Without any evidence of a formal offer, Google “somehow” expressed interest in buying social networking site Pinterest for “hundreds of millions” of dollars. So sources tell TechCrunch’s Alexis Tsotsis. “This makes sense, as Google wanted to buy [Pinterest rival] Path for $100 million before it had any users,” Tsotsis reasons. “Pinterest has a bajillion users.” Why no deal thus far? For one, Pinterest co-founders Ben Silberman, Evan Sharps and Paul Sciarra don’t want to sell the company, Tsotsis seems to know. Silberman, for one, is reportedly itching to bring the company public. Meanwhile, Tsotsis also hears that a Google Pinterest …

According to the unofficial Google Operating System blog, the search giant has created a new sign-up page that automatically signs users up for Google+ when they sign up for Gmail or a Google account. “The interesting thing to note here is how it will affect the search giant’s sign-up rates and overall usage figures,” The Next Web writes. Google just announced that it now has 90 million users globally, doubling the number from three months ago. CEO Larry Page also said that Google+ now has a 60% ‘daily engagement’ rate during the company’s fourth quarter earnings call. “With each new …

Facing a major backlash, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Friday that he plans to postpone next week's scheduled vote on the PIPA anti-piracy bill. As the Los Angles Times reports, the move represents a “defeat to Hollywood and a major victory to Internet companies that launched online protests to battle the legislation and its House companion, known as SOPA.” Reid is calling on all sides to work together to resolve "legitimate issues" raised by the bill to crack down on foreign Eeb sites that traffic in pirated movies, music and other goods. "Counterfeiting and piracy cost the American economy …

Stock troubles aren’t keeping Zynga from its aggressive growth plans. As Reuters reports, the public gaming company has bought four small mobile game startups for an undisclosed sum. “The top maker of Facebook games [is seeking] to expand its lineup on smartphones and tablets,” Reuters writes. The company's top mobile executive David Ko said it had acquired German company Gamedoctors in December. Gamedoctors, based in Bielefeld near Hanover, makes the game ZombieSmash. Zyga also bought Page44 Studios, which is based in San Francisco, in September. That studio created the "World of Goo" game for Apple's iOS platform. Zynga said it …

Is Amazon’s Kindle Fire a cash cow? Based a proprietary survey of over 200 Kindle Fire owners, RBC Capital analyst Ross Sandler is suggesting as much. “One high level conclusion is that Kindle Fire unit economics are likely to be more favorable than consensus expectations, based primarily on frequency of digital goods purchases,” he writes in a research note out this week. “Our assumption is that AMZN could sell 3 to 4 million Kindle Fire units in Q4, and that those units are accretive to company-average operating margin within the first six months of ownership.” As Forbes points out, the …

Google is now letting members of its Google+ network post video recordings as updates to their “circles.” In the video-sharing menu, Google+ now features a “Record video” option that turns on the webcam. “After recording, the video can be shared as an attachment to a post,” reports ReadWriteWeb, before suggesting that the new feature could cannibalize activity on YouTube. “Google+ just got a feature that takes a bite out of YouTube,” it writes. “This kind of personal broadcasting is something YouTube is known for, but now informal video updates can be shared straight to Google+ circles.”  “These video status updates …

At this week's NRF retail Big show, Aeropostale outlined how it stays connected with its 30,000 sales staffers via apps. According to Group VP Julie Sedlock, the downloadable app addresses the Millennial love of gadgetry, but also allows her to stay in touch with the teens on the sales floor selling the goods.

Social gifting startup Wrapp just raised $5 million from Greylock Partners. In turn, and perhaps more significantly, Reid Hoffman -- a Greylock partner and co-founder of LinkedIn -- has joined Wrapp’s board of directors. Quite simply, the company lets users send gift cards to friends on Facebook. “A merchant decides what type of gift card it wants to offer along with the demographics they want to target,” explains CNet. “Then, when a user wants to send a gift card, she opens the Wrapp app, chooses the Facebook friend she wants to send it to, and Wrapp offers up a selection …

By the end of March, European regulators will reportedly decide whether to file a formal complaint against Google for misuse of its market position. According to Reuters, the move would bring Google's squabble with competitors to a head much sooner than expected. "I will receive comments from the case team towards the end of the first quarter,” EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia told Reuters, this week. “I do not expect anything sooner. Let us see." As Reuters reminds us, antitrust investigations typically take several years, and, until now, officials had been playing down expectations of an early conclusion to the …

Despite some conspicuous holdouts, a coalition of top Web sites went “black” on Wednesday in protest of proposed anti-piracy legislation. “Visitors to English-language pages on Wikipedia, regularly ranked as one of the five most popular sites on the Internet, with an estimated 2.7 billion monthly pageviews in the U.S., instead found only a headline stating ‘Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge,” the Los Angeles Times reports. Explaining that the proposed SOPA and PIPA anti-piracy bills “could fatally damage the free and open Internet," the message said Wikipedia would be blacked out for 24 hours and asked visitors to contact their …