Top Items:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
News Corp. Scrambles To Bid For Yahoo — The rumors keep on rolling around the surprise semi-hostile Microsoft bid for Yahoo this morning. Sillicon Alley Insider says they've heard that a couple of hedge funds were already preparing their own bids for Yahoo, and were (or perhaps still are) days away from making their move.
RELATED:
Dan Farber / Between the Lines:
Meanwhile back at the Yahoo ranch, Flickr Video is coming soon — Updated 3:33 PST: With the unsolicited bid by Microsoft, and potentially other suitors (TechCrunch reports News Corp. trying to put together a bid) who want to derail the combination, Yahoo has its hands full.
Fred / A VC:
The Times Are Indeed Changin' (continued) — In the interview with Sam Gustin last week, I said: … It looks like that scenario is coming true faster than I thought when I uttered those words. As Bill Burnham (not my partner Brad Burnham) said in a post yesterday on the YHOO-MSFT deal:
Duncan Riley / TechCrunch:
Microsoft-Yahoo: What Will Stay And What Will Go? — While the tech world waits to see whether Yahoo will accept Microsoft's $44.6 billion takeover bid, Microsoft and Yahoo employees sleep restlessly at the prospect of massive staff cuts if the takeover goes ahead.
Discussion:
Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog, Vinny Lingham's Blog, AccMan Pro, Search Engine Land and deal architect
Steve Lohr / New York Times:
Yahoo Offer Is Strategy Shift for Microsoft — Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft and a global philanthropist, called upon fellow business leaders at the World Economic Forum last week to pursue a kinder form of capitalism. — But on Friday, the brand of capitalism practiced …
Discussion:
Slashdot
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
News Corp Trying to Mount Yahoo Bid (NWS/YHOO) — TechCrunch reports that News Corp is also frantically trying to put together a competing bid for Yahoo, with the help of private equity firms*. This makes sense, given News Corp's previous interest in trading MySpace for a big Yahoo equity stake.
Discussion:
CNET News.com
Joe Nocera / New York Times:
A Giant Bid That Shows How Tired the Giant Is — Oh, how the mighty have fallen. — This may seem like an odd way to characterize a company that just announced its willingness to plunk down $44.6 billion to make its first hostile takeover ever. A company that will probably generate …
Marc Andreessen / blog.pmarca.com:
Inaugurating the New York Times Deathwatch — [With apologies in advance to Martin Nisenholtz, who I believe is genuinely fighting the good fight, and who will no doubt end up with a great job at some fine Internet company.] — The hiring of Bill Kristol was the last straw. — I can't take it anymore.
Skrentablog:
The peanut butter jar is empty — I was rooting for Jerry Yang. Tech founder returns to helm to take over. That's a story I have to get behind. — But it never seemed to me like he was fully in charge. I wonder how make stakeholders Consensus had over there in the top suite.
Anne Eisenberg / New York Times:
An Online Organizer That Helps Connect the Dots — HOW often have you wasted time searching through page after page of e-mail messages, Web sites, notes, news feeds and YouTube videos on your computer, trying to find an important item? — If the answer is “too often,” a San Francisco company …
Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
Miro, a nonprofit Web TV player with big ideals, launches co-branding service — Web video may seem like a tough field for any company to enter, much less a nonprofit. — But the Participatory Culture Foundation, a 501(c)3 organization, says its Miro video player can play RSS-enabled videos hosted anywhere …
Discussion:
Mashable!
Jason Harris / Download Squad:
BBC's iPlayer adds support for Firefox — Rumors have been swirling for months that the BBC was going to allow users of their iPlayer service to access the popular player on a computer or platform other than Internet Explorer for Windows. Well today British citizens are part way there as the BBC …
Darren Murph / Engadget:
WiFi trial comes to San Francisco's BART trains — Merely hours after hearing that a contactless payment trial was going live on San Francisco's BART, along comes word that a test of a slightly different nature was also underway on the very same public transportation system.
Ryan Paul / Ars Technica:
First look: Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) alpha 4 — Ubuntu 8.04 alpha 4 was officially released today and is now available for testing. This alpha offers an early look at some of the features that will be included in the final 8.04 release, which is scheduled for April.
