Margins Check: TV Guide, online music, $10B for Facebook and more

Editor’s Note: Welcome to On the Margins, a feature for RCR Wireless News’ new weekly e-mail service, Mobile Content and Culture. Every week, the RCR Wireless News staff considers events in the wider business world and how they could affect the wireless industry.
–TV Guide announced plans to add an online video guide to its range of offerings. The guide, at http://video.tvguide.com, highlights popular and topical online videos as well as full episodes of TV shows. The offering could pave the way for TV Guide or another vendor to outline a full directory of all mobile video offerings on the market, both on and off deck.
–Amazon.com launched its own online music store, offering more than 2 million tunes without copyright-protection technology. The move comes as the mobile music scene continues to heat up, with carriers, handset makers and others crowding into the space. The crush of players poses significant challenges to those companies hoping to make it to the top of the pile.
–According to media reports, Microsoft is considering a stake in social-networking site Facebook. The stake could amount to as much as $10 billion. If the Redman, Wash.-based software giant does indeed jump into the social-networking space, it would almost certainly gear its efforts into mobile as well. Thus, mobile social-networking companies may need to move that much faster to stake out a claim in the nascent market before the big guns arrive in full force.
–As the fall TV season gets rolling, only big-name shows such as NBC’s “Heroes,” Fox’s “House,” CBS’ “CSI” and ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” are attracting significant numbers of viewers. The news highlights the challenges in the mobile space: Mobile TV vendors may need to up their investments in the space to increase viewership numbers.