Techmeme: Goldman Sachs Investment in Facebook May Draw SEC Scrutiny (Bloomberg)

5:15 AM ET, January 4, 2011

Top Items:

Steven M. Davidoff / DealBook:

Facebook and the 500-Person Threshold — Goldman Sachs's investment in Facebook once again raises the issue of whether the Securities and Exchange Commission will force the social networking company into an initial public offering. In particular, this issue arises because of the special purpose vehicle …

Discussion: Mashable!, SAI, The Atlantic Online, Deal Journal, Salon, Digits, Bronte Media, WebProNews, ReadWriteWeb and Rational Irrationality

David Kirkpatrick / The Daily Beast:
Facebook's $50 Billion Goldman Goldmine: Don't Expect an IPO

Discussion: DealBook, Mediaite and SAI

Bloomberg:
Goldman Sachs Investment in Facebook May Draw SEC Scrutiny

Discussion: Bloomberg, broadstuff and DealBook

Don Dodge / Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing:
Facebook, Twitter, & startup valuations …

Discussion: TechCrunch, EngageDigital and DealBook, Thanks:denimsmith

Dan Frommer / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:

Microsoft Supposedly Showing Off Its Answer To Apple TV And Google TV At CES — Microsoft's Xbox 360 has been a big hit for entertainment and online video, and we've heard that Microsoft is trying to court more media companies to the Xbox. — But it looks like the company is also going to unveil …

Discussion: All about Microsoft Blog, LiveSide.net, BlogsDNA and Neowin.net

Brier Dudley / Seattle Times:

Consumer Electronics Show comes to Las Vegas this week — At CES, more than 2,500 companies are presenting new electronics and tech products. At least 120,000 attendees from 130 countries are expected to peruse the show floor. — You'd think people would have enough gadgets …

Discussion: AppleInsider, Glimpse Dog - All, SlashGear, WMPoweruser.com, SAI, Gizmodo, Electronista, WinRumors and Technologizer

Lydia Dishmantoday / Fast Company:

Q&A Site Quora Builds Buzz With A-List Answerers — It's not just what gets answered here, but who's doing the answering. No matter what your question, Charlie Cheever, Adam D'Angelo, and the Quora team are confident you'll find an expert answer on their site.

Discussion: Twittercism and TechCrunch

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Quora Fact-Checks Quora On User Milestone

Thanks:sidharthdassani

Donya Blaze / WebNewser:

Marissa Mayer on Google's Failed Groupon Bid — After incessant buzz that Google was looking to buy Groupon, word finally came that the fast-growing “deal of the day” company had turned the tech giant down. So, does that mean Google might launch its own coupon-type service instead?

Discussion: Fortune, paidContent, New York Magazine, Deal Journal and SAI

Andrew Munchbach / BGR:

Best Buy's new ‘Buy Back’ program to launch January 5th for phones, laptops, tablets, and TVs — One of our trusted Best Buy sources has come through with several documents that provide additional details on the retailer's new Buy Back program. The new protection plan …

Discussion: Examiner, Gizmodo, VatorNews, Technologizer, SlashGear, Pulse2, PhoneDog.com, Engadget, IntoMobile, Electronista, Techland, Thoughts from the Sidelines and iClarified

Jeff Atwood / Coding Horror:

Trouble In the House of Google — Let's look at where stackoverflow.com traffic came from for the year of 2010. — When 88.2% of all traffic for your website comes from a single source, criticizing that single source feels ... risky. And perhaps a bit churlish, like looking a gift horse in the mouth …

Discussion: Guardian and Anil Dash

Nielsen Wire:

Apple Leads Smartphone Race, while Android Attracts Most Recent Customers — The race for the lead in U.S. smartphone operating system (OS) consumer market share is tighter than it has ever been. According to November data from The Nielsen Company, the popularity of the Android OS among …

Sascha Segan / PC Magazine:

Honeycomb to Require Powerful Processor, Screen: OEM — Google's new Android Honeycomb tablet OS will require a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor to run properly, said Bobby Cha, managing director of Korean consumer electronics firm Enspert. — That means that many existing Android tablets …

Discussion: Android Phone Fans, Androinica, Electronista, PhoneArena, PhoneDog.com, BGR, IntoMobile, Android News, Rumours …, GottaBeMobile, Engadget, pocketnow.com, Gizmodo, Erictric, Android Community, PC Magazine and Droid Life, Thanks:saschasegan

Jessi Hempel / Fortune:

What the hell is going on with TV? — Google TV. Xbox. Apple TV. Roku. All these gadgets promise to make television more like the web. There's just one hitch: None of them are ready for primetime. — By Jessi Hempel, senior writer — You don't have to wait for Thursday nights to watch The Office these days.

