One thing TiVo (TIVO) likes to do: pre-announce incremental business deals ahead of earnings. But this one is weak even by their standards: TiVo users will now be able to automatically record shows suggested by the sage staff of Entertainment Weekly.

It's part of CEO Tom Rogers' plan to do a deal with anyone -- anyone -- who can help make TiVo look like more than just a regular DVR. But the ideas aren't coming as fast as they did earlier this year. Last quarter, TiVo added YouTube video and a buy button from Amazon--two potentially meaningful features, if you squint hard and give them the benefit of the doubt. We'll see if either had any impact on TiVo when they report earnings after the bell today.

What would be even more meaningful: more deals with cable operators to ensure that when they move away from the set-top box and toward hosted DVR services, that they offer a software version of TiVo as an option. TiVo's having a hard enough time keeping its place in the living room. If it can't stake a claim in the next version of TV-on-demand, it's game over.

See Also:
Big Win For Cable: Judge OKs TiVo-In-The-Clouds
TiVo Gets A "Buy" Button From Amazon
YouTube Comes To TiVo
TiVo CEO: The TV Industry Is Screwed, But We Can Save It

NYC-based "microblogging" service Tumblr just rolled out a new version of its site this week. Included in the update: A new design for the back-end "dashboard," where users prepare Tumblr posts and read others' tumblelogs, and a basic search function.

But it's also just rolled out a handful of new discovery tools, which both Tumblr users and Tumblr window shoppers can use to find interesting/neat tumblelogs worth looking at.

The new "explore" features include displaying Tumblrs by the music they embed in their posts, the color of photos they've recently posted, and our two favorites: A focus on popular, often wacky photos (above), and the "Tumblverse," a Google Maps-powered display of Tumblelogs near us (screenshot below). A great way to figure out how weird our neighbors are before meeting them. (And a reminder of how popular the service is in Manhattan and Brooklyn.)

We're still waiting for Tumblr to start rolling out "pro" features -- its first revenue stream.

See Also: Photographic Proof: Women Like Tumblr

Like just about everyone else making ad forecasts, Aegis media buying unit Carat has just lowered its' estimates for 2008 advertising growth. But unlike just about everyone else, Carat raised its forecast for online advertising, noting that dollars are shifting online faster than they expected in March.

The overall U.S. advertising economy is looking weak to Carat, and they lowered their expectation for growth from the 3.8% predicted in March to 2.1%. They also lowered global growth to 4.9% from 6%.

But Carat found reason to be slightly more bullish on online advertising than they were in the spring, and bumped up their estimate for growth to 23.7% from 23.3% in 2008. It also raised its 2009 U.S. online forecast to 18.6% from 17.8%.

Part of this is Carat was conservative to begin with; the revised estimate is in-line, or slightly higher than most of the other predictions we're tracking. But, Carat says, "Internet advertising is continuing to drive spending ahead of other sectors in nearly every region."

A rundown of ad market revisions so far:

• August 13: eMarketer plans to drop "a few percentage points" off its March estimate of 22.7% growth
• July 7: BMO Capital Markets cuts its 2008 U.S. forecast to 1.8% from 3.6%
  
• June 30: Zenith Optimedia cuts its U.S. ad forecast for the second time in three months
  
• May 30: Lehman drops 2008 U.S. online ad forecast from 24% growth to 23%
• March 19: eMarketer cuts its 2008 online ad forecast 6%
• September 14: Oppenheimer cuts 2008 U.S. online ad estimate 26% growth to 25%

See Also:
Time Warner Embraces Content, And A Truly Scary Ad Market
Viacom: Ad Market So Bad We're Not Making Predictions Anymore
Disney Q3: Cable Networks Strong; Results In-Line
CBS: It's Not An Ad Slowdown Anymore - It's An Ad Recession

How eager is Adobe to remind us that its Flash video is still the world's dominant Web video format -- not Microsoft's newish rival Silverlight, which NBC just introduced to mainstream America via its Olympics video site?

Eager enough to have Adobe (ADBE) "technology evangelist" Ryan Stewart write a post about it for ZDNet, and then eager enough to email stat clippings from the blog post to its press list:

• 'For Beijing [the BBC] streamed nearly 40 million videos with up to 5.5 million Olympic videos watched each day at an average of around 3 million. In total there were 6.5 million hours of video delivered using Flash by the BBC... Compare that to 72 million [Silverlight] videos in the states..."
• 'In the first 10 days CCTV's website streamed Olympic coverage to 100 million people So in China we'll have 2,900 hours of Olympic content backed up and ready to watch with Flash Video.'

