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Google is expanding a program to digitize newspaper archives and has begun scanning microfilm from some 100 newspapers. The plan is to make the content available first through Google News and then through the papers’ Web properties. Ads will appear alongside the articles. Score one for archive junkies. The jury’s still out for publishers.

Video provider Joost is moving away from its desktop client player ways and will deliver video within browsers. This is a departure for Skype and Kazaa founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom as they attempt to create a P2P video network. The idea is that they’ll still require subscribers to download a P2P plugin to facilitate playback but the stand alone player is gone.

Video hosting provider Vimeo has a new set of toys in the offing. Called Vimeo Toys, the new release involves clever data visualization to explore new video delivered through the network. With the distribution of an XML file demonstrating how to capture approximately 50 user interactions, Vimeo is hoping the developer set will create [...]

If musicians can do it, so too filmmakers: Michael Moore is releasing his next documentary Slacker Uprising as a free download.

NewTeeVee runs the numbers and reports that NBC served 75.5 million streams during the Olympics while the BBC had upwards of 200,000 concurrent viewers getting their games on. Meanwhile, China’s state run CCTV reported to the New York Times that 100 million people accessed video streams on its Web site. Gotta be gold in there [...]

What do you do if you sell a hardware box to record television shows, your brand name has become synonymous for the ability to actually do so but you can’t, just can’t, increase market share and are actually losing customers to cable and satellite companies? Hook up with a print publication of course. TiVo follows [...]

Are successful corporations able to continuously innovate or are their senses dulled on their way to the bank… until some lively upstart comes and kicks them in their money maker.

The New York Times Week in Review profiles Spot Us, a non-profit news outfit that seeks community funding to pursue investigative stories. The organization got off the ground with a $340,000 grant from the Knight Foundation to pursue the idea. Crowd-funding has been used by independent record labels and non-profit fund raisers. Let’s see if [...]

Little girl follows rabbit. Little girl kills rabbit. And then things get interesting.

Some say Second Life resembles a failed city but for Nashville bluesman Von Johin the virtual reality world was a one way ticket to a first life recording contract. Reality Entertainment just signed Johin to a worldwide recording contract after talent scouts followed his Wednesday nights, avatar driven live shows at the virtual Blue Note [...]