Ogilvy strikes --
at its own team?

Music:

• Yes, Sony launched a DRM-free music download store. But potential users must buy cards in physical stores for albums they wish to buy online, then enter a code to actually get it.
• Napster is also ditching DRM. It nows offer tracks in MP3 format, which is agnostic to most digital music players.
• Motorola is acquiring Soundbuzz to expand its MOTOMUSIC download service in Asia.

Partnerships:

• CNBC and the New York Times are partnering to cross-pollinate one another's sites with business news content.
• NBC will feature 3,600 hours of Olympic video footage online, per a partnership with Microsoft to use Silverlight for hosting on-demand footage.
• MTV has signed distribution deals with online media sites — including imeem and Dailymotion — to spread its videos on the web.

New and Improved:

• Jimmy Wales' Wikia search engine has launched. The site, unlike its non-profit cousin Wikipedia, is monetized with ads.
• Conde Nast will launch a site for Gourmet magazine, one of many it has planned to increase print subscriptions.
• MTV has debuted the Virtual Lower East Side, a place that brings clubs and other locations together for avatars to frequent.

M&As, Tectonic Shifts:

• Liberty Media is buying BodyBuilding.com, an social networking and e-commerce site for the muscle-minded. It is paying $100 million.
• CNet faces a shake-up from investors critical of its executive body. They claim CNet is not as successful as it could be.
• Online photo site Shutterfly acquired group management site Nexo.
• Monster acquired Affinity Labs to capitalize on the latter's ability to build vertical networks around vocations.
• Microsoft is buying Fast Search and Transfer, a Norwegian company, for $1.23 billion. The buy will deepen its footprint in the enterprise data storage and management field.
• Ogilvy is laying off 50 to 100 staffers. It faces declining revenue resulting from a shift to online spending by clients. Online campaigns simply don't cost as much as traditional ones do.

Campaigns of Note:

• Mozilla kicked off a new, largely unbranded campaign to promote the adoption of its Firefox Internet browser.

Signs of Doom:

• A study by Research Recap finds companies with the least transparent management teams consistently perform the most poorly for shareholders.
• A survey suggests people between 18 and 24 years of age prefer social networking to TV, books, video games or talking on the phone.