Top Items:
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Microsoft to Yahoo: Two Days to Respond or Else! — Sources at Yahoo tell me that Microsoft made its most recent overtures right after Yahoo announced its earnings Tuesday and then told Yahoo execs they had two days to respond or Microsoft would go public with the offer.
RELATED:
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
Hold Everything! We May Get Another YHOO Bidder! * — A Valley source is hearing that a major private-equity firm was just days away from making its own bid for Yahoo when the Microsoft bomb hit this morning. (The same source now reports that TWO firms were circling, both big New York-based shops).
Microsoft:
Microsoft Proposes Acquisition of Yahoo! for $31 per Share — Transaction valued at approximately $44.6 billion in cash and stock; provides 62 percent premium to current trading price for Yahoo! shareholders; combined entity to create a more competitive company, providing superior value to shareholders …
Discussion:
Microsoft Watch, Googling Google, Deal Journal, Between the Lines, ClickZ, BetaNews, AppScout, Groundswell, greg hughes, Paul Kedrosky's …, Bits, Salon, WebProNews, New York Times, Search Engine Journal, One By One Media, WinExtra, The Web Services Report, rc3.org, Hardware 2.0, CIO.com, Good Morning Silicon Valley, Forrester's Marketing Blog, TechCrunch, paidContent.org, All about Microsoft, Network World, Todd Watson, How To Split An Atom, Yahoo! Finance, Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog, Telegraph Blogs, RyanSpoon.com, Web X.0, Scott Rosenberg's Wordyard, franticindustries, SEO and Tech Daily, ReadWriteWeb, The Technology Chronicles, Searchviews, Techlog, MarketWatch, NewTeeVee, A VC and InsideGoogle
Jim Badenhausen / Yahoo!:
Media Response — 02-01-08 Yahoo! Board of Directors to Evaluate Unsolicited Proposal From Microsoft — Media Hotline — Robinson Lerer & Montgomery for Yahoo! Inc. — FAQ: Unsolicited Proposal From Microsoft — Q1. How is Yahoo! responding to Microsoft's proposal?
Scott Gilbertson / Compiler:
Flickr Rebellion Brews at Specter of M$ Acquisition — A small but vocal minority on Flickr are already staging online protests at the prospect of a Microsoft takeover. Flickr is one of several popular Web 2.0 websites owned by Yahoo that loyal users fear will suffer under Microsoft ownership.
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
What Would a Combined Microsoft-Yahoo Look Like? — Microsoft's $31 a share offer for Yahoo is made possible by Yahoo's slumping shares (Yahoo's stock was trading at about $31 a year ago). While Yahoo has rejected Microsoft's entreaties in the past, with Terry Semel stepping down as chairman …
Discussion:
Guardian, WebProNews, PC World, Between the Lines, Valleywag, Hitwise Intelligence, Microsoft Watch, PDA, Virtual Economics, CNET News.com and Big Tech
Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed:
Microsoft/Yahoo: Killing the Deal, 101 — Last post for a while on this, unless news breaks, but something just for fun: Let's say you're advising Jerry Yang and the Yahoo board, and they don't want to do the deal. What would you advise them to do? — Anything about value-creation …
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
MSFT + YHOO: What Would Microsoft Yahoo Look Like?
MSFT + YHOO: What Would Microsoft Yahoo Look Like?
Discussion:
eWeek, Yahoo! Finance, IDG News Service, Search Engine Journal, Tech Tracks, Traffick, Paul Kedrosky's … and Screenwerk
Joseph Weisenthal / paidContent.org:
MSFT-YHOO: Analysts' First Take: Agreement Likely; Major Premium …
MSFT-YHOO: Analysts' First Take: Agreement Likely; Major Premium …
Ashkan Karbasfrooshan / HipMojo.com:
Google's Investment in AOL Set Stage for MSFT/Yahoo! Merger/Acquisition
Google's Investment in AOL Set Stage for MSFT/Yahoo! Merger/Acquisition
Discussion:
Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
YHOO/MSFT Bidding War? MSFT to Raise Offer? Doubtful
YHOO/MSFT Bidding War? MSFT to Raise Offer? Doubtful
Discussion:
HipMojo.com
Brad Fitzpatrick / Google Code Blog:
URLs are People, Too — So you've just built a totally sweet new social app and you can't wait for people to start using it, but there's a problem: when people join they don't have any friends on your site. They're lonely, and the experience isn't good because they can't use the app with people they know.
RELATED:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Google Gathers Social Graph Information From The Web, Launches API — Tens of millions of people have been busy the last few years building Facebook's most valuable asset - their social graph. As people add friends, and those people add friends, Facebook gets to understand exactly how its users know each other.
CNN:
Third undersea Internet cable cut in Mideast — (CNN) — An undersea cable carrying Internet traffic was cut off the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai, officials said Friday, the third loss of a line carrying Internet and telephone traffic in three days. — Ships have been dispatched to repair …
Google Analytics Blog:
Urchin Software Beta Now Public — Today we're happy to announce that the Urchin Software from Google beta is now available for download at urchin.com. Urchin Software from Google is a web analytics product similar in scope to Google Analytics, except you install and manage the software on your own servers.
Alexander Rose / Long Views:
Decision: Blogs vs. New York Times — February 1st, 02008 by Alexander Rose — Long Bets has arrived at a decision for Long Bet #2 between blogger Dave Winer and Martin Nisenholtz of the NY Times. At stake is US$2000.00 plus half the interest that has accrued over the last 5 years in the Farsight Fund …
Arn / MacRumors:
MacBook Air 1.6Ghz HDD vs 1.8Ghz SSD Benchmarks — Many readers are reporting shipments and delivery in our MacBook Air forum. First impressions and notes of the MacBook Air are being compiled in this thread. — Few head to head comparisons between the Solid State Drive (SSD) …
Jason Chen / Gizmodo:
More Windows Mobile 6.1 Details Leaked in Screenshots — The Portugeuse forum Pocketpt.net has a few more exclusive shots of Windows Mobile 6.1 that you haven't already seen before. The shots [focus once again on the “Standard” version, which is the non-touchscreen variety, but] …
RELATED:
Saul Hansell / Bits:
Microsoft Is Building a Spaceship Out of Spare Parts — I used to write about bank mergers, and those always struck me as taking two aircraft carriers and building a new one out of the parts. — For Microsoft, trying to build a new Internet portal-search engine-advertising network-cloud computing company …
Allen Stern / CenterNetworks:
Is Twitter the Tech Version of Britney Spears? — We all know that as Britney Spears continues to fall further and further down and it seems the further down she falls, the more people watch her, write about her and photograph her. In fact, the Fox news here in NYC (#1 market) …
Discussion:
Scobleizer
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Microsoft Offers $44.6 Billion for Yahoo … My guess: Sold. That's a big premium over Yahoo's current share price, and I don't see Yahoo getting there on their own any time soon. — Engineering-wise, it's interesting. Yahoo's stuff is almost all written in PHP, and runs on FreeBSD and Red Hat Linux servers.
Joshua Topolsky / Engadget:
Two videos of E-Lead's Noahpad in action — If our description from CES of the perplexing (and frankly inconvenient) navigation associated with E-Lead's Noahpad wasn't enough to truly depict what is going on with this thing, then perhaps these videos will help.
Discussion:
GottaBeMobile
Paula Rooney / Open Source:
Yahoo! buy would give Microsoft ownership of open source e-mail, projects, code. Ugh. — Let's forget about search for a moment, and Microsoft's obvious need to buy a leading online company or face extinction. — Microsoft's proposed $45 billion buy of Yahoo would give the Redmond …
Discussion:
TeleRead