Top Items:
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
Microsoft Bid for Yahoo Drops To $29.50 a Share — As Yahoo waits in vain for other bidders or deal alternatives to emerge, the dissatisfaction of Microsoft investors with the Yahoo bid has reduced the value of Microsoft's offer to $29.50 a share. — Why? — The bid is half-cash / half-stock,
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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.
CmdrTaco / Slashdot:
Fifth Cable Cut To Middle East — You may have noticed a number of stories recently about undersea cables getting cut around the world. Apparently the total is now up to 5, but the scariest part of this is that Iran is now offline. You can also read Schneier's comments on this coincidence.
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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, Gizmodo, I Love Bonnie.net, DSLreports, securosis.com, Boing Boing and Schneier on Security
Shane McGlaun / DailyTech:Bad to Worse: Fifth Undersea Cable Cut in Middle East
Discussion:
Good Morning Silicon Valley
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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Mathew / mathewingram.com/work:
Time-Warner to AOL: I just can't quit you — Recently installed Time-Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes is apparently kicking ass and taking names over at the struggling media and entertainment giant, talking about cutting costs by 15 per cent and restructuring the conglomerate's cable division …
Discussion:
Smalltalk Tidbits …
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 …
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
MySpace's San Francisco Debut in Living Color! — Last night, BoomTown checked out the new space MySpace is renovating for its soon-to-open San Francisco office. The occasion was a party the social-networking site held for developers as part of its recent platform launch.
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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.
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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 …
Discussion:
The Technology Chronicles, Techland, Screenwerk, Contentinople, VentureBeat, paidContent.org, NewTeeVee, Rev2.org and Silicon Alley Insider
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.
Discussion:
NewTeeVee, mathewingram.com/work, Mashable!, TechCrunch, Bloggers Blog, paidContent.org and Silicon Alley Insider
Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:
No spin: Ars reviews the MacBook Air with solid state drive — The MacBook Air's high-end model comes with 200 extra MHz and a solid state drive. Is it worth the extra $1,300 to upgrade? We compare the two Airs directly to find out whether the price is worth paying.
Peter Kafka / Silicon Alley Insider:
“BigNews”: Ask's Digg Project Revealed (IACI) — Here's the Ask.com/Digg collaboration we'd heard about earlier this week, but it may be less than we'd advertised: “BigNews” is actually more of an attempt to create a new spin on Techmeme/Google News than a ripoff of Digg's social news site.
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) …
Discussion:
paidContent.org, Valleywag, Techland, Digital Daily, Reuters, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim and Silicon Alley Insider
