A little Independence Day-themed news ... GGL Global Gaming, a social network and online gaming platform, has teamed up with Pro Vs GI Joe to launch Military Online Gaming (MOG), an online gaming network that gives U.S. military troops overseas a central hub where they can chat, play games together and even compete in sponsored tournaments. Starting today, soldiers can sign up to compete in a Call of Duty: World at War tournament; publisher Activision (NSDQ: ATVI) is a sponsor, offering prizes like free games, consoles and even all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) to the winners.

I’m sitting outside on a lovely Friday morning, sipping a cup of tea and catching up on the news. What’s wrong with this picture? It’s the final Friday of Wimbledon and I’m reduced to either watching a pirated feed from a place where the broadcasters value live sports or following the Andy Roddick-Andy Murray match vicariously through Twitters and live blogs. That’s because NBC Universal (NYSE: GE) values the Today Show more than live sports and, or at least, more than this live sport and its fans, and NBC Sports has the right to “save” a match for its exclusive window.

So how exactly does unlikely Pirate Bay bidder Global Gaming Factory X intend to profit from the scourge of the entertainment industry, and pay content owners? CEO Hans Pandeya, who offered SEK 60 million (£7.4 million) this week, tells paidContent:UK he wants to sell users’ unused hard disk space to companies, sell surplus bandwidth to ISPs, sell display ads on the site and charge some casual users to download content.

The aim? Make the Bay nothing less than “the Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) of the file-sharing world”. Pandeya isn’t putting an exact figure on what he could earn from each revenue stream - but, from online ads alone, “we’re talking $40 million” a month…

Photo: thms.nl

A flurry of stories this week bit again at Hulu‘s hoped-for upcoming UK launch, again betting on a September launch. There’s little new here - We learned nine months ago the News Corp/NBC/Disney (NYSE: DIS) US online TV venture wanted to open shop in the UK depending on the outcome of the Competition Commission’s Kangaroo inquiry. And, after Hulu hired an overseas-focused SVP, NBCU International told us in March it was wooing UK broadcasters for content acquisition. Still, the latest threads are…

Photo: Flickr/*Keng

After a few months of informal moves on it, the U.S. Justice Dept is now investigating an anti-trust inquiry into Google’s book settlement with the authors and publishers over its online book scanning and repository project. The agreement, which was reached last year, has been criticized by some authors and publishers as giving the search giant a stranglehold on the book publishing industry; the agreement is up for review by the federal court in New York in late October. In a letter to Federal District Court Judge Denny Chin of New York, William F. Cavanaugh, the Justice Department’s deputy assistant attorney general wrote that “The United States has reviewed public comments expressing concern that aspects of the settlement agreement may violate the Sherman Act.” But even though the dept has not reached any conclusions on it, this requires further investigation, the letter said.

Photo: Le Journal DuNet

The search for a new CEO for also-ran online video site Dailymotion has ended, as Cédric Tournay (pictured) has agreed to take the reins of the Paris-based site, the company said in an e-mailed announcement. Tournay is the former CEO of European health portal Doctissimo.

»  Amazon taps its inner Apple, but Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) could be the one to stop Kindle’s march cold. Great read. [FastCompany]

»  Deconstructing Malcolm Gladwell: “We hate most in others that which we fail to see in ourselves.” Anil, I love you, man. [Anil Dash]

»  MySpace and other such web services not liable for assaults. Could help Craigslist as well. [Reuters]

»  Online video startups raised about $64 million in Q209. Better than most related categories. [Videonuze]

»  Access Intelligence, publisher of Min media industry newsletter, reorgs; lays off 20 people. [Folio]

»  Shock and horror in Twittersphere: followers can be bought. [BBC]

»  MJ’s funeral could be streamed live online. At least on Hulu. [NTV]

»  Facebook’s revenue breakdown: an informed guesstimate [SAI]

Photo: Flickr

Online ads are often targeted, but that doesn’t mean that people necessarily pay attention. A survey by AdWeek and Harris Interactive (via SearchEngineLand) shows that people are much more likely to ignore internet ads (both banner ads and search ads) than TV ads, radio ads, or newspaper ads. Internet ads also don’t get high marks for helpfulness. So what’s the bottom line, according to the survey’s authors? “While advertisers scramble to create their ad campaigns, one thing they need to remember is that, even if viewership may be down and even with the increased use of digital video recorders so people can fast forward through commercials, television ads are the most helpful to consumers. Also, while an Internet strategy is essential for a comprehensive ad campaign, Internet banner ads are not considered helpful by few and are ignored the most.”

Photo: Flickr

Borrell Associates—which earlier this year provided a very bearish outlook for growth in the local online ad market—has changed its mind. The research firm now expects the market to grow by 11 percent, up from its initial projection of 8 percent in January. That means the market should reach $14.03 billion this year, up from $12.9 billion in 2008—but the jump is likely to be even bigger than that. Says CEO Gordon Borrell in a blog post: “We take a lot of pride in our projections, which have been on target year after year. But we may have been far too conservative earlier this year when we projected that local online advertising would grow 8% in 2009. At the end of the first quarter, the increase looked closer to 11%. When we finish collecting our second-quarter data in the next few weeks, I’m certain the number will be quite a bit higher.”

Al Gore-backed Current Media enticed multiple ad agencies to tweet for its business in April, but now the attention-grabbing idea has been shelved and the executive behind it is gone—as the digital media company reevaluates whether it even needs an ad agency at all. VP of brand Jordan Kretchmer hatched the Twitter RFP (request for proposal) idea; Adweek reports that he’s left the company, replaced by Michael Streefland who will serve as SVP of marketing.

Streefland told Adweek that the RFP process led to discussions about whether the company had a solid “strategic direction” in place; the executive team decided to put the agency search on hold until the details were hashed out, and plans to update the agencies that pitched within “a few weeks.” Meanwhile, Kretchmer’s departure was described as “mutually amicable;” he’s headed to a venture-backed startup.

Photo: AT&T

Already ringtones are more expensive than a full-length song—and pay a higher royalty to the artist than a normal track—but the music industry is trying to make them even more profitable by arguing that someone should pay even more when the 30-second snippet plays in public.

IDG News Service reports (via MacWorld) that AT&T (NYSE: T), in particular, has been sued by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, asserting that ringtones qualify “as a public performance under the Copyright Act.” The group wants mobile operators to pay royalties, not individual consumers.

Photo: Joi Ito

The Inside Word is a weekly feature that looks at compelling industry debates and discussions unfolding on the blogs of employees at digital-media companies.

Poster: Raj Kapoor

Blog name: the vc in me ...

Company: Mayfield Fund

Backstory: Kapoor, a managing director at Mayfield Fund and co-founder of online photo-sharing service Snapfish (sold to Hewlett-Packard) argues that non-profits are on the upswing online. He cites several non-profits that have disrupted for-profit businesses, including Wikipedia, Firefox and Openstreetmap, and says he expects non-profit sites to take over other areas on the web soon.