Dallas - Movie rental giant Blockbuster (NYSE: BBI) announced on Thursday that its third quarter revenues fell 5.7% to $1.24 billion, from $1.31 million in the same period a year ago, while the company's net loss was $35 million, compared with a $24.7 million net loss a year ago. [more..]

Shanghai - Giant Interactive Group, the third-largest developer and operator of online games in China, announced on Thursday that it raised about $887 million in its initial public offering (IPO) of shares on the New York Stock Exchange. [more..]

Mountain View, Calif. - Days after Google's (NYSE: GOOG) plans to launch an open platform for social media applications were made public, the company said on Thursday that it has signed a deal with News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) MySpace that will enable its OpenSocial applications to run on the world's largest social network. [more..]

Washington - Revolution, the DC-based investment firm headed by AOL co-founder Steve Case, said on Thursday that it has formally launched a free online music service called Qloud. [more..]

Los Angeles - Fluid Media Networks, a provider of artist discovery and music distribution services, announced on Thursday that it has acquired Trusonic, a provider of in-store music distribution for businesses. [more..]

Irvine, Calif. - Specific Media, an online advertising network, announced that it has raised $100 million in its second round of venture capital financing, led by Francisco Partners. [more..]

Sunnyvale, Calif. - Harmonic, a provider of broadcast and on-demand video delivery technology, said that it will sell 12.5 million shares for $12 each in a follow-on public offering. [more..]

San Francisco - ZVUE Corporation (formerly HandHeld Entertainment), a provider of video entertainment sites and maker of a portable media player, announced on Thursday that it has completed its $17.5 million of video-sharing site eBaum's World, and raised $28.1 million in new financing. [more..]

Washington - Just one week after launching its Global Media group, the National Geographic Society, one of the world's largest nonprofit scientific and educational organizations, said that it has formed National Geographic Entertainment, a new unit that combines the organization's Cinema Ventures, Feature Films, Kids Entertainment, Home Entertainment and Music & Radio divisions. [more..]

New York - MAX Entertainment Holdings announced on Thursday that it will acquire a 60% majority stake in Europlay, the developer of a mobile gambling platform. [more..]

Los Altos, Calif. - SezWho, a collaborative review and reputation service for blogs and social networks, announced that it has raised $1 million from KPG Ventures in its first round of funding. [more..]

New York - Rebel Monkey, a developer of casual games, has received $225,000 of a $1 million first round of financing from Redpoint Ventures, PEHub.com reported, citing a regulatory filing. [more..]

Today Google made its official announcement (NYTimes coverage) of the networks that have joined their OpenSocial initiative. By adding sites not yet named in Tuesday's NYTimes piece, namely the addition of MySpace, we have a completely different picture of the combined OpenSocial sites compared to Facebook, blogs Bill Tancer. [more..]

Bill Tancer asks the question, can a collection of social networks tied together with a standard for application development challenge the fastest growing social network - Facebook? [more..]

London - U.K. wireless carrier Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) on Thursday launched MusicStation, an unlimited mobile music download service offering from Omnifone. [more..]

London - The Official U.K. Charts Company is set to begin adding streaming and download data from U.K. music subscription services later this year, Billboard reported. [more..]

Boston - Mobile media distributor g8wave announced on Thursday that it has signed a deal with U.K. band the Charlatans, to create an ad-supported mobile site that will offer fans free downloads of full-length tracks, ringtones, images, video and other content. [more..]

Washington - National Geographic Cinema Ventures has announced that it will release the first 3D concert film, "U2 3D," in late January 2008 in various 3D formatted theaters worldwide. [more..]

Washington - XM Satellite Radio, which now claims over 8.5 million subscribers, said on Thursday that Toyota will include XM Radio as a standard feature on its 2009 Corolla and Matrix vehicles that come with a premium audio system. [more..]

San Francisco - Greystripe, a distributor of free, ad-supported mobile games, on Thursday announced an agreement with Vivendi Games Mobile, to distribute ten ad-supported game titles. [more..]

Newburyport, Mass. - Activeworlds, a provider of virtual world technology, on Thursday introduced a Facebook application that allows companies and developers to build applications for Facebook.
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