Richmond, Va. - In an aggressive move to expand beyond movie rentals, Blockbuster on Monday said that it has made an unsolicited $1 billion takeover bid for Circuit City Stores, the Virginia-based nationwide electronics retailer. [more..]

New York - AOL on Monday announced the largest win in the brief history of Platform-A, which has been tapped to manage all of the online ad and most of the mobile ad inventory of telecommunications giant Verizon. [more..]

Stanford, Calif. - A federal court in New York on Monday heard arguments from Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, who along with Warner Bros. has filed suit to prevent the publication of a reference guide to the series, claiming its creator has stolen her work. [more..]

New York - Gawker Media, the blog network that includes Gawker, Defamer, Gizmodo, Wonkette and Jezebel, announced on Monday that is selling its Idolator, Gridskipper and Wonkette sites. [more..]

Dundee, Scotland - Independent video game developer Realtime Worlds announced on Monday that it has raised $50 million in its second round of funding, led by Maverick Capital. [more..]

American Fork, Utah - Move Networks, a provider of HD online TV services, announced on Monday that it has landed a $46 million third round of financing, led by Benchmark Capital. [more..]

Sausalito, Calif. - Federated Media, an online advertising network for blogs, has raised a third round of venture capital financing totaling between $40 million and $50 million, PEHub.com reports. [more..]

Los Angeles - LiveUniverse, the online entertainment network led by Brad Greenspan, the founder of original MySpace parent company Intermix Media, has acquired free personal home page creation service Pageflakes for an undisclosed sum, TechCrunch reports. [more..]

New York - Visible World, a provider of targeted video advertising services, has raised $25 million in a third round of funding led by Adams Street Partners and AllianceBernstein, MediaPost reports. [more..]

New York - OLX, a provider of free online classifieds in the U.S. and abroad, has raised $13.5 million in its second round of venture capital financing, PEHub.com reported. [more..]

Seattle - BuddyTV, a TV-related entertainment site with listings, reviews, news and community features, has landed $6 million in its second round of funding, led by Madrona Venture Group, TechCrunch reported. [more..]

San Jose, Calif. - MediaXstream, a provider of file transfer and file sharing services for the film and TV production industry, announced on Monday that it has acquired Secure Media Solutions, a provider of production applications for the film and TV industry. [more..]

Website operators who allow the posting of user-generated content on their sites enjoy broad immunity from legal liability, but there are a number of issues that they need to be aware of, blogs David Oxenford. [more..]

Interest in tickets is high as the festival draws close & fans get closer to making a final decision about attending – 29% of the traffic from the Coachella website visited Ticketmaster immediately after for the week ending April 5th, 2008 and 36% visited for the week prior ending March 29th. [more..]

New York - CBS said on Monday that its March Madness On Demand video player drew 4.7 million total unique viewers, and streamed 4.9 million total hours of live video during the NCAA men's basketball tournament. [more..]

Basking Ridge, N.J. - Verizon Wireless said on Monday that it will offer an exclusive "mobile underground remix" of "4 Minutes," the first single from Madonna's upcoming album "Hard Candy." [more..]

San Francisco - The average salary for a U.S. video game industry employee was $73,600, up slightly from 2006's figure of $73,316, according to the results of Game Developer magazine's seventh annual Game Developer Salary Survey. [more..]

London - The Random House Group, Bertelsmann's publishing arm, on Monday announced the launch of a new Web widget that lets consumers browse and search through selections of books. [more..]

Arlington, Va. - Caroline Little has resigned as the publisher and CEO of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive (WPNI), the online publishing arm of The Washington Post, the Post reported. [more..]

New York - Digital music service eMusic said on Monday that it has now sold more than 200 million downloads since establishing its current subscription model in November 2003, and is currently selling more than 7 million tracks a month across all territories. [more..]

New York - CBS's social music discovery service Last.fm said on Monday that it will offer an exclusive preview of Portishead's new album, "Third," in its entirety for free on its site for a week before its official release on April 21. [more..]

New York - Ad-supported music service SpiralFrog said on Monday that it has signed a licensing deal with RoyaltyShare, a provider of royalty collection and distribution services. [more..]