Internet & Media

Google, having reduced its hiring rate, is also reducing its hiring staff.

The company said on its corporate blog that it's cutting about 100 jobs.

"Given the state of the economy, we recognized that we needed fewer people focused on hiring," said Laszlo Bock, Google's vice president of people operations, in the blog posting. "Our first step to address this was to wind down almost all our contracts with external contractors and vendors providing recruiting services for Google. However, after much consideration, we have with great regret decided that we need to go further and … Read more

Everyone knows that many media organizations are struggling, and now the latest evidence comes from PlanetOut, where as many as a third of the staff were laid off this week.

The first word of the reductions at the popular lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender news and entertainment network came Monday via the prolific The Media is Dying Twitter feed, which aggregates reports of layoffs and staff moves across the media industry.

"PlanetOut has axed 50 percent of the work force--includes sales and editorial," The Media is Dying wrote.

In response to a request for comment, PlanetOut spokesperson Angelina … Read more

Phone companies around the world offering IPTV are expected to see a 32 percent increase in subscribers by 2014, according to a new report published by market research firm ABI Research.

ABI's report notes that while traditional satellite and cable TV platforms will likely continue to retain a foothold in most markets, new IPTV services that provide interactive television will grow to nearly 79 million subscribers over the next five years.

"(IPTV) usage will initially be concentrated in countries with established high-speed Internet technologies, such as France, the Netherlands, South Korea, and Hong Kong," Serene Fong, an … Read more

To: Carol Bartz From: One member of the punditocracy Subject: Rebuilding Yahoo

Welcome to your new job as Yahoo's CEO.

As you probably guessed by how rapidly Jerry Yang slipped to footnote status in yesterday's stories, we're all glad to see you and eager to move on to the next phase of the news cycle. And judging by the fact that Yahoo's stock rose more than 2 percent to $12.41 today when most everybody else's went down, the shareholders are extending you some goodwill, too.

I know you requested some "breathing room" from us nattering nabobs … Read more

Turns out that the top recording companies aren't responsible for silencing YouTube's music videos.

Here's what YouTube said on the company's blog: people who post clips with unauthorized music to the site can choose to mute the audio rather than have YouTube remove the entire video.

YouTube has for a while given those who post videos that include unauthorized copyright music an option of swapping that music for songs that have been pre-cleared. If they don't like that option then YouTube gives them a second choice between having the video removed or turning off the … Read more

Yahoo investors weighed in with cautious optimism Wednesday following the appointment of former Autodesk CEO Carol Bartz as the embattled company's chief executive.

Yahoo, which formally announced Bartz as its new chief executive after the markets closed Tuesday, climbed as high as 3.2 percent during morning trading Wednesday to $12.49 a share, while the broader markets were down.

While noting that Bartz, for the most part, lacks name recognition beyond Silicon Valley and has little experience with media companies and the Internet, investors pointed to her reputation as a strong operator as boding well for Yahoo's … Read more

Nevermind the Hollywood glitterati. Many of the films debuting at this year's Sundance Film Festival feature a more understated star known as Mother Earth, and she plays roles ranging from dramatic to mysterious to horrific.

With one film all about dirt, another about global overfishing, and another still about a family's attempt to live with no net impact on the earth, the environment is getting top billing this year at Robert Redford's indie film festival, which kicks off Thursday night in Park City, Utah, and runs through January 25.

Five out of the 32 documentaries competing at … Read more

The theme for this year's Sundance Film Festival kicking off this week is "Storytime," apropos considering stories are the heart of each and every film.

However, many of the stories at Robert Redford's 10-day indie film festival--which kicks of Thursday in Park City, Utah, and runs through January 25--are told outside the screening rooms. They're told at panels and forums, through art installations, and via online offerings--with technology often key to the plotline.

The bulk of the festival offerings for the digerati take place under New Frontier (PDF), which is a programming category featuring films … Read more

In an effort to keep pace with rival Netflix, Blockbuster has announced a partnership to offer instant access to its video library through various home and portable devices.

The movie rental company has partnered with Sonic Solutions to offer more than 10,000 movies for rent and sale to a variety of PCs, cell phones, portable media players, Internet-connected televisions, and Blu-ray disc players. The collection of offerings will be a combination of titles from Blockbuster and CinemaNow, a movie downloading service that Sonic recently purchased.

"Blockbuster is a ubiquitous entertainment presence in the physical world. Through this alliance … Read more