The number of users going online for their daily dose of news is increasing. According to a new poll conducted by Compete and Cisco, 62% said that they use the Internet to keep abreast of current events. Online news sources are now second only to television (82%) in terms of total use. Democrats are more likely to use a combination of web 2.0 technologies and “traditional” news sites to get their information, while Republicans are more inclined to use search engines. YouTube use, meanwhile, seems to be split down the middle. Other listed media includes newspapers and magazines (49%), radio (30%), and mobile devices (4%).

Yahoo has made the decision to pull the plug on its Live service. Live was designed to be a streaming video site, similar to former Free Line all-star Qik. “We’d like to thank everyone who has participated,” writes Keith Thornhill at the official Yahoo Live blog. “It has been really interesting (and entertaining) to see all of the ways broadcasters have used Live, developing it into a place for all sorts of social interactions.” At press time, Live will be shut down December 3rd. A town hall meeting discussing the move will be held on Wednesday.

In other news, MySpace has added someone new to the “friends list” — MTV Networks. The Fox Media and Viacom subsidiaries are teaming up to create Auditude, a new advertising firm that specializes in online video. The new service will create a series of ads targeting users who regularly upload content derived from such networks as MTV, VH1, and Comedy Central to MySpace TV. In addition, users will also receive a few “attribution ads,” which are designed to inform the user of air times and show listings. “Auditude’s solution is to simply monetize all that ‘illegally’ shared content,” writes ZDNet contributor Richard Koman. “Go ahead and share it, BitTorrent it, whatever. We’ll insert the advertising and the more you share, the more ‘file views’ we’ll serve up for advertisers.” Auditude is up and running now.

Elsewhere, there’s Notifu. Notifu is a handy little web application that allows you to interact with a large group of people quickly and efficiently. Several different and diverse messaging systems are supported by the online service, including email, phone calls, text messaging, and instant messaging services. Notifu also comes with a wide variety of advanced features pre-loaded, such as user polling and message tracking. Notifu is available now for all “traditional” Internet users. A specialized iPhone app is due in the near future.

Finally: Thanks to the technological “one-two punch” of digital cameras and flash-based media, instant cameras have become near relics of the past. If you are one of those who still yearn for the “simpler” days of instant photography, then Poladroid is for you. Poladroid is an interesting little service that lets you create “Polaroid pictures” online. The process couldn’t be simpler — just drag the image of your choice to the virtual camera and let the service do the rest. The result is an authentic looking Polaroid, complete with sound effects. Fun to use, Poladroid is the perfect tool for anyone who has updated their photography equipment, but still wishes to recapture some of that old “Polaroid magic.”