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The publishers of U.S. News & World Report, a one-time weekly that became a monthly print publication this year, said Friday it is reintroducing a weekly edition as a digital download. The new U.S. News Weekly will cost $24.95 a year and include features, commentary and other material not available on the free USNews.com Web site, which is supported by ads.
Time Warner reported Q3 profits that beat Wall Street expectations, even as its AOL online unit continued to weigh down the company with a 6 percent decline in advertising revenue. The media conglomerate saw growth in its cable-access and cable-network businesses. However, its Time Inc. magazine unit showed weakness.
National Public Radio, already strong online with free downloads from many of its shows, is boosting its digital ambitions with Monday’s introduction of social-networking features akin to Facebook. NPR also plans to overhaul its Web site and expand the tools for sharing its programs elsewhere over the next few months.
A highly popular “Scrabble” clone already pulled from Facebook in the United States and Canada continued its tumble over the weekend as the online hangout extended its block of the game throughout most of the world. Facebook said Monday it was forced to disable “Scrabulous” after one of “Scrabble’s” rights owners, Mattel, made a formal removal request and the developers of “Scrabulous” took no action themselves.
AOL splashes images of Bollywood celebrities on its new home page for India. MySpace accepts sign-ups from mobile phones in Japan. Google departs from its customarily spartan home page and peppers its Korean site with colorful, animated icons. As major U.S. Internet companies stake their ground abroad in anticipation of the next billion people coming online, the flags they are planting aren’t the Stars and Stripes.