Driven in part by high unemployment rates, the honeymoon between laptops owners and the coffee shops they love is officially over. Say goodbye to subtly dirty look, and hello to firm, no-computer policies.

Publicis Groupe SA has long been the front-runner to buy Microsoft Corp's digital ad agency Razorfish. Citing an unnamed source close to the deal, the French ad company has bid $500 million to $600 million for Razorfish. Microsoft, for one, hasn't even confirmed it wants to sell Razorfish, despite numerous reports on a sale process. Last month, Publicis head Maurice Levy said Razorfish would be "nice to have."

Rupert Murdoch is pissed. In the wake of massive financial losses, the billionaire media mogul is washing his hands of free content, and plans to charge fees for every online news property he owns by the end of this fiscal year. Will this ignite another round in the Anderson vs. Gladwell battle royale? "The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive distribution channels but it has not made content free," said Murdoch. "We intend to charge for all our news websites." To be clear, that includes not only the online versions …

Zynga, a startup that creates social media applications, has seen its Facebook traffic grow from 60 million monthly uniques to over 72 million in the last two weeks, All Facebook's Nick O'Neill reports. He attributes sustained growth to the surging popularity of one of its new games, FarmVille, along with Zynga's recent $1 million investment in promotion. The company has now seen near 50% growth in under a month, O'Neill says. Does 50% growth mean Zynga's revenues have jumped proportionally as well? That would mean the company is bringing in around $150 million per year, a truly …

Google this morning announced the relatively small (for Google, anyway) acquisition agreement of Web video software firm On2 Technologies for $106.5 million. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter. Silicon Alley Insider's Dan Frommer thinks this could have massive implications for the Web video industry. "If the deal goes through, and Google does what we think it will-open-source On2's tech and push it everywhere-Google won't just control the world's top Web video site, YouTube, but the technology behind the industry, too." Frommer thinks that by taking control of and open-sourcing On2's …

Yahoo on Wednesday revealed further details about its search partnership with Microsoft in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. According to the filing, Microsoft has agreed to hire no fewer than 400 Yahoo employees once the search advertising partnership begins. It will also pay Yahoo $150 million over three years to help cover Yahoo's costs for getting the partnership started. The Web giant also revealed the terms under which the deal could be terminated. Microsoft and Yahoo may end the arrangement by July 2010 for reasons including "mutual consent", although Yahoo has a right to …

Despite impressive second quarter sales, Research in Motion's BlackBerry Curve actually edged out Apple's iPhone 3GS as the best-selling smartphone in the U.S. in the second quarter, according to new smartphone market share data from research firm IDC. The iPhone 3GS took second place, ahead of the BlackBerry Pearl, the iPhone 3G, the BlackBerry Bold and the BlackBerry Storm. Rounding out the top five were, HTC's T-Mobile G1, the Palm Pre, HTC Touch Pro and HTC Touch Diamond. IDC compiles this list by counting vendor sales to mobile carriers, consumer electronic stores, online retail stores and independent distributors.

Microsoft has been trying to unload Razorfish, the digital agency it acquired as part of its $6 billion acquisition of aQuantive, for about a month now, with a view to selling it to a top advertising holding firm like Interpublic Group, Omnicom Group or Publicis Groupe. However, at least one of these firms is less sweet on the deal now than they were. According to Credit Suisse analyst Ellie Lawford, Publicis' management recently said Razorfish is "not so critical" and would at best be "nice to have." "Management commented that in 2006 when Publicis bought Digitas, 'The …