Top Items:
Merissa Marr / Wall Street Journal:
Disney to Buy Club Penguin — Seeking to bolster its online presence among kids, Walt Disney Co. said it is buying the popular Club Penguin virtual community for $350 million in cash. — Disney said it had agreed to pay up to another $350 million to Club Penguin's founders …
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Staci D. Kramer / paidContent.org:
Disney Acquires Club Penguin In Deal Valued At $700 Million; To Be Branded 'Disney's Club Penguin' — On a call with Disney CEO Bob Iger now while he announces the company's acquisition of Club Penguin, which he describes as a perfect fit. It's a cash payment of $350 million and an opportunity …
Discussion:
GigaOM, Epicenter, mathewingram.com/work, VC Ratings, Virtual Worlds News and Paul Kedrosky's …
Joshua Topolsky / Engadget:
Lufthansa to add in-flight broadband by 2008 for long-hauls — Lufthansa is apparently continuing the airborne scramble to get customers connected, announcing that with the help of T-Mobile it will be reinstating its broadband service (formerly from Connexion) to its long-haul flights by 2008.
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Peter Lauria / New York Post:
DISCOVERY BUYS GREEN — Discovery Communications has scooped up a companion Web site to its upcoming Planet Green cable network, agreeing to buy Treehugger.com for about $10 million, The Post has learned. — The deal, expected to be announced today, marks the first acquisition for Discovery under …
Discussion:
CNET News.com, The Browser, Valleywag, Earth2Tech, Tech Confidential Blog and Geek Speaker
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Rafat Ali / paidContent.org:
Discovery Buys Green Lifestyle Blog/Site Treehugger For About $15 Million — Discovery Communications has bought out the popular green-lifestyle and news site Treehugger. Terms were not disclosed, but our sources say that piece is around $15 million, and that includes performance based earnout as well.
Discussion:
TechCrunch, Discovery News, TreeHugger, HipMojo.com, 901am, mathewingram.com/work, Mefeedia blog and The Globe and Mail
Eric Bangeman / Ars Technica:
FTC complaint flags NFL, MLB, studios for overstating copyright claims — Any fan of the NFL can almost recite the warning by memory: "This telecast is copyrighted by the NFL for the private use of our audience. Any other use of this telecast or any pictures, descriptions …
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Dave Winer / Scripting News:
Forrester is wrong, imho — Forrester analyst Vidya Lakshmipathy claims that the iPhone's approach to the web eliminates the need for "stripped down sites crammed onto the small screens of devices meant for phoning, not browsing." — I would love to agree, but I came to the opposite conclusion.
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider
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Vidya Lakshmipathy / Forrester Research:The Mobile Web Versus The Web On An iPhone: iPhone Wins In A Blowout
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Amazon To Launch Payments Services; Will Compete With PayPal and Google Checkout — Look for a launch announcement by Amazon this week or next of a new web service around payments, adding to their S3 (storage), EC2 (virtual server) and other services. They've been quietly testing the service …
Discussion:
Today @ PC World, Read/WriteWeb, Download Squad, eBay Strategies, 24/7 Wall St. and The Utility Belt
Ethan Smith / Wall Street Journal:
Digital-Music Holdout AC/DC Spurns iTunes, Signs With Verizon — AC/DC, one of the last high-profile holdouts in the digital-music era, is finally making its 17-album catalog available to online music buyers. But in a twist that highlights shifting power dynamics in the world of digital music retailing …
Serdar Yegulalp Mitch Wagner / InformationWeek:
Linux Vs. Mac: Which Is The Better Alternative To Microsoft Windows? — If you're a Vista-wary Windows user who would rather switch than fight, should you move to a Linux distro or Apple's OS X? We asked a Mac fan and a Linux advocate to lead a guided tour of each OS.
Reuters:
Google wary of behavioral targeting in online ads — MOUNTAIN VIEW, California (Reuters) - Google Inc. is looking to find more links between the searches its users do in order to better target advertising, but the company is reluctant to go much further than that in tracking their behavior.
Discussion:
Search Engine Land, Download Squad, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Google Blogoscoped and UMBC eBiquity
Eric Miraglia / Yahoo! User Interface Blog:
YUI 2.3.0: Six New Components and a Prettier Face — We're pleased to announce today the release of YUI version 2.3.0. This release features six new additions to the library as well as a new skinning architecture and a new visual treatment for most of our UI controls.
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
How will Yahoo address social networking? — The due date for Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang's strategic plan isn't here yet, but that hasn't stopped the handicapping. Bear Stearns analyst Robert Peck has a 22 page report addresses Yahoo's options. — His conclusions:
Bluetooth.com:
BLUETOOTH SIG ADOPTS NEW CORE VERSION 2.1 + EDR — New Spec Makes Device Set-Up Faster, Easier and Increases Battery Life — The Board of Directors of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), the more than 8,000-member strong trade association responsible for advancing Bluetooth wireless technology …
Joe Fay / The Register:
Dancing Ballmer subjected to Zune dance therapy — Steve's happy feet stomp all over iPod ads — If you're sitting at your desk, staring out of the window and wishing you were running around in the sun, spare a thought for one Microsoft employee who will soon be doing just that. Permanently.
