• Yahoo's Dance Card Fills With Suitors
    Yahoo and AOL are negotiating to combine their Internet operations, a move aimed at thwarting Microsoft's overtures to Yahoo, according to an unnamed source cited by The Wall Street Journal. Time Warner would fold AOL into Yahoo and make a cash investment in return for about 20% of the combined entity. The deal wouldn't include AOL's dial-up access business and values AOL at about $10 billion, the Journal reports. Under that plan, Yahoo also would spend billions to buy back stock to put some money in shareholders' pockets. Any such deal must first be approved by Yahoo's …
  • Yahoo-Google Deal Non Starter
    "Everybody remain calm," BoomTown's Kara Swisher booms following yesterday's Web media merger craziness. For those out of the loop, Yahoo on Wednesday first said it would begin a two-week test of Google ads on its search site. That news was followed by the revelation that an AOL-Yahoo merger was near. Microsoft, meanwhile, had news of its own: one-time Yahoo suitor News Corp. is now looking into a partnership with the software giant that would see a MySpace deal tacked on to a Microsoft-Yahoo union. So why should everyone remain calm? Because Swisher says a Yahoo-Google search deal, …
  • Microsoft-News Corp.-Yahoo To "Upend The Internet Landscape"
    The third piece of the Yahoo-Microsoft plot twist is the surprising entry of News Corporation as an ally in Microsoft's contested bid for the Web portal. The combination, which would join Yahoo with Microsoft's MSN and News Corp.'s MySpace, "would create a behemoth that would upend the Internet landscape." By throwing the weight of MySpace behind its bid, Microsoft could raise its $42 billion offer, which would effectively force Yahoo to accept. According to sources, the talks between Microsoft and News Corp. have reached a "sensitive stage," though News Corp. may still negotiate with Yahoo either …
  • GPS-Based Social Networking On Mobile Phone
    The future of social networking may be on your cell phone. We'll use our mobile devices to help us remember details of people we know, but not well. And it will help us meet new people for dating, business and friendship. Imagine walking into a meeting, classroom, party, bar, subway station, airplane, etc. and seeing profile information about other people in the area, depending on privacy settings. Picture, name, dating status, resume information, etc. Of course, this future requires that social networks know an awful lot about you and everyone you know and don't know. Not just who …
  • Ad Network Growth To Continue
    Ad networks already seem like they're a dime a dozen, but according to the Rubicon Project, the space is only going to expand. The consulting firm, which helps publishers manage their relationship with ad networks, says there are an estimated 300 ad networks across the Web, but that number will only grow as major national advertisers shift their marketing dollars to the Web. As such, Rubicon expects that most of the growth will come from networks that cater to big brands, by offering access to quality content sites and giving them more control over where their ads …
  • Microsoft: Yahoo-Google Deal Is Anticompetitive
  • Need For Better Web Traffic Management
  • AOL: Running Out Of Time
    How much longer does AOL have to prove its worth before Time Warner shareholders revolt? Not long, says Jordon Posner of Matrix Asset Advisors. "It's important that they drive improvement in this business fast. Otherwise they'll wind up with a wasting asset." AOL has lost 50% of its dial-up subscribers since effectively telling them to find a new ISP more than two years ago. Meanwhile, ad revenue growth hasn't sufficiently covered the mounting losses: fourth quarter ad sales rose a paltry 10% in the fourth quarter of 2007, and growth is expected to decline to 7% this year, according …
  • Is Microsoft Really Undervaluing Yahoo?
    Yahoo thinks Microsoft is undervaluing the company with its $44.6 billion offer, but Microsoft, citing the $10 boost Yahoo shares received the day the software giant took its bid to the public, thinks it's offering a fair price. So who's right? CNET surveys a few financial analysts who claim that Yahoo shouldn't expect a (much) higher price. "We think reaching a mutual agreement would be the best way for Yahoo to potentially extract a higher bid," UBS analyst Benjamin Schachter said in a report, adding that Microsoft might be more willing to up its bid if Yahoo were at …
  • State Rulings Chip Away At DMCA
    CNET's Anne Broache reports that recent court rulings may be chipping away at Web 2.0's protective armor, also known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Under the DMCA, Web sites are protected from being held liable for the content posted by their users. Such protection has helped user driven sites like MySpace and YouTube flourish. However, the rules become somewhat murkier when users start infringing on each other's intellectual property, or when social media sites use a customer's image or likeness in their advertisements. In the case of a New Hampshire woman against the FriendFinder network, which operates several …
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