New York – AOL (NYSE: AOL) may soon double the size of its staff at
hyperlocal news arm Patch, hiring as many as one new full-time journalist for
each of its approximately 800 sites, Bloomberg reported.

At the same time, the
company plans to reduce its current reliance on freelancers.

"Each site
will now have its own team," Arianna Huffington, the editor-in-chief of
AOL’s media operations, told Bloomberg. "It’s always greater and better to
have a team."

Plans also call for greater incorporation of social
elements, such as bloggers and commentary, into Patch sites.

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/3lojosr
(Bloomberg)

http://www.patch.com 

Los Angeles – A vice president at game publisher Activision (NASD: ATVI) has told
GamesIndustry.biz that the company’s "Guitar Hero" franchise is
"on hiatus," and not permanently canceled.

"Just to clarify,
we’re just putting Guitar Hero on hiatus, we’re not ending it," Dan
Winters told the site.

"We’re releasing products out of the vault — we’ll
continue to sustain the channel, the brand won’t go away. We’re just not making
a new one for next year, that’s all."

Activision previously said in a February earnings statement that, "Due to continued declines in
the music genre, the company will disband Activision Publishing’s Guitar Hero
business unit and discontinue development on its Guitar Hero game for 2011."

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/6csj296
(GamesIndustry.biz)

http://tinyurl.com/3psrfzu
(DMW previous coverage)

Buffalo, N.Y. – A man who sued Facebook founder Mark
Zuckerberg last year, claiming he invested $1,000 early on and is entitled to
50% of the company, has filed new court documents that cite purported emails
between the two, CNET News.com reported.

Paul Ceglia alleges he hired
Zuckerberg for a software development project in 2003, and at the same time
invested $1,000 in Zuckerberg’s "The Face Book" project — entitling
him to a 50% interest in the company.

In July 2004, Ceglia says Zuckerberg
offered to repay the investment, but adds that by that point in time Zuckerberg had already secured outside
funding from angel investors and was meeting with venture capitalists.

Ceglia
says he never accepted Zuckerberg’s offer of repayment, and alleges their deal entitles
him to a 50% stake in Facebook.

Related Links:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20053003-93.html

Seattle – Amazon.com (NASD: AMZN) has stated in an email to record labels
that its new Cloud Drive locker service has increased sales at its Amazon MP3
store, while restating its stance that it does not need additional licenses to
operate the service, Billboard reports. "There has also been speculation
that we are looking for licenses for Cloud Drive and Cloud Player," the
e-mail states. "We are not looking for licenses for Cloud Drive or Cloud
Player as they exist today — as no licensees are required."

"Cloud
Player is a media management and play-back application not unlike Windows Media
Player and any number of other media management applications that let customers
manage and play their music. It requires a license from content owners no more
than those applications do. It really is that simple," Amazon continued.

The
company did note that it may seek to add new features to Cloud Drive that may
require additional licenses, such as "serving different customers with a
single [song] copy."

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/5sebjs9
(Billboard)

San Jose, Calif. – Two years after acquiring the Flip Video
camera unit of Pure Digital for $590 million, Cisco (NASD: CSCO) announced on Tuesday that
it will shutter the business. The company will cease sales of Flip cameras, but
said it will "support current FlipShare customers and partners with a
transition plan." The move comes as smartphones such as the iPhone have in
recent years added HD video cameras to their feature sets.

Cisco also said it
will re-focus its home networking business, and integrate other business units
in a restructuring its said will bring charges of around $300 million during
its fiscal third and fourth quarters.

The changes are also expected to result
in the laying off of around 550 employees in the fourth quarter.

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/3s5t97y

http://www.cisco.com

San Francisco – In a surprising move, Sony (NYSE: SNE) has dropped its
lawsuit against George ("GeoHot") Hotz, who the company accused of
distributing code that can hack its PlayStation 3 game console, Wired reports.

In return, Hotz has agreed to refrain from any future hacking of the
PlayStation 3 or other Sony products, or else face a $10,000 fine per
violation, according to court records.

Sony had accused Hotz of violating the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which prohibits circumventing the
security on a digital device.

The company had also successfully filed subpoenas
for details of Hotz’s Twitter, PayPal and YouTube accounts in connection with
the investigation.

Last week, the online hacker group Anonymous began targeting
Sony websites in connection with the company’s prosecution of Hotz.

Sony
general counsel Riley Russell told Wired the company pursued Hotz "to
protect our intellectual property and our consumers. We believe this settlement
and the permanent injunction achieve this goal."

Related Links:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/04/sony-settles-ps3-lawsuit/

http://tinyurl.com/429gz8p
(DMW previous coverage)

San Francisco – Reach Media
Group (RMG), an owner and operator of out-of-home TV and video networks, said
on Monday it has acquired Denver-based Executive Media Network Worldwide (EMN),
a provider of video services in airport executive lounges.

Financial terms of
the deal were not disclosed.

"Advertisers have demonstrated a desire to
intercept affluent, senior executives in captive viewing environments,"
said Garry McGuire, the CEO of RMG Networks.

"Combining EMN’s dominant position
in airport digital media with RMG’s leadership position in in-flight captive
seat-back television is a powerful integrated media solution for
advertisers."

RMG’s properties include In-Flight Entertainment, Fitness
Entertainment, Point-of-Care, mtvU, NYTimes.com Today, Taxi Magic, and Caesars
Entertainment.

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/3aq532y

http://www.rmgnetworks.com   

http://emnworldwide.com

Prague, Czech Republic – KIT digital, a provider of
Internet-based video delivery services, announced on Tuesday that it will
acquire ioko, a provider of cloud-based video delivery services, for $79.4
million.

KIT said ioko is currently generating $54 million in annual video
asset management revenues, serving clients including AT&T U-verse, BBC,
BSkyB, Disney and Universal Music.

KIT has been on something of a buying spree
of late, having also recently acquired firms including Polymedia, KickApps,
Kewego and Kyte.

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/3etp9oa

http://www.kitd.com

http://www.ioko.com

Atlanta – Scoutmob, the developer of a location-based group
buying service, has raised $1.5 million in its first round of funding, led by
New Atlantic Ventures, VentureBeat reported.

Founded in 2010, Atlanta-based
Scoutmob mixes elements of daily deals services like Groupon with
location-based services like Foursquare, offering free coupons that can be
redeemed at merchants’ locations.

The company plans to expand its service from
Atlanta, New York and San Francisco into ten new cities, including Austin,
Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Nashville, Portland, Seattle and
Washington D.C.

Related Links:
http://venturebeat.com/2011/04/12/scoutmob-funding

http://www.scoutmob.com