Beverly Hills, Calif. - Owen Van Natta, the former COO of Facebook, is set to become the new CEO of social networking rival MySpace, the blog AllThingsD reported. [more..]

Stockholm, Sweden - After a Swedish national radio show reported that the judge who sentenced the operators of file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay to a year in prison has connections with several pro-copyright groups, defense lawyers have called for a mistrial, TorrentFreak reports. [more..]

San Francisco - Yahoo plans to shutter its GeoCities free personal Web page hosting service later this year, and as of Thursday was no longer accepting new customers, Reuters reported. [more..]

San Bruno, Calif. - Google's YouTube has begun testing a new social feature that lets users see what which videos their friends are watching, rating and commenting on in real-time. [more..]

London - A dispute between U.K. broadcaster ITV and YouTube over ad formats is to blame for why the estimated more than 100 million views of Susan Boyle's performance on "Britain's Got Talent" have not yet earned a single ad dollar, the Times Online reports. [more..]

Arlington, Va. - Steve Jobs, the co-founder and CEO of Apple, heads the newly announced 2009 class of inductees into the Consumer Electronics (CE) Hall of Fame, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) announced on Thursday. [more..]

New York - Global Media Services, a provider of live and on-demand video streaming services, announced that it has merged with Seattle-based GridNetworks, a provider of HD Web video delivery services. [more..]

Seattle - Foodista, the developer of a wiki for recipes, has raised $500,000 in first round funding from Amazon.com and angel investors, TechCrunch reported. [more..]

Los Angeles, CA (April 23, 2009) - Digital Media Wire today announced the final speaker lineup for the highly-anticipated LA Games Conference (http://www.lagamesconference.com/) to be held at the Roosevelt Hotel, April 28-29, 2009 [more..]

Reston, Va. - Microblogging service Twitter ranked as the top-gaining web property in March, drawing 9.3 million unique visitors, more than twice as many as the prior month, according to new figures from Internet audience measurement firm comScore. [more..]

New York - Actress Natalie Portman on Thursday announced the launch of MakingOf.com, a site that aims to offer behind-the-scenes looks into the creation of movies from the perspective of the creators themselves. [more..]

Los Angeles - Looking to expand beyond its 3D concert films, Disney announced on Thursday that its ESPN Films unit will produce a sports-themed 3D film, "X Games 3D the Movie." [more..]

Tokyo - Japanese video game publisher Square Enix announced that its "Final Fantasy" franchise has now sold over 85 million units to date, GamesIndustry.biz reports. [more..]