Techmeme: Sprint (S) Thinking About Nextel Sale, Spinoff (Dan Frommer/Silicon Alley Insider)

6:11 PM ET, May 5, 2008

Top Items:

How Yahoo (YHOO) Blew The Microsoft (MSFT) Deal, Part 1 — The most interesting story to emerge since Microsoft (MSFT) withdrew its bid for Yahoo (YHOO) is that the companies are disputing the circumstances of Microsoft's $33 offer. This is important for three reasons:

Discussion: E-Commerce Times, Wall Street Journal, Tech Check with Jim Goldman and Valleywag

Om Malik / GigaOM:

Yahoo is Friendless On Wall Street — Jerry Yang, Yahoo's CEO, this morning posted what can be described as an emotional blog post about the Microsoft-Yahoo buyout saga. He reinforces the points he has made all along: that Yahoo needs to execute, innovate and develop more focus.

Discussion: New York Times, GMSV, A VC, Associated Press and WebProNews

Greg Sterling / Search Engine Land:

Facebook Search Box Is Low-Hanging Fruit For Microsoft — Now that the Microsoft play for Yahoo appears to be over (appears to be), everyone and their grandparents are speculating about what Microsoft and Yahoo are going to do now. One quick thing that Microsoft could do to increase …

Discussion: CenterNetworks

John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:
Der ... Umm ... What $33-Per-Share Offer?

Discussion: Reuters and Silicon Alley Insider

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Yahoo Execs' Reaction: “I Need Some Prozac”

Saul Hansell / Bits:
Who Is Buying Yahoo Shares Today?

Discussion: VentureBeat and CNET News.com

Adam Lashinsky / Go West: Why Microsoft caved. For now.

Jerry Yang / Yodel Anecdotal:
Ok, so now what? — The last 13 weeks have been a remarkable time here at Yahoo!.

Cynthia Brumfield / IP Democracy:

Google Accuses Verizon of Planning to Dodge 700 MHz Open Access Rules — (Update: Reaction from Verizon Wireless at end of post.) — On Friday, Google urged the FCC to block Verizon Wireless' $4.7 bil. successful bid for the C Block band of spectrum in the recently completed 700 MHz auction unless Verizon …

Discussion: DSLreports, Capitol Valley, Electronista, GMSV and WebProNews

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:

Jammed Shut: Google Is Worried What Verizon Might Have For Future Customers Behind Door No. 2 — During the FCC's recent auctions of the 700MHz wireless spectrum, Google risked owing the government slightly more than $4.6 billion simply to ensure that the open access rules it fought for would be imposed on whoever won.

Grant Gross / IDG News Service:
Google Concerned About Verizon's Open Access

Discussion: InformationWeek Weblog

Amol Sharma / Wall Street Journal:

Sprint Mulls Separating Nextel Unit — Sprint Nextel Corp. is seriously considering spinning off or selling its ailing Nextel unit, people familiar with the situation say, a dramatic acknowledgement that Sprint's $35 billion acquisition of Nextel Communications in 2005 has been a failure.

Discussion: Tech Trader Daily, InformationWeek Weblog, CrunchGear, dailywireless.org, Engadget Mobile, mocoNews.net, VoIP Blog and Phone Scoop

Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Sprint (S) Thinking About Nextel Sale, Spinoff

Discussion: Wi-Fi Networking News and Electronista

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:

Techmeme: Where the A-Listers Party With the Long Tail. — One of the favorite bitchmeme's on Techmeme, the popular blog and news headline site that keeps track of the most talked-about tech stories on the Web, is that it is dominated by A-list blogs and news sites with full-time writing staffs.

Discussion: mathewingram.com/work

Yuvi / The StatBot:

One third of Techmeme's headlines come from the Long Tail: The Statbot — (Note: This is a part of a series of articles on the Techmeme leaderboard. Stay tuned for more) — The Techmeme Leaderboard, though less than a year old, is already THE authority on, well, authority on the blogosphere …

Discussion: louisgray.com

Mark Davis / Official Google Blog:

Moving to Unicode 5.1 — Google has just begun supporting Unicode 5.1, less than one month after it was released. It's now available in search, so people speaking languages such as Malayalam can now search for words containing the new characters in Unicode 5.1.

Discussion: CNET News.com and Google Blogoscoped

Arn / MacRumors:

Apple Includes Chinese Handwriting Recognition in iPhone 2.0 Beta — Apple has quietly included handwriting recognition for Chinese (Traditional and Simplified) into the latest iPhone Firmware 2.0 beta. When you select Chinese input, you are given the option to use handwriting recognition allowing …

Discussion: VentureBeat, IntoMobile, Gizmodo, Engadget and GottaBeMobile

Owen Thomas / Valleywag:

Why Silicon Valley just won't shut up about FriendFeed — “Cathy Brooks is a typically unapologetic Silicon Valley Web addict,” writes Brad Stone in the New York Times. “Last week alone, she produced more than 40 pithy updates on the text messaging service Twitter, uploaded two dozen videos …

Glenn Derene / Popular Mechanics:

Digital Transition Looms, but Do Americans Have a Right to TV? — In his biweekly trends column, PM's tech editor crunches the numbers on just how much it costs to get everyone onboard the digital bandwagon. — Next February, somewhere in America, — someone out there is going to flip …

Discussion: Digg

Darren Murph / Engadget:

T-Mobile clears everything up: 3G rollout (with data) is on in NYC — Great news, T-Mobile USA fans — the roller coaster ride is finally over. After we thought T-Mobile's 3G network was but moments away from launching, we soon found that data may be left out.

Discussion: eWeek, Tech Beat, Techland, GigaOM, MuniWireless, Electronista, MacRumors, iLounge, The Unofficial Apple Weblog, TG Daily and TmoNews

Joseph Weisenthal / paidContent.org:

Earnings: DivX Q1 Revs Up 24 Percent; Full-Year Outlook Raised — Digital encoding firm DivX (NSDQ: DIVX) announced Q1 revenue of $25 million, a 24 percent increase from $20.2 million in the year-ago quarter. Net income slid to $2.48 million ($.07 per share) from $3.6 million ($.10 per share) …

Discussion: Tech Trader Daily

Ryan Block / Engadget:

Zune XNA games preview release aimed for May — Microsoft's still isn't solid on a final consumer release date for XNA games for the Zune, but they are aiming for the first CTP (community technology preview) to be released in May. We also learned that Zune games can support ad-hoc wireless play …

Discussion: Gizmodo

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