STOP PRESS: RTE GETS IT Publius was ready to be cynical and caustic about the relaunch of RTE's website last week. We have to admit, however, to being pleasantly surprised at the state broadcaster's work. M�irne Laffan, boss of RTE Publishing, has managed to get the lumbering giant to look and feel a bit more limber.

Key packages of audio and video around a particular story are well flagged: Sean Quinn's move on BUPA Ireland means that the site offers you segments from various programmes profiling "Ireland's richest man".

Plus, key interviews of the week - like Eircom's Rex Combs debating Damien Mulley, Dermott Jewell and Matt Cooper on Primetime - are highlighted, a departure from the previous strategy, which seemed to be to bury decent content.

There is even, when you call up a story, a panel of links to "related stories", so that a Friday Aer Lingus story offers you three previous stories to help you get the context.

It's a long way from perfect, but it's far less embarassing than the previous incarnation.

VIACOM DECLARES WAR ON YOUTUBE Announcing plans to let its user base make money by uploading video content may have prompted a painful if inevitable battle for the video sharing website YouTube, which received a polite request to remove all Viacom-owned content from its website.

Viacom owns MTV Networks and Comedy Central (the producers of YouTube faves The Daily Show and South Park amongst other offers). The move is significant because YouTube, bought by Google for $1.65Bn last year, was attempting to negotiate deals IRISH TIMES Though it still hasn't been reported by the lady formerly of D'Olier street, the Irish Times did finalise its deal last week to take a major stake in the Gazette Group of suburban newspapers founded by Liam Hayes and Michael McGovern, Publius is told. However, we now understand that the two founders will retain majority control of the company, which publishes the Lucan Gazette, Blanchardstown Gazette and Clondalkin Gazette, which sell something around 17,000 copies each week.

HARRY POTTER RECORD SHATTERED Amazon. com said Friday that the number of first-day pre-orders for the last instalment of JK Rowling's Harry Potter books, Deathly Hallows, which will be published on July 21, was a 547% increase over the first-day pre-orders for the previous Harry Potter book in the series.

Maybe a sign that more people are online than the last time, but even so, it makes absolutely clear that there will be no shortage of interest in the series finale.

CLIMATE CHANGE Well, we're all going to die from global warming, apparently. But some will go before others. Consider the fate of Dutch ad agencies which, during the warmest January on record there, are scrambling to replace TV adverts that use images of snow and winter sports such as skiing.

"They are being forced to look for new seasonal images associated with the things they are trying to sell, " reads a report in local paper De Telegraaf. With the promised rise in sea level we're thinking jet skis more than snowmobiles and, instead of skiing, bog snorkelling. RTE might be able to re-sell that B-roll yet.