In a not-so-surprising turn of events, The New York Times reports that Silicon Valley venture capitalists actually care about revenue again.

After years of investing in Web 2.0 companies that generate eyeballs and weird brands but little revenue, VCs have decided that businesses that actually make money are a priority:

For Web sites that do not already have large audiences, "your business model may be just as plausible as it was 18 months ago, but we're all more cautious about giving you a slug of money," [Accel partner Theresia Gouw Ranzetta] said.

Instead, investors are looking for sites that make money in ways other than selling ads, like selling subscriptions or virtual goods. Selling 50 cent costumes for online avatars might not seem to be much o

Apple jumped as high as 4.6 percent in intraday trading Monday, following an announcement by founder Steve Jobs that he would remain as CEO while undergoing hormone therapy treatment.

The disclosure of a hormone imbalance as the reason for his health decline and that he would remain as CEO while recovering from therapy treatments propelled Apple to as high as $94.91 a share during intraday trading.

That jolt to the stock not only came on a day that the broader markets were in the red, but also returned Apple's shares within spitting distance to where they were trading two weeks ago, when the computer maker stunned Wall Street with its Macworld news.

In mid-December, Apple announced Jobs would forgo his keynote speech at Macworld and do away with

Intel and Adobe Systems on Monday announced that they're working to adapt Adobe's Flash media technology, widespread on PCs, to work in TV-focused devices.

The two companies will work on fine-tuning the Flash Player and Flash Lite for Intel's Media Processor CE 3100. The goal is for Intel to ship the first CE 3100 chip with Flash Lite support before the middle of this year.

A Flash-CE 3100 combo would give consumers a better viewing experience of Web-based and other videos via digital TVs, Blu-ray Disc players, cable set-top boxes, and audiovisual devices, the companies said.

"Our effort with Adobe is poised to accelerate a rich yet relevant Internet experience on the TV that will provide consumers with access to a growing number of Flash-based applicatio

CD sales dropped 20 percent in 2008, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. But this isn't the whole story.

As Ars Technica points out, the music industry as a whole grew in 2008, with online sales accelerating. But this, too, doesn't tell the whole story.

The real story behind this creative destruction is called out by rising revenues for organizations like ASCAP, and underlined in the Media Futurist blog, where Gerd Leonhard points out that the real shift in the music industry is away from copy-based license business and toward flat-rate, attention-based business models. What is an attention-based model?

It's a model in which the creator's brand offers more protection than digital rights management because you can't counterfeit a live performance, for examp

Internet and mobile services are expected to score against handheld video game players and satellite radio amid an economic recession, according to results from a Forrester Research survey released Monday.

According to the results, 51 percent of North America consumers surveyed said they planned to curtail technology spending in the coming year, due to the economy. And areas expected to take the greatest hit include handheld video game players, followed by satellite radio, smart phones, video game consoles, and portable GPS devices.

The report noted:

While no device is immune from consumer spending cuts, new devices such as satellite radios and handheld video game players are the most likely to be left off the p