Google has told the French Media that it will stop providing links to its content if it is forced to pay for it.

The threat came as the French Government is proposing to implement a law that will force search engines such as Google to pay for the “privilege” of linking to such content.

In a letter obtained by AFP, Google stated

it “cannot accept” such a move and the company “as a consequence would be required to no longer reference French sites.”

It said such a law, which would require Google to make payments to media sites for displaying links to their content, would “threaten (Google’s) very existence”.

It also noted that Google “redirects four billion ‘clicks’ per month towards the Internet pages” of French media.

Google has previously faced a similar situation in Belgium, where it stopped providing links to news sites for three days until the providers eventually backed down.

Venerable 80 year old news magazine Newsweek is to cease print publishing at the end of 2012.

The decision to cease print operations was made by head Tina Brown, who came to Newsweek when it merged with Brown’s The Daily Beast, and move that was at the time pitched as a way of saving the magazine.

In a statement, Brown said that the switch to online only came as

our business has been increasingly affected by the challenging print advertising environment, while Newsweek’s online and e-reader content has built a rapidly growing audience through the Apple, Kindle, Zinio and Nook stores as well as on The Daily Beast…

Exiting print is an extremely difficult moment for all of us who love the romance of print and the unique weekly camaraderie of those hectic hours before the close on Friday night. But as we head for the 80th anniversary of Newsweek next year we must sustain the journalism that gives the magazine its purpose—and embrace the all-digital future.

The closure of the print edition of Newsweek isn’t a huge surprise; it’s been struggling for years, however it is one of the biggest, well known names in the magazine industry to fold to date.

The last print edition of Newsweek will hit the stands 31 December.

Cable TV provider Comcast has jumped into the streaming movies and TV show game, announcing plans to take on current streaming leader Netflix.

The new service called Xfinity Streampix will only be available to Comcast customers for $5 a month while higher end package users will receive the service for free.

While $5 is cheaper then Netflix’ $7.99 per month plan that service doesn’t require over-priced Comcast cable TV service.

Included in the new Comcast program are such programs as 30 Rock, Grey’s Anatomy, Ocean’s 11, Brokeback Mountain.

Comcast says it isn’t trying to compete with Netflix since the service is only available to Comcast homes, the company adds it’s “nevertheless a shot across the bow of the upstart web streamer—threatening to take away some of its subscribers.”

In a retaliation of sorts Netflix on Tuesday announced a new deal that secures the company rights to stream Weinstein Co. movies over the next several years.

Would you jump from Netflix to Comcast Xfinity Streampix once the program fully launches?

Amazon wants to try it’s hand at developing original half-hour TV programming for internet and TV viewers and to reach that goal the company has posted two new jobs on Amazon.com as it shops around for TV executives who can help it create half-hours childrens show and comedy series.

Driving the project is Amazon Studios which allows writers to submit screenplays, pitches and test movies in the hopes of landing a deal with the company.

Showing how serious the company has become about the project they even headed out to Twitter on Friday as Amazon Studios Director Roy Price tweeted about the job openings on the official Amazon Studios account.

According to Wired:

Amazon Studios awards cash prizes to budding screenwriters and filmmakers, and helps match them with agents and attract an audience, in exchange for the first right to purchase and develop and unlimited rights to display uploaded works through Amazon Instant Video. Just last week, an independent panel of judges from the film industry assembled by Amazon Studios awarded $1.1 million to creators of an original test movie and screenplay.

Amazon Studios up until this point has been focused on movie development with a deal in place over at Warner Bros.

Last fall Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos called Amazon Studios a completely new way of making movies, it will be interesting to see how that completely new production idea works for TV.

The popular and critically acclaimed movie Bridesmaids is popular, so popular in fact that the movie has become the highest renting video-on-demand movie of all time.

According to the Hollywood Reporter the female comedy has experienced 4.8 million rentals in just four months.

The rental rate isn’t that surprising considering Bridesmaids has earned more than$288 million worldwide making it the highest grossing film in it’s genre of all-time.

That total doesn’t even include the $100 million the movie has earned on Blu-ray and DVD sales in the US and the potential the movie has for earning two Oscar awards.

