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Julia Boorstin covered an interesting topic over at CNBC.com the other day. The Supreme Court, by electing not to review a case involving Cablevision (NYSE: CVC), essentially said that cable companies such as Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) and Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) can pursue digital video recorder (DVR) storage on cable-system servers. By doing this, a perceived barrier to entry for subscribing to DVR has been eliminated: you don't have to deal with a clunky box. Cable should theoretically see an increase in customers who adopt DVR technology if remote storage is exploited.

Well, as Boorstin rightly points out, CBS (NYSE: CBS), Disney's (NYSE: DIS) ABC, General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC, and News Corp.'s (NASDAQ: NWS) Fox do need to worry. These DVR technologies basically translate to a drop in the economic value of advertising. Let's face it: who watches commercials when they don't have to?

While MySpace still has an enviable user base, the future is looking dicey. Facebook continues to grow at a relentless pace -- and appears to be the de facto social network. There is also the sudden emergence of Twitter (which, by the way, is even putting pressure on Facebook).

To deal with this, MySpace's owner, News Corp (NYSE: NWS), is taking action. Just last week, the company slashed about 30% of the U.S. workforce.

As for this week, about two-thirds of the global work force will be fired, going from 450 to 150 employees.

When News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWS) bought MySpace.com for over $500 million back in 2005, some said it was the way Rupert Murdoch would charge into the digital media audience business in a big way. While that was true at the time, the digital world and its audience can become fickle and change rapidly as new web-based properties develop. It's pretty obvious by now that Facebook has leaped past MySpace and is "the place" to be when it comes to social networking interaction (although Twitter is garnering all the buzz presently).

Why Did MySpace lose its way? MySpace evolved to become a portal, offering music downloads and other goodies, while Facebook kept its social networking status as a place where friends and associates could virtually connect. And there you have it -- MySpace didn't evolve as trends were created and rapidly changed.

The green shoots are getting harder to keep pumping up as it seems that Wall Street is starting to demand some visible improvements rather than the continued notion of just "less-bad" data. The weak manufacturing data today makes it look like the factories are taking a European summer vacation.

The good news is that producer inflation has not yet started working itself into the system, based on PPI data. The housing starts looked unbelievably better than estimates, but that was due to apartment projects rather than single-family activity.

Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

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I caught a very interesting post by Julia Boorstin over at CNBC.com. She discusses a movie studio that apparently wants to change the way movies are made. The company is called DF Indie Studios. Here's what it wants to do: make a dozen or so films each year on the cheap. What is cheap in Hollywood? Try $10 million or less. DF Indie Studios wants to go it alone, which means that it would rather not hook up with a Disney (NYSE: DIS) or a Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) to get distribution for its product. And Boorstin mentions that equity will be used as financing.

This movie-making model is right up my alley. I've written extensively about how Tinsel Town has gotten out of control when it comes to budgets and marketing expenses. Movies simply don't need to cost as much as they do. And projects give away way too many concessions in terms of cash-flow participation. Big stars tend to receive percentages of the gross that are too significant, in my opinion.

Recently, DreamWorks Animation (NYSE: DWA) announced that it would be making more movies. According to the press release, the move calls for five movies every two years. The plan would be for one year to have the normal two projects, while the next year would have three releases.

This is an interesting scheme. It has many implications. First, it means that CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg is extremely confident in his company's ability to produce compelling content. Second, it means that he believes that 3D theaters will be more important than ever in the near future. Third, it is a direct attack against Disney's (NYSE: DIS) Pixar asset. DreamWorks Animation is, without a doubt, becoming much more cutthroat in its competitive stance.

It looks like it is out with the old, in with the old at News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), as former executive Chase Carey is returning to the company in the role of deputy chairman and chief operating officer. Carey has served as the CEO of DirecTV Group (NYSE: DTV) for the past six years, but was the co-chief operating officer for NWS from 1996 through 2002. Carey will replace COO Peter Chernin, who announced in February that he would depart NWS when his contract runs out at the end of June.

It is no secret that NWS has struggled since the economic crisis started, as weakness in the company's catalog of DVDs have driven the stock lower. Carey helped the company become a "truly viable fourth broadcast network" by helping Fox land NFL games, and helping launch Fox News Channel, FX, and the National Geographic Channel.

