Major League Gaming (MLG) rides a fine line between technology, entertainment, and sports—if you consider teams of players duking it out over games like Halo 3 and Rainbow Six Vegas a sport. It holds its Pro Circuit tournaments in spaces like the Hard Rock Hotel Las Vegas and the Meadowlands; game...

Right in time for March Madness—and a challenging environment for online advertising—ESPN360 last week starting allowing marketers to place ad insertions into live event streams.  Since Friday and continuing through March 15, advertisers will be featured in live streams of at least 124 coll...

MarketShare Partners has picked up an undisclosed amount of first-round funding from private equity firm Elevation Partners. Cofounded in 2005 by Dr. Dominique Hanssens, Wes Nichols and Jon Vein, the LA-based marketing analytics company pitches itself as "a strategic decision sciences firm offering ...

by J. Randal Matheny On Friday a Brazilian Catholic cardinal declared, in jest, to reporters, that the family is "the world's greatest problem." This Bidenesque comment was his throw-away phrase to deflect speculation that doing away with celibacy among the clergy might raise the number of priests i...

In another sign that cable advertising is holding up better than broadcast advertising, fourth-quarter revenues at Discovery (NSDQ: DISAB) Networks were flat versus the same period 2007, at $904 million, while ad revenues were up 6 percent. The results were boosted by growth at the U.S. networks, bu...

"I look like I'm in my Steve Ballmer uniform," laughs Scott Howe, as he bounds off the stage following his keynote at the Interactive Advertising Bureau's Annual Conference on Monday afternoon. As Howe heads backstage, one of the IAB reps points out all the Tweets by attendees remarking on his passi...

While it seems strange to have someone from search giant Google (NSDQ: GOOG) brought on to defend display, David Rosenblatt, president, Display Advertising for Google, did have some positive things to say about that format. But mainly, it was a pitch for his company's approach to saving that marketp...

In the middle of the News Corp earnings call, its Dow Jones (NYSE: NWS) subsidiary said it was cutting 14 jobs instead of the 50 positions that had been widely expected. A memo written by WSJ Publisher Robert Thomson and obtained by paidContent also said the paper had recently lost another 14 jobs t...

After reminiscing about the frenzy of ad network deals in 2006 to 2007, how do things look now? Speaking on a panel at day two of the AlwaysOn NYC media conference, moderator Jay Rand, partner Manatt, Phelps & Phillps, noted that it used to be "ad networks were the bomb." And now, some appear to be ...

In a Q&A with readers concerned about the precarious financial state of the newspaper this week, NYT Editor Bill Keller was asked if the paper would consider charging for online content again. Keller says that the company isn't making any new plans. But, as he said in the exchange, "a lively, deadly...