Los Angeles - Social music service imeem has surpassed Yahoo (NASD: YHOO) to become the top streaming music service, claiming 10.3 million unique visitors in March, Wired.com reported, citing data from analytics firm Compete.

New York - Last.fm, the social music discovery service owned by CBS, has signed a deal to power AOL Europe's online radio service, beginning in the U.K., France and Germany. The company signed a similar deal earlier this year to power AOL Radio in the U.S.

Redwood City, Calif. - Electronic Arts has partnered with AOL Sports to market and promote "EA Sports GameShow," the company's new online sports trivia game. Under the agreement, AOL Sports now features GameShow as part of the content available to the 10.9 million unique visitors who visit the site monthly.

New York - AOL (NYSE: TWX) could emerge as the big winner of this weekend's failed mega-deal between Microsoft (NASD: MSFT) and Yahoo (NASD: YHOO), with both companies potentially seeking to acquire the Time Warner unit in their efforts to better compete with Internet ad leader Google, The Wall Street Journal reported. "Both companies may turn their attention to the struggling Internet business, providing Time Warner Chief Executive Jeff Bewkes with a possible exit strategy," The Journal reported.

New York - A federal judge in New York has created a formula for calculating the royalties that large webcasters AOL (NYSE: TWX), RealNetworks (NASD: RNWK) and Yahoo (NASD: YHOO) must pay songwriters and music publishers for streaming their songs between 2002 and 2009, which could provide just one performing rights organization, ASCAP, as much as $100 million in payments. U.S. District Judge William Conner's ruling stipulates that the webcasters must pay 2.5% of music-related revenue to ASCAP's 320,000 members; by that math, for 2006, AOL owes $5.95 million, and Yahoo owes $6.76 million.

Dulles, Va. - Another sharp drop in subscription revenue took its toll on AOL's bottom line during the first quarter, parent Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) said on Wednesday. The company, which has been trying to establish itself as an online advertising power, lost 647,000 subscribers during the three-month period, and was down to 8.7 million subscribers as of March 31.

Dulles, Va. - Following a year of revamping all of its major programming channels, AOL (NYSE: TWX) said that the sites in March hit all-time highs in terms of both unique visitors and page views, according to data from comScore Media Metrix. During the month, page views on AOL's programming sites grew 28%, and are up 35% from a year ago.

Dulles, Va. - AOL has paid an undisclosed sum to acquire New Jersey-based fantasy sports site Fleaflicker, which powers The Washington Post's fantasy football leagues, TechCrunch reported.

New York - Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) AOL is laying off around 100 employees from its new Platform-A advertising unit, which was created through the blending of several acquisitions, including Adverstising.com, Tacoda, Quigo, Third Screen Media, Lightningcast and Adtech, Silicon Alley Insider reports.

Reston, Va. - Platform-A, the online ad unit of AOL (NYSE: TWX) formed last fall through the combination of acquired firms such as Advertising.com, Quigo and Tacoda, ranked as the No. 1 ad network in March, according to a new report from market research firm comScore.

Dulles, Va. - AOL (NYSE: TWX) announced on Tuesday that it has acquired San Francisco-based Sphere Source, a developer of contextual search tools which offers related content to publishers.

New York - AOL (NYSE: TWX) 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 (NYSE: VZ). The deal comes as AOL reportedly is continuing discussions about a possible combination with Yahoo (NASD: YHOO), which is trying to fend off a takeover by Microsoft (NASD: MSFT).

Dulles, Va. - AOL (NYSE: TWX) on Thursday announced the launch of the AOL Technology Network, which will include technology-focused blogs including Engadget, Switched, TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog), DownloadSquad, Engadget Mobile and Engadget HD. All the sites will feature tabs at the top linking to the other network sites, and AOL's advertising arm, Platform-A, also plans to sell ads across the entire network. Switched, now powered by Engadget, will serve as the network's central hub.

Pity the poor regulator who, someday soon, will be faced with evaluating some proposed combination of all or parts of Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL and/or News Corp. (is there anyone else left?). What yardstick would you even apply? Someday, they're all going to be in the same combination of the content creation/distribution business, online advertising, applications development and platforms and social networking anyway. It's really only a question of how they get there and when, not whether or even should they. Trying to come to grips with that through the keyhole of any one deal or company is probably not a formula for a coherent regulatory framework for the future of the digital media industry.

New York - News Corporation (NYSE: NWS) is in negotiations with Microsoft (NASD: MSFT) to join its hostile takeover bid for Yahoo (NASD: YHOO), while Yahoo, which has rebuffed Microsoft's advances, has itself been holding talks with AOL and News Corp., The New York Times reported on Thursday. Should News Corp. join Microsoft in its offer, Yahoo would likely see a higher bid made than Microsoft's current offer, in a deal that would combine Yahoo with Microsoft's MSN and News Corp.'s MySpace.

McLean, Va. - USA Today said on Wednesday that it has launched a new tool that will let readers use AOL's AIM instant messenger to search current and archived headlines and set up news alerts. Once logged into AIM, users can add "USA TODAY" to their buddy lists. They can then type key words into the dialogue box, and receive a return IM when the paper publishes articles containing those words. Readers also can use the service to browse and search headlines.

Dulles, Va. - AOL (NYSE: TWX) said on Tuesday that it will begin offering short-form online video content from Disney's (NYSE: DIS) ESPN.com through its AOL Video and AOL Sports sites, marking the first time ESPN has syndicated its content through an Internet portal. Through the deal, ESPN will offer highlights from games and major sporting events, as well as video clips from its original programming, through an embedded video player.

DMW’s CEO & Publisher provides a wrap-up of the top stories of the week. Who’s hot, who’s not and what’s the industry buzz?

The Microsoft - Google battle was back in the headlines this week with both companies announcing acquisitions in the online advertising space and increased speculation about the future of Yahoo. On the acquisition front, Google (NASD: GOOG) announced on Tuesday that it has received approval from the European Commission for its $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick, the final step to completing the transaction. Google chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt applauded the announcement noting that "with DoubleClick, Google now has the leading display ad platform.”