New York - U.S. advertising spending across all sectors was down 0.5% in the first half of 2007, compared with the same period a year ago, while Internet spending showed the strongest performance with a 23.6% increase, according to a report from Nielsen Monitor-Plus [more..]

Washington - Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been subpoenaed by the SEC to give a deposition in a lawsuit related to the company's stock options granting practices, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing two people familiar with the matter. [more..]

New York - NBC Universal has announced plans to offer many of its TV shows for free download to PCs for a week following their initial broadcasts. [more..]

Dulles, Va. - Just days after announcing that it will move its headquarters to New York City, AOL said on Thursday that it has signed a deal with Disney-ABC Television Group that will make full-length episodes of many of ABC's primetime programs available through AOL Video. [more..]

Tokyo - Sony Computer Entertainment announced on Thursday that Folding@home, its distributed computing project that uses the processing power of a network of PlayStation 3 consoles to crunch data for Stanford University research, has reached the "petaflop" milestone. [more..]

New York - Viacom's MTV on Thursday announced the beta release of a new social network, Think Community, with big-name philanthropist backers and a goal of promoting youth activism. [more..]

Ankara, Turkey - YouTube will be blocked in Turkey again, after a court there ordered the country's telecommunications company to deny access to the site when clips deemed insulting to politicians were discovered, the Associated Press reported. [more..]

Tokyo - Sony Computer Entertainment announced on Thursday that it has acquired U.K.-based video game developer Evolution Studios and its subsidiary, Bigbig Studios. [more..]

Burlingame, Calif. - MeeVee, a provider of video search technology, has raised $3.5 million in its fourth round of venture capital financing, PEHub.com reported, citing a regulatory filing. [more..]

O2 consciously aligned its brand with music (it also sponsored the Wireless Music Festival this summer), so it’s interesting to see the impact of these recent announcements on its brand, blogs Robin Goad of Hitwise UK. [more..]

San Diego - Slacker, the developer of a Wi-Fi-enabled portable media player and corresponding personal radio service, announced on Thursday that it has signed deals to license tracks from major labels EMI, Universal Music and Warner Music for its service. [more..]

Bedford, Mass. - Groove Mobile, a provider of mobile music download services, said on Thursday that Universal Music Group will offer its tracks along with fellow major Sony BMG on the mobile music service it powers for U.K. carrier 3 UK. [more..]

London - 24-7 Entertainment, a provider of digital music stores in Europe, announced on Thursday that major label EMI's DRM-free catalog has been added to its network of digital store partners. [more..]

New York - The New York Times' website on Thursday launched its new TV blog "TV Decoder," penned by Brian Stelter, the recent college grad who launched the influential TVNewser blog in 2004. [more..]

New York - ROO Group, a provider of Internet TV broadcasting services, said on Thursday that News Corp.'s New York Post will use its services to launch online video and video advertising on NYPost.com. [more..]

Austin - ON Networks, a provider of original, episodic HD shows across the Web, TV and mobile devices, said on Thursday that a number of ad agencies have joined a pilot program of its content-based advertising service. [more..]

San Francisco - Recently launched discount airline Virgin America on Thursday announced that it partnered with Viacom's VH1 to offer an on-demand music video library to air passengers. [more..]

Tokyo - Sony Computer Entertainment on Thursday announced plans to introduce a new PlayStation 3 controller that incorporates a rumble feature. [more..]