Proving once again that you don't pay rent for more cyberspace, Amazon.com is trying to boost music sales heading into the holiday season by launching what it says are 100,000 music "stores" dedicated to particular musical artists.

The Internet giant yesterday started promoting the new section by trumpeting (sorry) features such as pre-sales of a new EP in the Coldplay store, a photo gallery/retrospective in the Bob Dylan store and -- brace yourselves -- a drawing to win tickets t...Read More

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Viz Media will debut the newest Naruto Shippuden episode online on Jan. 15, days after it airs in Japan.

The episode from the hot anime series will be available for free on Naruto.com, and it will be available on Crunchyroll.com members through subscription or ad-supported.

Crunchyroll says the title is one of many anime titles the site plans to bring online quickly following the Japanese broadcast.

Viz also plans to debut on Naruto.com eight uncut, English-subtitled episodes of Naruto Shippuden online for free starting Jan. 2, with another eight bowing every Friday thereafter. A new episode will bow every Thursday after the Japanese premiere.

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In case you haven't noticed, AT& T wants to be everywhere.

The telephone giant, which two years ago jumped into the television game with its U-verse service, yesterday said it's beta-testing a Web site that will help people search for and index their favorite Web videos.

VideoCrawler (www.videocrawler.com) will index "hundreds of millions of video clips from thousands of sites," the company ...Read More

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For all the YouTube fans who love to watch short-form videos on the Google-owned site, expect feature films to soon be added.

YouTube is currently in talks with at least one Hollywood movie studio for an ad-supported streaming movie service to launch as early as next month.

There are still some problems to work out, however, such as whether enough ads can make the service profitable. Though a popular short-form video site, YouTube has yet to generate significant income.

Following in the footsteps of iTunes, Amazon Video On Demand, Netflix’s Watch Now and CinemaNow, YouTube is hoping a streaming movie service will be the way to the green.

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Looks like a lot more people are getting used to watching their TV shows online.

According to ComScore Video Matrix, in September, CBS.com was No. 1 among the broadcast network Web sites in unique monthly users (6.1MM), video streams (44.4MM) and minutes streamed per user (143MM).

The site also scored double digit growth in unique viewers month over month (16%) and year over year (60%). Plus, streams grew 107% over last year.

According to a Los Angeles Times story, this could be a bad sign for regular TV, with consumers moving online.

And with more and more online services streaming onto TV sets (Netflix just added TiVo to its plethora of ways to stream Netflix content on a TV set), we could see a lot more news like this.

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It may not be a drive-in monster movie or even a midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show but MovieFlix still thinks there are horrors to be had at the computer screen.

The closely held movie-download service is celebrating Halloween most of the week with its Halloween Horror Film Festival, featuring exclusive screenings of movies ranging from Bela Lugosi's Apeman to Little Shop of Horrors, which features the awesomely booming pipes of the recently and dearly departed Levi Stubbs as the voice of the blood-swilling plant Audrey II. Trivia and giveaways are also part of the festivities.

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It ain't Dinah Shore singing See the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet, but it's not far off.

CBS.com next month will debut Novel Adventures, a Web-based series created by Jonathan Prince (The Cleaner) and starring Daphne Zuniga, of One Tree Hill fame, and How I Met Your Mother's Ashley Williams. The series, which is slated for eight Webisodes for starters and also stars Paola Turbay and Jolie Jenkins, centers on four book club members inspired to pursue various adventures from the novels they read.

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Here's even more evidence that online video-on-demand is taking off, and not just for funny "cat attacks tootbrush" videos. Magnolia debuted Wayne Wang's feature-length The Princess of Nebraska on YouTube over the weekend and it scored 160,000 views. According to VB sister publication Variety, that would have been a 15th place ranking if the movie had been in theaters.

But the question is, if it had been in theaters, would it have made that much? To go to a theater, a viewer has to get dressed, get in the car, drive to the theater, buy a ticket, find a seat and do all this to coincide with the showing times the theater has ...Read More

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Looking to compete more closely with Hulu and YouTube, Joost has relaunched with a Flash-based player and content from CBS, Warner and Viacom networks.

To add more flash to its service, it has boosted its social networking features, according to VB sister publication Broadcasting & Cable.

Being part Facebook and part cable provider seems like it could be a good move.

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Bunch of international digital news:

First up, from MIPCOM, Disney has signed a deal with Microsoft to put content on MSN Video for European audiences and will offer up Ugly Betty, and others, for VOD broadcast in Poland.

And Fox is offering up content for digital delivery in Germany and Netherlands, as well as other European territories, through a deal with RTL Group's Broadcasting Center Europe.

And on the local front, NBC Local Media will roll out city-centric Web sites that will include content from a variety of sources, including NBC local stations.

The distribution format expands further and further.

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YouTube is turning to retail to monetize its free videos. YouTube has signed e-commerce deals with iTunes and Amazon that provide links so users can click through to buy products related to the videos, according to VB sister publication Variety.

For example, a trailer for EA videogame Spore includes a link to buy the game on Amazon.

Seems like the perfect synergy of entertainment and commerce, similar to TiVo's click for more information options on ads.

I think it's safe to say we'll see more deals like these.

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iTunes just upped its kid quotient by making available numerous series from Cookie Jar Entertainment (formerly DIC). 
Cookie Jar made the iTunes connection through its partnership with distributor Vivendi Entertainment. Back in May, Vivendi signed the company, then DIC, as its first label for digital distribution.  
Now available on iTunes for $1.99 per episode are Cookie Jar's Horseland Year 1 and Year 2, CAKE, Trollz, Inspector Gadget, The Littles and Madeline.

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