"15 people laid off there today," says a tipster via email. "On a FRIDAY... Ouch. Have confirmation it’s across the board (sales, product, development etc.)" Our tipster didn't get it quite right — a company official says it was actually 10 out of 89 employees — just above the fashionable 10-percent cut high-profile VC firm Sequoia Capital established with its doom-and-gloom memo. Dear Buzznet employees: Please email us.

New York Times music reporter Jeff Leeds, who had reported on stories such as Apple's behind-the-scenes fight with Universal last year, was given the newspaper's version of a layoff — a "buyout" — earlier this year. Leeds is now editor-in-chief of Buzznet, the music community site that also bought Idolator from Valleywag publisher Gawker Media. What we'll find out in the next few weeks: Can Leeds get the same kind of well-placed sources to talk to him now that he doesn't have the Times backing him up? Here's the full press release:

Last month, Alan Citron silently disappeared from TMZ.com, the gossip megasite he helped launch. He has suddenly reappeared at Buzznet, a music-blog startup that's dabbling in celebrity news. "It goes to my reputation of being quiet," he told me. I felt bad for Citron when, as the general manager of TMZ.com, he sat next to me on a panel on gossip at the South by Southwest conference in Austin this spring. Julia Allison, the notorious nobody with a nonstartup, stole the show, literally leaping from the audience onto the moderator's lap.It was utterly unfair: Citron had built TMZ.com, out of nowhere, into the Web's undisputed champ of 24/7 celebrity chatter, with some 10 million visitors a month. Allison had done exactly nothing, except for, unbelievably, further trivializing the very notion of fame. And yet Allison dominated the conversation. How was it that, in a newsroom full of gossips, no one thought to mention the departure of a top executive? Did he not make enough of an impression around the office? Citron's discretion is to his credit. But it's possible there's such a thing as being too quiet.

Los Angeles-based social network Buzznet finally confirmed a long-rumored investment from Universal Music Group, which PaidContent earlier reported to be around $25 million, brining the total invested in the company to over $32 million. The social network, which has been focused on music fans from the start, has also become quite acquisitive, picking up popular music blog Stereogum and, most recently, Gawker Media title Idolator. And they may be looking to add more, according to an email published by The Daily Swarm. (Via Tech Confidential)

If only there were photo-sharing sites on the web — wouldn't that be pretty cool?

MySpace is at it again. The site blocked embedded YouTube videos last year (but then, saying it was a "misunderstanding," fixed it). But Buzznet is a direct competitor, with similar photo-sharing, friend-linking, and other social features. Now MySpace blocks any mention of Buzznet in user profiles. While users can use Buzznet URLs in their MySpace blogs, any mention of "Buzznet.com" in a profile will turn into ".." So MySpace users can't share their Buzznet pages — or, well, anything else they want to share from the other site.