MetaCafe, apparently the fourth most popular video download site in the UK according to PaidContent.org has received $15m of funding from venture firms Benchmark Capital and Accel Partners.

Nick Denton announced that Gawker Media, his blog company, was closing a couple of blogs – Sploid and Screenhead – and moving staff around on four more. He says changes in the media landscape are behind the move. Jeff Jarvis reckons this is just Nick – with whom he is friends – acting like a media company (21st century one at that) and proving that modern media companies are easy to tweak when things change, unlike 20th century ones. Maybe.

Simon Robinson pointed me to this interesting post of the 5 reasons why social networks fail. Future posts from the author promise to focus on why they succeed, too…

A new service has launched in Japan, says OhGizmo!

It’s called “Mapion Local Search”, and allows you to get detailed information about any of 700,000 businesses simply by pointing your cellphone at them. The GPS determines where you are, the compass where you’re pointing; the service digests this information, and spits back useful info about the business in question.

Google Video has added rating to provide more user interaction with the conents. Reported by Steve Rubel.
The official Google Blog version is here.

National Magazine Company, the UK consumer publishing arm of Hearst Magazines, is forming a digital division according to PaidContent.org.

About 30 staff will be hired for the new digital division, which will handle production, advertising sales and marketing, overseen by a managing director for digital publishing, a role which is yet to be filled.

Pixsy is a venture-backed “visual search” engine based in San Francisco.

VNU Business Publishing launches an Internet Broadcasting Service with online video and audio delivered from its own “six figure” studio complex in Soho, London.

VNU On Air will incorporate a mix of up-to-date news, product and technology know-how, and high level industry discussion and debate, aimed at the four million users per month of VNU’s 20 on and offline brands in the UK including The Inquirer, vnunet.com, Computing, IT Week, Accountancy Age, Computeractive and CRN. The programming delivered through these new video and audio packages will appeal to the company’s three core audiences; B2B IT buyers, consumer technology users and financial management professionals.

Bob Garfield is the latest author to write a book as a blog. He warns that his employer will own everything – comments and all – but still it’s another example of a book as a living thing being created in public.