Top Items:
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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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,
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.
Discussion:
WebProNews
Josh / Redeye VC:
Microsoft/Yahoo - let the exodus begin — Back in November, Facebook launched their new SocialAds platform. Like many other folks, I decided to spend $50 to check out the platform. Like Fred, I decided to advertise for my fund - First Round Capital. Unlike Fred, however …
Steve Lohr / New York Times:Microsoft Adversary Rises Instinctively at Yahoo Bid
Discussion:
CrunchGear
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 …
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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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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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.
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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, Rev2.org, NewTeeVee and Silicon Alley Insider
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.
Electronista:
SanDisk unveils 3-bit-per-cell, 43nm flash — SanDisk today used the International Solid-State Circuits Conference as the platform to announce two breakthroughs in flash memory that it claims could greatly increase the amount of storage in these devices. The California firm …
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Paul Miller / Engadget:
AT&T's 2008 plans include 80 new cities with 3G, HSUPA network — Kind of makes those New Years resolutions of yours seem a bit silly now, but AT&T has some high hopes for 2008. While it mulls its own 700MHz options and leaves the C block to the likes of Verizon, the company plans to build …
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Steve Tobak / CNET News.com:
Ten irrelevant technology companies — The great corporate graveyard is filled with hundreds, maybe thousands, of technology companies that managed to go public and then fizzled. Still, most of them weren't going anywhere and never should have gone public to begin with.
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.
Michael Steen / Financial Times:
KPN unmoved by iPhone — Apple's iPhone is “pretty useless” and sales in Germany have not dented new customer numbers for E-Plus, the German mobile unit of KPN, said Ad Scheepbouwer, chief executive of the Dutch telecoms company. — However, speaking after KPN reported fourth-quarter results …
Ryan Naraine / eWeek:
Adobe Ships Silent Fix for Critical PDF Reader Flaw — Adobe patched a gaping code execution hole in Reader but, inexplicably, has issued no public documentation on the risk severity. — Adobe has released a software fix for what's described simply as “security vulnerabilities” …
