Dear Readers - This just in! We are very pleased to announce that Craigslist's Founder Craig Newmark will be featured in a luncheon keynote interview at our Digital Media Conference West next week in San Francisco. Craig joins a stellar line-up of speakers from Hollywood to Silicon Valley, including fellow Bay Area whiz, Digg CEO and Co-Founder Jay Adelson.

Port Washington, N.Y. - In a sign that the bullish video game industry is not immune to the economic downturn, U.S. sales were down 17% in March, to $1.43 billion, according to market research firm NPD Group. Game hardware sales were down 18%, while software sales fell 17% and accessories 15%. "While it might be tempting to jump to the conclusion that the sky is starting to fall on the video games industry given this months results, it's important to remember that two very big things are different this year than last," said NPD analyst Anita Frazier.

Thank you to the 250+ participants at Future of Television West this week! We’ve received a lot of great feedback about the event and know that each and every one of you contributed to making it such a wonderful event.

We would like to extend a special thanks to all of our sponsors: Entertainment Technology Center @ USC, Macrovision, Move Networks, Davis Wright Tremaine, CEA, Parks Associates, Webcastr, Frank Magid Associates, CTM, Visual Effects Society, Producers Guild of America, Terpin Communications, NVPR, Social Radius, Mobile Monday, Mobile Excellence Awards, Web Television Week, Tubefilter, Billboard Publicity Wire, UCLA Anderson, EMF, and New York – Tokyo.

Los Angeles - Variety today published a 2-page spread (pages 10-11) in its Video Business magazine congratulating Digital Media Wire’s “25 Executives to Watch in Digital Entertainment."

The honorees were selected by the editorial team at Digital Media Wire to recognize emerging leaders in the digital media and entertainment industry.

The 2009 honorees are:

Las Vegas - CNET.com yesterday announced the winners of its fourth annual "Best of CES" 2009 Awards. The "Best in Show" and "People's Voice" awards went to the Palm Pre while ten companies were recognized as having the best products in their respective categories. The 10 category winners include:

1. Car Tech: Gracenote CarStars
2. Cell Phones and smartphones: Palm Pre
3. Computers and hardware: Sony Vaio P-Series Lifestyle PC
4. Digital photo and video: Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-G3
5. Gaming: Nyko Wand
6. GPS: TomTom GO 740 Live
7. Home audio: Samsung HT-BD7200
8. Home video: EchoStar SlingLoaded HD DVR?? 922
9. MP3 and portable video players: Samsung P3
10. Televisions: Panasonic G10 series

A detailed summary of the products selected and video embedded above of the winners and finalists showcasing their technology is available online.

Today we unveiled Digital Media Wire's inaugural “25 Executives to Watch in Digital Entertainment” list, honoring emerging leaders in the digital media and entertainment industry. With this list, we recognize 25 of the most innovative, creative and forward-thinking executives in digital entertainment. These individuals and the companies they represent are building the technologies and business models that will shape the future of media and entertainment.

The list of recipients and information about our reception honoring the group at the 2nd Annual Digital Media Insider @ CES at the Venetian in Las Vegas on January 9 is online. Congratulations to this exceptional group of leaders in digital entertainment! We look forward to celebrating with you on January 9.

London -- Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) today announced it has reached a deal with UK production company Endemol to develop a mobile game based on its television property, Deal or No Deal.

The agreement gives EA Mobile, a division of EA’s Casual Entertainment Label, the rights to develop, market and publish new mobile games based on the Deal or No Deal TV series for the UK mobile market.

Atlanta -- Cox Enterprises, the large Atlanta-based media company, announced on Wednesday that it plans to sell the Austin American-Statesman newspaper, its affiliated operations including Austin360.com, and all of Cox's stand-alone community newspapers in North Carolina, Colorado and Texas.

San Jose - While the Yahoo shareholders’ meeting was in progress, TechCrunch reported that Time Warner will block the possible appointment of former AOL Chairman Jon Miller to the Yahoo board.

According to the sources cited by TechCrunch, including a former AOL executive close to Miller, without Time Warner’s approval, Miller cannot serve on Yahoo’s board since he is under a non-compete agreement with AOL.

San Jose - Today Yahoo’s (YHOO) board of directors and senior executive team met with shareholders, who heard upbeat presentations from Chairman Roy Bostock, CEO Jerry Yang, President Sue Decker and CFO Blake Jorgensen, which were followed by questions from shareholders, some demanding Bostock and Yang step down.

London – In a report, titled "Harmful content on the Internet and in video games," which examines "the Internet’s dark side," the UK government’s House of Commons' Culture Media and Sport Committee calls on social media sites like MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube to implement stricter policies, impose more content filtering, and better facilitate processes to report abuse, as reported by Ars Technica.

New York - U.S. District Court Judge George King of the Central District of California on July 15 rejected a motion to dismiss a lawsuit against the executives who sold MySpace parent Intermix to News Corp (NWS) in 2005, clearing the way for the suit to go to trial.

Yesterday's article on TechCrunch about Lookery, a company specializing in selling ad inventory for social apps on Facebook, that is struggling to break even despite serving about three billion ad impressions per month, sparked an interesting discussion in the blogsphere about the ability (or inability) of social networks to monetize their traffic through advertising, and the outlook for online advertising supported businesses in general.

Dear Friends and Readers,

Thank you so much for your kind emails and calls to us about the situation in Burma (also called Myanmar), which was severely hit by Cyclone Nargis three weeks ago.

As many of you know, my wife, DMW partner and love of my life Tinzar, is Burmese, and her parents and many family members live in Rangoon, the country's commercial center in the south of Burma (the area hit by the storm).

For the first two weeks after the storm, we were unable to contact her parents and family, but last week we reached a relative by cell phone (phone lines and electricity are still out in most of the city) and learned that her parents and family are fine (the roof of their home, while damaged, is being repaired). As to the extent of the damage and relief efforts, we still don't know much more than what we hear on the news here and are very concerned about the situation there.

In case you missed it, here is the press release from last week announcing our new partnership with the Consumer Electronics Association for LA Games Conference. This gives us a significant step up as we increase our profile and position as one of the leading publishers and event producers covering the $17.9 billion game industry (2007 sales figures, according to NPD Group). For more information about our annual LA Games Conference, please visit www.lagamesconference.com.

New York - On Saturday, Microsoft withdrew its bid to buy Yahoo after Yahoo turned down its offer to increase its price by $5 billion to $47.5 billion.