Social networking sites gained a lot of eyeball-share last year. The time that users spent on sites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace nearly doubled in the past year, increasing by 83% relative to April 2008. The number of minutes spent on Facebook by its 200 million active members spiked 700% year-over-year to 13.9 billion. The second most popular social networking site, MySpace, saw a 31% fall in minutes spent on the site to 4.97 billion, but ranked number one in video stream consumption.

Blogger, Tagged and Twitter took the third, fourth and fifth spots. In April 2009, the number of tweets unleashed shot up 3,712% from April 2008.

The missing link? Money.

Disney (NYSE: DIS) soared to the number-one spot this past weekend with its new Pixar project, Up. The computer cartoon grossed roughly $68 million at domestic theaters as of early estimates, according to Boxofficemojo.

Disney took a lot of thunder away from News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) and its Ben Stiller comedy/fantasy Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. That movie dropped to second place, taking in about $25 million.

Analyst upgrades:

• Keefe Bruyette upgraded Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) to Outperform from market Perform after transferring coverage to a new analyst. The firm expects Morgan to benefit from the pending joint venture with Smith Barney and improvements in its operating environment.
• FBR Capital upgraded Winn-Dixie (NASDAQ: WINN) to Outperform from Market Perform as it believes the company is executing well and shares are cheap at current levels. The firm keeps a $16.50 target on the stock.
• Baird believes Polaris's (NYSE: PII) consensus expectations and valuation are too low and that the company will expand beyond powersports. The firm upgraded shares to Outperform from Neutral and raised their target to $37 from $32.
• J. Crew (NYSE: JCG) was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at Goldman.
• Lexmark (NYSE: LXK) was upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at Barclays.
• Global Hunter upgraded Big Lots (NYSE: BIG) to Buy from Neutral.

Every few months, it seems, we get an article or two that says Disney (NYSE: DIS) might be a buy. TheStreet.com issued an upgrade on the stock based on several metrics. SmartMoney believes Disney might be a great company for the summertime.

When it comes to Disney, every investor has to be careful. Take every analytical article with a grain of salt. Why? Because even though the fundamentals might be good on the company from a valuation standpoint, Disney's stock has disappointed investors many times in the past. As a long-term shareholder, I know what I'm talking about. And many other pundits have made the same observation: Disney always seems to be cheap to someone at any given time.

It was a busy weekend at the box office. The Memorial Day holiday period is a time when studios try to set a good financial tone for their summer slates.

And it looks like News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWS) is the winner. The media company's Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian project, starring Ben Stiller, grossed an estimated $53 million at domestic multiplexes over the past three days according to Boxofficemojo. That was a good performance. The first Night at the Museum took in $30 million in its first three days of release back in Christmas 2006.

I was surprised that News Corp. came out on top. Did anyone out there think that Terminator Salvation, from Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), wouldn't be number one?

Last week's number-one picture, Star Trek, had to yield to a newcomer this week. Angels & Demons, distributed by Sony (NYSE: SNE), took the top spot this past weekend at domestic theaters, according to Boxofficemojo. The movie is credited with $48 million as of early estimates.

Trek, distributed by Viacom (NYSE: VIA), came in second with $43 million. And I have to say, although I wasn't impressed with the movie's box-office debut, I thought that the second weekend was relatively strong. I expected a better than 50% drop for its sophomore frame. As of current data, Trek only shed roughly 40% of its opening gross. Good job (I still think the opening was weak, though). The film is close to the $150 million mark.

4Kids Entertainment (NYSE: KDE), a producer of children's content that engages distribution and licensing opportunities, has not been a great stock idea. Although shares of the company have perked up as of late, the longer-term trend hasn't been so encouraging. Let's see if the first-quarter numbers might change your mind.

Well, I don't know about your mind, but my mind so far hasn't been changed. Revenues declined by 32%. There was a net loss of 15 cents per diluted share. Now, granted, that was far better than the net loss last year, which calculated out to 48 cents per diluted share. I give the company credit for narrowing the loss, but something tells me that I don't necessarily want to invest hard-earned money in a business that is based on the fickle nature of a very young target audience.

Viacom (NYSE: VIA) came out on top this past weekend with its new Star Trek film. According to early estimates from Boxofficemojo, the picture made roughly $72 million over the three-day period at domestic theaters.

If you include some early screenings, the total is closer to $76 million. Trek beat out such projects as Marvel's (NYSE: MVL) and News Corp.'s (NASDAQ: NWS) X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which came in second place, and Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, which took spot number three.