Free Press and a number of other consumer groups are calling on federal antitrust authorities and Congress to investigate agreements among large media companies to stifle competition for online television programming. In a report, Free Press details how giant cable, satellite and phone companies and many programming networks, led by Comcast and Time Warner, are colluding on TV Everywhere that requires consumers to pay for cable TV subscriptions to access online programming.

The hubbub over Google Book Search was quiet toward the end of 2009, with Google, authors and publishers anxiously waiting for their next day in the New York District Court presiding over the case. That would be Feb. 18 , as I noted Nov. 20. November 20! It's clearly been a long time between stories about GBS, which I asserted was one of the top stories out of the Googleplex in 2009. GBS received a rousing debate Dec. 30, courtesy of PBS NewsHour,

comScore to Speak at the 20th Annual Citi Global Entertainment,

Movie social networking site, Flixster, said today it has acquired movie review site Rotten Tomatoes from IGN Entertainment, a division of News Corp. News Corp will receive a minority equity stake in Flixster as part of the deal, financial terms were not disclosed. Both Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes will continue to be available to Internet users as individual properties.

Answers service ChaCha announced today that it has closed a $7 million E round of funding. The service lets users go online, call, or text questions on mobile phones and receive answers "within minutes" for free. The service has an iPhone app and lets people ask questions via Twitter as well. This round of funding might be particularly significant for the company. "We believe this latest round provides ChaCha the cash required to reach profitability," says CEO Scott A. Jones.

The hCard is a one-to-one representation of the vCard in XHTML format. It is served to turn contact information into a semantically correct HTML, Atom, RSS or any arbitrary XML file. I won't try to describe why to use it. Quite a few people have done a great job detailing what hCard microformat is and why people should consider using it. One of the best step-by-step guides that any newbie will understand is "The hCard Microformat" tutorial published in 2007 .

Rested up from the holidays? I hope so, because the new year has begun and a lot is going to be happening with WordPress in 2010, and you definitely want to be a part of it. Later this week the scope for version 3.0 (featuring the addition of MU functionality to the WordPress codebase) will be decided in the IRC developer chat*, based on feedback provided by users like you. But it’s no fun to live by IRC alone, which is why we love WordCamps. Attending a WordCamp gives you a chance to meet people in your local community who are working with WordPress, as well as core contributors, theme designers, plugin developers, Codex writers, support forum moderators and other WordPress volunteers who’ve made WordPress what it is today. Add this New Year’s Resolution to your 2010 list if it’s not on there already: Attend a WordCamp, meet at least 5 new local people, learn something new, and if you have the chance, buy a drink for someone who’s volunteered their time and expertise to the WordPress open source project. To help you keep your resolution, here is a list of the upcoming WordCamps for the next three months, followed by what I know so far about each one.

January 8–9: WordCamp Atlanta
January 23: WordCamp Boston
January 30: WordCamp Greece in Thessaloniki
January 30: WordCamp Indonesia in Jakarta
February 27: WordCamp Fukuoka
March 6–7: WordCamp Ireland in Kilkenny
March 27–28: WordCamp Toronto

NORTH AMERICA

January 8–9: WordCamp Atlanta. First WordCamp of the year, and it’s already sold out — twice! They changed to a bigger venue based on demand, from Georgia Tech to the Atlanta campus of Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). They’re still letting people onto the waitlist, if you’re interested. A guaranteed way to get in would be to sponsor the event, and they’re taking last-minute sponsors right now. Atlanta will have sessions on Friday evening and all day Saturday. I’ll be opening the Saturday program with WordPress Resolutions: What to Expect in 2010. After a day of design, development and content track sessions, Lead Developer Mark Jaquith will take the closing slot for a Town Hall-style Q&A. The attendee list (follow link, scroll down) includes a number of WordPress core contributors, theme/plugin developers, and support providers as well as proof that Atlanta has a strong WordPress user base.

