Data and Games Flow In, and Dollars Flow Out

The Philadelphia Phillies picked up the contract option for reigning American League Cy Young Award winner Cliff Lee by retaining the left handed American for another season at nine million dollars.The 31-year-old Lee was acquired four months ago and won seven games and lost just four in 12 starts with a 3.39 earned run average.In the playoffs he went 4-0 record with a 1.56 ERA in five starts. The Phillies won all five games he pitched in the playoffs, including the only two games they won in the World Series which they lost in six games to the New York Yankees.

At one of Beijing's many Internet cafes, near-silence reigns: headphones on, eyes glued to the screen, web users play games online en masse, helping to make China one of the industry's top markets.Young men crowd around terminals for role-playing adventure games while women gamers tap away to keep troupes of dancers in line -- and international companies want part of the action.In 2009 the industry raked in nearly 26 billion yuan (3.8 billion dollars), up 39.5 percent over the previous year, according to government data.

MySpace began courting videogame developers as it moved to capitalize on the booming popularity of playing games online at social networks."We initially embraced games a few years back with a gaming platform, but at the end of the day it was fairly isolated in certain parts of MySpace," MySpace co-president Mike Jones told AFP at a Game Developers Conference here."MySpace is going to put as much weight behind games as we put behind music."

MySpace on Wednesday began courting videogame developers as it moved to capitalize on the booming popularity of playing games online at social networks."We initially embraced games a few years back with a gaming platform but at the end of the day it was fairly isolated in certain parts of MySpace," MySpace co-president Mike Jones told AFP at a Game Developers Conference here."MySpace is going to put as much weight behind games as we put behind music."

Bharat Ahuja submits: With the joint venture (with GE) and eventual takeover of NBCU, Comcast (CMCSA) is transforming itself into a company with two distinct businesses.

Social games publisher Zynga said Wednesday that it has raised 180 million dollars in funding from Russian Internet company Digital Sky Technologies (DST) and other investors.Zynga, the creator of the popular online games "Mafia Wars" and "FarmVille," said the majority of the new funding is from DST, which invested 200 million dollars in Facebook in May.Other investors include Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm started by Marc Andreessen, the co-founder of pioneering Web browser company Netscape, and New York-based fund Tiger Global, it said.

Upcoming Winter Games likely will attract fewer online viewers than the 2008 Beijing Games.

A cable car system across the Thames, costing £25m, is being planned to link Olympic Games venues in 2012.