To Adobe's credit, they're right -- the world is bigger than NBC and the U.S. -- and more Olympics video was probably served up in Flash video than Silverlight.

Meanwhile, this is just another reminder that the Web video format war -- which Flash largely stole from Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows Media Player over the last several years -- is far from won, and that we'll be seeing these two companies duking it out very publicly over technology improvements and big deals for the foreseeable future.

See Also:
Another Online Olympic Winner: Microsoft
NBC's Olympics Smashes Online Traffic Records, But Fewer Actually Watching Video
Microsoft, Google Play Nice: DoubleClick To Serve Silverlight Ads

The WSJ's Peter Lattman spends several hundred words today exploring the behind-the-scenes story at Photobucket and Insight Venture Partners, the primary investor in the photo-sharing site prior to its 2007 sale to News Corp. The gist: Rather than bringing the deal to its limited partners, IVP employees invested in the deal themselves, and banked a huge return. The problem: While Peter suggests that this is murky and problematic and that it "highlights a dicey game", he can't find anyone who's actually upset about it.

That's because Photobucket deal -- $3 million for a 20% stake in a social media company with "nominal" revenue -- wasn't the kind of deal IVP's LPs signed on for. Instead, the $3 billion fund generally makes late-stage investments of about $35 million in companies that that have upwards of $25 million in sales. Peter does find one anonymous IVP investor who seems like he might be willing to complain, but then he yawns and dozes off mid-quote:

"Perhaps they should have told us about this, but it was such a small deal. Would we have wanted a piece of it in hindsight? Sure. But for every one of these successes, there are a hundred failures."

More interesting to us: The identity of the anoymous tipster who pitched the WSJ and just about every other media outlet, including us, the story. Presumably, it's not someone who actually invested with IVP -- otherwise Peter would have quoted them. So who is it? Valleywag's Owen Thomas speculates:

A spurned entrepreneur? A rival venture capitalist who lost a deal to Insight? It's useful to keep in mind that venture capitalists can make a lot of money on side deals - deals they heard about in the course of doing their day jobs. 'Twas ever thus. The person who thinks he ratted out Insight, though? He'd like you to believe that some venture capitalists are so venal and so foolish as to torpedo their entire careers over a tiny deal that happened to turn out well. Insight's opponent, whoever he is, underestimated the firm's intelligence - and some reporters' intelligence, too.

We're continuing to hear anecdotal evidence of new spam/virus outbreaks at Facebook, something the NYT picks up on as well:

Facebook acknowledges that it has been under attack but suggested the problems are largely under control. 'Over the past few days, we have received reports from users of spam and phishing attacks,' the company said in a statement. 'We have also detected and contained a worm. We are investigating every report, removing false content, blocking bogus links and addressing the concerns of our users. These efforts have limited the affected users to a small percentage of those on Facebook.'

Spam sucks, and viruses are worse, but we can think of at least a few upsides to the story:

• Given that Facebook is now at 100 million users, it's done a remarkable job of keeping malware out of the network so far. The main reason these attacks are news is because they're so rare.
• Facebook isn't the only one getting hit by this: Per the NYT, the attacks seem to be generated by something called Koobface, "an Internet worm that began targeting Facebook and MySpace users in late July. Since then, Internet security firm Kaspersky Lab has identified about 27 variants of Koobface."
• As we noted earlier, Facebook's approach to battling the spam -- deactivating links so that users can't harm themselves by heading to nefarious sites -- seems to be working, so far.

See Also: Facebook's Virus Reappears, But Facebook's Vaccine Works As Advertised
Facebook Goes Back To School For 100 Million User Toga Party
Is Arabic Facebook's New Language?

Is there room on the Web for yet another TV network video site? We'll find out today, when Warner Bros (TWX) unveils TheWB.com.

The major difference between the new site and those like ABC's and Hulu, the Fox/NBC JV: There isn't a WB broadcast network anymore. The network, which never had substantial ratings, folded into UPN in 2006 to create The CW. That looks like a disastrous move now, given the even smaller ratings at the CW. So Warner Bros. understandably wants to revive a brand it thinks still resonates with the 18-34 demo.

And given that Warner Bros. is one of Hollywood's major TV studios, even people who don't care about the brand may end up at the site, which will offer WB-produced shows like "Friends." It's also going to use those same studio resources to produce original shows for the Web -- 24 in all -- including "The OC" creator McG's "Sorority Forever."

