Women’s lifestyle vertical publisher Glam Media has launched its site in France, following last week’s Paris Fashion Week - despite two warnings from a French company that it owns the “Glam” trademark in the country. The French launch is the latest international expansion for Glam, which has launched in Japan,…

Weedle, a site that lets users find people who have specific skills and also pitch their own, has raised $4 million in funding. On Weedle, users create short profiles for free complete with their background, as well as the service they’re providing. They can also “vouch” for other members. Weedle…

Print publishers can’t wait for iPad to hit the streets next month, perhaps so they can once again start producing info in a similar-looking format to their core products of yesteryear. NYT’s flagship app lit the blue touch paper for iPad, Wired also got in on the act early, both…

News aggregator Daylife will begin reselling pictures posted by users of London-based citizen-photo journalism site Demotix to create an “open image wire service.” The arrangement is an expansion of Daylife’s existing image programs. Last fall, Daylife began partnering with Getty Images—which is also an investor in Daylife—on products that lets…

Mitch Lazar, Yahoo’s European Mobile managing director, is stepping down from his post after working at the company for four and a half years. Lazar marks one of many recent departures from Yahoo’s mobile group. Over the past year-or-so, departures range from all the way at the top, like Marco…

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. And, with Hulu yet to launch services outside its home market of the U.S., it’s no surprise, perhaps, that there are some sites bearing an uncanny resemblance to Hulu launching in other markets. The latest is ivi.ru, a Russian portal that…

THQ (NSDQ: THQI) has confirmed that its mobile game studio in Finland has entered into liquidation, putting an end to a decision made a year ago to make the Universomo office the hub of its smartphone game development. In January 2009, THQ conducted a significant restructuring that included focusing on…

The streak of recent language learning fundings continues ... Busuu, which claims more than 300,000 users, is set to announce Thursday that it has raised a “six-digit” round from an unnamed angel investor. The startup, which is based in Madrid, offers interactive language courses in Spanish, French, German, Italian and…

As the interest in e-readers is finally starting to emerge, UK mag publisher Haymarket has unveiled an e-paper version of Autosport in a bid to get more overseas subscribers. It will also be available free to all current print subs through its Autosport.com site. The launch of the e-paper version…

It’s rare that calm, measured Google (NSDQ: GOOG) uses animated language in matters of corporate strategy. But, in a blog post, it says an Italian court’s sentencing of three of its execs to suspended jail terms is “astonishing” and “outrageous”. The case, as we have reported before, concerned a video…

As the traditional ad agency structure struggles to reorient services to emerging markets and new media, Publicis Groupe’s digital revenues are at least heading in the right direction, albeit slowly. The Paris-based ad holding company saw digital revs rise 7.1 percent in Q4. Digital dollars now account for 22.4 percent…

The race to buy IM service ICQ from AOL (NYSE: AOL) is heating up. Last week came the news about some possible buyers: Russian investment group Digital Sky Technologies, which has investment in Facebook and Zynga; South African media giant Naspers, which holds a 30 percent stake in China’s Tencent;…

Another week, and another newspaper opts for a paid-content model: French daily Le Figaro has now announced price tiers for its delayed, previously announced offering, which will go live on Monday… But, instead of hoisting up a paywall around all its news conent, Le Fig is going for a freemium…

A Russian search engine is going after Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and others it says are breaching its patent on a search technique. Quintura has been operating a visual search engine interface, which shows results in a relational, contextual cloud format, since 2005 and was last year awarded the latest of…

SpinVox’s CEO Christina Domecq had to pay back £125,000 to the company after an investigation in to her use of corporate finances, according to a detailed 70-page filing made by new owner Nuance to the SEC. The investigation was ordered by SpinVox’s board in July, when, after paidContent:UK lifted the…

South Africa’s Naspers and Russia’s Digital Sky Technologies (DST) are in talks to pool their Polish social networks Gadu-Gadu and Nasza-klasa.pl, according to Russian business daily Kommersant, citing “a source close to the deal”. Naspers, which owns Gadu-Gadu outright, is reportedly doing due diligence on Forticom, the DST-owned social network…

Swedish film streaming site Voddler, still in beta, has picked up a further 26 million Swedish kronor (£2.25 million, $3.5 million) in funding. This round comes from Eqvitec Partners and brings the total amount that Voddler has received up to SEK150 million (£13 million, $20.2 million), according to a spokesperson…

More European newspapers are joining the paid content club: Axel Springer has put up online paywalls for two of its German newspapers, the Berliner Morgenpost and the Hamburger Abendblatt. This follows reports of French paper Le Figaro readying a paywall this month, and ahead of a planned paywall from Times…

Some more VC activity in Russia’s gaming industry: Almaz Capital Russia Fund is picking up a 23 percent stake in Alawar Entertainment, the country’s leading casual games developer, for $3 million. Almaz plans to extend Alawar’s operations and international reach. The moves follows another investment in Russian games less than…