Arguing that their employer's legacy infrastructure is flawed to the core, TechCrunch founder and editor Michael Arrington suggests that its "top" 50 reporters quit to form their own startup. "If the top 50 journalists out of The New York Times walked out the door, raised $100 million from a hedge fund and started a site, it would be profitable," Arrington said, speaking at the AlwaysOn Summit at Stanford this week. One problem? New media, with all its fat-trimmed lower overhead costs, doesn't appear to supporting writers -- even at Arrington's own site. Indeed, Arrington admits that only 10-to-20% of TechCrunch's …

Microsoft appears to have significantly slowed its pace on acquisitions in its recently completed fiscal year, according to new data released by the company as part of its annual Form 10-K fiing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company spent $925 million in cash to buy nine companies during the year, according to the filing. Only one of those, the purchase of video-game company BigPark Inc., was significant enough to warrant a notation on the company's official list of corporate acquisitions. By comparison, Microsoft spent more than $8 billion on more than 20 acquisitions in its 2008 fiscal year, …

In other virtual news, nearly 12% of Americans report having bought a virtual item at some point over the last 12 months, according to a new study by analyst firm Frank N. Magid Associates and commissioned by virtual currency provider PlaySpan. Defying all earthly logic, the virtual goods and currency market will reach an estimated $1.8 billion this year. So, who's got money to spare on imaginary goods. Demographically, 15% of males aged 12-24 reported purchasing virtual goods, while 15% of women between ages 35-44 did so, too. According to Mike Vorhaus, president of Magid Advisors, the …

While virtual worlds have virtually fallen off the media radar, the online habitats appear to be thriving. The consultancy kzero.co.uk reports that membership of virtual worlds grew by 39% in the second quarter of 2009 to an estimated 579 million. (Regular activity in the worlds, however, remains questionable.) The Guardian takes this opportunity to chide Facebook and Twitter for their inability to effectively monetize their steep usage, while virtual worlds such as World of Warcraft, Entropia Universe, Habbo Hotel, Club Penguin and Second Life are all profitable. Why? Apparently, "Because their business models are based on the …

No one ever accused the Huffington Post of nonpartisanship, but nepotism is a new one. The son of David Axelrod -- Barack Obama's Karl Rove -- has joined the liberal Huffington Post as editor of its new local edition in Denver, the third of a dozen planned sites that have already launched in New York and Chicago and will next target Los Angeles. According to The Washington Post, 22-year-old Ethan Axelrod applied for the job, was interviewed by Arianna Huffington along with other candidates, and sealed the deal after submitting a mockup of the Denver home page. …

Illegal file-sharing site The Pirate Bay is under attack from Hollywood's top studios ever after its founders were sentenced for copyright crime. Columbia, Disney, Paramount and others are asking for the Webcsite's founders -- Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Peter Sunde -- to be banned from "continuing to carry out their activity." Internet operator Black Internet is also targeted by the studios' lawsuit, which focuses on "about 100 television series and films," Agence France-Press reports. Founded in 2003, Pirate Bay tracks files available on BitTorrent -- a file-sharing system that is used both by "pirates" and …

Flying in the face of conventional if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it wisdom, Twitter on Wednesday debuted a redesigned front page for new users. To buffer any initial shock, existing Twitter-ers won't notice the new look unless they sign out of their account. "Helping people access Twitter in more relevant and useful ways upon first introduction lowers the barrier to accessing the value Twitter has," the company says on its official blog. "We'll likely continue to make changes to the Twitter home page as we respond to feedback and ideas," the startup assures.

Proponents of the portable Web might be unnerved to learn that their shining light, the Apple iPhone, is buggier than the underside of a forest rock. Several respected cyber-security researchers tell Forbes they've found in a flaw in the iPhone's handling of text messages, which they can use to send a series of mostly invisible SMS bursts that can give a hacker complete power over any of the smart phone's functions. That includes dialing the phone, visiting Web sites, turning on the device's camera and microphone and, most importantly, sending more text messages to further propagate a …