publishers

It's a dark time to be a Harry Potter fan. The book series has drawn to a close, the next big-screen installment of the hit fantasy series has been unceremoniously delayed, and scientists have announced they're getting close to a real-life invisibility cloak--hence sucking just a little bit of the Potter magic out of it.

OK, maybe that was a little melodramatic. But in case you don't have enough Harry Potter in your life, U.S. publisher Scholastic wants to help that...with an all-day read-a-thon.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the release of the … Read more

On today's show: Randall Bennett, former host of The 404, makes a guest appearance on the show to announce his newest business venture, Ubisoft video game event, calls from the public, face tattoos, Play-Doh bombs in lingerie stores, no-ho zones, and the $1000 iPhone application.

After a very long hiatus shrouded in mystery, Randall Bennett finally comes onto the show to reveal what he's been doing for the past few months, and contrary to our assumptions, none of it involves sleeping in! Turns out, he's working with a company called Crowd Fusion, a new "Web publishing … Read more

A Web advertising trade group has proposed a new technology standard for digital video commercials so that the fledgling--and potentially lucrative--form of advertising can get off the ground.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau, which represents the $21 billion online ad market, said Thursday that it has proposed a new communication standard for digital video ads called VAST, or Digital Video Ad Serving Template. If adopted by the industry, the standard would establish a common protocol between the various video players and video ad networks on the Web. That way, advertisers would be able to insert a commercial onto YouTube, without having … Read more

Correction on July 21: The address for a new Sesame Street site was listed incorrectly. Information on the site can be found at SesameStreet.org.

SAN FRANCISCO--On the tech conference circuit, Yahoo, Microsoft and Google are the typical deep-pocketed sponsors. But when the tech is geared toward women, the pockets are those of Chevrolet, Macy's, and K-Y Jelly.

Here at the BlogHer 2008 conference, nearly 3,000 female bloggers are surrounded by the very mainstream-brand advertisers that the Internet media industry has clamored to attract for the last 10 years. It takes just a few moments to notice the … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--The modern woman, per the popular '70s television commercial, was once "bringing home the bacon and frying it up in a pan." Now she's also writing a blog.

As many as 3,000 women are here at the fourth annual BlogHer Conference 2008, which opened Friday, to talk about their lives, their businesses, and their blogs. And in some cases, they're all one and the same. Despite the popular perception that women bloggers are all stay-at-home mothers, many women here run their own businesses or work full-time, and they use a blog as a personal … Read more

Just three years ago, she was one of "three chicks with credit cards" trying to form a consortium of female bloggers.

Now, former CNN journalist Lisa Stone is championing a network of 2,200 blogs in a fresh strategic partnership with iVillage, taking on a new $5 million investment from iVillage-parent NBC Universal, and playing host to as many as eight blog-publishing conferences this year around the country. This Friday, the BlogHer conference in San Francisco is expected to attract as many as 3,000 bloggers, some of them mothers driving across the country via caravan while blogging … Read more

BlogHer, the three-year-old women's blog network, said Wednesday that it signed a strategic deal with iVillage, the much larger Web conglomerate for women owned by NBC Universal.

As part of the deal, NBC Universal's investment arm, Peacock Equity (a joint venture with General Electric), invested $5 million in BlogHer in a Series B round of financing. BlogHer's previous investor, Venrock, also participated in the round.

The iVillage deal is a coup for BlogHer because it will give the company the chance to promote content from its network's 2,200 blogs across a range of NBC Web … Read more

NEW YORK--Tuesday night was the first time I'd been to a digital-media-related event at a bookstore, unless you count the time that Google threw a conference at the New York Public Library.

It was the launch party for girly e-newsletter DailyCandy's new book, The DailyCandy Lexicon: Words That Don't Exist But Should, at the McNally Robinson bookstore-cafe in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood. Refreshments consisted of rum cocktails and, not surprisingly, candy.

Sample entry in the book: "textual frustration: a late-night text exchange that fails to result in old-fashioned lip-locking." DailyCandy staffers told me that about … Read more

Nothing is more old news than the good old newspaper from yesterday. Silicon Alley Insider reports on the New York Times' attempt to counter the continued print media decline by establishing new revenue streams through its online initiatives. Marc Frons, chief technology officer of the Times' digital operations, provides cues as to where the company is placing its bets: "Widgets, iPhone apps, APIs, and more."

In essence, this means the Times is turning into a software company, applying the same business model philosophy "as many start-ups in Silicon Valley:" "Build neat tools, get traction, and … Read more