News Corp.

Battle for the future of TV

It's Amazon vs. Apple, according to the latest reports, with Netflix in the middle

Tuesday was busy day as two of the biggest names in online retail -- Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN) -- jockeyed for position in the fast-evolving market for Internet-based television.

Both have been actively courting the major studios, including NBC Universal (GE), Time Warner (TWX), News Corp. (NWS) and Viacom (VIA-B), each for a different reason. Apple has MORE

MySpace: A place for… what, again?

With declining ad sales, a stagnant user base, and a creaky interface, the once-mighty social network has a redesign on deck, but is it enough to save the site?

Visit the MySpace offices in the News Corp. complex in Beverly Hills, and you won't see a company in crisis. Underneath the company sign, a dry-erase board reads "A place for..." with scribbled Mad Lib-esque responses like, "Soy Milk Ecstasy" and MORE

99¢ TV shows coming Sept. 7 - report

Rather than a "best of TV" subscription service, Apple will be streaming programs a la carte

[UPDATE: The event is actually scheduled for Sept. 1. See here.]

Fuzzy rumors about Steve Jobs' next move in the TV market have been swirling for the better part of a year, but the picture snapped into focus on Tuesday.

A report by Peter Burrows, a veteran BusinessWeek reporter now writing for Bloomberg Businessweek, lays out the MORE

VC stunner: Nothing is overhyped

Enterprise, mobile, China, storage and social -- so many places to deploy cash.

Fortune's Michael Copleand opened his venture-capital panel at Fortune Brainstorm Tech Friday afternoon with a fun round-robin question: Name one sector that is overhyped or underhyped.  Shockingly, the six-member panel found nothing whatsoever that is overhyped. Only the opposite. VCs, after all, are congenital optimists.

Jerry Murdock of Insight Ventures, and investor in Twitter, thinks social media is underhyped. MORE

Hulu Plus: Not worth it. Yet.

The video streaming service's new premium model lacks the chops to justify its monthly fees.

As a writer and hopeless Internet addict, I probably spend more time in front of my laptop than I'd like to admit, banging out articles, reading blogs, instant messaging co-workers and friends, and viewing media. Whereas the average American now spends an estimated 34 hours a week in front of the television, it's fair to say MORE

In praise of reading

Amid all the talk about the "death of print" and the ill effects of multitasking and our shrinking attention spans, we have overlooked the fundamental truth that storytelling will never die.

There's so much jawboning lately about e-readers and tablets and e-ink and pay walls. The debate rages. Will Apple's (AAPL) iPad flatten everyone else? Is Amazon's (AMZN) Kindle franchise fading? What about Sony (SNE) and Barnes & Noble (BN)? MORE

In Abu Dhabi, rulers grill tech and media gurus on monetization

ABU DHABI – News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch told government officials and financiers here Tuesday that the best way to grow a thriving media economy in the Middle East is to take risks. That, he said, will mean limiting censorship and opening up to foreign competition – even when it hurts.

Sure, the message was a little self-serving; Murdoch wants to expand his media empire in the burgeoning Middle East market, MORE

Techmate: Everyone vs. Apple

In a special Presidents' Day episode of Techmate, Jon and Michael discuss Intel (INTC) and Nokia's (NOK) strange alliance to develop mobile software and compete with Apple (AAPL)  plus the on-going mess at MySpace (NWS)
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Yet another new media model

Online publisher Stratfor provides news and information people are willing to pay for.

George Friedman is not in the business of journalism. He wants to make that clear. But while traditional media organizations are on the decline, Stratfor, the Austin, Tex.-based global intelligence company he started in 1996, is on the rise as readers look for alternatives to the ailing international sections of their daily papers.

Stratfor publishes online analysis of global MORE

Can Steve Jobs unplug cable TV?

CBS and Disney may join Apple's $30 per month TV service, says the Wall St. Journal

This could be totally disruptive. Or it could be another "hobby" like Apple TV that never quite takes off.

In a front-page story published Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that CBS (CBS) and Disney (DIS) are "considering participating" in Apple's (AAPL) plan to offer television subscriptions over the Internet.

It was the first hint of interest MORE