January 23: WordCamp Boston. I think WordCamp Boston is trying to one-up every WordCamp the organizers have been to, including the awesome NYC from November, and it looks like they might succeed. From Doc Searls and David Weinberger as keynote speakers to the multiple-track, unconference and Ignite sessions to the sweet-looking venue and the party plans, this one has got it going on. I credit it in part to the fact that they are one of the few WordCamps to follow the advice of having an organizing team of more than just 2 or 3 people, so the work is better distributed. I see a number of familiar names on the attendee list, but even more that I don’t know, so I’m looking forward to meeting the Boston WordPress community. They’re still selling tickets, so if you’re in the northeast, you should try to make it. I’ll be at this one also, talking about how the merge with MU will affect the WordPress admin (by then we should have started figuring it out!).

March 27–28: WordCamp Toronto. The last two Toronto WordCamps have been really good. I heard there would be one in March, but their site right now is just taking emails for notification. I’ve contacted the organizer to see what’s up, and he says the site will likely go live this week. They’re looking for volunteers to help organize this year’s event, so if you’re interested, it would be a great opportunity to get involved. Believe me, volunteering at a WordCamp is one of the best ways to make sure you meet a lot of other attendees.

ASIA

January 30: WordCamp Indonesia. WordCamp Indonesia will be in Jakarta again this year. I love how they worded the beginning of their sessions page. “Come in, we’ll get you breakfast and coffee, you’ll register, there’ll be networking. It’ll be great.” There will be a single track of sessions, but there are several time slots set aside for ad-hoc discussion and breakout sessions.

February 27: WordCamp Fukuoka. WordCamp Fukuoka is just getting its site up, too, so check back periodically a little later for more information. One of their visiting speakers will be Noel Jackson, developer of the Press This bookmarklet as well as themes like P2 and Monotone/Duotone.

EUROPE

January 30: WordCamp Greece. WordCamp Greece will be held in Thessaloniki, and they expect about 100-150 people to attend.The program includes regular sessions on the usual topics (how-to, programming, SEO, multi-language sites, etc) as well as “QuickRounds,” which will showcase Greek projects based on WordPress. I’m especially intrigued by the “WordPress vs. Expression Engine” session. Whenever people compare different publishing platforms, it’s interesting to see which features they highlight. I hope someone gets video from this one and posts it to the WordCamp section of WordPress.tv.

March 6–7: WordCamp Ireland. WordCamp Ireland will be in Kilkenny, and for such a geographically small country, it’s got an impressive list of speakers, including Donncha O Caoimh, lead developer of WordPress MU. The program includes three tracks: Intro, Blogger, and Developer, and I think this will be the first WordCamp I’ve heard of that is deliberately family-friendly, with on-site child care. They’re also going to have a charging station for mobile devices, which is clever. It’s not confirmed yet, but I think I’ll be at this one, too.

If you want to attend a WordCamp but don’t know of one near you, check out WordCamp.org for the official list (updated frequently). That’s also where you would start if you wanted to organize a WordCamp in your area.

*Developer chats are held Thursdays at 21:00 UTC in the #wordpress-dev channel at irc.freenode.com.

The main Google page has been ranked the most visited site on a daily basis for U.S. Internet users. That statement has held true for 364 days of 2009. Google's dominance of "all category" visits was disrupted when Facebook visits surged on Christmas Day. Facebook was able, albeit by a slighter margin, to recapture the #1 position on Friday, New Year's Day. Here's a chart showing market share of visits (U.S.) to the Two domains over the last two months.

by Claudine Zap Our top picks from the day's hottest searches. Homemade pancake recipe (Searches increased by 2,204%). For the truly ambitious in the morning. Here's a simple one from the Food Network . Matthew McConaughey (+838%). The actor and his girlfriend, Camila Alves, announced the birth of their second , Vida Alves McConaughey. Chad Ochocinco (+508%). Despite Ochocinco's trash talk , the Bengels could not pull off a win against the Jets.

Welcome back to work, everyone. Now that last year is officially behind us, it's time to honor the best of 2009. That's right, we're kicking off the second annual "best of reddit" awards. To nominate someone or something, click the name of the category and post a top-level comment: Comment of the Year Commenter of the Year Submission of the Year Submitter of the Year Community of the Year Got it? Nominations go on the official threads linked above.