Top Items:
Allen Stern / CenterNetworks:
Breaking: Bebo To AOL for $850 Million — AOL has announced this morning that they have acquired social networking service Bebo for $850 million in cash. Bebo has 100 employees operating in offices in the UK, San Francisco and Austin, TX. Bebo is the third-largest social networking service in the U.S. behind MySpace and Facebook.
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Business Wire:
AOL to Acquire Global Social Media Network Bebo — NEW YORK—(BUSINESS WIRE)—AOL announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Bebo (http://www.bebo.com), a leading global social media network. Together with its AIM and ICQ personal communications network …
Discussion:
BBC, GigaOM, Rev2.org, TechCrunch, Search Engine Journal, Screenwerk, PE Hub Blog, Mashable! and paidContent.org
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
AOL buys social network Bebo for $850 million — AOL issued a press release on Thursday morning to announce that the company has acquired social-networking site Bebo. The price tag, according to the AOL statement, is $850 million in cash. Neither company has yet stated when the deal is expected to be closed.
Robert Andrews / paidContent.org:
AOL-Bebo: Balderton VCs Reap $140 Million From Acquisition — VC firm Balderton Capital will reap about $140 million - nine times what it invested in Bebo less than two years ago - by selling its 15.7 stake in the social net to AOL (NYSE: TWX). That's a huge return on the $15 million investment …
Discussion:
Fred Destin
Kenneth Li / Reuters:
AOL to buy Bebo social network — NEW YORK (Reuters) - Time Warner Inc's AOL Internet division said on Thursday it will buy social network Bebo for $850 million in cash, bolstering its consumer Internet offerings even as the media conglomerate mulls splitting off the business.
AOL News:
AOL to Acquire Social Media Network Bebo — AOL has entered into an agreement to acquire Bebo, a leading global social media network. Founded in 2005, Bebo now has 40 million members worldwide. Together with AIM and ICQ, AOL will have a social network of approximately 80 million unique users worldwide …
Allen Stern / CenterNetworks:Live Blog: AOL / Bebo Acquisition Call
Discussion:
Ken McGuire On The Web
Duncan Riley / TechCrunch:
The Future Of Voice May Be Voiceless — The above video is a little rough in terms of processing delay, but it's staggering. Voice without voice. — According to New Scientist, the neckband translates thought into speech by picking up nerve signals; “with careful training a person …
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Tom Simonite / New Scientist:
Nerve-tapping neckband allows ‘telepathic’ chat — A neckband that translates thought into speech by picking up nerve signals has been used to demonstrate a “voiceless” phone call for the first time. — With careful training a person can send nerve signals to their vocal cords without making a sound.
Discussion:
GottaBeMobile, BUZZYEAH, Tom Raftery's Social Media, textually.org, jkOnTheRun, VoIP Blog, Boing Boing and Slashdot
Elinor Mills / CNET News.com:
Google testing service to let publishers manage ads — Google is testing a new service called Ad Manager that will give Web site publishers more control over their ad sales and ad serving, The Wall Street Journal reported late on Wednesday. — Publishers can sell their own ads …
Discussion:
Google Blogoscoped, VentureBeat, Search Engine Journal, WebProNews, The Last Podcast, Mashable! and paidContent.org
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Greg Sterling / Search Engine Land: Google Ad Manager Targets Medium-Sized Publishers, Seeks Broader …
Mark Raby / Tom's Hardware Guide:
Blu-ray Player Prices Hit 2008 Highs As Competition Dwindles — Pricewatch - Blu-ray Disc players from Samsung, Sony and Sharp are now the most expensive they have been all year, presumably because HD DVD's exit from the high-def disc arena has removed some of Blu-ray's pricing pressure.
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Steve Lohr / New York Times:
Video Road Hogs Stir Fear of Internet Traffic Jam — Caution: Heavy Internet traffic ahead. Delays possible. — For months there has been a rising chorus of alarm about the surging growth in the amount of data flying across the Internet. The threat, according to some industry groups …
Matt / Photo Matt:
WordPress is Open Source — Six Apart has recently decided that the best way to win back customers fleeing their platforms is to target WordPress, which is a new strategy they call competing. (What have they been doing the past 7 years?) A good example is this exchange between a commenter …
BBC:
BBC releases fix for iPlayer hack — The BBC has issued a fix to stop people downloading programmes from the iPlayer website that were intended for streaming on an iPhone of iPod only. — Hackers had discovered an exploit that allowed them to save the programmes to hard disk and share them with others.
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louisgray.com:
Elite Bloggers Joining FriendFeed In Droves — Although it hasn't even been a month since FriendFeed opened up to the masses, and announced Series A financing of $5 million, momentum is definitely on the company's side. Garnering incredible media and blog coverage, FriendFeed has also been a magnet …
Robert McMillan / InfoWorld:
Password-stealing hackers infect thousands of Web pages — San Francisco - Hackers looking to steal passwords used in popular online games have infected more than 10,000 Web pages in recent days. — The Web attack, which appears to be a coordinated effort run out of servers in China …
Discussion:
The Register
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
User Interfaces Rapidly Adjusting to Information Overload — People who in the next few years solve big problems in Information Overload are going to be very important, and some of them are going to be UI and UX (user experience) designers. — German ISP T-Online demonstrated …
Discussion:
Fresh Creation
Peter Kafka / Silicon Alley Insider:
Disney: $123 Million From iTunes Since 2006 (AAPL) — Disney CEO Bob Iger tells the audience at the Digital Hollywood Media Summit that he's sold 4 million movies and “40 to 50” million videos through iTunes since he launched the service in 2006. What does that mean in terms of dollars? Not much.
Discussion:
Seeking Alpha, Beet.TV, RyanSpoon.com, Online Video Watch, Billboard.Biz, MacRumors, NewTeeVee, iLounge, LoopRumors, Macsimum News, Insanely Great Mac and Contentinople
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Charlie Demerjian / Inquirer:
Iphone to go x86 — Moorestown is fruity — THE IPHONE IS going to go x86 in a year or two, and Moorestown is set to be the lead vehicle. A year of whispers was finally nailed down a few days ago with a comment and a slide. — First let me say that the rumour mill has been running amok since …
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Mike Schramm / The Unofficial Apple Weblog:Rumor: iPhone may get x86 processor, and pigs might fly
Discussion:
CrunchGear