We asked Craig Erwich, EVP of Warner Horizon Television which oversees TheWB.com, to explain the network's strategy

Silicon Alley Insider: You've been able to watch a lot of others try and fail to create video destination sites; what is TheWB doing differently?

Erwich: What we have in the site is brand equity. The WB is a brand that resonates with fans and we are capitalizing on the history of the brand have created a destination site that targets a niche audience and that gives fans an active experience.

SAI: There's no advertising on the site, but I'm assuming that's coming. How will the ads work? Will they be video ads that travel with the shows (like Hulu), display ads on the site or both?

Erwich: We have display and video ads on TheWB.com. The ads will travel with the content across the distribution network.

SAI: Will you be splitting ad revenue with distribution partners? On what terms? Do you anticipate distributing through Hulu as well?

Erwich: Yes, there is a revenue split with some of our distribution partners. We never discuss specifics or financials. Hulu is a different model than our site and they don't have branded channels, it's a different strategy. However, there are WBTV shows currently on Hulu for the consumer to enjoy.

SAI: Warner Bros. generally relies on others for distribution, and Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes has said Warner Bros. job is to be every TV networks' second-favorite TV studio. But with site you're going direct to consumers. Is that a change in strategy?

Erlich: Warner Bros. Television Group is a storytelling and content company. This is a natural extension of our primary business. The Web presents an excellent opportunity to give access to our content.

SAI: Might Warner launch a cable channel or make TheWB.com available on TV in some other way?

Erlich: There is no such plan in place at this time.

SAI: You've got a big original programming slate with some big names attached. Will these be produced on TV-sized budgets or a fraction thereof?

Erlich: We don't discuss financials on any of our show digital or otherwise however it is fair to say that there is a difference in traditional vs. digital budgets.

SAI: How many viewers do you need to make one of these original series a success?

Erlich: We are excited for launch and looking forward to that. We are not putting metrics on our success at such an early stage in the site.

See Also:
Hulu Beating CNN, Turner, Still A Fraction Of YouTube
Warner Bros. Inks Deals With Joost, Veoh, Everyone But Hulu
Warner Bros: We'll Distribute Our Own Shows, Online

Google's (GOOG) latest update to its search engine: It's "Google Suggest" feature, which tries to save you time by guessing what you're trying to search for, is now turned on by default.

It's not as creepy as it looks -- suggestions are based on search popularity among all Google users, not just you. But it does tell us a lot about what Google users are looking for most often, like how to get rich, procreate, lose weight, and stalk celebrities. And that's a little bizarre.

See Also:
Is Sex Coming To Google's Lively After All?
Google Tells CNBC That Dinner's Still On
Verizon, Google Kiss And Make Up For Search Deal, But Where's Android?

Yesterday we explained why Amazon is unlikely to tackle the market for digital textbooks: The publishers who run the textbook market have no incentive to go digital. And even if they did, they'd have no incentive to change their pricing structure.

Now comes an earnest report from the well-meaning Student PIRG group that says more or less the same thing: The students correctly point out that textbooks are crazily expensive -- the average student's annual book tab is now in the $700 to $1,000 range -- and that none of the digital options students can use today offer any kind of real savings, even though the publishers aren't paying for paper, ink, shipping, etc.

What's the solution? "Digital textbooks [that] meet three criteria -- affordable, printable and accessible," the students declare. But now we're back where we started: Publishers don't need to do any of that, because publishers who sell college textbooks have a captive audience.

A freshman (or her parents) can bitch and moan about the price of a $207.95 calculus primer, but in the end, they're going to pony up, because that's the price of a caluculus primer. (Publishers short-circuit the used-book market by constantly reissuing their back catalog, and you won't hear the schools complaining, because faculty members get to augment their income by working on the revisions.)

And, as we said before, the normal time-to-go digital arguments don't work for this market, either:

• If you go digital (and lower your prices), you can expand your market: There are a finite number of people who need a calculus primer every year. You can't increase that number by making the books cheaper or easier to distribute.
• If you don't provide a legal digital offering, pirates will take what you have, anyway. Better to get something out of the deal: In theory, you could photocopy and/or scan any textbook you want and sell bootlegged copies. But if there are industrious textbook piracy rings out there, we have yet to hear about them.

So what's the solution? We hate to start the morning on a dour note. But we don't see this problem getting solved any time soon. But we would note that there are many excellent public universities that offer quality educations at a subsantial discount to their private peers.

Photo via the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Go Badgers.

See Also: How Can The Kindle Crack The College Market? By Not Selling Textbooks