Discussion: VentureBeat and Stage Two, more at Mediagazer »

Paul Buchheit:

Angel investing, my first three years — I started investing in startups with the assumption that I don't know what I'm doing (which is always true), but that the only way to actually learn anything is through experience. Therefore, my goal was to invest in a variety of startups …

Discussion: TechCrunch and VentureBeat, Thanks:louisgray

Andrew Wallenstein / paidContent:

New iTunes Features Aim To Outdo DVD — Some of the coolest so-called “extras” embedded only on the iTunes' version of several recent film releases from Sony (NYSE: SNE) Pictures aren't even mentioned in their promotional materials. That's because Sony Pictures Home Entertainment …

Discussion: AppleInsider, Techland, ReadWriteWeb, TiPb, MacRumors, GigaOM and iClarified

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:

Reddit Has Banner Year, Boasts 232% Traffic Growth — Social news site Reddit has just posted some interesting statistics on a remarkable 2010 filled with traffic spikes and user engagement growth. Most notable? The jump in pageviews from 250 million in January of 2010 to 829 million in December of 2010, a 232% growth.

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, Mashable!, NewsGrange, Lost Remote and VentureBeat, more at Mediagazer »

Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:

Windows 7 breaks 20% share barrier — But XP projected to still account for 13% when it's retired in 2014 — Computerworld - Windows 7 cracked the 20% share mark last month, a milestone the problem-plagued Vista never reached, a Web measurement vendor said over the weekend.

Discussion: TechEye and Electronista

Hugo Miller / Bloomberg:

Motorola's Jha Seeks to Defy History After Phone-Unit Spinoff — Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) — Motorola Mobility Inc., the mobile- phone maker that's being spun off from Motorola Inc. today, won't just need to challenge Apple Inc. and Research In Motion Ltd. to succeed. It also needs to defy history.

Tim Conneally / BetaNews:
Motorola's big split takes place tomorrow

Discussion: SlashPhone, ITworld.com, Wall Street Journal and Engadget

Nick Farrell / Inquirer:

Intel's Sandy Bridge sucks up to Hollywood with DRM — CHIPMAKER Intel has cut a deal with Hollywood in its Sandy Bridge chips to put digital restrictions management (DRM) in them. — Intel's sellout to the big media companies makes it ‘safer’ for Hollywood studios to offer premium movies …

Discussion: Examiner, Wall Street Journal, GigaOM, Reuters, FierceIPTV, Pulse2, TG Daily, GMSV, 1001 Noisy Cameras and Engadget, more at Mediagazer »

Horace Dediu / asymco:

How sticky is Android? — There is an assumption floating around the debates in this and other forums that the “battle” between mobile platforms is a land grab. The unspoken implication of this assumption is that once a user is captured she is permanently locked into the chosen platform never …

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

Twitter And Facebook Really Are Killing RSS (At Least For TechCrunch Visitors) — Earlier today, we ran a “TechCrunch 2010 In Review” post featuring some key data WordPress.com sent our way for 2010. Interesting stuff all around. However, as some people have noticed, in our top referrers for the year …

Dave Winer / Scripting News:
What will become of Twitter? — The current crop of tech writers …

Discussion: TechCrunch and parislemon, more at Mediagazer »

Electronista:

Study: 40% of iPad owners have Kindles too — Despite stereotypes, almost half of iPad owners also have a Kindle at the same time, JPMorgan found in a new study. About 40 percent have Amazon's e-reader, and another 23 percent still plan to buy one in the next year.

Discussion: TechCrunch, ThinkMobile and SAI

Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:

LimeWire seeks data from Amazon in bid to avoid big payout to RIAA — As LimeWire awaits its jury trial to determine how much it owes the recording industry, the company is trying to get the inside scoop on how much the RIAA really makes off the work it represents.

Chris Ziegler / Engadget:

HTC EVO Shift 4G in the wild! — QWERTY fans, rejoice: at this point, we're pretty sure this thing's getting announced this week, seeing how it's out and about in retail packaging. Here's Sprint's EVO Shift 4G in all its in-the-wild glory — and yes, it turns out it's definitely called the EVO Shift 4G …

Discussion: BGR, Softpedia News, Android Community, PhoneDog.com, Android News, Rumours …, MobileCrunch and SlashPhone

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