Today's Web pages feature streaming media, interactive applications, and forums for social interaction--­content that Dow Jones's VentureWire, which tracks venture investment, refers to as "information services." Companies that provide those services have seen increasing funding for years.

But according to Venture­Wire, information services that specialize in entertainment have grown even faster than the sector as a whole, from seven deals worth $42 million in 2002 to 76 deals worth more than half a billion dollars in 2007. Investment in the first half of this year was ahead of even last year's torrid pace.