Hasta La Creative!

NEW YORK – AOL is to buy the teen social networking site Bebo in a $850m (£417m) cash deal, a move it said would give it a leading position in social media.

LONDON – FirstCape, the South African wine brand, has signed up as the official wine sponsor of the 2009 British & Irish Lions tour to South Africa.

There’s no media phenomenon I won’t glom onto, be it social networking, vlogs, virtual worlds, on-demand services or whatnot. The less I understand the application du jour, the stronger my need to participate. Now, I’m told widgets are big. McGraw Hill hosted a widgets panel at its media conference yesterday, and Adweek digital editor Brian Morrissey mentions them sometimes—and he’s got a Twitter feed!—so I figured I’d better hop on the widget bandwagon. Behold my mighty widgets! (Pictures unavailable.) I call them Dave-its. What do they do? Why would you want them? How would they be monetized? Look, I’m not Elvis or Steve Jobs—I don’t have all the answers. My face pops out of a briefcase icon on your desktop when I post to AdFreak, and your speakers jangle, “You’ve got Dave!” Classy. Eliot Spitzer, $1,700-an-hour classy! (Ever notice that when Spitzer makes his frowny-sad expression, he seems to swallow half his face? It’s freaky. That call girl didn’t charge nearly enough to spend time with that guy.)

—Posted by David Gianatasio

LONDON – The BBC has been forced to alter its online iPlayer after hackers found a loophole in its anti-piracy system that allows unrestricted downloading of programmes, including ‘Top Gear’ and ‘Doctor Who’, from the online TV service .

LONDON – The battle to win the hotly contested TV rights to Champion League games commenced yesterday as the BBC, ITV, Sky, Five and Setanta submitted their bids to European’s football’s governing body Uefa.

LONDON – Isabella Oliver, the upmarket maternity wear label, has launched a desktop widget that will keep women up to date with the latest fashion trends and new products.

LONDON – Channel 4 chief executive Andy Duncan has unveiled the broadcaster’s vision for its future, including a £50 million investment in digital media.

LONDON – Sony Pictures Television International is set to buy 2Waytraffic, the independent production company that owns the rights to ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’, in a deal valued at £137.5m.

GUANGZHOU – US marketing distribution company Amway has called a review of its media business in China, worth an estimated US$127 million.

MANILA – Pharmaceuticals giant Boehringer Ingelheim has awarded its 150 million pesos (US$4 million) Philippine media business to Aegis Media agency Vizeum/Media Force.