Top Items:
Elizabeth Woyke / Forbes:
Google Likely Out, And Happy — After dominating the U.S. wireless spectrum auction for months, from influencing the terms of the auction to bidding, it looks like Google is off the hook. — Nine days into the closely watched Federal Communications Commission auction …
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Decision Time For Yahoo — The dust is settling on Microsoft's $31 per share offer to acquire Yahoo, and the options left open to the company are fairly well understood at this point. There will almost certainly be no White Knight or other buyout offer coming to the table - the sorry state of the debt markets is assuring that.
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Mark Evans:
Could Anyone Buy Google? — If you believe the adage that anything is for sale at the right price, does that apply to Google? — This scenario - however seemingly implausible - struck me after Microsoft unveiled plans to spend $44.5-billion to acquire Yahoo.
Wall Street Journal:
Yahoo Studies Alternatives to Microsoft — Yahoo is holding out hope it can avoid Microsoft's bid by way of a possible rival suitor or a tie-up with Google that might allow it to stay independent. Video
Steve Lohr / New York Times:Microsoft Adversary Rises Instinctively at Yahoo Bid
Discussion:
CrunchGear
Dean Takahashi / Tech Talk with Dean Takahashi:
Helio launches location-based entertainment with Buzzd — Helio, the U.S. arm of SK Telecom, is offering location-based entertainment on its cell phones in a partnership with Buzzd. The Buzzd service delivers editorially-driven reviews of nearby locations. Here's a link to video and the release is below:
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Justin Smith / Inside Facebook:
Notes from tonight's MySpace Developer Platform launch — MySpace officially announced the MySpace Developer Platform to the developer community tonight at the MDP Launch Party in San Francisco. Many of the top Facebook developers were in attendance to meet the MySpace Development Platform team.
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Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
AOL revenue continues to slide; Who are these 9.3 million AOL access subscribers? — AOL's revenue and operating income continued to slide as the parent Time Warner focuses on advertising. For the fourth quarter, AOL reported operating income of $274 million on revenue of $1.25 billion.
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Josh Bernoff / Groundswell:
Why Social Applications Will Thrive In A Recession — Is a recession coming? Don't ask me — I'm not an economist, and even the economists don't really know. But if it's anything like the last recession, advertising will plummet and experimental media will crater.
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Ex-Googlers Launch Instructional Video Site Howcast, Raise $8 Million A Round — A New York City startup called Howcast is launching today that wants to be the YouTube of instructional videos. In fact, the three founders—Jason Liebman, Daniel Blackman and Sanjay Raman …
Greg Sandoval / CNET News.com:
Video site Revver shopping itself for a song — Revver, a YouTube competitor that made a name for itself by paying video producers, has fallen on hard times. — The company's staff has dwindled to less than half the size it was 18 months ago, according to former employees.
Wall Street Journal:
Google Aims to Crack Chinese Market — Two years after Google Inc. began a big push in China, Baidu.com Inc. continues to dominate the country's Internet search market, thanks in significant part to a controversial and legally risky offering: searches for free, unlicensed music downloads.
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
The Latest From Jerry: Stay Focused, Yahoos! — Yet another employee letter to Yahoos from CEO Jerry Yang has now become public, thanks to Yahoo being required to file these things with the US Securities & Exchange Commission. It makes you wonder why Yahoo (and Microsoft) …
Asma Ali Zain / Khaleej Times:
Cable damage hits 1.7m Internet users in UAE — DUBAI — An estimated 1.7 million Internet users in the UAE have been affected by the recent undersea cable damage, an expert said yesterday, quoting recent figures published by TeleGeography, an international research Web site.
Discussion:
CrunchGear, DSLreports, securosis.com, Boing Boing, Slashdot, Schneier on Security and Digital Daily
Enigmax / TorrentFreak:
Pirated by iTunes, Artist Turns to BitTorrent — The Flashbulb, aka Benn Jordan, became so outraged when he discovered that iTunes was effectively pirating his music, that he uploaded copies of his latest album to BitTorrent. TorrentFreak caught up with Benn to learn more about the decision …
Discussion:
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