Los Angeles - Despite a 45% increase in digital sales, overall U.S. music album sales fell 9.5% in 2007, the Associated Press reported, citing data from Nielsen SoundScan. [more..]

London - U.K. digital music sales during the week of Christmas nearly doubled from the previous year, to just under three million, while total download sales for 2007 topped 77 million, a 50% increase from 2006, according to data provided by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) trade group. [more..]

New York - Media company Landmark Communications is putting its Weather Channel TV network and website up for sale, and could draw more than $5 billion at auction, The New York Times reported, citing people briefed on the auction. [more..]

Los Gatos, Calif. - Online DVD rental service Netflix announced on Thursday that it has partnered with Korea's LG Electronics, to develop a set-top box that will allow consumers to stream movies and other video from the Internet to HDTVs. [more..]

Mountain View, Calif. - Social networking service Plaxo, which claims 15 million registered users, has been put up for sale in an auction that hopes to draw as much as $100 million, The New York Times reported on Thursday, citing people briefed on the offering. [more..]

Santa Clara, Calif. - Macrovision, a provider of anti-piracy technologies that also recently acquired content database firm All Media Guide, announced on Thursday that it has partnered with movie and TV show download service CinemaNow, to enable video content from CinemaNow to be downloaded directly to Macrovision-enabled devices such as digital TVs, set-top boxes and network attached storage devices. [more..]

Arlington, Va. - More than 50% of U.S. households now own a digital television, according to new research by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA). [more..]

New York - PR Newswire, an electronic press release distribution service, announced on Thursday that it will acquire Hispanic PR Wire, LatinClips and Hispanic Digital Network. [more..]

Durham, N.C. - Motricity, a provider of mobile content services, announced that it has raised $185 million in a round of venture capital, which was led by Advanced Equities, Carl Icahn and New Enterprise Associates. [more..]

Boston - 5min, a website that hosts "how-to" videos, announced on Thursday that it has raised $5 million in its first round of financing, led by Spark Capital. [more..]

New York - SpiralFrog, a free, ad-supported digital music service, has raised $2 million through a private placement of its senior notes. [more..]

Baltimore - Blue Sky Factory, a provider of e-mail marketing services, said that it has acquired the technology platform and subscriber base of Blogarithm, the developer of a free service that alerts subscribers through a daily e-mail when new content is posted to blogs, websites and other RSS-syndicated services. [more..]

Los Angeles - Twistbox Entertainment, a producer and publisher of mobile entertainment content, said on Thursday that it has agreed to merge with Mandalay Media, a development stage company. [more..]

London - BetNow, a U.K.-based developer of mobile gambling services, has raised an undisclosed sum in its first round of venture capital, led by Balderton Capital, PEHub.com reported. [more..]

San Francisco - Active Athlete, a San Francisco-based online media company that connects advertisers with sports enthusiasts, said on Thursday that it has acquired San Francisco-based GolfBuzz, a developer of publishing tools and technologies dedicated to the golf community. [more..]

The converter boxes should immediately allow analog televisions sets to access multicast streams of digital programs that analog sets cannot now receive. So get those coupons now (or at least apply for them now), before they are all gone, and become part of the digital conversion, blogs David Oxenford. [more..]

On this the eve of the Iowa caucus, I took a look at Hitwise data on the performance of the websites of the presidential hopefuls in Iowa and New Hampshire and found that Barack Obama is cleaning up in both of these early battleground states, blogs Heather Hopkins. [more..]

You got to give it to David Letterman and the writers for this one - last night when CBS' "Late Night with David Letterman" returned on the air for the first time after being shut down by the WGA strike, Letterman had striking writers write their top ten demands for his popular "Top Ten" list, blogs Jay Baage. [more..]

On the last day of 2007, the FCC released a 108 page order detailing its rules for the final stages of the transition of US full power television stations from analog to digital, a transition that is to be completed in less than 14 months, blogs David Oxenford. [more..]

Instead of the usual predictable predictions, I thought I would ring in the new year with five principles that I believe will guide the ongoing transformation of media companies, blogs Scott Karp. [more..]

Rohit Bhargava: Like any good blogger, I have several social media resolutions for the new year... [more..]

Social media is becoming more trusted, and people trust one another more than they trust standard marketing messages. Social media offers a tool for more authenticity, but at the end of the day what you are aiming to demonstrate is the personality of your brand, blogs Rohit Bhargava. [more..]

Scott Karp: Facebook’s $15 billion valuation suggests that that dollars are about to flow into the social graphs based on proprietary web applications. Would you bet on that, or an open social platforms like email, SMS, and….phone numbers? [more..]

Jay Baage: Television content don’t just have one outlet anymore - this year more people will enjoy television on more devices in more places than anywhere before. Now that is something to celebrate! [more..]

Seattle - Amazon.com has added DRM-free songs from major label Warner Music Group to its Amazon MP3 store. [more..]

Horsham, Pa. - Motorola on Thursday introduced the Motorola Mobile TV DH01, a portable media player capable of receiving live and on-demand TV programming. [more..]

San Francisco - Video search engine Truveo said on Thursday that its index now includes more than 100 million online videos -- a 20-fold increase from a year ago. [more..]

Washington - XM Satellite Radio said on Thursday that it has reached a deal with the Chicago-based Content Factory to carry Dan Patrick's national sports radio show starting on Jan. 21. [more..]

Agoura Hills, Calif. - Video game publisher THQ announced on Thursday that its Heavy Iron Studios is developing games based on Disney/Pixar's upcoming digitally animated film, "WALL/E." [more..]