VentureBeat

Here’s the latest action:

ComScore: Facebook users triple in Japan during the last year – But Mixi.jp is still number one, with 12.7 million visitors compared to Facebook’s 538,000.

MySpace and NBC select citizen journalists — They’ve chosen Matt Britten and Sara Pat Badgley to cover the Democratic and Republican Conventions, respectively, as part of the companies’ Decision08 contest. Britten and Badgley’s videos and blog posts will appear on MySpace, and possibly on the MSNBC TV channel and website.

Mobile subscribers to hit 5 billion in 2011 — That forecast comes from Infonetics Research, which also predicts that mobile broadband will grow at a compound rate of 104 percent every year until then.

Google establishes Latin American HQ in Brazil — The country is reportedly Google’s fastest growing region. That’s particularly impressive since Google only opened its Brazilian office three years ago.

Private equity firm Blackstone creates a cleantech arm — This group could help provide the late-stage investments that cleantech companies need.

Did Facebook try to acquire StudiVZ? — That’s what a former executive at the German social networking site claims. The implication is that Facebook is only suing StudiVZ because it wants more of the German market, not because (as alleged) StudiVZ copied Facebook’s look, feel and features.

Department of Energy supports green building — The federal agency will contribute to the $50,000 prize for the winning company in the California Clean Tech Open’s green building contest. That amount, of course, is only a drop in the bucket compared to the funding most green building startups actually need.

Philadelphia Inquirer: So much for that Internet news thing — The newspaper has a new policy decreeing that except for breaking news, articles won’t run on the website until after they have appeared in the Inquirer’s print edition.

Magnify.net makes video network bigger, faster — The startup, which helps customers include video channels on their websites, just added MySpace, Hulu, Vimeo, College Humor, Howcast and MTV Overdrive to its content network. That network supposedly runs twice as quickly now.

Online video sharing service Magnify.net is rolling out version 3.0 of its site today. With this iteration, the company is adding some new social media tools as well as professional video services in an attempt to turn the site into a full-scale online video network.

Magnify.net thinks it can take on a much larger site like YouTube by emphasizing its openness to the Internet community as a whole. While YouTube focuses on single videos throughout its network, Magnify.net encourages users to upload videos to its site as well as spread videos from other video-sharing sites around the web.

The most significance addition to Magnify.net’s 3.0 version is the new services for professional video creators. The site now has both ‘Pro’ and ‘Enterprise’ packages, which will allow for more customization than the standard free accounts do. For a fee ($5.95 per link), ‘Pro’ users will also be able to remove many of the standard links on the Magnify.net page — such as those showcasing more channels — for a cleaner-looking page.

More importantly, ‘Pro’ users will have the option to take 100 percent control of the advertising on their pages.

The ‘free’ default is a 50/50 ad share split between Magnify.net and the user. However, ‘Pro’ users willing to pay $24.95 a month can gain control of 100 percent of the advertisements for up to 5,000 pageviews. $84.95 buys control for 25,000 pageviews, and $159.95 takes that number up to 50,000 pageviews. Those taking advantage of these upgrades will be able to run their own ads or opt not to have any.

‘Enterprise’ users will have access to all the ‘free’ and ‘Pro’ services but can also have videos of unlimited length on their pages. More importantly, ‘Enterprise’ users will automatically have total control of all advertisements, including those displayed within their videos. Pricing for this ‘Enterprise’ option is not specified on the site.

The new social networking elements Magnify.net is launching are fairly standard. Users will be able to have profiles, friend one another as well as track and subscribe to each other’s activities on the site. YouTube has had all of these features for some time now. The addition of widgets from sites such as Twitter and Flickr should add to the community feel — but again, these integrations have become ubiquitous with social networks.

Magnify.net raised a $1 million round just last month. Investors included Next Stage Capital, New York Angels and Rose Tech Ventures among others (our coverage).

The New York-based company launched last year (our coverage).

1. KnockaTV a big lesson for start-ups
2. Nokia unveils handset made entirely of recycled pieces
3. Magnify.net, the DIY video platform, growing
4. Novell buys Sitescape, open source collaboration tool
5. MySpace rips-off another Facebook idea: Slingshot Labs
6. GumGum helps photographers make money on the web
7. Hollywood’s writers have voted to end strike
8. Microsoft exec calls Vista-capable machines “junk”
9. Internet phone company Vonage in financial trouble
10. Intel puts $3.5 million into bizarre idea: Bragster

KnockaTV a big lesson for start-ups — KnockaTV, a video site we’d reviewed positively (see here and here ), is blowing up after founders began fighting each other over the company’s burn-rate. Reports about the Israeli company’s saga (the Globes has the fullest account; the English translation is here, though truncated) suggest the founders are driving the company into receivership on purpose. The team is made of the creators of ICQ, the successful early instant messenger service, which sold for $407 million a decade ago. The company was backed last year with $3.5 million, led by Evergreen Venture Partners. Lesson: No matter how successful or high-profile your founding members are, teamwork is more important.

Nokia unveils handset made entirely of recycled pieces — Details here. The phone, called the “Remade,” is part of Nokia’s effort to go green.

Magnify.net, the do-it-yourself community video platform, growing — Details here.

Novell buys SiteScape, an open source collaboration tool – Details here.

MySpace rips off another idea from Facebook: A program to fund third-party applications — Slingshot Labs is MySpace’s way to match the fund created by Facebook and its backers to invest in third-party application companies that use Facebook’s platform. Details here in Business Week. It’s an incubator for developing Internet ventures, and it plans to back four or five ideas per year.

GumGum, trying to help photographers make money on the web — Let’s say you’re a member of the paparazzi, and you have a thousand photos of Britney Spears. You upload those photos into GumGum, then a web publisher — let’s say gossip blogger Perez Hilton — goes to GumGum and finds a Britney photo he wants to use. Hilton would make money for you one of two ways. One, Hilton pays you for the Britney photo on a cost-per-impression basis. If lots of people see the image on the publishers’ site, Hilton pays you, based on the CPM amount you set. Two, you run VideoEgg ads on on your photo that appears in Hilton’s site. Los Angeles-based GumGum has raised $125,000 in angel funding. See video, below Techcrunch has more.

Hollywood’s writers have voted to end strike — They ended after 100 days, probably because there was nothing decent anymore to watch on TV (it all went to the Internet).

Microsoft exec calls Vista-capable machines “junk” — Ouch.

Internet phone company Vonage in financial trouble — Details here.

Intel puts $3.5 million into bizarre idea — The chip giant’s investment arm is backing “Bragster,” a site where people can show off. Details here.