• Random House to start scripting video games (Wall Street Journal)
• Twilight Saga’s Taylor Lautner chooses Hasbro’s Stretch Armstrong over Mattel’s Max Steel (TV.com)
• Facebook social game maker Playfish targets retail distribution (MVC)
• Walmart pressures Chinese suppliers to raise production standards (The Washington Post)
• Widespread cuts planned for digital, radio and mag operations at the BBC (The Financial Times)
• John Grisham, master of the legal thriller, gets into kids publishing (Publishers Weekly)
• Disney’s Alice not so wonderful? (L.A. Times)
• Private label giant Li & Fung acquires UK apparel manufacturer for US$264 million (Bloomberg)
• Can geek culture exist without brands like Marvel and LEGO? (Geek Dad)
• Disney rolls out Cars virtual world (L.A. Times)
• Deets on Hasbro/Universal flick Battleship, no 3-D planned (MTV)
• DreamWorks Animation’s profits down at year end (Hollywood Reporter)
• Walmart, Procter & Gamble fund second ‘family film’ on NBC (Variety)
• Twitter pacts with Yahoo! to drive distribution, create ad revenue (AdAge)
• Video games score 5% of entertainment budget in US households (Nielsen)
• Walmart to re-enter digital video distribution space with pending VuDu acquisition (L.A. Times)
• Warner Bros. takes control of game studio Rocksteady (paidcontent.org)
• US consumer confidence hits a 10-month low (Bloomberg)
• Five Lego video games that should exist, but don’t (Geek Dad)
• Toys ‘R’ Us prepping for an IPO? (New York Post)
• Apple pushing to cut TV prices to 99 cents per ep on iTunes (New York Times)
• Lessons from Farmville – How social games make money (L.A. Times)
• The low-down on the DICE (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) Summit (Wired)
• 3-D TV a headache for viewers? (Rapid TV News)
• Wal-Mart dumping brand-name products at faster rate (CNN Money)
• Disney film studio aiming to become a bigger brand factory… (L.A. Times)
• Taking Fisher-Price’s iXL (the iPad for the under-six crowd) for a test run (Gizmodo)
• eBay opening Russian sales platform (Reuters)
• TV exposure turning kids into bullies? (ABC Australia Online)
• Toy Fair retail buyers gamble on predicting consumers’ tastes (L.A. Times)
• Flash’s future uncertain as Apple won’t support the format on iPhone and iPad (USA Today)
• Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim makes primetime play (Mediaweek)
• Would you pay for online content? It’s a definite maybe (paidcontent.org)
• Disney’s plan to release Alice in Wonderland early on DVD upsets theaters… (L.A. Times)
• Meanwhile, more details of Toy Story 3, including new characters and trailer (USA Today)
• US vidgame sales take a tumble in January (CNet News)
• EA Hasbro sells eight million games at retail (Edge Online)
• Why brands are becoming media (Mashable)
• Could the final installment of Twilight be in 3-D? (Hollywood Reporter/Risky Business)
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