Entertainment

Pandora launched its initial public offering Tuesday evening, opening at $16 per share. On Wednesday morning, the Internet radio's stock price opened at $20, then rose to $26, placing the company's value at $4.2 billion. Later on Wednesday, the price fell to $18.30. Despite Pandora's lack of profita...

A new partnership between Comcast and Skype will let Comcast subscribers place video calls through their television sets. The new service will require some setup -- customers will need to install Comcast-provided equipment including an adapter box, video camera, and special remote with a QWERTY keyb...

Pandora, an Internet music service, is scheduled to begin trading shares in an initial public offering on Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "P." Last week, the company ramped up its plans, increasing its IPO price range by at least a third and boosting the number of shares to...

Pop star Lady Gaga is reportedly joining with Google's Eric Schmidt to produce a new social media site called "Backplane." Tony Carter, Gaga's manager, is at the helm of the operation and is attracting capital from important backers. So far, the company has raised more than $1 million from a group o...

If the Internet is the equivalent of our solar system, then Netflix would be Jupiter, its largest planet. That, at least, is the imagery that Sandvine evokes in its latest report, "Global Internet Phenomena Spotlight." Netflix has ascended to the No. 1 Internet traffic spot, the firm found, accounti...

A long list of companies -- including big names such as Amazon, Dish Network, Wal-Mart, Best Buy and YouTube -- appear to be gearing up to enter the online video rental business. Of course, they all have visions of eventually overtaking the current market leader Netflix. It makes sense. Streaming vi...

Time Warner Cable and Viacom are countersuing each other over whether Time Warner Cable has the right to live stream Viacom content to its Apple iPad app, which it released in March. In short, Time Warner Cable says the rights it already obtained from Viacom entitle it to distribute the content in t...

Flick through your TV guide -- soon enough you'll find 20 new YouTube channels. That's a lot of laughing babies. Google reportedly is planning to spend as much as $100 million to produce 20 new YouTube channels offering a combination of original new Internet-only content and content already on the s...

New technology may be cool, but it can also be a double-edged sword. Different industries are starting to overlap, and even though the blending of different technologies can be very exciting, it can also be very confusing. One example is how cable television companies have been starting to use the A...

Blockbuster -- once the king of video rentals -- has reached an ignoble end. The carcass of the once-sterling company has been snatched up for nothing, for its bones. Dish Network announced on Wednesday that it was the winning bidder in the bankruptcy court auction for the assets of Blockbuster. The...

There are several investors positioning themselves to snap up Blockbuster at its bankruptcy auction, scheduled for Monday. They are lining up in competition against Cobalt Video, a venture formed by some of Blockbuster's bondholders, which made an opening bid, or stalking horse offer, of $290 millio...

It appears Hollywood is ready to give on-demand new releases a go. Four major studios reportedly are planning a video-on-demand service called "Home Premiere" that will show movies that have been in theaters for 60 days for $30 each. Warner Bros., Sony, Universal and Fox will distribute the digital ...

Amazon surprised the music world this week with the rollout of several products that will allow consumers to store and access their digital music in the cloud. Perhaps no one was more surprised, though, than the music studios, who appeared to have learned the details of the offering shortly before t...

Amazon on Tuesday announced a triple-play entry into the cloud-based music storage field. The online retail giant's trifecta consists of Amazon Cloud Drive, Amazon Cloud Player for Web and Amazon Cloud Player for Android. These three services let customers store music in the cloud and play it on any...

It appears Netflix is getting ready to begin schlepping content, which would position the video rental and streaming company as a content creator. The move is reminiscent of HBO's emergence as a premium content producer in the early days of cable. Netflix is reportedly in advanced talks about pumpin...