it up to any interested blog publishers in 2 or 3 months.

New York - Major record label Universal Music Group on Tuesday announced a deal with CBS-owned (NYSE: CBS) Last.fm that will make UMG's music video catalog available for free, on-demand streaming on the social music discovery service. Under the deal, Universal and its artists will receive revenue for every video streamed; more specific details were not disclosed. "We want to offer a video library that rivals our unparalleled music catalogue, as we work towards Last.fm becoming the only place you need to go to for all music-related content, and this deal marks the first step towards that goal," said Last.fm co-founder Martin Stiksel.

New York - WeMix.com, an online community of music makers and user-generated record label backed by hip-hop artist Ludacris, announced a partnership with VoodooVox that will allow the WeMix community to use any phone as a microphone to submit original vocals, tracks and beats to the site. WeMix users who upload their tracks have the potential to have them produced by Ludacris, and also to sell them directly to consumers through the service.

Barcelona, Spain - Independent digital music distributor IODA on Tuesday announced a deal with Telefonica, that will see the Spain-based telecom make the IODA catalog of over 1 million tracks available to its subscribers in 24 countries. IODA tracks will be offered as ringtones, mastertones and full-track downloads, and will also be available on Telefonica's mobile music subscription services.

Ann Arbor, Mich. - Media retail store chain Borders (NYSE: BGP) on Tuesday announced a deal with Michael Eisner's Vuguru digital content studio, to distribute "Robin Cook's Foreign Body: The Prequel" on Borders.com. The original webisode series was created to promote the release of the author's new novel. Visitors to the official Vuguru site for the "Foreign Body" series will also see links to purchase the novel exclusively at Borders.com.

Redwood City, Calif. - Electronic Arts (NASD: ERTS) on Tuesday announced the release of its "Spore Creature Creator," a standalone product that allows users to create their own creatures that will feature in its forthcoming title "Spore," due in September from "Sim City" creators Maxis. A basic version is free, while a version with more features costs $9.99. Users can also upload their creatures directly to YouTube, or have their images printed on various merchandise via Zazzle. Separately, the company said its user-generated games site, SimsCarnival.com, is now in open beta. In addition to Web-based creation tools, the site also allows users to upload games created in Adobe Flash for sharing with the community.

New York - Digital music service eMusic on Tuesday announced a "modest price increase for some of its users," which will see the cost of its monthly Basic Plan raised from $9.99 to $11.99.

Seattle - Online retail giant Amazon.com (NASD: AMZN) on Tuesday began publicizing a pair of ongoing promotions that offer customers deeply discounted albums from its MP3 store.

New York - The principals at New York-based music marketing firm Cornerstone Promotion have created a network of music blogs -- including their own TheFader.com, TheTripwire.com and 1200squad.com -- and Gizmodo founder Pete Rojas' RCRD LBL, that is now attracting blue-chip advertisers, Fortune reports.

New York - A majority (52%) of venture capitalists said in a recent survey that they believe venture capital investment in digital content creation will increase over the next two years, and 25% said they expect investments to rise more than 20%.

London - A new survey of U.K. youth ages 14-24 found that 80% who use peer-to-peer networks to download music would pay for a legal file-sharing service. Conducted by the University of Hertfordshire on behalf of British Music Rights, which represents U.K. songwriters and music publishers, the survey asked 773 young people about their music consumption behavior, and found that 90% own an MP3 player.

Bethpage, N.Y. - Cable TV service provider Cablevision's (NYSE: CVC) Rainbow Media Holdings announced on Tuesday that it has completed its $496 million acquisition of Sundance Channel from previous owners NBC Universal, Showtime Networks and entities controlled by Sundance founder Robert Redford.

New York - Take-Two Interactive (NASD: TTWO) chairman Strauss Zelnick responded to a fourth extension of Electronic Arts' (NASD: ERTS) offer to acquire the game publisher on Tuesday by stating that "their proposal still significantly undervalues Take-Two, a fact that is reflected in the overwhelming number of stockholders who still have not tendered their shares." Take-Two reiterated that just 7.9% of its shareholders have tendered their shares in favor of EA's $2 billion buyout offer.

New York - Glam Media, an online publishing network for women that counts 42 million unique U.S. visitors, announced on Tuesday that it has acquired U.K.-based online media sales firm Monetise.

New York - Answers Corporation, the company behind reference sites Answers.com and WikiAnswers.com, announced on Tuesday that it has secured up to $13 million through a private placement of shares and warrants with venture capital firm Redpoint Ventures.

Sausalito, Calif. - ImageSpan, a provider of enabling infrastructure for digital content licensing, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $11 million in its second round of financing, led by Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments.

Berkeley, Calif. - Social networking application developer i2we has landed $750,000 in a first round of funding led by IDG Ventures San Francisco, PEHub.com reported, citing a regulatory filing.

Florham Park, N.J. - Roundbox, a provider of mobile broadcast applications, has called down $12 million of a $20 million third round of financing, PEHub.com reported, citing a regulatory filing.