VentureBeat

Here’s the latest action:

The Associated Press to blogs: Don’t quote us — The Associated Press has demanded that The Drudge Retort (not to be confused with much more famous Drudge Report) take down several blog posts containing excerpts of AP stories. The objections sound pretty silly — the longest excerpt was 79 words long, and quoting and linking other articles is a popular blogging practice. AP Strategy Director Jim Kennedy’s response that the excerpts were “more reproduction than reference” isn’t particularly persuasive. Kennedy later told the New York Times that the AP’s response was “heavy-handed,” but, strangely, he said the organization isn’t backing down from its initial takedown request.

Google reveals escape clause from Yahoo partnership — It looks like Google’s deal with Yahoo, through which Google will serve ads to Yahoo’s search results, is even better for Google than was initially apparent. According to a filing with the federal Securities Exchange Commission, if the partnership ever makes less than $83.3 million in four months for Google, the search giant can terminate the agreement. TechCrunch spotted the filing, and pointed out that it’s a pretty low threshold: Yahoo makes $1.3 billion every three months. Still, here’s another reason to believe that it’s a better deal for Eric Schmidt than for Jerry Yang.

Yahoo exec Weiner joins venture firms as EIR — Speaking of Yahoo, the company has lost another executive. Jeff Weiner, who was most recently in charge of core products like Yahoo.com, Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Messenger, left to be an entrepreneur-in-residence at Accel Partners and Greylock Partners, according to the Los Angeles Times. Weiner follows Andrew Bracchia, another Yahoo executive who left for Accel last year. Google just lost a big name as well: chief litigator Michael Kwan left for the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Google creating new services to fight for net neutrality — The network analysis tools will allow normal users to see if their Internet service providers are abiding by “net neutrality.” In other words, you’ll be able to make sure your ISP is giving you the best connection possible to the entire Internet, not just to websites that pay for better service. A Google policy director mentioned the project during a panel discussion on Friday.

XM/Sirius merger close to a done deal – The merger between the two satellite radio companies has just been recommend for approval by the staff of the Federal Communications Commission, meaning it’s unlikely at this point that the government will stop the deal.

Streamzy lets you search for music videos — Music startup Streamzy, which launched into the crowded online music market just a couple of weeks ago, has added some new features it hopes will set it apart from the competition: It has integrated video searches through YouTube and AOL’s Truveo. One of its competitors, Seeqpod, is already integrated with YouTube, but the ability to stream music performances via Truveo is something none of the other search engines are doing yet. Streamzy also plans to offer music and ringtone purchases shortly and to add playlist-sharing capabilities.

Orgoo to offer webmail service to existing social networks – The startup, previously known for a site that integrates email, instant messaging and SMS text messaging, will try to sell networking sites like Facebook and MySpace a solution that allows users to check their various email accounts through the social network.

[David Adewumi contributed to this article.]

Here’s the latest action:

Another long time Yahoo employee departs — Jeremy Zawodny, a programmer who had been with the company since 1999, is moving on to a unnamed smaller company. Zawodny helped launch the Yahoo Developer Network and worked on several internal projects for the company. In his blog post on the topic, Zawodny points out that his departure is completely unrelated to the failed Microsoft takeover and now the Carl Icahn takeover bid. He follows other old-school Yahoo employees such as Bradley Horowitz out the door (Horowitz went to Google).

Did Loopt beat out Whrrl for Apple WWDC keynote placement? — A May BusinessWeek article insinuated that Whrrl might be one of the 3rd party iPhone apps showcased at the WWDC keynote. Instead, a competing location-based service (LBS) app, Loopt, was. Whrrl, created by Pelago, was the first app to be accepted into Kleiner Perkins’ iFund program, which is giving out $100 million to 3rd party iPhone app developers. Snub or oversight?

Google Street View turns one, adds a ton of cities — The controversial and borderline voyeuristic site has rolled out the service in 37 new areas. Find the full list on their blog post, and also note that a number of national parks are now included in the project.

Virgin Galactic rolls out the mothership, no really — The new aircraft, called WhiteKnightTwo, is designed to haul the passenger-filled SpaceShipTwo to its orbital altitude of 50,000 feet, according to USA Today. Billionaire Richard Branson is the “Spaceliner chief” of Virgin Galactic. In other billionaires in space news, Google co-founder Sergey Brin made a $5 million investment in Space Adventures, a company that will take two passengers up to the International Space Station in 2011 — expect Brin to be one of them.

Microsoft can’t buy Facebook, so it has built its own Facebook — Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration, but it is interesting that the software giant, which owns a small percentage of the social network, has now built and is testing a network that is described as “Facebook-like,” according to InfoWorld. The project is called TownSquare, and is already in use by around 8,000 Microsoft employees.

Sirius-XM merger faces hold up in Washington — A new letter being requested by the Senate indicates that the two satellite radio companies have not complied with the FCC requirements that their receivers be interoperable, according to the Wall Street Journal. Such an omission could stall, or kill, the deal.

Symantec buys SwapDrive — The deal, signed last week, is said to be for $123 million, according to TechCrunch. SwapDrive competes in the online storage space with AOL’s Xdrive and Microsoft’s Windows Live SkyDrive, and there is always rumor that Google will enter the space as well.

Cella Irvine is named chief executive of the About Group — The About Group runs the popular website About.com, which is owned by The New York Times Co.

Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) cuts forcast for growth — The chip giant says sales will slow in 2008 due to price pressure from the memory sector.

A Korean blog fuels a massive protest — You have to go to this site to see the picture, it’s crazy.

Daughter of well-known valley VC Tim Draper, has a new valley show coming — The show, called Valley Girl, will be about innovation in Silicon Valley. It will debut next month with interviews with Google chief executive Eric Schmidt. Jesse Draper is one of the stars of the hit Nickelodeon show, Naked Brothers Band.

Wall Tetris at MindTribe — The Palo Alto-based company has a really cool interactive game on one of its walls that passers by can play with their cell phones.