Do you think Bridesmaids deserves the gross revenue and acclaim it has received?

It’s been a tough go at the DVD-by-Mail service for Netflix over the last several months, a service that was once the cornerstone of the company’s business.

First Warner Bros, Universal and Fox knocked back their release dates for cheap Redbox and Netflix DVD-by-Mail rentals to four weeks (WB dropped back to 56 days) and now Disney is considering a 28-delay of their own.

Disney CEO Bob Iger mentioned the companies possible strategy during a Tuesday investor meeting in which he mentioned that Disney is ”not seeing any effect from these dollar-rentals on their sell-through business.”

Citing DVD and Blu-Ray sales as the main reason for the company’s possible decision Iger said of other company’s decision to increase delay times:

“So they’ve decided to take a step in the direction of further protecting the initial window of the sell-through,” Iger said.

Disney hasn’t finalized a decision but it’s a likely outcome as more buyers wait for rentals through Netflix mail service and via Redbox vending machines.

Do you think the entire industry is headed towards delays of 28-days or more based on declining sales and low profits from $1 rentals?

Yahoo!’s Right Media Exchange has been selected as the program of choice for serving AOL ad inventory. The announcement follows the company’s Q4 2011 partnership with Yahoo.

According to Yahoo:

The inventory AOL makes available under the display advertising agreement will be surfaced through the Right Media Exchange across the US and Canada. The overall agreement aims to improve the process of buying and selling premium online display inventory in the non-reserved space.

“Advertising.com has been a long-standing seat holder on the Right Media Exchange, having utilized the Right Media Exchange’s RTB capabilities since 2009. Now, with the addition of inventory from AOL sites, we look forward to AOL continuing to drive yield through their existing advertisers while connecting them with the exchange’s premium advertisers for maximizing yield while delivering on our mutual objectives. Silver adds, “AOL’s selection validates Right Media’s commitment to building a premium marketplace on a global scale.”

“We have had a long term partnership with Yahoo and Right Media, and are excited to continue this partnership through this agreement. The agreement provides for Advertising.com to continue to access AOL inventory for our existing advertisers while providing increased competition through additional demand sources.”

With Yahoo co-founder and ex-CEO Jerry Yang no longer with the company after 16 years and CEO Scott Thompson trying desperately to create better results Yahoo on Monday announced a 13 percent decline in revenue.

The company’s Q4 2011 fiscal results show $1.32 billion in revenue, a 13 percent drop, while revenue fell by five percent to $296 million.

Yahoo also paid Microsoft $48 million as part of their deal in which Microsoft controls search engine results for the Yahoo platform.

According to Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson:

“Yahoo continued to make progress in the quarter with operating income increasing ten percent year over year.”

Thompson then admitted that the company as a whole needs to pick up the pace in order to grow.

Do you think Yahoo can turn around its fortunes in 2012 amid mounting competition from the likes of AOL, Microsoft and other sector competitors?

When Netflix announced 60% pricing increases for their services and then attempted to spin-off the company’s dvd-by-mail service into the Qwikster platform shares at the company plunged by 75% but now the firm appears to be reversing its fortunes with better then expected revenues and subscriber numbers.

Netflix revenue has jumped by 47% to $876 million, more than $18 million over what analysts expected the company to take in. The program also managed to grab 610,000 new users, leaving just 190,000 abandoned users short of their record high.

Based on both revenue and subscriber numbers the company’s stock shot up 13% during Wednesday trading.

One analyst speaking to Reuters noted:

“They have kind of righted the ship in the near term,” and “The question investors need to ask is how are they really going to grow this domestic business, not just this quarter but over the next several years.”

Showing a more upbeat side then we’ve seen of him over the last several month Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said he was “very confident in our ability to acquire content, and to continue to create a better and better service.”

Do you think Netflix has righted it’s ship enough to succeed well into the future?

96% of Google’s revenue comes from keyword advertising, with the finance and insurance industry taking top spot at $4.0 billion annually on Google ads, and retailers and general merchandise companies coming in second with $2.8 billion in spending.

(via Wordstream)