Ice Cube joins UVNTV

Biz Buzz:

• Tribal DDB Worldwide was named Advertising Age's Global Agency Network of the Year. This is the first time a digital house has won the honor.
• Getty Images is looking to rake in $1.5 billion by putting itself up for sale.
• Apple's Steve Jobs and NBC's Jeff Zucker are leading some to believe the network's programs could be coming back to iTunes.
• Mobile advertising firm Smaato brought in $3.5 million in its first round of financing.
• MixerCast will use part of the $6 million in funding it just got to build its own widget advertising product.
• Google and IncrediMail are working together to sort out why IncrediMail was dropped from the AdSense program last week.

Search:

• Nielsen calls Microsoft the only company of the three largest search providers to enjoy a traffic increase in December. Search share comprised 13.8 percent of the US market, up from 12 percent in November. Yahoo fell to 17.7 percent.
• Yahoo is on the verge of eliminating around 700 jobs to compete against Google and Microsoft.

Publishing:

• The Atlantic is expanding its online offerings and dropping paid subscriptions to its web content.

Social Networks:

• Nokia is working with Facebook on a deal that could involve investment in the social network by the mobile company, as well as bringing Facebook to Nokia customers.
• MySpace is spinning off a company called Slingshot Labs, devoted to creating new companies and websites.

Signs of What's to Come:

• The FCC will start testing so-called "white space" use for wireless broadband services.
• Zenith Media USA is moving toward a platform-agnostic media buying approach with a restructured operation that includes outlets beyond TV and cable.
• The European Union's head of data privacy said IP addresses should be considered personal information, since it can be directly tied back to a specific person or household.

Entertainment:

• Rapper and actor Ice Cube joined those behind UVNTV, an online channel that seeks to present all forms and sizes of video in the best possible quality.
• Ad-supported music download service we7 has gotten $6 million in additional funding from star supporter Peter Gabriel and Spark Ventures.