Andy Plesser

Pontiflex, a New York based company which provides advertisers with the tools to pay for just the CPL, or cost per lead, has secured a second venture round of funding of $6.25 million.

MENLO PARK, CA — Sun Microsystems, which has long been a leader in corporate blogging by executives and employees, is now empowering its 30,000 employees to upload employee-generated video to Sun's big video site Channel Sun as part of its communications with customers, developers and others.

The Rubicon Project, the fast growing ad optimization firm, has raised $13 million for possible acquisitions, according to a report out by Ryan Lawler over at Contentinople.

StumbleUpon has separated from eBay, which acquired the company two years ago to become a startup.  Co-founder Garrett Camp will be CEO of the newly independent enterprise. Kara Swisher has the story at All Things Digital.

ScanScout, the Boston-based online video advertising network, has raised a third venture round of $5.1 million, according to a report in Mass High Tech, citing financial filings.

Hulu is on fire. The video site, co-owned by Fox and NBC Universal, had nearly 350 million video streams in March, up 50 million streams from February, according to just released numbers from Nielsen Online.  As was the case in February, Hulu is second only to YouTube.

Showtime will debut the full-length version of Edie Falco's new series Nurse Jackie, online in June before its first showing on the premium cable service.

TechCrunch scored a big coup in grabbing star blogger MG Siegler from Venture Beat.  Siegler's boss Venture Beat boss Matt Marshall gave him a classy send-off.

NEW YORK — While pay-per-view for fights have long been a staple of cable operators and satellite networks, it is very new for online publishers.

SAN FRANCISCO — Intel is committing nearly 20 percent of its annual R&D budget, to "growth segments" including bringing Internet content to televisions and other consumer devices. Other growth segments include mobile Internet devices and WiMax

WASHINGTON, D.C. — For Vivian Schiller, CEO and president at NPR and the former head of NYTimes.com, the ongoing debate about free vs. subscription for the newspaper industry is clear for her: Free is the way to go. 

Whether Google helps or hurts the newspaper industry is subject to much discussion today following Google CEO Eric Schmidt's speech to a newspaper industry gathering this week in San Diego.

Fictional docs have long been the staple of television, now the real ones are getting some attention.

SAN FRANCISCO — We caught up with Sarah Milstein, Web strategist and author, who explains how businesses can use Twitter effectively. 

One of the fastest growing media sites is Glam, a site for women that is quickly expanding globally.  Today, the company announced new venture capital investment for expansion into Japan.

SAN FRANCISCO — API, the code which allows content to be used widely in varying formats, is essential to content creators, says Robin Sloan of VP of strategy for CurrentTV

SAN FRANCISCO — Video, which is already a part of Facebook through the use of embeddable players and a few applications, will become more extensive and "social" with the release of the first Adobe Flash toolbox for developers, according to Josh Elman, Facebook platform manager.

China has been increasing its censorship of online video, according to published reports.  I spoke with Rebecca Fannin, a China watcher and author of the Silicon Dragon, last summer at Stanford.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA –  NPR has a comprehensive API offering that allows other web sites, blogs and social media to host content from the radio network.

SAN FRANCISCO — Rich media on Facebook, exemplified by the CNN/Facebook Inauguration collaboration and simple games made by companies like Playfish, have made Facebook an increasingly multimedia experience.