• Microsoft and Yahoo Delay Deal
    It looks like Microsoft and Yahoo have delayed signing their mega search deal to finalize the details, according to a filing by Yahoo with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Financial analysts, however, don't appear to be panicking because the companies don't expect the deal to be consummated until 2010, pending regulatory approvals from the Justice Department. Yahoo also hosted a financial analyst day Oct. 28 for the first time since 2007 and analysts who attended concluded the company is still on recovery road: Microsoft is coming to the rescue with the pending search deal. The search engine rivals July 29 …
  • Microsoft And IAC Asking For It?
    Judging by conversations with various analysts, Reuters has all but concluded that Microsoft is about to buy, or at least partner, with IAC/InterActiveCorp's stagnated search engine Ask.com. "Microsoft Corp is viewed as the most likely buyer or partner ... if CEO Barry Diller decides to throw in the towel," the news source writes. That assumption, meanwhile, rests on a specific interpretation of comments Diller gave earlier this week on a conference call with Wall Street analysts. "Diller effectively hung a 'for sale' sign on Ask.com," Reuters writes, by calling the search business "challenging," and …
  • Forbes To Axe 100 Staffers
    As it "restructures" for the Web, Forbes now plans on firing 100 employees, from both the editorial and business side. The editorial cuts came Wednesday, according to The Business Insider. Earlier this week, publisher Steve Forbes sent a memo to staff, explaining: "On the editorial side, we will maintain the essential strengths of Forbes while also deepening our relationships with our community ... On the advertising side, we are making shifts to fully meet marketers' evolving needs ... These current difficulties are a more intense version of what we underwent eight years ago, particularly after 9/11."
  • Regulator: Facebook Ain't Finance Friendly
    Social networks raise "serious new challenges" for financial regulators, according to the head of the largest U.S. independent securities regulator. Indeed, Wall Street bankers and analysts increasingly want to use such networks to connect and interact with customers, said Richard Ketchum, the chief executive of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said. But, as sites like Facebook and LinkedIn are currently designed, they may not allow firms to keep the kind of archives of their employees' business communications required by regulators. For that reason, most firms presently prohibit their employees from using sites like Facebook for business, partly because …
  • Prepare To Be Stalqed
    Meet Stalqer -- a curiously named location-based social network that TechCrunch describes as "Foursquare on steroids." Similar to Foursquare, the free iPhone app tracks you and your friends' locations and broadcasts this data via the application, and through push notifications. A key differentiator, however, is that Stalqer updates the location in the "background." In other words, Stalqer has found a way to record your location without you having to actually open up the application. The service also lets you import your Facebook friends, via Facebook Connect, to the app, which will potentially allow you to track their every …
  • LA Taps GMail
    The city of Los Angeles just voted to outsource its email system to Google, making it the largest city in the nation to make the move, and handing the search giant a major victory in its quest to become a software provider to the world's cities and businesses. The $7.25-million contract will move all 30,000 city employees to Google's so-called "cloud" over the coming year. Because LA will be among the earliest adopters of the Google system, city council members expressed concern that they might be signing on before Google's cloud system was fully proven. The contract was …
  • Schmidt: Ranking Real-Time Data Is Key
    Five years from now, expect a Web dominated by the Chinese-language and social media content, delivered over super-fast bandwidth in real time. That's according to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who said as much during an interview at last week's Gartner conference. He also said figuring out how to rank real-time social content has emerged as "the great challenge of the age." Also, today's teenagers are the model of how the web will work in five years -- a belief that doesn't bode well for Twitter, which has yet to catch on among many young adults. What's more, we …
  • Google Navigation Finds Its Way
    No informed industry watcher should be surprised by the news that Google's forthcoming Android 2.0 will include a free turn-by-turn navigation feature. For the digital mapping expert, it's a natural extension to its mobile operating system, which is rapidly shaping up to be a real force of nature. Yet, a natural extension for the resource-rich Google is enough to catch even the savviest media-type off guard. "Including [satellite navigation] in a phone for free?" writes the Guardian. "Are they mad?" The Times writes that the feature "is likely to be seen as an attack on …
  • Report: MSN Seeks Duet With MySpace Music
    BoomTown has the exclusive on a potential tie-up between Microsoft's MSN and MySpace, which involves the social network's music service, MySpace Music, powering the Web portal's music offerings. Sources at both companies caution that the talks are still early, but Microsoft execs are apparently interested in building early buzz around the partnership. Why? Because MSN Music consistently ranks substantially lower than other big online music properties in terms of traffic, while MySpace Music is always near the top," BoomTown explains. What's more, sources say Microsoft doesn't think it can do as good a job as MySpace in the music game.
  • Malware Placed By SMG-Imposter Hits Gawker
    Gawker Media, considered to be a rather street-smart bunch, just got scammed by a malware company pretending to be SMG. The "ads" crashed readers' browsers, and, in some cases, installed spyware on their computers. Gawker is warning other publishers: "Someone is approaching publishers as a representative of Spark-SMG on the Suzuki account, even though Suzuki very recently switched agencies ... George Delarosa and his accomplice Douglas Velez claim that there's a limited amount of money left in the Suzuki account for them to spend, and they need to spend it quickly ... Email comes from @spark-smg.com instead of …
« Previous EntriesNext Entries »